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Submitted by Kosuke Takahashi via The Diplomat,

The world is now beginning to realize Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s true intentions. With his controversial visit to the Yasukuni shrine, which memorializes war dead, including Class A war criminals such as Hideki Tojo, he is no longer hesitant to reveal his true nature: without question, the most conservative leader in Japan’s postwar history. And he is a historical revisionist, notably with respect to wartime Japan. By encouraging a spirit of nationalism, Abe is hoping to engender self-confidence and patriotism among the Japanese public.

But what exactly is his future agenda? To understand Abe’s political ambitions, you need to understand their take on modern Japan.

For mainstream Japanese conservatives such as the Abe family, Tokyo has been shackled since it accepted the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as the Tokyo Trials. For one thing, as a defeated nation Japan has always been forced to take a servile position— militarily and diplomatically—toward the U.S., the World War II victor. And Japan has had to repeatedly bow its head to its neighbors, such as China and South Korea, to apologize for its conduct during the war.

Willingly or not, Japan embraced these two international restraints when it signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, hoping to return to the fold of the international community as an independent nation.

More than 60 years later, though, the Abe administration wants to free Japan from these perceived shackles. In his own words, he is seeking a “departure from the postwar regime” by “bringing back Japan.” Although Abe has never said from “what” he will bring back the nation, many Japanese believe what he meant is to bring back a militarily, diplomatically and economically strong Japan from the political and economic abyss of the past decades, and perhaps in the long term from the U.S. itself.

Although Abe’s popularity has recently tapered somewhat from the heady days early in this, his second stint as prime minister, many Japanese still support his nationalistic program, because they feel that Japan lacks strength and needs to stand on its own feet, amid mounting nationalism in East Asia and a rising China.

So, to return to the question: What is Abe’s grand strategy? In fact, Abe has a three-year plan to accomplish his ultimate goal of having Japan “depart from the postwar regime.”

Abe’s Three-Year Plan

During the first year of his second term in office 2013, Abe proposed a move from “passive pacifism” to a “proactive pacifism” that encourages Japan to contribute more proactively to world peace and international cooperation. He then established a Japanese National Security Council (NSC). He also announced the first National Security Strategy (NSS) and the National Defense Programme Guidelines (NDPG) that introduced the concept of “a Dynamic Joint Defense Force.” This new concept emphasizes the Self-Defense Forces’ (SDF) joint operations and interoperability capability at sea, in the air and on land, and bolster the nation’s defensive posture in the southwest—in particular the Nansei island chain that includes Okinawa and the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.

Over the last year, Abe’s government has also enacted a controversial secrecy law to prevent leaks of state secrets, after it was pressured by the U.S. to tighten the confidentiality of their shared intelligence on security.

Now, in his second year, Abe is trying to reinterpret the constitution to allow for the exercise of the right of collective self-defense. Abe will also formally abolish Japan’s decades-old ban on weapons exports this year. In January, his administration revised textbook screening guidelines to give Japanese children a more patriotic take on modern Japanese history and to better reflect the government’s view on territorial issues such as on Senkaku Islands. Abe has also succeeded in placing four conservative intellectuals with whom he has very close ties on Japan’s public television NHK’s management board. Some of their comments have already stirred considerable controversy.

In this third year, 2015, Abe plans to change Article 9 of the U.S.-imposed pacifist constitution, accomplishing his final goal of escaping from the postwar regime.

This three-year plan seeks to boost national security and could lead to Japanese involvement in conflicts abroad in the future.

Shinichi Kitaoka, a former Japanese ambassador to the United Nations and a key Abe adviser, remarked recently that all of these steps are simply trying to bring Japan closer to a “normal country.” Kitaoka is now deputy chairman of Abe’s Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, which is expected to recommend reinterpreting Japan’s war-renouncing Constitution to lift the self-imposed ban on the right to exercise collective self-defense in April.

Abe’s Historical Perspective

An attempt at bringing Japan out of the postwar regime in terms of national security issues will inevitably require the country to address the issue of its historical view, sparking a national debate on modern history.

In this context, Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine is a manifest of his determination to accomplish his final goal. He needs to unite at least his conservative allies and supporters within Japanese political circles amid domestic and foreign opposition.

The most important question to come out of his visit to the shrine is whether Abe really thinks that Japan’s wartime leaders, such as Hideki Tojo and Abe’s own grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, a Class A war crimes suspect by order of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, did the wrong thing or not during the war.

It is apparent that Abe believes they were innocent. His book Towards a Beautiful Country: My Vision For Japan, published in 2006, is revealing on this and other aspects of the prime minister’s thinking.

In the book, he says that Japanese war-time leaders bore the greatest share of responsibility, but pointed out that the majority of the public also supported the military strongly. He cited as an example of this strong public support, major newspapers that fed the war frenzy with front-page headlines like “(We) Should Fight Adamantly.” He also notes that Class A war criminals were brought before the Tokyo Trials on charges of “crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity,” based on concepts formed after the war, questioning the legitimacy of the trials. He goes on to note that Japanese domestic laws do not deal with Tojo et al as criminals; indeed, the government continued to pay their pensions after the war.

In this book, Abe quotes Father Bruno Bitter, representative of the Roman Curia, who, when asked by the supreme commander of the U.S. occupying force how to deal with Yasukuni Shrine, said, “Any nation has the right and obligation to pay tributes to the warriors who died for the nation.” Abe also makes the Arlington cemetery comparison, as he has done recently.

Of course, Abe is on record repeatedly defending Japan’s conduct before and during World War II. On April 23 last year, Abe even told the Diet that he does not believe Japan’s occupation of other Asian countries during the war can be considered “invasions.” According to Abe, that’s because there are no set international or academic definitions of the word “invasion.” He claimed, “It depends on the point of view of individual countries.” He later retracted his remark after his hawkish stance was criticized by China and South Korea, saying “I never say Japan did not invade.” An editorial in The New York Times titled “Japan’s Unnecessary Nationalism” was critical: “…it seems especially foolhardy for Japan to inflame hostilities with China and South Korea when all countries need to be working cooperatively to resolve the problems with North Korea and its nuclear program.”

Abe’s historical revisionism, combined with Japan’s military buildup, will continue to cause needless friction with China and South Korea. However, Russia and the U.S. may also grow worried that Abe’s approach will further shake the foundations of the postwar order. Russia’s concerns likely center on the disputed islands, called the Southern Kurils by the Russians and the Northern Territories by the Japanese, which it claims it acquired legitimately as a result of the war.

U.S.-Japan Relations

What kind of relations does Abe want with the U.S., Japan’s closest ally? Here, his views are very shaped by his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi.

Although this is not widely known outside Japan, Kishi sought an independent approach when it came to relations with the U.S., especially around the time the two nations revised the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960. Ukeru Magosaki, Japan’s former ambassador to Iran and Uzbekistan, told The Diplomat that Kishi was a politician who sought diplomatic independence, rather than one willing to accept diplomatic subservience to Washington.

Abe praised Kishi’s approach in his book Towards a Beautiful Country, saying “Grandfather at that time tried to fulfill the requirements of an independent nation by changing this unilateral treaty into a more equal one. Looking back, [Kishi] took a very realistic approach of strengthening U.S.-Japan ties to realize Japan’s independence.”

Now Abe is trying to do the same. He wants to enhance Japan’s role in the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty by authorizing the use of the right to collective self-defense so as to contribute to U.S. global strategy. He believes that by assuming a greater role in U.S.-Japan security cooperation and by placing the U.S.-Japan relationship on a more equal footing, Japan can better stand up to the U.S., such as on the issue of U.S. military bases in Okinawa. Again, his book provides evidence of this.

But his nationalistic behavior has ratcheted up already strained tensions with China and South Korean, particularly over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute. The U.S. surely doesn’t want to get involved in unnecessary military conflicts with a powerful and intractable rising China, its security treaty with Japan notwithstanding. As a consequence, more and more U.S. officials may rate Abe a security risk if he continues down his current path. That could very quickly force Abe to return his emphasis to continuity, rather than his departure from the postwar order.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1c4kqia Tyler Durden

One glimpse at the following chart and it’s clear that the US economy has not reached the much-vaunted “escape velocity.” As CNBC’s Rick Santelli explains in this succinct summary of the quandary of GDP hopes, inventory-build fears, and extrapolation-dreams, “many of these programs, procedures, and plans offered by the Fed – or the government – actually work to jump-start the economy… but they can’t reach sustainability.” His simple analogy of the economy as a heart-rate in a chronically sick (if not dead) person and Fed juice as a defibrillator seems very fitting. As the chart below shows, the US economy is very much still on life-support.

 

 

“What’s the real issue with inventories? The issue is when you build widgets, that figures into GDP – but the real question is, the drawdown of that inventory… How aggressively does it get consumed?

 

So, if you look at 2013 in its entirety and break it up mid-year, the inventory build at the end of the year was close to 2 1/2 to 3 times as large as the inventory build in the first half of the year.

 

Why is this important?

 

Because, first of all, we are seeing all the revisions that I look at for the next addition of our second look at fourth quarter gdp most likely to be under 3%.

 

 

If you recall it was originally 3.2, but maybe more important is the fact that many shops are also downgrading Q1… and it isn’t from 4% to 3%, you know, we were all thinking we were going to get the lofty numbers. We’re looking at Goldman, for example, at 1.9%. “

Simply put, that is not the kind of “growth” and “consumption” needed to cover the massive inventory build and so once again – thanks to Federal Reserve intervention – managers have been ‘fooled’ into believing in the future sustainability, have mal-invested, and next comes another stagnation (and the cyclical downturn that we noted here).

(h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)

 

As an aside, we note this little tidbit (via Bloomberg):

S&P’s Jan. Drop May Be Recession Signal: Nautilus Capital

 

There are 19 instances since 1900 where S&P 500 falls in January after two or more years of gains; in 14 of those occurrences, it pre-dated the onset of a U.S. recession, writes Nautilus Capital research team led by Tom Leveroni in note.

 

Considered a positive signal if a recession commenced within 15 months (using NBER recession dates); avg. onset of recession after signal was 7 months

 

Positive signals occured in 1910, 1913, 1920, 1923, 1926, 1953, 1957, 1960, 1970, 1973, 1981, 1990, 2001, 2008

 

False signals occured in 1928, 1956, 1977, 1984, 2005

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1dpWc32 Tyler Durden

One glimpse at the following chart and it’s clear that the US economy has not reached the much-vaunted “escape velocity.” As CNBC’s Rick Santelli explains in this succinct summary of the quandary of GDP hopes, inventory-build fears, and extrapolation-dreams, “many of these programs, procedures, and plans offered by the Fed – or the government – actually work to jump-start the economy… but they can’t reach sustainability.” His simple analogy of the economy as a heart-rate in a chronically sick (if not dead) person and Fed juice as a defibrillator seems very fitting. As the chart below shows, the US economy is very much still on life-support.

 

 

“What’s the real issue with inventories? The issue is when you build widgets, that figures into GDP – but the real question is, the drawdown of that inventory… How aggressively does it get consumed?

 

So, if you look at 2013 in its entirety and break it up mid-year, the inventory build at the end of the year was close to 2 1/2 to 3 times as large as the inventory build in the first half of the year.

 

Why is this important?

 

Because, first of all, we are seeing all the revisions that I look at for the next addition of our second look at fourth quarter gdp most likely to be under 3%.

 

 

If you recall it was originally 3.2, but maybe more important is the fact that many shops are also downgrading Q1… and it isn’t from 4% to 3%, you know, we were all thinking we were going to get the lofty numbers. We’re looking at Goldman, for example, at 1.9%. “

Simply put, that is not the kind of “growth” and “consumption” needed to cover the massive inventory build and so once again – thanks to Federal Reserve intervention – managers have been ‘fooled’ into believing in the future sustainability, have mal-invested, and next comes another stagnation (and the cyclical downturn that we noted here).

(h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)

 

As an aside, we note this little tidbit (via Bloomberg):

S&P’s Jan. Drop May Be Recession Signal: Nautilus Capital

 

There are 19 instances since 1900 where S&P 500 falls in January after two or more years of gains; in 14 of those occurrences, it pre-dated the onset of a U.S. recession, writes Nautilus Capital research team led by Tom Leveroni in note.

 

Considered a positive signal if a recession commenced within 15 months (using NBER recession dates); avg. onset of recession after signal was 7 months

 

Positive signals occured in 1910, 1913, 1920, 1923, 1926, 1953, 1957, 1960, 1970, 1973, 1981, 1990, 2001, 2008

 

False signals occured in 1928, 1956, 1977, 1984, 2005

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1dpWc32 Tyler Durden

Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum of Acting Man blog,

It's Not a Bullish Argument – It Isn't an Argument at All

JP Morgan stock market strategist Tom Lee is frequently interviewed by the mainstream financial media and well known as a staunch bull over the past several years. Obviously he has been right so far, but that tells us nothing about the future (by contrast, we have been skeptical for at least three years, although it should be noted that our skepticism relates to the very real risks the market poses and is not a 'prediction'). It also tells us little about his qualities as a forecaster, since the market advances almost 67% of the time (a side-effect of continuous monetary inflation, which is the by far biggest component of the stock market's nominal advance over the past century). There are many perma-bulls out there who are hailed as prescient 'bottom callers' in the media, but if you're bullish all the time, you simply can't miss eventual bottoms. Moreover, you will be right 67% of the time, which is a quite comfortable win rate for a forecaster. Many of the former 'Ruykeyser elves' provide good examples for this principle. So we will have to wait and see how Mr. Lee handles a complete cycle.

One might be inclined to conclude that given that it is the correct stance for two thirds of the time, that it is actually a good strategy to be bullish all the time. However, in secular bear market periods it is only a good strategy for the forecasters themselves, but certainly not for anyone else. Anyone who bought the market in 2000 in the form of a broad index like the SPX and simply held on is still down in real terms fourteen years later, in spite of the nominal new highs that have been achieved in the meantime. It would have been far better and less nerve-wracking to just hold treasury bonds, and even better to hold gold (of course holding gold was a bad idea between 1980 and 1999, but this only shows that every investment class has its season).

Moreover, the buy-and-hold strategy would have included two truly nerve-wracking drawdowns of 50% and 58% respectively, which were among the worst bear markets in all of history. It is easy to say for the guys on TV that people should just hold through such massacres – it's not their money after all. However, one needs a 100% gain to make up for a 50% loss, so this is no trivial matter, especially not for people close to retirement. Getting caught in such a drawdown of course makes no sense if one is young either – it is just as nerve-wracking and hard to recover from, but obviously one has more time and therefore more opportunity to make up for losses.

It is an incontrovertible fact that the most recent bull market has been driven by massive monetary inflation, just as its two predecessors have been (the true money supply has increased by roughly 90% since 2008, and that is not counting money that has 'leaked out' from the US). It is therefore definitely appropriate to exercise the utmost caution, since we know how asset bubbles driven by monetary pumping must inevitably end. Cash, or rather money, is the topic we want to briefly discuss in this context.

In Tom Lee's most recent interview, he asserts the following:

“This could be only the middle innings of what could be one of the longest bull markets in history," Lee said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "There is a lot of firepower to fuel this rally. There is a lot of cash on the sidelines, consumers have delevered."

We take great exception to the first half of the last sentence, as it contributes to the dumbing down of CNBC's viewership. It is deplorable when such long discredited myths are propagated by so-called experts.

Let us think about this statement for a moment. What is 'cash on the sidelines' even supposed to mean? We submit that it is a meaningless concept. All stocks are owned by someone at all times, and all cash is held by someone at all times. When people trade stocks, all that happens is that the ownership of stocks and cash changes hands. There is as much 'cash on the sidelines' after a trade concludes than there was before. There are no owner-less orphan stocks flying about in the Wall Street Aether, waiting to suck up cash.

In other words, the 'cash on the sidelines' argument is a really bad argument, or rather, it's not an argument at all.  There is one tiny kernel of truth to it, which we discuss below.

 

The Proper Approach

There are nonetheless ways in which the topic of 'cash' (or rather money, since most money is held as deposit money these days) provides useful information for the purpose of market analysis. As indicated above, the pile of money extant in the economy is after all indeed growing, and it has done so at a breakneck pace over the past few years. The central banks and the commercial banking system are actually the only sources of additional 'sidelines cash' if you will. However, this does actually not mean that any increase in the money supply will guarantee rising asset prices. Rather, bubbles require very high money supply growth rates, and often they require accelerating growth rates (there are leads and lags involved, so this is not always immediately obvious).

What asset price bubbles cannot stomach is a slowdown of the money supply growth rate below a certain threshold (this threshold is obviously not a fixed quantity). Regular readers know that we usually refer to the money supply aggregate TMS-2 in these pages (the broad true 'Austrian' money supply) as the most reliable aggregate to follow. Casey Research has recently posted a chart that shows an overlay of the growth rate of TMS-2 with major financial market events. This shows empirically what we already know from sound theory: namely that a decline in the growth rate of the money supply is the decisive factor bringing on financial crises and bear markets.

Here is the chart, which also indicates where approximately things stand at the moment:

 

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The annualized rate of change of money TMS-2 and major crises. As can be seen, there considerable lags involved. A good rule of thumb for the lag time is four to five months per expeirence (i.e., how long it takes for large changes in the money supply growth rate  to affect economic activity and asset prices) – click to enlarge.

 

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Are there any other indicators one might want to follow in the context of the 'how much money is there to drive asset prices' question? The answer is that yes, there are several. However, these indicators are merely telling us something about the sentiment and positioning of various groups of investors. Changes in these indicators have of course no bearing whatsoever on the amount of money extant in the economy. The money supply is wherever it is at any given moment (it currently grows every day, albeit at a slowing rate), while these indicators are all over the place. However, Tom Lee has very likely referred to one or more of these indicators. We infer this because he certainly didn't mention the money supply and whenever analysts broach the 'cash on the sidelines' myth, these are the data they are as a rule talking about. In one sense there is a kernel of truth to the idea: individuals can certainly alter the allocation of their income between consumption, cash holdings and investments. If they as a group want to hold less cash and more investment assets, money will decline in purchasing power relative to such assets, ceteris paribus.

The first data point we want to look at are retail money market funds. These merely tell us how much of their investable savings members of the public have stashed in 'safe' money market accounts. In other words, this number indirectly tells us something about the public's willingness to invest in assets considered either risky or safe. Below we show two charts relating to this money market funds: the percentage of Rydex assets held in money market funds (a sentiment measure of active small stock market traders), as well as retail money funds in toto and where they currently stand historically. Note that the second chart shows a dollar figure, so given the decline in money's purchasing power, it is in even worse shape than it looks on a superficial level.

 

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Rydex money market fund assets as a percentage of all Rydex assets have hit their lowest level since March 2000 at the end of 2013. Not a propitious indication with respect to the 'cash on the sidelines' myth. Rydex traders sure seem to be as 'all in' as they ever get – click to enlarge.

 

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All retail money funds (NSA) –  over the past 18 months. They have been mired near the lowest levels in 16 years – click to enlarge.

 

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There is certainly no indication whatsoever that the public currently has a strong preference for safe money market investments. The public has in other words likely already piled into 'risk', including stocks.

Another indicator that is worth examining is the amount of cash held by mutual funds relative to their assets. As a 'signal' it has not been very useful for quite some time now, but it nevertheless tells us something about the sentiment of fund managers. As a long term chart reveals, the previous  secular bull market was undergirded by a great deal of skepticism on the part of this group, and it ended when its skepticism vanished into thin air in late 1999/early 2000. What do these luminaries currently think? They are at their most bullish in all of history, and as fully invested as they can possibly be.

 

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Mutual fund cash – fund managers were deeply pessimistic in the first decade of the last secular bull market, and when their pessimism gradually unwound in the 1990s, the bull market went into overdrive and became the biggest bubble in terms of valuations ever seen. Right now this group harbors exactly zero skepticism and is invested up to its eyebrows – click to enlarge.

 

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Finally, one can also examine margin debt, which shows us the extent to which investors are prepared to speculate with borrowed money. It is well known that margin debt currently stands at a record high, but below we show a chart from Doug Short that gives us a close-up of the investor net credit situation at the NYSE, which is at its most deeply negative level in history.

Apart from the fact that the entire 'cash on the sidelines' argument is extremely flawed on a fundamental level, it is in our opinion quite dubious for a market expert to invoke this myth in view of such data points. This is not the picture of 'fuel for a bull market in its middle innings', it is rather a warning sign with an exclamation point.

 

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NYSE credit balances are deeply negative and investor 'net worth' is thus at its lowest level ever. Fuel for a bull market certainly existed in late 2002/early 2003 and again in late 2008/early 2009, but by now margin debt has expanded to truly vertiginous heights. Not even the tech mania of 2000 can any longer hold a candle to this – click to enlarge.

 

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The Only Source of Additional 'Sidelines Cash'

Apart from individuals altering the allocation of their surplus funds – which is something a few of the above charts are giving us indirect information about – money supply growth is the only way in which additional cash can become available for investment in the stock market. Money is either created via inflationary lending on the part of the fractionally reserved banks, or by the Fed directly, in permanent open market operations (or 'temporary' ones that are continually rolled over). 'QE' is also a kind of permanent open market operation, and has been the major source of money supply inflation since the 2008 crisis. Note here that 'QE' creates both excess bank reserves and new deposit money, as the primary dealers the Fed buys assets from are legally non-banks, even if most of them are subsidiaries of licensed banking institutions (if the Fed buys securities directly from a bank, only excess reserves are created).

Money supply growth is clearly the main driver of stock prices. It would be a refreshing change if prominent market analysts had the intellectual honesty to occasionally point this fact out.

Here is a picture of all the actual 'sidelines cash' created over time – with the period since 2008 highlighted:

 

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Money TMS-2. Here it is, the 'sidelines' cash. All of this newly created money of course continues to exist and is held by someone. In that sense, it is therefore always 'on the 'sidelines' – click to enlarge.

 

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Conclusion:

The 'cash on the sidelines' myth has more lives than a cat. No matter how often the logical fallacy underlying it is pointed out, Wall Street continues to propagate it. Nevertheless, money and credit are of course extremely important factors in the analysis of asset markets. The above provides what are hopefully a few useful pointers as to which data one should keep an eye on in this context.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1gwRhNG Tyler Durden

Having described Venezuela as “absolutely calm” today – when it was anything but; the fact that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has the stones to accuse Agence France Press of “manipulating” news coverage is stunning.

• *VENEZUELA ASKS INFO MINISTER TO TAKE ACTIONS AGAINST AFP NEWS

Furthermore, Maduro has taken a TV station off-air that competed with Telesur (the state-owned TV station). Of course, we should not worry as Maduro has explained the violence is all protesters’ fault and that he will propose his “peace plan” tomorrow.

 

Via Bloomberg,

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro asked his information minister in a national address to take unspecified actions against AFP France Press. Maduro accused AFP of “manipulating” news coverage

 

Decision to take Colombian TV station NTN24 off the air in Venezuela was made by the government, Maduro says

 

“The NTN24 station tried to compete with Telesur and yesterday created confusion about the possibility of a coup. Off the air”: Maduro

 

“I denounce AFP for manipulating information, and I’ve asked the information minister to speak clearly with their correspondents”: Maduro (Telesur is TV network owned by Venezuelan government)

 

And here is Maduro presenting his perspective of the troublemakers from his Twitter account:

RT @tmaniglia: Peaceful opposition creating “a small” fire in the center of Caracas http://ift.tt/1eTIsz7

— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) February 13, 2014

RT @tmaniglia: peaceful opposition with its face covered trying to knock down a door in the center of Caracas http://ift.tt/1lM6Ran

— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) February 13, 2014

RT @tmaniglia: Photo 1 the opposition demonstration today in Caracas http://t.co/q1abSlM98h

— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) February 13, 2014

And yet he also told us that things were “absolutely calm”?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1btDOaE Tyler Durden

Having described Venezuela as “absolutely calm” today – when it was anything but; the fact that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has the stones to accuse Agence France Press of “manipulating” news coverage is stunning.

• *VENEZUELA ASKS INFO MINISTER TO TAKE ACTIONS AGAINST AFP NEWS

Furthermore, Maduro has taken a TV station off-air that competed with Telesur (the state-owned TV station). Of course, we should not worry as Maduro has explained the violence is all protesters’ fault and that he will propose his “peace plan” tomorrow.

 

Via Bloomberg,

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro asked his information minister in a national address to take unspecified actions against AFP France Press. Maduro accused AFP of “manipulating” news coverage

 

Decision to take Colombian TV station NTN24 off the air in Venezuela was made by the government, Maduro says

 

“The NTN24 station tried to compete with Telesur and yesterday created confusion about the possibility of a coup. Off the air”: Maduro

 

“I denounce AFP for manipulating information, and I’ve asked the information minister to speak clearly with their correspondents”: Maduro (Telesur is TV network owned by Venezuelan government)

 

And here is Maduro presenting his perspective of the troublemakers from his Twitter account:

RT @tmaniglia: Peaceful opposition creating “a small” fire in the center of Caracas http://ift.tt/1eTIsz7

— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) February 13, 2014

RT @tmaniglia: peaceful opposition with its face covered trying to knock down a door in the center of Caracas http://ift.tt/1lM6Ran

— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) February 13, 2014

RT @tmaniglia: Photo 1 the opposition demonstration today in Caracas http://t.co/q1abSlM98h

— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) February 13, 2014

And yet he also told us that things were “absolutely calm”?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1btDOaE Tyler Durden

Spot gold prices are now up over 10% from the 2013 closing lows. At $1,304.75, gold is at 3-month highs and has crossed above the critical 200-day-moving average for the first time in over a year. Other precious metals are on the rise with Palladium up for the 8th day in a row (the longest streak since July), Platinum up 6 days in a row (long since July) and Silver up 10 days in a row breaking $20.50.

 

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1dMpQuQ Tyler Durden