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Commercial satellite images taken one day after North Korea conducted its largest nuclear test to date (currently estimated to have been around 120 kilotons, or 8 times the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima), show numerous landslides throughout the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site and beyond, 38 North reveals.

The area of these surface disturbances, which include numerous areas of pre-existing gravel and scree fields that have apparently been lofted in place from the tremors, is centered about Mt. Mantap at an elevation of 2205 meters.

According to the authors, these disturbances are more numerous and widespread than what they have seen from any of the five previous tests North Korea conducted, which would be in keeping with the increased power of the latest test. That said, there does not appear to be any evidence of a collapse crater, as might have been suggested from the strong, post-test tremor. Unfortunately, the resolution of this imagery is presently insufficient to show any other damage, (e.g. to buildings at the base of the mountain in the support areas), although it is sufficient to justify concerns that the entire site may have become unstable following the test, as some Chinese scientists have suggested (more on that shortly).

Figure 1A is a pre-test image acquired on September 1, 2017 for comparison with Figure 1B, which is the post-test image acquired on September 4, 2017. This overview provided is unannotated so as not to obscure any part of the image to assist in that comparison. Figure 2A is a close-up of one portion of the slope between the North Portal and the mountain peak showing a number of small landslides going down into a stream bed.

Figure 1. Overview of Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site Before the nuclear test:

And after:

Close-up of slope between North Portal and mountain peak showing multiple landslides before:

And after:

A different perspective.

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After plunging 20% in the last few days from its $5000 highs – following China's ICO ban, Bitcoin has bounced back to $440 today amid global turmoil…

As SHTFplan.com reported earlier, Rick Rule, the billionaire Chief Executive Officer of Sprott Global Resources, noted in his recent interview with Crush The Street:

Bitcoin to me is all positive… I’m a consumer of currencies and currencies are a medium of exchange… and the more competing currencies there are the better it is for consumers of currencies… I use U.S. dollars, I use Canadian dollars, I use gold, I use silver, and from time-to-time I use BitCoin.

 

The more competing currencies, the better the currency has to perform for the consumer.

But, Rule warns, just as we’ve seen historically with stocks, there will be bull markets, bear markets, bubbles and bursts. But astute investors who position themselves in the right blockchains or companies that operate them could see incredible gains. At the same time, however, he cautions that, at least for now, much of the market is based on speculation:

I don’t know [if it can go to $500,000 or $1 million per Bitcoin]… But I also think it’s possible for the market cap to go to zero if people lose faith in the algorithm… What happens in a market that goes from $450 where it was two years ago to $4500 is people only look in the future to directions gone in the past…

It’s an instrument of faith… Could it go to $10,000? Yes. Could it go to $100,000. I guess. Could it go to $0? Yes. Keep both numbers in mind.

Which brings us to the three faces of Bitcoin. As InternationalMan.com's Jeff Thomas explains, one of them is likely to prove to be the correct one and the reader should consider them all, as each has a valid argument in its favour.

Whenever we see an image of bitcoin, it’s not presented as a blockchain, as it should be, but as a gold coin, which it is clearly not.

Why should this be? Well, many of bitcoin’s staunchest supporters are libertarians, who revile fiat currencies as being of no intrinsic value. And they’re correct. Fiat currencies do not pass the Aristotle test of being durable, divisible, portable and intrinsically valuable. They, unfortunately, fail badly on the last requirement.

Unfortunately, so does bitcoin (and in describing bitcoin here, the same comments apply to other cryptocurrencies); hence the tendency to present it as a gold coin, something that does satisfy all of Aristotle’s requirements.

So, why are libertarians, who, one would think would be just as suspicious of electronic fiat currency as they would be about paper fiat currency, its greatest supporters?

Well, bitcoin has been presented as a currency that’s not produced by governments. It’s a blockchain, created by an unknown person or agency and is promised to be limited in its total production (as are precious metals.)  

Of course, libertarians, by their very nature, tend to be suspicious of such claims. Doug Casey has for years, quite rightly described the dollar as an “I owe you nothing,” a mere promise from a government that it will pay the bearer if it sees fit to do so. He has also quite rightly described the euro as a “who owes you nothing,” as it’s a mere promise from an uber government that controls individual governments that it will pay the bearer.

Following this line of reasoning, bitcoin is, (please forgive the double-negative) “no one owes you nothing.” There is zero evidence of who created bitcoin or whether there is any validity whatever as to the promise of limited production.

So, why on earth are many intelligent people so in favour of bitcoin? Well, if it  proves to be legitimate, it’s by far the most useful form of currency in an age when banks and governments are clamping down on the transfer of currencies and, in fact, are likely to confiscate the deposits now held in banks. Further, it might rival gold as a store of wealth. Therefore, if it proves to be legitimate, it is unquestionably the currency of the future for all those who value the freedom to do as they please with their own money.

Unfortunately, there is that nagging, “if .” And then there’s the recurrent argument that it has no intrinsic value, due to its intangibility. It cannot be physically possessed. Its existence is subject to the vagaries of the internet, without which it can instantly go to zero and remain there, as have all the other fiat currencies over history.

In my view, there are three faces to bitcoin. (Yes, a coin cannot have three faces but, again, bitcoin is not really a coin.) One of them is likely to prove to be the correct one and the reader should consider them all, as each has a valid argument in its favour.

Face #1: Bitcoin Is the Future 

Bitcoin is the currency of the Internet. It’s not produced by any government and is therefore a decentralised worldwide digital currency. It can be used to make purchases and other monetary transfers anonymously. It’s easy and cheap to use as, currently, no country regulates it. As other fiat currencies (paper currencies) become less trustworthy, bitcoin is likely to increase in value. As Governments around the world increase capital controls, it promises freedom from governmental control.

 

The IMF describes digital currency as the way of the future and has declared their intention of getting a digital currency in place by 2018 in what they describe as the “global economic reset.” Most international banks are establishing blockchain tech and cryptocurrencies into their business models. One, Goldman Sachs, describes blockchain technology as the “new technology of trust,” citing the fact that every single transaction remains within the blockchain “ledger.”

Face #2: Bitcoin Will Fail

The most important objective of those who control the world economic system is the coming re-set of the monetary system. The intention is to eliminate paper currencies and any other form of currency other than their own digital world currency. By so-doing, every monetary transaction, no matter how small, would be on record. Additionally, banks could disallow any type of transaction which governments did not endorse. Further, they would have the power to refuse access to and even confiscate deposits.

 

Bitcoin is the very enemy of that reset, as it would allow the world to simply opt-out of the world’s banking system. But, in retaliation, banks could disallow the conversion of bitcoin to world currency and could count on governments to classify bitcoin as “the currency of terrorists,” making the use of bitcoin a crime.

 

Governments have already been able to track bitcoin use and have arrested individuals who have made transactions that they disapprove of, but, for whatever reason, they’ve not pursued this tracking ability broadly as yet.

 

If the €500 note can successfully be eliminated under the pretense that it’s favoured by terrorists, there can be little doubt that bitcoin could be tarred with the same brush and made illegal internationally. If it became illegal to accept bitcoin as payment, bitcoin would quickly lose its perceived value and soon decline to its intrinsic value of zero.

Face 3: Bitcoin Is a Trap and Will Succeed

Globalists support the concept of electronic blockchain currency 100%. So much so, that that the world’s leading banks, have touted it as the way of the future.

 

Most people will accept the change to the new world digital currency easily, as it will be so easy to use. They’re unlikely to worry overly about the loss of control over their own money or their freedom to privacy when making transactions.

 

But the flies in this ointment are the contrarians, the libertarians who will do all they can to remain outside this system. Many hope to escape the coming world digital blockchain currency by using … a digital blockchain currency – bitcoin.

 

Bitcoin was created by the fictitious Satoshi Nakamoto, an admitted nom de plume that could be a cover for the Mises Institute or the CATO Institute, but just as easily could be a cover for the Federal Reserve or the IMF.

 

Neither of these latter entities is actively opposing the use of bitcoin. In fact, if it were their own system, they would have access to the record of all transactions that are presently assumed to be disappearing into the ozone.

 

Rather than fight those who oppose currency control, they would be wise to co-opt those who lead it and redirect them to lead the charge into world blockchain currency.

Each of the above is a valid argument and should be considered by the reader. To be sure, the concept of currency is about to change more dramatically than ever before in history.The jury is still out and more information is needed prior to coming to a conclusion as to where this is all headed. At the present time, bitcoin is highly useful for quick transactions and may be worth the risk as a short-term investment. As a store of wealth it remains a gamble. The best move might be to neither love nor hate bitcoin, but to wait and see.

But back to Rule to conclude:

"The truth is, a situation where six pimply faced 21-year olds in a garage can invent an algorithm and call it a currency, then paint that algorithm with a narrative and then turn it into money means that there will be an enormous proliferation of scams, just like there are in the penny stock business. Billions of dollars will be lost to unsupported narratives.

 

That does not change the fact that crypto currencies, and more importantly the distributed ledger, are an extremely important factor for our time and a factor that is absolutely for the good in aggregate."

via http://ift.tt/2gKLE8O Tyler Durden

Though Hillary’s book of excuses, entitled “What Happened,” won’t be released until September 12th, a newly revealed excerpt shows that, after 229 pages dedicated to blaming everything from Trump to Russian hackers, racism, misogyny, etc, by page 230 she finally gets around to blaming Bernie Sanders.  Actually, if you review the following very powerful paragraph closely enough you’ll notice that Hillary is able to succinctly blame Bernie, Obama and her entire 2016 campaign staff in just a couple of sentences. 

“Throughout the primaries, every time I wanted to hit back against Bernie’s attacks, I was told to restrain myself.  Noting that his plans didn’t add up, that they would inevitably mean raising taxes on middle-class families, or that they were little more than a pipe dream – all of this could be used to reinforce his argument that I wasn’t a true progressive.  My team kept reminding me that we didn’t want to alienate Bernie’s supporters.  President Obama urged me to grit my teeth and lay off Bernie as much as I could.  I felt like I was in a straightjacket.”

“President Obama urged me to grit my teeth and lay off Bernie as much as I could. I felt like I was in a straitjacket.” – HRC http://pic.twitter.com/AAaKCq9DAR

— Hillary Warned Us (@HillaryWarnedUs) September 4, 2017

 

Not surprisingly, according to further insights from CNN, Hillary goes on to point out that Bernie’s supporters, much like Trump’s, were only motivated by sexism…it’s just obvious really.

She said that his attacks against her during the primary caused “lasting damage” and paved the way for “(Donald) Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign.”

 

Clinton, in a book that will be released September 12 entitled “What Happened,” said Sanders “had to resort to innuendo and impugning my character” because the two Democrats “agreed on so much.”

 

“Some of his supporters, the so-called Bernie Bros, took to harassing my supporters online. It got ugly and more than a little sexist,” she wrote.

 

“When I finally challenged Bernie during a debate to name a single time I changed a position or a vote because of a financial contribution, he couldn’t come up with anything,” Clinton wrote. “Nonetheless, his attacks caused lasting damage, making it harder to unify progressives in the general election and paving the way for Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign.”

Sure, it wasn’t her laundry list of personal scandals that caused Trump’s “Crooked Hillary” campaign to stick…nope, it was Bernie that created that monster.

Finally, just when you thought you’d heard every excuse imaginable, Hillary takes her ‘blame game’ to a whole new level by viciously calling out the movie “There’s Something About Mary” for her 2016 defeat.

She noted that Jake Sullivan, her top policy aide, told her that Sanders’ campaign strategy reminded him of a scene from the movie “There’s Something About Mary,” where a hitchhiker says he has a plan to roll out seven-minute abs to top the famous eight-minute abs.

 

“Why, why not six-minutes abs?” Ben Stiller’s character asks.

 

Clinton wrote: “That’s what it was like in policy debates with Bernie. We would promise a bold infrastructure investment plan or an ambitious new apprenticeship program for young people, and then Bernie would announce basically the same thing, but bigger. On issue after issue, it was like he kept promising four-minute abs, or even no-minutes abs. Magic abs!”

For those who missed it, here is the scene from “There’s Something About Mary” that apparently tanked Hillary’s shot at the White House…

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Via Golem XIV blog,

On March 4 1933 FDR in his inaugural address to the American people said,

“…the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself….”

And it’s true. It is fear more than anything else that prevents people from turning away from what has failed them and stays their hand from picking up the tools which would allow them to build what would work better.  And precisely because it is true, every politician, banker, judge and general has realised that if they wished to stop change from weakening their grip on power and wealth, then what they need above all else is …more fear.

As FDR went on to say, it is

“…nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes….”

So if you want to control a people and contain their desire to replace the system which benefits you, with one that benefits them, then you need to feed them fear and the more of it and the more slippery and inscrutable it seems to them, the better.

A looming, shadowy foreign power lurking just beyond the borders is always good.  Russia, China, Communists in general, or if they are too far away, then any kind of socialist will do at a pinch.  In 1983 Margaret Thatcher famously branded British miners and their union as  ‘The enemy within.”  Terrorists are a wonderful new fear.  They are everywhere, much like Red’s used to be under every bed.

All these are good and have been used, still are used, to good effect. But there is a new fear, one closer to the fear FDR was talking about. And the currency of that fear is Debt.  Here is a very short history, in just a few sentences, of how debt became the currency of fear.

In the era of Clinton in the US and Blair/Brown in the UK there was a sea change in the ‘left’. I think Clinton, Blair and Brown had all decided that the traditional left dream of redistributing wealth from the richest to the less well off, was no longer politically viable. Reagan and Thatcher, they felt, really had shifted the political ground.  What to do? The answer, I think, was fed to them precisely by those whose wealth the left had traditionally been trying to ‘redistribute’. Why try to prise wealth from us, the wealthy, they whispered,  when instead we wealthy people will be delighted to give the poor debt instead? Instead of being at war with the wealthy and the managers of our wealth, why not work with us? Leave wealth with those who ‘have earned it’ they would say. Leave it with those who know how to manage it, how to make it grow and give a healthy return. Instead, give the poor debt.  Or to paraphrase the obvious, “Let them eat debt.”

And so Clinton and Blair and Brown re-launched the left, or murdered it, depending on your point of view, with their new idea. Leave wealth with the wealthy and give the poor debt.  Free the financial world from silly FDR-era restraints and irksome, stupid regulations and allow a rising tide of debt to float all boats.

And so long as  you could convince others, and believe yourself, as that arch fool Brown declared, that he had left behind boom and bust, then all was good. The rich were no longer assailed for being rich nor asked to give any of it up, to those less well off. In fact the new politics needed their wealth and was in fact tailor made for them to become much more wealthy. The poor would be given debt as a substitute for wealth. They would feel wealthier, and would indeed have more to spend. And as long as house prices grew faster than their debt payments, and the stock market made every GDP figure larger and more endlessly fabulous than the last, then the debt machine would churn on and on.  Debt was sugar without the calories. You could gorge without getting fat. What could go wrong? House prices were never going to go down again! Remember that?

And then it popped and fear bloomed.  And a lesson, I think, was learned .

People knew that in the good times Debt kept poor people quiet. Like any drug it could take away the fears and worries of being poor. For as long as their high lasted they would feel better, happier and politically calmer.  Debt drugged the poor into happy passivity. Why should they listen to those who argued for the old, hard, political struggles, when the politics of debt was so seductive and easy? People encouraged you to have debt. They fell over themselves to give you as much as you wanted. More in fact. Much more.  More than you needed. More than you could every really pay back. But who cared? This was true for the poor but also for the entire system of banks and traders and funds that made the system work.

The political lesson learned, was that when the bad times came, far from being useless or harmful, debt worked new wonders.  In the bad times debt created fear. Fear of losing your house, your job, your future.  Debt, in the last ten years has created a powerful, pervasive, global narrative of nameless fear.  Debt is a fear that is everywhere. Not just over there, a weapon pointing at you from afar, but right here at home. It could reach in to your house and take it from you. And there was no one who would prevent it. It was not a foreign invader but a new force of nature. This was the new narrative. It was just the way things were and are. You can yell about austerity but debt does’t care. You are in debt and your whole nation is in debt. And debt is a faceless, unknowable, uncontrollable, supranational, almost supernatural force which you cannot tame or defeat. So proclaimed the new debt-backed narrative of fear and insecurity.

The political lesson is that in the good times, use debt to drug and pacify. In the bad, use it to create fear and insecurity.

The same debt that floated their boats can be used to drown them. And it might just be that the fear and insecurity of the bad times can be maintained for longer than the drugged euphoria of the good times.  All you need to make it last and last and last some more,.. is more debt.

It’s simple, if you need more fear, create more debt.

Raise that debt ceiling. Expand your lending criteria. Embrace sub-prime. They are not your enemies! They are you allies. Through them you create the debt that creates the fear that creates the supine acceptance of the system that has enslaved them.

It’s perfect.

Almost.

But not quite.

via http://ift.tt/2vIZejL Tyler Durden

Appending to an earlier announcement by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, according to whom the House would not add Harvey disaster funds to the debt ceiling bill, Dow Jones reports that Republican lawmakers are set to vote on the Harvey aid bill on Wednesday, and instead of raising the debt ceiling, they will suspend it, likely kicking the can until some time in December when the whole farce would have to repeat itself again, although the exact length of the extension remains under discussion.

According to Bloomberg, the House still plans to pass a Harvey aid bill without debt language, leaving Senate to add it in. Keeping the House’s hands clean, Senate Majority Whip (R. Tex) John Cornyn told reporters that debt limit raise, or rather extension, will likely to be tied to Harvey aid and approved by the Senate.

“It’s imperative that we get that supplemental passed. And the leader has made the decision to attach the debt limit to that, and I support that,” Cornyn, whose state was hit hard by the hurricane, told reporters.

The reason to simply extend, instead of raise the debt limit, is because the former is considered a politically less difficult vote than raising it by a specific dollar figure, which would likely be well over $1 trillion; Such a move would also provide more predictability on the timing of next action and would come as House conservatives have warned against attaching the two issues.

To be sure, with the Treasury rapidly running out of cash, and down to just $32 billion as of today’s close, some sort of Federal debt extension would need to be taken to unlock the funding needed for the Texas recovery efforts.

Earlier, the White House suggested that lawmakers attach a debt ceiling measure to the Harvey bill, but the request stopped short of explicitly asking for that, due to opposition from House conservatives. Instead, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney suggested that relief operations could be disrupted if the debt limit isn’t addressed quickly.

“If the debt ceiling is not raised, it may not be possible to outlay the requested supplemental appropriations or funds for other critical government operations,” Mulvaney wrote Friday night in a letter to Ryan.

It’s unclear whether Republican lawmakers will go along with the idea of pairing the two measures. The Senate could add a debt ceiling provision to the Harvey bill after the House passes it, but House conservatives have demanded spending cuts or other cost-cutting changes in return for raising or suspending the debt limit. Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina, who heads the conservative Republican Study Committee, on Monday said his stance hasn’t changed.

Potentially complicating matters, Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, added it was his “understanding” that the increase in the debt ceiling would be “clean”,  or that it won’t be tied to spending cuts, a move that could antagonize conservatives according to the Hill. Cornyn also downplayed any conservative backlash over the move, while noting that “none of this is easy.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listed passing money for Hurricane Harvey recovery, raising the debt ceiling and funding the government as the three biggest priorities as Congress returns from its August recess. Republicans will need at least eight Democratic votes in the Senate to clear any of the proposals.

But McConnell didn’t signal if the debt ceiling vote and Harvey aid would be linked. Asked about Cornyn’s comments, a spokesman for McConnell noted they “have not made any announcements on procedure.”

Finally, if a debt limit provision isn’t added to the Harvey bill, GOP leader could still add it to the stopgap spending bill, which is also likely to contain necessary extensions for other expiring programs like federal flood insurance and the Federal Aviation Administration, and whose passage could be just as problematic.

Meanwhile, sensing the a near-term resolution is at hand, the Bil “fear premium” for October Bill posted its first notable drop today as the market appears to have breathed a sigh of relief that a technical default has been if not avoided, then delayed for at least a few months.

via http://ift.tt/2f0nfbv Tyler Durden

Well that escalated quickly…

 

Since North Korea 'escalated' by flying missiles over Japan, there's only one clear winner – but today saw bonds starting to catch up…

 

From Friday's close, futures show Sunday's opening drop and then the pressure come back on as US opened after Labor Day…

 

All the major indices fell and stabilized relatively uniformly…

 

Thanks to an afternoon VIX smash…

 

S&P managed to cling just above its 50DMA…

 

VIX across all the major indices jumped today but did not fade like it did last time…

 

FANG Stocks were unable to stage the same epic squeeze after the NK missiles over Japan plunge…

 

Insurers were pummeled… (down over 7% from pre-Harvey highs

 

Treasury yields crashed 9-10bps today as they caught up with all the chaotic headlines of recent days… even 2Y Yields tanked 6bps after Brainard backed off her uber-dovishness…

 

10Y Tresasury yields tumbled today to a 2.06% handle, lowest intraday low yield since 11/10/16 – with bond bulls enjoying their best day since Brexit (June 2016)…

The drivers behind the reinvigorated rally come straight from the headlines. Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have intensified after Kim Jong Un’s regime conducted its most powerful nuclear test. Meanwhile, Hurricane Irma is threatening to strike Florida or other areas of the country and roil an economy already dealing with the devastation from Harvey.

“The combination of North Korea worries, weakness in risk assets, and dovish Fed comments from Brainard have pressed yields back toward the bottom of the range,” Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a report around 10 a.m. in New York.

The yield curve collapsed to its lowest in over 12 months…

 

With all the Trumpflation trades unwound now…

 

The Dollar Index tumbled today, testing the lows from Payrolls spike on Friday…

 

Bitcoin rebounded notably are it utter collapse over the weekend…

 

WTI Crude prices jumped today, testing towards $49 for the first time in 3 weeks as RBOB Gasoline prices tumbled further amid refinery and pipeline restart plans…

 

Finally precious metals continue to push higher as debt ceiling anxiety builds and global thermonuclear war looms… Gold nears $1350 and Silver tops $18.

 

via http://ift.tt/2vJlCcF Tyler Durden