Russia’s Military Begins Massive Nuclear War Drill

Submitted by Zachary Zeck of The Diplomat,

While much Western attention has been bestowed on Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine, Moscow also began a massive nuclear offensive exercise on Thursday.

According to the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, on Thursday Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces began a massive three-day exercise involving 10,000 soldiers and 1,000 pieces of equipment from more than 30 units. The major purpose of the drill, according to the report—which cites multiple senior Russian military officers—is to ensure Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces have sufficient readiness to conduct offensive operations involving the massive and simultaneous use of nuclear missiles.

Global Security Newswire previously carried a story on the nuclear exercise, also citing the Nezavisimaya Gazeta article. GSN described the exercise as “as practice for a large-scale nuclear offensive.” It added: “Exercise participants were set to position and prepare missile-firing units for launch, and to practice various administrative and support functions for the operation

As Russia’s conventional military capabilities have deteriorated following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has become increasingly reliant on operationalizing its nuclear arsenal. This has been reflected in successive Russian security documents. For example, Russia’s 1997 national security concept stated that Russia would use its nuclear arsenal “in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation,” whether that threat came in the form of nuclear weapons or from a conventionally superior military power.

This threshold was further lowered in Russia’s 2000 military doctrine, which was the first released during Vladimir Putin’s presidency. This document said that Russia would use nuclear weapons “in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.” This held out the possibility that Russia would use nuclear weapons even if Russia proper hadn’t been attacked. The same doctrine further noted that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of any kind of weapons of mass destruction against it.

Shortly before reassuming the Russian presidency for a third term, Putin reaffirmed the importance he placed on Russia’s nuclear forces in a number of articles and speeches. For example, in an op-ed article in Foreign Policy magazine, Putin wrote: “We will, under no circumstances, surrender our strategic deterrent capability. Indeed, we will strengthen it.”

Thus, this week’s massive offensive nuclear drill is in line with the goals that Russia and Putin have been articulating for well over a decade. It is also consistent with Putin’s recent emphasis on conducting more frequent and sophisticated military drills to improve the combat readiness of Russian military forces. Indeed, Russia conducted a much smaller surprise nuclear drill in October of last year.

Still, the timing of the drill is likely to cause great concern in Western capitals, particularly in Washington. The drill could very well be intended to signal Russia’s resolve over events in Ukraine where Russia has been at loggerheads with the West and the government in Kiev over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. A very visible reminder of Russia’s substantial nuclear capabilities would make sense for Moscow in a number of different contingencies, including if Russia is intending to move forces deeper into eastern Ukraine, as many currently fear.

For what it’s worth, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta article said there was no connection between the current nuclear exercise and the crisis in Ukraine. As evidence of this, it pointed out that in December of last year the commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces had said that his forces would conduct a large and complicated exercise sometime during 2014. From this, the Russian daily concluded that the drill had been planned for weeks and was completely unrelated to the tensions of Ukraine.

At the same time, it ended the article by noting that testing the readiness of Russia’s strategic forces was especially important in light of the “current reality of the world situation.”

 


    



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

The “Massive Gift” That Keeps On Giving: How QE Boosted Inequality To Levels Surpassing The Great Depression

A week ago, the official truth about QE, once upon a time mischaracterized as being a means to boost US employment (which is misreported in such an optimistically biased way that even the Fed now admits is ridiculous, and had to scrap its forward guidance as a result) and grow the economy, emerged when the Fed’s Fisher admitted that “QE was a massive gift intended to boost wealth.” Fisher did not need to clarify just who the gift was aimed at – it was implied. But just in case there is any confusion, here is a chart confirming that all the events of the past 5 years have done, courtesy of the Fed’s manipulation of the stock market to all time artificial highs, is to push the ratio of the average income of the “Top 10%” to the “Bottom 10%” to a previously unseen level, wildly surpassing the previous record inequality highs that culminated in the Great Depression, and which were subsequently rapidly “equalized” by WWII.

Still not convinced? Another way of showing this – the ratio of the net worth of the top 20% of households as measured by income relative to the bottom 20% rose to 9.3x in 2011 from 5.7x in 2005.

And another observation: when it comes to inequality between the top and the bottom, the US continues to be the most unequal country in the world, a distinction it first regained in the 1980s courtesy of Alan Greenspan’s “Great Moderation.” We point this out just in case there still is any confusion who the Fed truly works for…


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1k7lsf0 Tyler Durden

Paul Craig Roberts: Pushing Toward The Final War

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts via his blog,

Does Obama realize that he is leading the US and its puppet states to war with Russia and China, or is Obama being manipulated into this disaster by his neoconservative speech writers and government officials? World War 1 (and World War 2) was the result of the ambitions and mistakes of a very small number of people. Only one head of state was actually involved–the President of France.

In The genesis Of The World War, Harry Elmer Barnes shows that World War 1 was the product of 4 or 5 people. Three stand out: Raymond Poincare`, President of France, Sergei Sazonov, Russian Foreign Minister, and Alexander Izvolski, Russian Ambassador to France. Poincare` wanted Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, and the Russians wanted Istanbul and the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. They realized that their ambitions required a general European war and worked to produce the desired war.

A Franco-Russian Alliance was formed. This alliance became the vehicle for orchestrating the war. The British government, thanks to the incompetence, stupidity, or whatever of its Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, was pulled into the Franco-Russian Alliance. The war was started by Russia’s mobilization. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was blamed for the war despite the fact that he did everything possible to avoid it.

Barnes’ book was published in 1926. His reward for confronting the corrupt court historians with the truth was to be accused of being paid by Germany to write his history. Eighty-six years later historian Christopher Clark in his book, The Sleepwalkers, comes to essentially the same conclusion as Barnes.

In the history I was taught the war was blamed on Germany for challenging British naval supremacy by building too many battleships. The court historians who gave us this tale helped to set up World War 2.

We are again on the road to World War. One hundred years ago the creation of a world war by a few had to be done under the cover of deception. Germany had to be caught off guard. The British had to be manipulated and, of course, people in all the countries involved had to be propagandized and brainwashed.

Today the drive to war is blatantly obvious. The lies are obvious, and the entire West is participating, both media and governments.

The American puppet, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, openly lied on Canadian TV that Russian President Putin had invaded Crimea, threatened Ukraine, and was restarting the Cold War. The host of the TV program sat and nodded his head in agreement with these bald-faced lies. http://ift.tt/1jvAmjk

The script that Washington handed to its Canadian puppet has been handed to all of Washington’s puppets, and everywhere in the West the message is the same. “Putin invaded and annexed Crimea, Putin is determined to rebuild the Soviet Empire, Putin must be stopped.”

I hear from many Canadians who are outraged that their elected government represents Washington and not Canadians, but as bad as Harper is, Obama and Fox “News” are worse.

On March 26 I managed to catch a bit of Fox “news.” Murdoch’s propaganda organ was reporting that Putin was restoring the Soviet era practice of exercise. Fox “news” made this report into a threatening and dangerous gesture toward the West. Fox produced an “expert,” whose name I caught as Eric Steckelbeck or something like that. The “expert” declared that Putin was creating “the Hitler youth,” with a view toward rebuilding the Soviet empire.

The extraordinary transparent lie that Russia sent an army into Ukraine and annexed Crimea is now accepted as fact everywhere in the West, even among critics of US policy toward Russia.

Obama, whose government overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine and appointed a stooge government that has threatened the Russian provinces of Ukraine, falsely accuses Putin of “invading and annexing” Crimea.

Obama, or his handlers and programers, are relying on the total historical ignorance of Western peoples. The ignorance and gullibility of Western peoples allows the American neoconservatives to fashion “news” that controls their minds.

Obama recently declared that Washington’s destruction of Iraq–up to one million killed, four million displaced, infrastructure in ruins, sectarian violence exploding, a country in total ruins–is nowhere near as bad as Russia’s acceptance of Crimean self-determination. US Secretary of State John Kerry actually ordered Putin to prevent the referendum and stop Crimeans from exercising self-determination.

Obama’s speech on March 26 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels is surreal. It is beyond hypocrisy. Obama says that Western ideals are challenged by self-determination in Crimea. Russia, Obama says, must be punished by the West for permitting Crimeans to exercise self-determination. The return of a Russian province on its own volition to its mother country where it existed for 200 years is presented by Obama as a dictatorial, anti-democratic act of tyranny. http://on.rt.com/sbzj4o

Here was Obama, whose government has just overthrown the elected, democratic government of Ukraine and substituted stooges chosen by Washington in the place of the elected government, speaking of the hallowed ideal that “people in nations can make their own decisions about their future.” That is exactly what Crimea did, and that is exactly what the US coup in Kiev contravened. In the twisted mind of Obama, self-determination consists of governments imposed by Washington.

Here was Obama, who has shredded the US Constitution, speaking of “individual rights and rule of law.” Where is this rule of law? It is certainly not in Kiev where an elected government was overthrown with force. It is certainly not in the United States where the executive branch has spent the entirety of the new 21st century establishing government above the law. Habeas corpus, due process, the right to open trials and determination of guilt by independent jurors prior to imprisonment and execution, the right to privacy have all been overturned by the Bush/Obama regimes. Torture is against US and international law; yet Washington set up torture prisons all over the globe.

How is it possible that the representative of the war criminal US government can stand before an European audience and speak of “rule of law,” “individual rights,” “human dignity,” “self-determination,” “freedom,” without the audience breaking out in laughter?

Washington is the government that invaded and destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq on the basis of lies. Washington is the government that financed and organized the overthrow of the Libyan and Honduran governments and that is currently attempting to do the same thing to Syria and Venezuela. Washington is the government that attacks with drones and bombs populations in the sovereign countries of Pakistan and Yemen. Washington is the government that has troops all over Africa. Washington is the government that has surrounded Russia, China, and Iran with military bases. It is this warmongering collection of Washington war criminals that now asserts that it is standing up for international ideals against Russia.

No one applauded Obama’s nonsensical speech. But for Europe to accept such blatant lies from a liar without protest empowers the momentum toward war that Washington is pushing.

Obama demands more NATO troops to be stationed in Eastern Europe to “contain Russia.” http://ift.tt/1rCLz2A Obama said that a buildup of military forces on Russia’s borders would reassure Poland and the Baltic states that, as NATO members, they will be protected from Russian aggression. This nonsense is voiced by Obama despite the fact that no one expects Russia to invade Poland or the Baltic countries.

Obama doesn’t say what effect the US/NATO military buildup and numerous war games on Russia’s border will have on Russia. Will the Russian government conclude that Russia is about to be attacked and strike first? The reckless carelessness of Obama is the way wars start.

Declaring that “freedom isn’t free,” Obama is putting pressure on Western Europe to pony up more money for a military buildup to confront Russia. http://ift.tt/1jMDhQq

The position of the government in Washington and its puppet states (Eastern and Western Europe, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Georgia, Japan) and other allies purchased with bagfuls of money is that Washington’s violation of international law by torturing people, by invading sovereign countries on totally false pretenses, by routinely overthrowing democratically elected governments that do not toe the Washington line is nothing but the “indispensable and exceptional country” bringing “freedom and democracy to the world.” But Russia’s acceptance of the self-determination of Crimean people to return to their home country is “a violation of international law.”

Just what international law has Washington and its puppets not violated?

Obama, whose government in the past few years has bullied Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Iran, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela and is now trying to bully Russia, actually declared that “bigger nations can not simply bully smaller ones.” What does Obama and his speech writers think Washington has been doing for the entirety of the 21st century?

Who can possibly believe that Obama, whose government is responsible for the deaths of people every day in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, cares a whit about democracy in Ukraine. Obama overthrew the Ukrainian government in order to be able to stuff the country into NATO, throw Russia out of its Black Sea naval base, and put US missile bases in Ukraine on Russia’s border. Obama is angry that his plan didn’t pan out as intended, and he is taking his anger and frustration out on Russia.

As the delusion takes hold in Washington that the US represents idealism standing firmly against Russian aggression, delusion enabled by the presstitute media, the UN General Assembly vote, and Washington’s string of puppet states, self-righteousness rises in Washington’s breast.

With rising self-righteousness will come more demands for punishing Russia, more demonization of Russia and Putin, more lies echoed by the presstitutes and puppets. Ukrainian violence against Russian residents is likely to intensify with the anti-Russian propaganda. Putin could be forced to send in Russian troops to defend Russians.

Why are people so blind that they do not see Obama driving the world to its final war?

Just as Obama dresses up his aggression toward Russia as idealism resisting selfish territorial ambitions, the English, French, and Americans presented their World War 1 “victory” as the triumph of idealism over German and Austrian imperialism and territorial ambitions. But at the Versailles Conference the Bolsheviks (the Tsar’s government failed to gain the Straits and instead lost the country to Lenin) “revealed the existence of the notorious Secret Treaties embodying as sordid a program of territorial pilfering as can be found in the history of diplomacy. It appears that the chief actual motives of the Entente in the World War were the seizure of Constantinople and the Straits for Russia; not only the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, but the securing of the west bank of the Rhine, which would have involved the seizure of territory historically far longer connected with Germany than Alsace-Lorraine had ever been with France; the rewarding of Italian entry into the War by extensive territory grabbed away from Austria and the Jugo-Slavs; and the sequestering of the German imperial possessions, the acquisition of the German merchant marine and the destruction of the German navy in the interest of increasing the strength of the British Empire” (Barnes, pp. 691-692). The American share of the loot was seized German and Austrian investments in the US.

The secret British, Russian, and French aims of the war were hidden from the public, which was whipped up with fabricated propaganda to support a war whose outcomes were far different from the intentions of those who caused the war. People seem unable to learn from history. We are now witnessing the world again being led down the garden path by lies and propaganda, this time in behalf of American world hegemony.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1h6Jz9Z Tyler Durden

“Nail Gun Suicide” Banker’s Firm Probed Over Missing Millions

Just a few short weeks ago we reported on the unusual suicide, due to self-inflicted nail-gun wounds, of Richard Talley, CEO of Denver-based American Title Services. The death of the 57-year-old banker was accompanied by the fact that his firm was under investigation by the insurance regulators, and now, as The Denver Post reports, state prosecutors launched a criminal investigation and a grand jury over more than $2 million missing from escrow accounts. As part of that inquiry, investigators have seized about 100 boxes of documents and about 60 computers as records suggest the seemingly successful title business had serious financial problems. Talley's wife, Cheryl, who owns the other 60% of the firm has not commented.

 

Via The Denver Post,

The firm…

Talley, 56, owned 40 percent of the company he founded with his wife, Cheryl, who owns the other 60 percent, according to bankruptcy records.

 

Cheryl Talley did not respond to efforts by The Denver Post to reach her.

The suicide…

The Arapahoe County coroner's office said Talley shot himself in the chest seven times with 2½ -inch finish nails from a nail gun before firing a fatal nail into his head. Police found him dressed for work, sitting in his car in the garage and with the motor running.

 

Records show Title Resources was to confront Talley about the missing escrow funds the morning he died.

The probe…

State prosecutors launched a criminal investigation and a grand jury into bankrupt American Title Services just days after its CEO killed himself with a nail gun, according to federal court records.

 

Meanwhile, the title insurance company for which American Title was writing policies said more than $2 million is missing from escrow accounts the Greenwood Village company maintained on real estate closings.

The background…

In its lawsuit, Title Resources said it first uncovered discrepancies in ledgers kept by American Title and America's Home Title, a related company, in late January. The ledgers "appeared to be altered to create the facade of balanced trust accounts."

 

Title companies handle large amounts of money in closing real estate transactions, keeping funds in trust or escrow and then paying them to the appropriate party.

 

Dallas-based Title Resources said in its lawsuit that American Title's controller, Bill Krieg, has admitted that money was misappropriated from the escrow accounts, but the extent of the alleged embezzlement is unclear.

 

Title Resources said it was forced to pay about $2 million in missing escrow funds — money set aside in real estate transactions to cover costs such as utilities, taxes and property liens such as mortgages — and that affected consumers will not be impacted.

 

Krieg has not responded to efforts to reach him.

 

American Title's bankruptcy showed it owed about $40,000 in back rent to the owners of the Greenwood Village office tower that housed its headquarters, and about $36,000 in rent to other landlords of its branch offices.

This does not come entirely as a shock… as we noted previously,

A checkered past?

Before coming to Colorado, Talley was a former regional financial officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert in Chicago, where he met his wife, Cheryl, a vice president at the company. The two married in 1989.

 

Talley had formed a number of companies, some now defunct, according to the Colorado secretary of state's office. Among them: American Escrow, Clear Title, Clear Creek Financial Holdings, Swift Basin, Sumar, American Real Estate Services, and the American Alliance of Real Estate Professionals.

It would appear, unfortunately, that Mr. Talley was not an entirely honest man

Talley's 1989 wedding announcement in the Chicago Tribune noted he was "a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic swimming team."

 

A spokeswoman for USA Swimming on Thursday said Talley was not on the team.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1jkk4aq Tyler Durden

The Co-Op Movement – A Decentralized Solution to Solving Inequality and Avoiding Serfdom?

Or take the right to vote. In principle, it is a great privilege. In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society’s merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily co-operating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.

-Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World Revisited (1958) 

As readers of this website are well aware, the entrenched power structure has proven itself unwilling to address any of the extreme fraud, crony capitalism and corruption that plagues the U.S. economy. As such, it has become increasingly clear to myself and countless others that the solutions we need must be grassroots and decentralized. I have personally made it a point to encourage people to take matters into their own hands, using whatever tools they have available to make the communities in which they live better for their families and their neighbors.

Of course, in a world in which power is ever increasingly concentrated in the hands of a very unenlightened egomaniacal handful of oligarchs, this seems like a daunting and near impossible task to many. Because so many Americans are simply consumed with making ends meet and putting food on the table, the concept of changing the world appears entirely unrealistic if not downright impossible.

The message I want to convey is that this is not the case. Whether it be decentralized competing currency systems, states rights initiatives such as legalizing marijuana (some pot convictions can now be overturned in Colorado), neighborhood farms, independent energy systems, the path toward localized solutions is the one I firmly believe we must follow.

To that end, I want to highlight this encouraging article from the New York Times titled, Who Needs a Boss?, which explores possibilities worker co-ops provide for workers everywhere. Not only is the pay far better, not only is work engagement considerably more robust, but it restores a sense of community and power to those involved. I think this is a model we should greatly expand upon, rather than looking for centralized solutions, which are merely band-aids placed upon a cancer.

Here are some excerpts from the New York Times:

If you happen to be looking for your morning coffee near Golden Gate Park and the bright red storefront of the Arizmendi Bakery attracts your attention, congratulations. You have found what the readers of The San Francisco Bay Guardian, a local alt-weekly, deem the city’s best bakery. But it has another, less obvious, distinction. Of the $3.50 you hand over for a latte (plus $2.75 for the signature sourdough croissant), not one penny ends up in the hands of a faraway investor. Nothing goes to anyone who might be tempted to sell out to a larger bakery chain or shutter the business if its quarterly sales lag.

Instead, your money will go more or less directly to its 20-odd bakers, who each make $24 an hour — more than double the national median wage for bakers. On top of that, they get health insurance, paid vacation and a share of the profits. “It’s not luxury, but I can sort of afford living in San Francisco,” says Edhi Rotandi, a baker at Arizmendi. He works four days a week and spends the other days with his 2-year-old son.

Arizmendi and its five sister bakeries in the Bay Area are worker-owned cooperatives, an age-old business model that has lately attracted renewed interest as a possible antidote to some of our most persistent economic ills. Most co-ops in the U.S. are smaller than Arizmendi, with around a dozen employees, but the largest, Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx, has about 2,000. That’s hardly the organizational structure’s upper limit. In fact, Arizmendi was named for a Spanish priest and labor organizer in Basque country, José María Arizmendiarrieta. He founded what eventually became the Mondragon Corporation, now one of the region’s biggest employers, with more than 60,000 members and 14 billion euro in revenue. And it’s still a co-op.

continue reading

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Meanwhile, Tens Of Thousands Of Russian Troops Continue Piling Up At Ukraine’s Borders – The Full Update

With Russia continuing to diplomatically assure the world that no invasion is pending, and rather comically asking for President Obama's benevolent aid in policing the treatment of Russians in non-Crimean Ukraine; it seems from all actions (as opposed to words) that Putin is pressing ahead with building his forces (up to 60,000) around the divided nation and as Dmitry Tymchuk notes, planning for invasion from Chernihiv to Donetsk. Internal politics continue to roil as Klitschko pulls out of the Presidential election (just as the US wanted) but we suspect the Ukrainians will be confused to discover their USA saviors have been spying on the future Premier Tymoshenko for years. The people of Ukraine are likely a little upset at We are sure Kerry and Lavrov will have plenty to discuss tomorrow in Paris and perhaps the following map will be a good starting point.

 

*KERRY, LAVROV TO MEET IN PARIS TOMORROW, INTERFAX SAYS

Kerry canceled plans to return to the United States from Saudi Arabia on Saturday and instead was headed to Paris for a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday evening, Psaki said from a refueling stop here. The goal is to reach agreement on what happens next over Ukraine, following up on a phone call Friday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Obama.

Klitschko pulls out of Presidential election

Leading Ukrainian politician Vitaly Klitschko has pulled out of presidential elections planned in May.

 

The former boxing world champion said instead he would back tycoon Petro Poroshenko.

 

Both men played a key role in months of street protests that led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.

 

Mr Klitschko's withdrawal means the race is likely to be between Mr Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Which is exactly what the US had been hoping for (judging by Victoria Nuland's conversation). However, as Spiegel reports, the Ukrainians may look on their bailout-funding corruption-beating saviors – The USA – a little differently when they find out the NSA has been spying on Tymoshenko for years

 

But it is the troop build up that is creating the most anxiety around the world…

 

As Dmitry Tymchuk explains on his blog, there is good news and bad news…

The bad news:

1. The Russian military forces accumulated at our borders are increasing in number, due to the arrival of new units and detachments to the Bryansk oblast [region] of the Russian Federation. Earlier, we saw a build-up of troops in Rostov oblast, while the numbers were considerably lower in the north.

This means that Putin is preparing an invasion across our whole “eastern front” – from Chernihiv to Donetsk.

The interesting thing is, on March 23, international observers carried out a survey flight over the borderland areas of the Russian Federation. At that time, Moscow pulled some of its troops in Rostov oblast back from the border; while in Bryansk oblast, there weren’t that many to begin with. As soon as the inspectors left, the troops crawled back to the border, like cockroaches with the lights out. In short, one would have to be a complete sucker to trust the Kremlin.

The only encouraging detail is the fact that by now, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have successfully regrouped. Our border guards keep the border under strict control, while our intelligence services are actively neutralizing Russia’s “fifth column” in our eastern oblasts. All of these things can serve to seriously meddle with the Kremlin’s plans.

2. Ukraine, essentially, has no Navy. Earlier today, we presented a full breakdown of the situation: 10 ships are flying the Ukrainian flag, and 51 have been captured by the occupiers.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is currently negotiating to reclaim at least some of the property stolen by the aggressor. But we know how this works – if Putin says “I didn’t take it,” he’s not going to give it back. Nevertheless, we have to try, at least to make ourselves look better.

The good news:

1. Aggression against Ukraine is already becoming too costly for Russia. The outflow of capital from the Russian Federation has reached USD 70 billion, since the beginning of this year. Today, the World Bank announced a forecast (as reported by the Wall Street Journal): if Putin continues to escalate the situation, Russian GDP will drop by 1.8% in 2014. Compared to the 1.3% growth in the previous year, that’s quite a difference.

Today, the President of the EU Council [Herman] van Rompuy, the US President [Barack] Obama and the President of the European Commission [José Manuel] Barroso made a solemn vow: if Putin continues messing about, the EU and the US are prepared to unleash the full extent of sanctions.

It’s obvious that getting through that nut’s [Putin's] thick skull is not an easy task. But noticeable [financial] losses are definitely a good sign. Let’s see which force is stronger in the Kremlin – aggression or greed.

2. As I was writing this, reports came in that six of our commanding officers, previously kidnapped in Crimea by terrorists calling themselves “Russian military,” have been set free. Today, they are heading to Henichesk through Chonhar, and from there, to Kyiv.

I can only breathe with relief. Our heroes are free – and that is excellent.

I’m not a vicious person myself. But I’d like to wish, from the bottom of my heart, that our Russian friends find themselves on the receiving end of the same low and despicable treatment that they’ve been giving our servicemen in Crimea this whole time. Let them drink that in full and choke on it.

3. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will conduct ”Spring Rain” military exercises in Kharkiv oblast.

The military, and the political importance of military exercises, in eastern Ukraine cannot be overestimated right now. Our army – slowly and gradually, with moans and groans, with exploding tanks and crashing planes – is waking up from its 20-year-long lethargy. For the first time since the years of Ukrainian independence, it [the army] is starting to understand why it even exists. The same can be said for our entire country.

We all hope that this epiphany hasn’t come too late. But, in any case – this is a huge lesson for us all, for decades to come.


    



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

The US Is Like A Ship With No Lifeboats (Full Of Suicidal Bankers)

Authored by Hugo Salinas Price via The Burning Platform blog,

“If the U.S. inflates and devalues the dollar, gold will go much higher in price”  Jim Rickards.

The last dollar devaluation took place under President Roosevelt in 1934, when from being worth 1/20.67th of an ounce of gold in 1933, the dollar was devalued to 1/35th of an ounce of gold.

The last opportunity for devaluing the dollar took place in August 1971, when the dollar was still pegged at 1/35th of an ounce of gold. Nixon took the advice of Milton Friedman and made the worst mistake in history; Nixon did not devalue the dollar as he should have done, but simply took the US off the gold standard, such as it was, and thence forth the US refused to redeem dollars held by Central Banks around the world at any price.

Since August 15, 1971, the dollar can no longer be devalued.

Since the dollar is the reserve currency of all Central Banks in the world, all other currencies – the euro included – are only derivatives of the dollar. The proof of this statement is that the value of each and every currency in the world is calculated in dollars,

The world’s currencies are devalued or revalued against the dollar in the world’s currency markets every day of the year.

There is a “Dollar Index” which shows a value of the dollar against a basket of other currencies. However, the currencies selected for the basket are arbitrarily selected and some relatively important currencies are not included in the basket. Besides this, the movement of the dollar in the “Dollar Index” cannot signify either devaluation or revaluation of the dollar, because the currencies in the Index are themselves undergoing either depreciation or appreciation in dollar terms, due to their own national circumstances.

The US cannot declare an official devaluation of the dollar because there is nothing against which it may devalue, or rather, it does not wish to recognize the existence of gold as money, against which it might devalue.

In order for the US to devalue the dollar effectively, it would first be absolutely necessary for the US government to establish gold as the referent for its value. The US government would have to declare that the value of the dollar is equivalent to a given amount of gold, and solemnly promise that that value will be upheld and made good by offering to buy any amount of gold tendered to it, and pay for it in dollars at a price slightly below the officially established price of gold in dollars, as well as offering to sell any amount of gold paid for in dollars, at a price slightly above the officially established price of gold in dollars.

Once an official value of the dollar in gold were established, it would then once again be possible for the US government to renege on its promise and devalue the dollar by establishing a new and lower value of the dollar in gold. In other words, the dollar must first of all be freely convertible into gold at an official rate, before any devaluation can take place.

As things now stand, it is impossible to devalue the dollar.

A rising price of gold does not devalue the dollar, because there is no official link between gold and the dollar. The world’s monetary and financial systems have no link to gold. Gold can be any price without causing any effect upon those systems. We have seen gold at $1900 dollars per ounce, and things were running just as they were when gold was $300 dollars per ounce.

However, the rising price of gold is a huge embarrassment to the US government not because it devalues the dollar (it does not do this) but because it provokes a loss of confidence in the dollar. When the dollar is seen as falling in value against gold, its fall causes investors to exchange dollars and other currencies for gold as a means of protecting wealth. The rising price of gold is a blot on the prestige of the US dollar and the prestige of the US itself.

The price of gold in dollars is therefore under strict government control. This fact, once derided as ridiculous, is increasingly accepted as truth by those interested in monetary matters around the world. The means for controlling the price of gold lies in the massive sales of “paper gold” which take place to suppress its price, as so many investigators have amply documented.

US monetary policy considers that the dollar is here to stay forever, and that gold is no longer – and never again will be – the world’s ultimate money.

The governments of several nations around the world do not share the same conviction with regard to the permanence of the dollar. China invented irredeemable paper money – which is what the whole world uses today – some one thousand years ago, and several dynasties of Chinese emperors learned to their cost that paper money always degenerates into simple trash.

The Chinese government knows that the dollar will not be around forever. China is purchasing enormous amounts of gold to add to their huge pile of US Bonds in the reserves of the Bank of China; the government of China is more enlightened than the government of the US, because it is encouraging the Chinese to purchase gold and silver.

The US government tells the world that it possesses some 8,000 tonnes of gold; the fact that it cannot deliver physical gold held for Germany’s account belies the assurances regarding the physical gold stock of the US.

The situation for the US – and for the world – is dangerous: the US is like a ship with no lifeboats, because it is presumed to be unsinkable.

The US and its allies are allowing the Chinese and Asia in general, to take possession of huge amounts of gold every year, while the US, the UK and Europe are drained of gold by shipments to the East.

The US evidently believes that the dollar is here to stay and that gold is just a passing fancy. This is classic hubris or arrogance.

When serious problems for the dollar surface – as they surely will – and the US has little or no gold to fall back on, the US with its back to the wall may become a very dangerous entity in the world. Would it be possible for those running the US to loose their heads and decide for a suicidal nuclear war in response to a desperate economic situation? Does the destruction of the whole world matter to men about to take their own lives? Do suicidal bankers worry about the fate of the world?


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1k68j5R Tyler Durden

Angry Germany Asks “Is It Time For A Formal Espionage Investigation?” After Latest NSA Spying Revelations

With friends like these, who needs Russians.

In the summer of 2013, a big diplomatic spat erupted when as a result of Snowden’s revelations, it became clear that among the countless world leaders the NSA was spying on was none other than US “best buddy forever”, German chancellor Angela Merkel. Why would the US spy on one of its closest strategic allies the Germans wondered: after all is it not Germany where the bulk of NATO forces are stationed (a topic that is sure to gain more prominence in the coming months now that the second coming of the USSR is just around the corner). Little by little, the diplomatic fallout was put to bed after US ambassadors across Europe were summoned, and given a stern talking to, resulting in promises that never again will the US abuse its bosom, if broke, buddies in Europe. And the whole spying scandal disappeared as if it had never happened.

Naturally, what the less naive ones knew and anticipated, was that if it had emerged that the NSA was spying on Merkel, there was about to be a waterfall of other unpleasant revelations about how deep the NSA’s tentacles stretched inside Germany, all contained in Snowden’s seemingle endless bag of goodies.

Sure enough, overnight Spiegel and Greenwald’s new outlet, The Intercept, have disclosed a new set of revelations just how deep said tentacles had penetrated. It appears that the NSA, and the UK’s GCHQ, were aiming at the critical nodes where all electronic communications going through Germany – three German satellite communication providers, Stellar, Cetel and IABG, through which the bulk of German internet traffic flows.

From Spiegel:

The headquarters of Stellar, a company based in the town of Hürth near Cologne, are visible from a distance. Seventy-five white antennas dominate the landscape. The biggest are 16 meters (52 feet) tall and kept in place by steel anchors. It is an impressive sight and serves as a popular backdrop for scenes in TV shows, including the German action series “Cobra 11.”

 

Stellar operates a satellite ground station in Hürth, a so-called “teleport.” Its services are used by companies and institutions; Stellar’s customers include Internet providers, telecommunications companies and even a few governments. “The world is our market,” is the high-tech company’s slogan.

 

Using their ground stations and leased capacities from satellites, firms like Stellar — or competitors like Cetel in the nearby village of Ruppichteroth or IABG, which is headquartered in Ottobrunn near Munich — can provide Internet and telephone services in even the most remote areas. They provide communications links to places like oil drilling platforms, diamond mines, refugee camps and foreign outposts of multinational corporations and international organizations.

 

Super high-speed Internet connections are required at the ground stations in Germany in order to ensure the highest levels of service possible. Most are connected to major European Internet backbones that offer particularly high bandwidth. The service they offer isn’t just attractive to customers who want to improve their connectivity. It is also of interest to Britain’s GCHQ intelligence service, which has targeted the German companies. Top secret documents from the archive of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden viewed by SPIEGEL show that the British spies surveilled employees of several German companies, and have also infiltrated their networks.

 

One top-secret GCHQ paper claims the agency sought “development of in-depth knowledge of key satellite IP service providers in Germany.” The document, which is undated, states that the goal of the effort was developing wider knowledge of Internet traffic flowing through Germany. The 26-page document explicitly names three of the German companies targeted for surveillance: Stellar, Cetel and IABG.

 

The operation, carried out at listening stations operated jointly by GCHQ with the NSA in Bude, in Britain’s Cornwall region, is largely directed at Internet exchange points used by the ground station to feed the communications of their large customers into the broadband Internet. In addition to spying on the Internet traffic passing through these nodes, the GCHQ workers state they are also seeking to identify important customers of the German teleport providers, their technology suppliers as well as future technical trends in their business sector.

It was not just the company infrastructure, but their workers as well that were part of the targeting:

The document also states that company employees are targets — particularly engineers — saying that they should be detected and “tasked,” intelligence jargon for monitoring. In the case of Stellar, the top secret GCHQ paper includes the names and email addresses of 16 employees, including CEO Christian Steffen. In addition, it also provides a list of the most-important customers and partners. Contacted by SPIEGEL, Stellar CEO Steffen said he had not been aware of any attempts by intelligence services to infiltrate or hack his company. “I am shocked,” he said.

The other two key backbone providers were also hacked, one of which does “considerable business with the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces“, something which the NSA most certainly was privy to:

Intelligence workers in Bude also appear to have succeeded in infiltrating competitor Cetel. The document states that workers came across four “servers of interest” and were able to create a comprehensive list of customers. According to Cetel CEO Guido Neumann, the company primarily serves customers in Africa and the Middle East and its clients include non-governmental organizations as well as a northern European country that uses Cetel to connect its diplomatic outposts to the Internet. Neumann also says he was surprised when he learned his firm had been a target.

 

The firm IABG in Ottobrunn appears to have been of particular interest to the intelligence service — at least going by a short notation that only appears next to the Bavarian company’s name. It notes, “this may have already been looked at by NSA NAC,” a reference to the NSA’s network analysis center.

 

IABG also does considerable business with the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces. The company states that its “defense and security” unit is “committed to the armed forces and their procurement projects.” These include solutions for “security issues, for prevention and reactions against dangers like terrorism and attacks against critical infrastructure.

At this point, Germany may finally be getting angry at its “closest friend”, the US, and its ubiqutous spies, whose actions have been revealed for the entire world to see thanks to one whistleblower:

Monitoring companies and their employees along with the theft of customer lists are classic acts of economic espionage. Indeed, such revelations ought be a case for the German federal public prosecutors’ office, which in the past has initiated investigations into comparable cases involving Russia or China.

However, will it be angry enough to start a formal investigation?

So far, however, German Federal Public Prosecutor Harald Range has been struggling with the NSA issue. Some experienced investigators have had a problem applying the same criteria used to assess intelligence services like Russia’s to those of the United States and Britain. Federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe have provided a preliminary assessment, but so far no decision has been made about whether the agency will move forward with legal proceedings.

 

Under review at the moment are allegations that the NSA monitored the chancellor’s mobile phone and also conducted mass surveillance on the communications of millions of Germans. Range recently told the Berlin-based daily Die Tageszeitung the affair was “an extremely complicated issue.”

 

I am currently reviewing whether reasonable suspicion even exists for an actionable criminal offense,” he told the newspaper. “Only if I can affirm that can I then address the question of whether a judiciary inquiry would run contrary to the general public interest — a review required for any espionage-related crime” in Germany. A decision is expected soon.

 

The launch of legal proceedings against GCHQ agents or NSA employees would quickly become a major political issue that would further burden already tense trans-Atlantic relations. An additional problem is the fact that Range is in possession of very few original documents, particularly those pertaining to the NSA’s monitoring of Chancellor Merkel.

 

A secret NSA document dealing with high-ranking targets has provided further indications that Merkel was a target. The document is a presentation from the NSA’s Center for Content Extraction, whose multiple tasks include the automated analysis of all types of text data. The lists appear to contain 122 country leaders. Twelve names are listed as an example, including Merkel’s.

 

The list begins with “A,” as in Abdullah Badawi, the former Malaysian prime minister, and continues with the presidents of Peru, Somalia, Guatemala and Colombia right up to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The final name on the list, No. 122, is Yulia Tymoshenko, who was Ukrainian prime minister at the time. The NSA listed the international leaders alphabetically by their first name, with Tymoshenko listed under “Y”. Merkel is listed under “A” as the ninth leader, right behind Malawian President Amadou Toumani Touré, but before Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Once again the topic emerges: while US citizens apparently don’t seem to care if the NSA is exploring every aspect of the private lives, is the same true for Germans, and all other countries in the world where an advanced internet infrastructure makes it all too easy for the NSA to weigh anchor and to eavesdrop on everything.

The documents do not provide sufficient information to precisely determine the types of data included in the order, and the NSA has said it will not comment on the matter. However, lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union believe it provides the NSA with permission to access the communications of all German citizens, regardless whether those affected are suspected of having committed an offense or not. Under the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA is permitted to conduct blanket surveillance in foreign countries without any requirement to submit individual cases for review by the court, whose deliberations and rulings are top secret.

 

 

“So far, we have no knowledge that Internet nodes in Germany have been spied on by the NSA,” Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which is also responsible for counterintelligence measures, said last summer.

 

It’s also possible the Americans don’t even have to do that, at least not directly. It’s quite feasible they have better access through major US providers like AT&T or Verizon whose infrastructure is used to process a major share of global Internet traffic. The NSA could use that infrastructure to access data from Germany. This would be totally legal from the American perspective — at least according to the FISA court.

Actually we do know: as the Intercept reports, “a separate document from the NSA’s Special Source Operations unit […] shows that the Obama administration obtained a top-secret court order specifically permitting it to monitor communications related to Germany. Special Source Operations is the NSA department that manages what the agency describes as its “corporate partnerships” with major US companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft, and Google. The order on Germany was issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on March 7, 2013. The court issues annual certifications to the NSA that authorize the agency to intercept communications related to named countries or groups; it has provided similar authorization, Der Spiegel reported, for measures targeting China, Mexico, Japan, Venezuela, Yemen, Brazil, Sudan, Guatemala, Bosnia and Russia.”

So back to the question at hand: will Germany finally escalate the hand over of all individual privacy to what is effectively economic espionage? The answer: of course not, certainly not at a time when a few hundred kilometers to the East none other than Vladimir Putin is finally stretching his muscles at an attempt of restoring the USSR piecemeal, the first step of which already took place with the bloodless annexation of Crimea. The last thing Germany can afford now is a diplomatic spat with the only nation which can possibly prevent a Russian expansion beyond merely former USSR countries but also into Europe. Which is why people of Germany: hold your noses and bear it. You have no choice. Unless of course, Germany, as some suggest may happen, decided to dump its superficial diplomatic closeness with the US and realligns with what is rapidly becoming the world’s most powerful axis, the Eurasians, aka China, Russia and India. Add Germany to this, and suddenly the global balance of power as we know it ist kaput.

Cartoon: the Economist


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1mftLH2 Tyler Durden

You Can’t Make This Up: MF Global Sues PWC, Blames It For Its Collapse

File this one in the “you can’t make it up” category. Over two years after the MF Global collapse, in which the primary dealer headed by Jon “I don’t recall” Corzine all but admitted it had engaged in the cardinal sin of any financial intermediary, i.e., commingling money, to cover up a trade gone horribly bad and which resulted in the disappearance of some $1 billion in client funds until such time as the bankruptcy process managed to “liberate” funds from other part of the company, MF Global has suddenly figured who is at fault: not the CEO, not his brown-nosing lackey, not some janitor meant to be scapegoated precisely in a situation such as this, not even the infamous “glitch” – no, the party that is accountable for the firm’s theft of client funds, and horrible investing decisions that led to its bankruptcy, are the accountants.

No really: yesterday MF Global Holdings sued PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP for $1 billion, alleging accounting malpractice helped bring down the brokerage company.

Like we said, you can’t make this up. From Bloomberg:

PwC, which provided outside auditing and accounting experts, failed to advise the firm to account properly for its European sovereign debt holdings, leading it to over-invest in them, MF Global Holdings said in a complaint filed today in Manhattan federal court.

 

But for PwC’s erroneous accounting advice, MF Global Holdings could not have — and would not have — invested heavily in European sovereign debt to generate immediate revenues and would not have suffered the massive damages that befell the company in 2011,” MF Global Holdings said in the complaint.

 

MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2011. Customers have claimed in lawsuits against the firm’s former executives that more than $1.6 billion of their funds that should have been segregated went missing, transferred to other parts of the company during the liquidity crisis.

 

Christopher Atkins, a PwC spokesman, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail message seeking comment on the suit.

In retrospect: almost brilliant. MF Global, or what’s left of the estate, is using the old tried and true “Enron defense”, where if there was corporate criminality, the accountants were surely involved. And they most probably were. There is one problem though: in the case of Enron, all of its key executives, Lay, Skilling and Fastow, got prison sentences. In MF Global’s case of Jon Corzine… not so much.

 

Why? The answer:


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1ltPq0U Tyler Durden

Dollar Mixed to Start Q2

There have been four notable price action developments in the foreign exchange market:

 

The euro has pulled back from the attempt seen earlier this month on the $1.40 level.

Sterling has recouped more than half of what it lost this month.  

The dollar has moved to the upper end of its two-week trading range against the yen.

The dollar-bloc has powered ahead. 

 

Euro:  The combination of the dovish comments from ECB officials, where even the Bundesbank appears to have warmed to the idea of QE, and the somewhat more hawkish FOMC, has prompted some profit-taking on long euro positions.  The euro peaked just shy of the $1.40 level on March 13.  While Draghi’s comments helped put the euro’s top in, it was Yellen’s comments that exposed the downside.  

 

The euro was briefly pushed through the $1.3720 area, the 50% retracement of the euro’s rally from early February lows, just below $1.33, which is the low for the year, thus far.  Resistance is now seen in the $1.3800-30 area.  The outlook hinges on the ECB meeting on Thursday.  The failure to take strong action (this means more than a symbolic 10 bp cut in the repo rate, which would have little consequence) could send the euro back to $1.40, if not above.  On the downside, the $1.3650-75 area is technically interesting, housing a key retracement objective, the 100-day moving average and the late-February lows.  

 

Yen:  The dollar moved to the upper end of its two week trading range against the yen near JPY102.80, which corresponds to a, 61.8% retracement of this month’s decline.  There does not appear to be any technical obstacle for additional near-term gains, with the JPY103.10-20 area offering the next proximate target.   The controversial retail sales tax hike goes into effect on April 1 and a government adviser warned that the BOJ could make its assessment as early as May whether additional stimulus is needed.  This may help widen the US-Japanese 10-year spread, which at 208 bp is near the middle of the 2-month range.    A strong US employment report at the end of the week could also help underpin the spread and dollar. 

 

Sterling:  With the gains in the second half of last week, sterling has recovered 50% of this month’s losses after being rebuffed near $1.68 on March 7.    Technical indicators, like the RSI and MACDs, are constructive.  A move above $1.6660 could signal another run at the $1.68 cap.  Support is now pegged near $1.6600 and then $1.6550. 

 

While we have preferred sterling over the euro on fundamentals and technical considerations, we have liked sterling against Swiss franc more.  It has approached the CHF1.48 area and the 5-day moving average has crossed above the 20-day average for the first time in five weeks.   Provided the CHF1.47 level holds now, sterling can work its way to the upper end of our target range near CHF1.50. 

 

Swiss franc: For its part, the dollar tested the CHF0.8900.  It corresponds to the 50-day average, the 50% retracement of the dollar’s decline since early February, and the highs from earlier this month.  Addition resistance is seen near CHF0.8945.  Support is a big figure lower, nearly CHF0.8845.

 

The Canadian dollar:  It has been the weakest of the major currencies this here in Q1, losing about 3.85% against the dollar.    This is after it rallied about 1.6% in the past week, to eclipse the New Zealand dollar as the second strongest behind the Australian dollar.   Encouraged by a recovery in retail sales and the lack of fresh deterioration in Canada’s CPI, a short-covering rally in the Canadian dollar saw the greenback test CAD1.10.  Technical indicators are still somewhat supportive of the US dollar, and the real test may come on a bounce to CAD1.11.   Quebec’s general election (April 7) and Canada ‘s employment data  (April 4), at the same time as US jobs report pose event risk. 

 

The Australian dollar:  The Aussie recorded higher highs for six consecutive sessions through the end of last week.  After being shunned, it is back as in the markets’ favor.  It gained 1.9% to lead the major currencies last week and was the strongest currency in March gaining 3.6%

 

Early last week it broke above its 200-day moving average (~$0.9140) and has not looked back.  It also moved surpassed the 50% retracement of the decline from the late October high near $0.9760.   The next target is near $0.9330.

 

Although it is looking a bit stretched against the dollar, we note that the Australian dollar looks particular good against the euro.  The euro has traced out what looks to be a head and shoulder’s pattern.   The neckline is near A$1.50, and the measuring objective is near A$1.42.  The 20-day moving average was tested before the weekend near A$1.4795, while a retracement objective is found near A$1.4730.

 

We had also liked the Australian dollar against the New Zealand dollar.  It met our N$1.0680-N$1.0700 objective last Thursday.  The technical indicators are not suggesting a top is in place.  However, a move now below N$1.0640 could weaken the constructive case. 

 

Mexican peso:  The chase for yields helped lift the Mexican peso to its best level since mid-January.  However, after slipped below MXN13.05, the dollar rebounded and finished the session near the highs.  If this does not mark a near-term bottom for the dollar, it probably came close.  Our reading of the technical indicators warns of a risk of a move back into the MXN13.15-MXN13.20 in the days ahead.

 

Observations based on the speculative positioning in the CME currency futures:

 

1.  Most position adjustments were minor in the reporting week ending March 25. which may be surprising since it covered the FOMC meeting and BBK President Weidmann suggesting that, if needed and conducted properly, he could support QE.   Of the 14 gross positions we track, all but four were changed by less than 4k contracts.  

 

2.  The Canadian dollar account for half of the four notable adjustments.  Gross longs rose 12.7k, which is about 33% increase.  Gross shorts were culled by almost 24k contracts, which is nearly a quarter.  Euro longs were cut by nearly 11k to 107k contracts.  Long yen positions were cut by a quarter to 17.6k contracts.

 

3.    The recent price action shows divergent US dollar performance.  The greenback is doing a bit better against the euro (and Swiss franc) and less well against the dollar bloc. This is reflected in speculative positioning.  The euro and yen saw longs cut and shorts increase.  The dollar-bloc was the opposite:  gross long Australian and Canadian grew and shorts were reduced.  Over the past week, sterling was the best performer outside of the dollar-bloc.  In the futures market, the gross long sterling position rose and the shorts fell.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1hISwXM Marc To Market