Tag: news

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Earlier this week, I published a lengthy thought piece titled, America is Being Divided and Conquered Into Oblivion. I ended it with the following paragraphs:

All that said, I don’t want to end this post on a negative note. I think the real thing that’s missing from the equation is too many good, talented people are doing nothing. I’m not trying to be judgmental here. I personally had the ability and resources to quit my job and do what I do. I didn’t have a family at the time and didn’t have to provide for anyone else. That’s not the point. You don’t have to do what I did to make a difference and influence people. You don’t have to quit your job and fight the status quo with every breath you take. Life doesn’t need to be seen as an all or nothing endeavor in everything you do. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to consider the following (as an aside, I try to ask myself these questions all the time).

 

Think about your everyday life. What are you doing to push forward the decentralization of power and unite people? How are you being potentially divisive in life, and how can you bring people together as opposed to tearing others down? If you were brought up privileged and financially well off, you arguably have a greater responsibility to society. What are you doing to give back? Is it sufficient? Is what you do for a living accretive or extractive to society? What are you doing to make the world a better place than you found it? If nothing, why not?

 

While there are plenty of fortunate people out there doing jobs merely to chase cash and stroke their ego, the vast majority of people genuinely have major financial commitments and therefore have no choice but to stay in spiritless, soul-sucking jobs. I get that. For people in the former group, I ask you to consider the fact that you have one life to live and this battle is an existential one.

 

If you can dedicate your talents and creativity to something positive, consider doing so. If you are in the latter group, I understand that providing for your family is of the utmost importance, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make meaningful contributions in smaller ways, even if it’s as simple as trying to be less divisive and more self-reflective. As Gandhi noted:

 

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”

 

But even this is not enough. We need to heed the words of Huxley in 1958:

 

“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.”

 

We can’t rely on politicians and we can’t rely on hope. We need to rely on the power of our own actions coming together to ultimately make the world a better place. The window of opportunity is now and the world needs you. All of you.

I was thrilled that the above post touched a lot of people, but I didn’t really provide any specific suggestions for personal growth. Fortunately, I just read an excellent article by the Daily Zen’s Charlie Ambler, which does just that.

Here it is, republished in full: How to Actually Make America Great Again.

There’s a lot of platitudinal talk about making things “great” again, which is a good way to engage any regular idiot without providing any sort of prescription for what should actually happen. I find this particular election cycle to be revolting and don’t feel personally connected to it in any way. As I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals, about Lincoln and other American political figures during the Civil War era, I can’t help but think that these events of 2016 are just further signals of the decline of both American society and the West at large.

 

Sorry, folks, but we got our freedom and we squandered it fewer than a handful of centuries. We stopped reading books. We gave up on the nuclear family. We skewed the meaning of words and let other people and institutions do for us what we could have done ourselves. We lost any semblance of identity other than that reliant on the hedonistic narcissistic whims of the individual. Identity politics have emerged alongside a complete loss of cultural identity— what a supreme irony! It really feels great to get this off my chest.

 

In this sense, there are obvious ways to “make America great again” that don’t involve trusting a wealthy NYC landlord. After a few years of dealing with those guys I can assure you they’re bad news. How do we make America Great Again? A few ideas for individuals, since the whole purpose of this place to begin with was that individuals had the opportunity to live virtuous lives without needing to rely too heavily on their institutions to provide for them or stifle them. Let’s review a few individual tactics that can help bring some sanity back to the Western cultural-political landscape:

 

Return to the family.

 

There’s no great human society that didn’t place a high value on the nuclear family. The modern West has experienced a fracturing of the family due to various technologies and cultural excitements that made it seem unimportant. Many people went their own way; love became about promiscuity, drama and money, rather than sacrifice, honor, humility, modesty or child-rearing. Success became about money and the career ladder rather than passing wisdom and virtue onto one’s kin.

In New York City, the apotheosis of the peculiar type of modernity we see in 2016, I see mothers who dress their babies like tiny hip college students and then go off to work, leaving the babies with a random babysitter who spends the day walking them in circles around the park. If you want to rescue the modern world, return to the family. Focus less on culture and careerism and more on teaching children how to live a meaningful life. If the example we set is that work is more important than family, the next generation of children probably won’t even bother with raising families. These priorities should be reversed.

 

Read more.

 

Many of the men who founded America and sent it forward in the beginning were voracious readers. Before you could spend your leisure time by just going on your phone and playing Angry Birds or getting laid on Tinder, smart people would spend hours each day reading for leisure. They would digest the timeless works of the past not for any real practical purpose but to cultivate a fuller understanding of the world, history, and human life. If they wanted correspondence with someone, they would sit down and draft a thoughtful letter by hand.

Information was scarce and ambitious people sought it out. Today, the great books are open to literally everyone. What do young people do? They complain that the authors weren’t multicultural enough. I really have no choice but to shake my head at the sheer arrogance and spiritual void that exists in my generation. I’m often embarrassed by it. Liberal arts college students should start actually reading books again; they’ve clearly taken a break.\

 

This is not to say, “Aw man, the good ol’ days, right!?” Most people in Lincoln’s era and before, war notwithstanding, only lived until their mid-40’s on average. But we should understand from the past just how insane our current notions of leisure are. We have lost so much discipline, so much capacity for patience and knowledge that people not that long ago were willing to cultivate. Read more. Read every day. Honestly, read as much as you possibly can. It will transform your life in a way that you won’t recognize until you see.

 

Don’t be scared

 

When America started, most people didn’t even think about retirement. Retirement wasn’t an option. This was because it was unlikely for anyone to live to middle-age, let alone past it, thanks to poor medical science and general uncleanliness. It’s not unusual today for someone to live to 80, 90, or 100, the irony being that they’re usually stuck in some sort of boring post-industrial retirement home or a hospital bed. And up until retirement they likely spent their entire life working to save money for retirement. The logic in these scenarios really just reflects a population that does not reflect!

 

That would you do today if you knew you were going to die at 40? Would you worry so much about petty things? We can learn from the past how to keep the present in perspective. Modern society’s current degradation is the best argument against “situational progress” that one can muster. People emotionally shift and become just as uncomfortable in a state of supreme comfort as they are in a state of supreme discomfort, the same way many people who get rich aren’t any happier for it. We adapt. It’s in our nature. If we can spiritually train ourselves to be less uncomfortable, less fearful, and more grateful of life, we will stop being so collectively petty and greedy.

 

I don’t write very many political articles, but when you get to the root of politics you realize that it’s everywhere. Everything you do is a reflection of your beliefs. The way to make America great again isn’t to kick out all the brown people or give everyone free money or fight strange conflicts abroad, but instead to have a complete spiritual overhaul! Politics is a reflection of our collective spirit; clearly today that spirit is nearly-bankrupt. Our priorities are insanely out of order.

 

If we want to reclaim a sense of greatness and virtue, it takes individuals to reconfigure themselves and cultivate greatness on a spiritual level. It takes people who have an appetite not for mindless destruction and distraction but for knowledge, reality, humility and gratitude. Meditate, folks. Read more. Love your family. Stifle your ego. This might be our only hope.

 

If you liked this piece, please consider supporting Daily Zen.

Thank you for writing this, Charlie.

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

It's not just Invesco that is confused by the market's complacency, Bloomberg notes that global markets are showing a surprising calm as investors struggle to quantify macro risks, taking divergent approaches to portfolio allocations.

While investors cite geopolitical risks as a chief concern and events like Turkey’s failed coup highlight the dangers, Bloomberg notes there is little evidence that people are bailing on risky investments.

BlackRock says it’s very bullish on EM and Ashmore saying it buys into dips from such shocks, while G-10 currencies in tight ranges and volatility low across EM even as a BofAML fund-manager survey sees the highest cash levels since 2001.

 

“We are living in unprecedented times of geopolitical and social uncertainties. For investors, it is really hard to quantify those risks,” says Pimco’s currency portfolio manager Thomas Kressin.

 

Developments including the U.K. vote to leave the EU; terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and Nice; Italy’s upcoming referendum over a constitutional reform; and U.S. presidential elections point to a marked increase in political risks in systemically significant countries.

 

The failed Turkish coup caused an initial market reaction, though by Monday the lira was rebounding and TD saw it as a “buy”; subsequent actions by Erdogan to purge the ranks of state institutions have seen TRY trade to around record lows. S&P cut Turkey’s rating to BB from BB+, outlook to negative.

HOW MARKETS ARE IGNORING GEOPOLITICAL RISKS

• VIX is trading at 2016 lows around 12, decreasing from the highest since February hit in aftermath of Brexit referendum and well below its lifetime average ~20
• S&P 500 Index reached a record yesterday and its forward P/E ratio is the highest since early 2002; the MSCI emerging-markets index is at its highest level since mid-August 2015 and the MSCI EM FX index has gained 4.7% YTD
• 10yr UST yields reached record low earlier this month ~1.32%, though have since moved back into the 1.5%-1.6% range

MARKETS’ SHORT MEMORY

• “Markets ignore geopolitics. I don’t see any obvious cases to trade this week, as Fed is silent and there are no important data releases,” said Nordea analyst Aurelija Augulyte Monday, after markets re-opened after the weekend events
• Short term recent developments will likely prompt FX shocks and a return to risk-off sentiment until the dust settles, said Citigroup in a note sent to clients Monday, though “markets typically have short memories”
• “In this age of monetary policy uber alles, every setback somehow gets sold as a buying opportunity. There are no long-term ramifications ascribed to anything,” Bloomberg strategist Richard Breslow wrote Tuesday

WHAT INVESTORS ARE DOING

Pimco

Firm keeping its cash levels above average to be ready to buy into market swings likely to follow new risk events, says Pimco’s Kressin

 

Running low FX conviction strategy based on the view that G-10 currencies will continue to trade in ranges as global central banks consider a strong dollar undesirable

 

Luke Spajic, head of portfolio management for emerging Asia, says Pimco is seeking to “tilt our alignment to cheaper credit where we can find it,” as yields on 10Y USTs dropped further than anticipated

Janus

Geopolitical risks across Europe not fully priced into EU assets and euro outlook has plenty of downside risks ahead, portfolio manager Ryan Myerberg says in interview

 

European project could be at stake as tensions in Turkey will worsen relations with EU over immigration

 

Attacks in Nice may increase support for France’s Front National, a party that has backed the idea to hold a referendum over European membership

 

Remains constructive on bonds in euro-area countries including Spain and France, as ECB is expected to tweak the QE program in September

 

Keeps limited exposure to emerging markets; negative on currencies such as TRY, ZAR

BlackRock

Emerging markets are on an improving path and EM debt is set to benefit from inflows of money fleeing from low or negative rate environments, EM portfolio managers including Pablo Goldberg say in a note

 

Sticks to positive outlook for EMD despite shock waves sent from the Brexit vote and sees local currency debt providing greater potential given EM FX sensitivity to risk-aversion shocks

Ashmore

Firm typically buys into any temporary weakness caused by global geopolitical events and sees the political shocks in EM to be more country specific risks than geopolitical per se, head of research Jan Dehn, says in interview

 

While the fund remains underweight on Turkey, it would look to buy the country’s assets once they reach a more attractive entry levels

 

Expects EM resilience as fundamentals are getting better and bonds are attractively priced

Aberdeen Asset Management

Market is desensitized; for EM investors “this is nothing new” says Edwin Gutierrez, head of EM sovereign debt at Aberdeen Asset Management

 

In Turkey, for instance, the country has had a number of bomb attacks and “markets get used to it”

 

When asked about next big geopolitical concerns, says if it were something we knew was going to move the market, it probably wouldn’t

Invesco

Investors are focused on the U.S. and China, and their relative stability probably allows market to view shocks like Turkey as more of a local phenomenon, Invesco portfolio manager and head of macro research Ray Uy says in phone interview

 

General theme of political risks increasing or political risk premium has been prevailing for the last few years; now seeing tension between established political regimes and populist movements

 

Unclear why this hasn’t been a significant driver of markets across the board; “maybe we just haven’t hit the threshold”

 

Investors are still dealing with aftermath of negative rates, super-accommodative monetary policy globally and structural need for income, which is mobilizing capital flows in unprecedented ways; “maybe that’s what we’re seeing overcome some of the concerns”

Old Mutual

Firm may consider reweighting toward havens as rising geopolitical risk could play a bigger part in the portfolio construction process, according to PM Nicholas Wall

 

Sold a small amount of Turkish bonds as the government’s post-coup purge extended to university deans and others not directly involved in the event, according to John Peta

Wadhwani Asset Management

Sees short term opportunity to buy EM FX as risk appetite comes back after Brexit vote

Standish Mellon

Central bank activity has supported asset prices and made periods of volatility incredibly short-lived, more so than would’ve been anticipated, Standish Mellon portfolio manager and director of global fixed income Brendan Murphy says in phone interview.

So what will it take for risk appetite to shift?

via http://ift.tt/29ZCrUl Tyler Durden