Tag: news

Authored by Andrea Germanos via CommonDreams.org,

In the wake of a U.S. court ordering Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to man who says its weedkiller Roundup caused his cancer, Vietnam has called on the agrichemical giant to pay reparations to Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange.

“This case is a precedent that rejects previous arguments that the herbicides supplied to the U.S. military by Monsanto and other U.S. chemical companies during the Vietnam War are not harmful to people’s health,” spokesperson for the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Phuong Tra said to reporters last week.

“We believe Monsanto should be responsible for compensating Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange for the damages caused by the company’s herbicides,” she said.

Monsanto, now a unit of Bayer, was one of the manufacturers of Agent Orange.

The U.S. dumped roughly 45 million liters of the notorious compound, which contained dioxin, on Vietnam during the war, unleashing “a slow-onset disaster whose devastating economic, health, and ecological impacts … are still being felt today.”  With its long-lasting impacts on the Vietnamese, as well as U.S. service-members, it’s been called “one of the most tragic legacies of the war.”

Viet Nam News reported Sunday that the Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA), which is working for justice on behalf of roughly 3 million Vietnamese affected by the chemical warfare, is also hopeful given the new verdict.

“No matter how difficult and prolonged this case might be, we won’t ever give up on it, for the sake of the millions of Vietnamese victims,” said Quách Thành Vinh, VAVA’s chief of office and director of liaison lawyers office.

Former U.S. school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who’s suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, secured his legal victory against Monsanto on Aug. 10. CNN reported that the ruling “could set a massive precedent for thousands of other cases claiming Monsanto’s famous herbicide causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”

Monsanto has said it is appealing the verdict.

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At the start of August we reported that Swiss multi-billion asset manager, GAM Holdings announced it has frozen withdrawals at some of its bond funds after a surge in redemptions from clients who sought withdraw their money following the suspension of manager Tim Haywood, the latest in a series of setbacks that sent the company’s shares into a tailspin. 

GAM’s troubles started in July amid market speculation that a market neutral quant fund GAM had purchased in October 2017, Cantab Capital Partners, was in trouble, with some pointing fingers at AQR. Perhaps, but it turns out that GAM was also involved when the fund warned of a writedown due to losses at one of its quant hedge funds. The announcement launched a slide in its shares that only accelerated after this week’s suspension of Haywood, who headed the firm’s second-largest “unconstrained” strategy, and a warning by CEO Alex Friedman that clients may allocate less money to the firm because of volatile market conditions, accelerated the slump.

Fast forward to today, when GAM Holdings said it would start paying back investors in its frozen bond funds, but some will get money out faster than others. According to Bloomberg, the Swiss fund will initially return 74% to 87% of the assets in Luxembourg and Irish-domiciled funds that were previously run by suspended bond manager Tim Haywood. Investors in Haywood’s Cayman Islands-based hedge fund will only get about 60% in early September, with another 5% expected by the end of that month and the remainder paid out over time depending on market conditions.

In other words, over a billion in investor funds will be indefinitely frozen in a GAM side pocket due to “illiquid” conditions, which is strange considering the S&P just rose above 2,900 and if there was ever a market that was liquid, it is now. One dreads to imagine what would happen to fund that had to satisfy redemption requests when asset prices were falling.

And while GAM investors were shocked by the July 31 announcement that it had suspended Haywood, triggering a flood of redemption requests and forcing the firm to freeze affected funds, fears quickly spread and some investors in separate strategies also pulled money, leading to an estimated $2.3 billion in net outflows through Aug. 17.

According to Bloomberg calculations, the liquidation schedule suggests that the strategy’s hard-to-sell holdings are particularly concentrated the Cayman hedge fund, which had about $2.79 billion in assets before it was frozen.

Hedge funds generally can hold a larger share of illiquid investments than funds that are sold to the general public. But the Cayman fund may also have been impacted when Australian investors pulled hundreds of millions just prior to Haywood’s suspension after an adviser changed its recommendation.

And this is where a potential scandal may be brewing, because as Bloomberg reported earlier this month, an Australian feeder fund that funneled money to the hedge fund lost about A$849 million ($624 million), or three quarters of its assets, within a few weeks. The amount was equal to roughly 18% of total assets in the hedge fund strategy. And, as Bloomberg noted previously, GAM had said that withdrawal requests of more than 10 percent within a short period of time would typically trigger a reporting requirement.

To be sure, the company finds nothing untoward in the redemption:

GAM said before that the redemptions from the Australian feeder “followed business as usual meetings with a consultant, which did not include any discussion on the subsequent suspension of Tim Haywood.”

We leave that one to the regulators.

For now, the bigger question is just what was Haywood investing in that made it so illiquid. It turns out that while much of the holdings in Haywood’s strategies were “high-quality, liquid assets” such as Treasuries, he also invested in harder-to-sell instruments among which the the Absolute Return Bond Fund listed transactions with Liberty Industries PPA Limited, a vehicle linked to Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty House Group conglomerate. The fund had also invested in Laufer Limited, a funding vehicle linked to supply-chain finance provider Greensill.

As we reported previously, the fund also had “integrated additional strategies like trade financing into the products.” Haywood also oversaw 2.9 billion francs in trade finance funds and 653 million francs in other fixed-income portfolios.

Hardly liquid.

Meanwhile, sensing trouble ahead, the fund’s board of directors and management “unanimously felt that suspension was absolutely the right course of action when faced with a cumulative pattern of potential misconduct,” GAM said, adding that a public announcement was required as Haywood had responsibility for a significant proportion of GAM’s assets under management.

The board then threw Haywood under the bus:

GAM has said that Haywood may have breached due diligence requirements and signed contracts alone where two signatures were required. Haywood also breached the company’s gifts and entertainment policy by not seeking the required pre-approval and used his own personal email for work, the company said this month.

But don’t worry: the company vows that Haywood’s alleged transgressions were an isolated incident that hasn’t led to losses for clients, and has maintained that the manager’s honesty is not in question.

Judging by the rising redemptions across funds that were not directly controlled by Haywood, the investing public is not exactly convinced.

As for what happens next to GAM, Zuercher Kantonalbank analyst Michael Kunz said that “all this is reminiscent of the equity funds that in the wake of increased outflows during the financial crisis of 2008 were suddenly sitting on private equity positions that had become entirely too large.”

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Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

President Trump recently imposed sanctions on Turkey to protest the Turkish government’s detention of an American pastor. Turkey has responded by increasing tariffs on US exports. The trade war is being blamed for the collapse of Turkey’s currency, the lira. While the sanctions may have played a role, Turkey’s currency crisis is rooted in the Turkish government’s fiscal and (especially) monetary policies.

In the past seven years, Turkey’s central bank has tripled the money supply and pushed interest rates down to 4.5 percent. While Turkey’s government did not adopt Ben Bernanke’s proposal to drop money from helicopters, Turkish politicians have taken advantage of easy money policies to increase subsidies for key voting blocs and special interests.

The results of the Turkish government’s inflation-fueled spending binge are not surprising to anyone familiar with Austrian economics or economic history. Turkey is now plagued with huge deficits, a collapsing currency, and a looming economic crisis, making it the next candidate for a European Union or Federal Reserve bailout.

Turkey’s combination of low interest rates, money creation, and massive government spending to “stimulate” the economy parallels the policies the US government has pursued for the past ten years. Without drastic changes in fiscal and monetary policies, economic trouble in America is around the corner.

The very large and growing federal debt will cause a major crisis as the government’s debt burden will be unsustainable. Instead of cutting spending or raising taxes, politicians can be expected to pressure the Federal Reserve to do their dirty work for them via inflation. We may even see the Fed “experiment” with negative interest rates, which would punish Americans for saving. The monetization of the federal debt will erode the dollar’s purchasing power and decimate middle-and-working-class Americans who are already seeing any gains in their incomes eaten away by inflation.

If we are lucky, the next Fed-caused downturn will cause only a resurgence of 1970s-style stagflation.

The more likely scenario is the type of widespread economic chaos not seen in America since the Great Depression.

The growth of cultural Marxism, the widespread entitlement mentality, and the willingness of partisans of various sides to use force against their political opponents suggests that this economic crisis will result in civil unrest that will be used to justify new crackdowns on individual liberty.

Those who understand the causes of, and cures for, our current predicament have two responsibilities. First, prepare a plan to protect your family when the crisis occurs. Second, do all you can to spread the truth in hopes the liberty movement reaches critical mass so it can force Congress to make the changes necessary to avert disaster.

Since the crisis will result in a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status, individuals should consider alternatives such as gold and other precious metals. Restoring a free-market monetary system should be a priority for the liberty movement. Other priorities include ending our interventionist foreign policy, cutting spending in all areas, rolling back the surveillance state, protecting all civil liberties, and auditing (and ending) the Federal Reserve. If we do our jobs, we can build a society of peace, prosperity, and liberty atop the ashes of the welfare-warfare state. 

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Bitcoin and the entire crypto space has caught a solid bid this morning, pushing the cryptocurrency back over $7,000 without any apparent catalyst or major news behind the move.

However, according to Andrew Zatlin of Moneyball Economics, one possible explanation is emerging as likely: Bitcoin is becoming the new safe trade.

As Zatlin explains, echoing what we first said in September 2015, emerging markets are continuously using bitcoin (BTC) as a way to get their money of their respective countries.

Crypto currencies are attractive to individuals in less developed economies for a few reasons:

• Transaction costs are the same as gold.  BTC’s higher price volatility is offset by gold’s higher conversion fees
• Liquidity favors BTC
• BTC only requires access to the internet
• Easier to transport and hide $20,000 of BTC offsets gold’s bulkiness

As recent events in Turkey and Iran show, hard currency and precious metal confiscation is a very real threat.  Crypto is now a very real alternative.

Turkish citizens flocked to bitcoin as the Turkish lira continues to plummet. The lira is down nearly 40% this year alone. An insane drop for a currency.

In dollar terms, gold continues to trade lower as bitcoin catches a bid.

Here’s a chart of bitcoin demand from within Venezuela

The Emerging Markets can be grouped into two categories: those that are adopting BTC and those that are panic buying.  Russia is an example of a late adopter.

Examples of panic buying: Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Hungary, India, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Venezuela.

Here’s Chile:

Here’s Columbia:

Here’s Hungary:

Here’s India:

Here’s Mexico:

Here’s Peru:

And here’s the Philippines:

One signal coming from BTC: indication of underlying economic/capital strength.

It’s still a bit too early to assign a definitive value for regional BTC demand. But the fact that millions of people around the world are flocking to bitcoin is a sure sign there is a value of it.

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Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

“McCain’s Death Leaves Void” ran The Wall Street Journal headline over a front-page story that began:

“The death of John McCain will leave Congress without perhaps its loudest voice in support of the robust internationalism that has defined the country’s security relations since World War II.”

Certainly, the passing of the senator whose life story will dominate the news until he is buried at his alma mater, the Naval Academy, on Sunday, leaves America’s interventionists without their greatest champion.

No one around has the prestige or media following of McCain.

And the cause he championed, compulsive intervention in foreign quarrels to face down dictators and bring democrats to power, appears to be a cause whose time has passed.

When 9/11 occurred, America was united in crushing the al-Qaida terrorists who perpetrated the atrocities. John McCain then backed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, which had no role in the attacks.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, he slipped into northern Syria to cheer rebels who had arisen to overthrow President Bashar Assad, an insurgency that led to a seven-year civil war and one of the great humanitarian disasters of our time.

McCain supported the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe and the Baltic, right up to Russia’s border.

When Georgia invaded South Ossetia in 2008, and was expelled by the Russian army, McCain roared, “We are all Georgians now!”

He urged intervention. But Bush, his approval rating scraping bottom, had had enough of the neocon crusades for democracy.

McCain’s contempt for Vladimir Putin was unconstrained. When crowds gathered in Maidan Square in Kiev to overthrow an elected pro-Russian president, McCain was there, cheering them on.

He supported sending arms to the Ukrainian army to fight pro-Russian rebels in the Donbass. He backed U.S. support for Saudi intervention in Yemen. And this war, too, proved to be a humanitarian disaster.

John McCain was a war hawk, and proud of it. But by 2006, the wars he had championed had cost the Republican Party both houses of Congress.

In 2008, when he was on the ballot, those wars helped cost him the presidency.

By 2016, the Republican majority would turn its back on McCain and his protege, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and nominate Donald Trump, who said he would seek to get along with Russia and extricate America from the wars into which McCain had helped plunge the country.

Yet, while interventionism now has no great champion and has proven unable to rally an American majority, it retains a residual momentum. This compulsion is pushing us to continue backing the Saudi war in Yemen and to seek regime change in Iran.

Yet if either of these enterprises holds any prospect of bringing about a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East, no one has made the case.

While the foreign policy that won the Cold War, containment, was articulated by George Kennan and pursued by presidents from Truman to Bush I, no grand strategy for the post-Cold War era has ever been embraced by a majority of Americans.

Bush I’s “New World Order” was rejected by Ross Perot’s economic patriots and Bill Clinton’s baby boomers who wanted to spend America’s peace dividend from our Cold War victory on America’s homefront.

As for the Bush II crusades for democracy “to end tyranny in our world,” the fruits of that Wilsonian idealism turned into ashes in our mouths.

But if the foreign policy agendas of Bush I and Bush II, along with McCain’s interventionism, have been tried and found wanting, what is America’s grand strategy?

What are the great goals of U.S. foreign policy? What are the vital interests for which all, or almost all Americans, believe we should fight?

“Take away this pudding; it has no theme,” said Churchill. Britain has lost an empire, but not yet found a role, was the crushing comment of Dean Acheson in 1962.

Both statements appear to apply to U.S. foreign policy in 2018.

We are bombing and fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, partly John McCain’s legacy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has sent a virtual ultimatum to Iran. We have told North Korea, a nuclear power with the world’s fourth-largest army, either to denuclearize or the U.S. may use its military might to get the job done.

We are challenging Beijing in its claimed territorial waters of the South China Sea. From South Korea to Estonia, we are committed by solemn treaty to go to war if any one of dozens of nations is attacked.

Now one hears talk of an “Arab NATO” to confront the ayatollah’s Iran and its Shiite allies. Lest we forget, ISIS and al-Qaida are Sunni.

With all these war guarantees, the odds are excellent that one day we are going to be dragged in yet another war that the American people will sour upon soon after it begins.

Where is the American Kennan of the new century?

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Following an accusation by president Trump that Google was “rigging” search results against him, providing as evidence a “Trump News” search which showed predominantly “left” media publications popping up in the search results…

… Google has responded.

As a reminder, first thing this morning, Trump tweeted that “Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD, Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal,” Trump said in his latest claim of bias by the media. 96% of results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous.”

Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2018

Following Trump’s tweet, his chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow told reporters outside of the White House this morning that the administration is “taking a look” at whether Google searches should be subject to government regulation.

Google has now responded, claiming that the company doesn’t “bias” its results toward any political ideology and that “search is not used to set a political agenda.” Google also hedged by saying that it periodically issues “hundreds of improvements to our algorithms” to ensure they surface “high-quality content in response to users’ queries.” It was unclear if Google considers only liberal websites as “high quality content.”

Google’s full response is below:

“Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don’t bias our results toward any political ideology”

“Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users’ queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment”

However, one can’t help but be skeptical considering that just before the 2016 presidential election, among the many leaks published by Wikileaks as part of its Podesta email campaign was Google’s “strategic plan” to help democrats win the election and track voters.

Google head Eric Schmidt’s secret strategic plan for the US election #PodestaEmails https://t.co/LskJODXyXn

More: https://t.co/ZUfh7WDAT5 pic.twitter.com/llq5G9kp5V

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 31, 2016

It is unlikely that Trump will be satisfied with Google’s sincere response.

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