Tag: news

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has just released a first update on the quantity of physical gold and silver holdings stored in the ‘LBMA’ London vaulting network. The LBMA press release explaining the move, dated 31 July, can be read here.

This vaulting network, administered by the LBMA, comprises a set of precious metals vaults situated in London that are operated by the Bank of England and 7 commercial vault operators. For simplicity, this set of vaults can be called the LBMA London vaults. The 7 commercial vault operators are HSBC, Brinks, ICBC Standard Bank, Malca Amit, JP Morgan, Loomis and G4S. ICBC Standard outsources its vault management to Brinks. It’s possible that to some extent HSBC also outsources some of its vault management to Brinks.

Strangely, the LBMA’s initial reporting strangely only runs up to 31 March 2017, which is 4-months prior to the first publication date of 31 July. This is despite the fact that new LBMA vault holdings data is supposed to be published on a 3-month lagged basis, which would imply a latest report coverage date of 30 April.

At the end of April 2017, the Bank of England separately began publication of gold vault holdings for the gold bars that the Bank stores in custody within its own vaults. The Bank of England reporting is also on a 3-month lagged basis (and the Bank actually adheres to this reporting lag). See BullionStar article “Bank of England releases new data on its gold vault holdings”, dated 28 April 2017, for details of the Bank of England vault reporting initiative.

Currently, the Bank of England is therefore 1 month ahead of the LBMA vault data, i.e. on 31 July 2017, the Bank of England’s gold page updated with Bank of England gold custody vault holdings as of 30 April 2017.

Ignoring the LBMA 3-month lagged vs 4-month lagged anomaly, the LBMA’s first vault reporting update, for vault data as of 31 March 2017, states that the 8 sets of vaults in question (which includes the Bank of England gold vaults) held a combined 7449 tonnes of gold and a combined 32078 tonnes of silver.

Also included in the first batch of LBMA data are comparable London vault holdings figures for gold and silver for each month-end date from July 2016 to February 2016 inclusive. Therefore, as of the 31 July 2017, there is now an LBMA dataset of 9 months of data, which will be augmented by one month each month going forward. Whether the LBMA will play catch-up and publish April 2017 month-end and May 2017 month-end figures simultaneously at the next reporting date of 31 August 2017 remains to be seen.

One of the Bank of England gold vaults, of which there are 8-10 vaults

The New Vault Data – Gold and Silver

For 31 March 2017, the LBMA is reporting 7449 tonnes of gold stored across the 8 sets of vault locations. For the same date, the Bank of England reported 5081 tonnes of gold held in the Bank of England vaults. Therefore, as of 31 March 2017, there were 2368 tonnes of gold ‘not in the Bank of England vaults’ (or at least 2368 tonnes of gold not counted by the Bank of England data).

Of the gold not in the Bank of England vaults, about 1510 tonnes of this gold in London was held by gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), mainly with the custodians HSBC and JP Morgan. These ETFs include the SPDR Gold Trust and various ETFs from ETF Securities, Source, iShares, and Deutsche Bank etc. This 1510 tonnes figure is taken from an estimate calculated at the end of April 2017 using data from the GoldChartsRUs website. See BullionStar article “Summer of 17: LBMA Confirms Upcoming Publication of London Gold Vault Holdings” dated 9 May 2017 for details of this ETF calculation.

Subtracting this 1510 tonnes of ETF gold from the 2368 tonnes of gold stored outside the Bank of England vaults means that as of 31 March 2017, there were only about 858 tonnes of gold stored in the LBMA vaults outside of the Bank of England vaults that was not held by gold-backed ETF holdings. See Table 1 below.

The lowest gold holdings number reported by the LBMA within its 9 months of vault data is actually the first month, i.e. July 2016. At month-end July 2016, the LBMA report shows total vaulted gold of 7283 tonnes. There was therefore a net addition of 166 tonnes of gold to the LBMA vaults between August 2016 and the end of March 2017, with net additions over the August to October 2016 period, followed by net declines over the November 2016 to February 2017 period.

Table 1: LBMA London Vaults and Bank of England Vaults – Gold holdings, July 2016 – March 2017

Turning to silver, as of 31 March 2017, the LBMA is reporting total vaulted silver of 32,078 tonnes held in London vaults. The vaulted silver data also shows a notable increase over the period from the end of July 2016 to the end of March 2017, with a net 2485 tonnes of silver added to the vaults.

Since the Bank of England vaults only store gold in custody on behalf of customers and do not store silver, there are no silver holdings at the Bank of England and therefore there is no specific Bank of England silver reporting. The LBMA silver data therefore refers purely to silver vaulted with operators such as Brinks, JP Morgan, Malca Amit, HSBC, and Loomis.

There are currently at least 12,000 tonnes of silver stored in London on behalf of silver-backed ETFs such as the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), various ETF Securities products, a SOURCE ETF and some Deutsche Bank ETFs. Subtracting these ETF holdings from the full 32,078 tonne figure being reported by the LBMA would suggest that there are an additional ~ 20,000 tonnes of non-ETF silver held in the London vaults.

Previous Vault Estimates for Gold and Silver

Prior to the new LBMA and Bank of England vault holdings data reports, the only way to work out how much gold and silver were in the London vaulting network was through estimation. Between 2015 and 2017, a number of these estimates were calculated for gold and published on the BullionStar website and the GoldChartsRUs website.

See BullionStar page “How many Good Delivery gold bars are in all the London Vaults?….including the Bank of England vaults” and GoldChartsRUs page “LBMA/BOE VAULTED GOLD, 2016 Update – The London Float”, and BullionStar page “Tracking the gold held in London: An update on ETF and BoE holdings”.

The “Tracking the gold held in London” article, published on 5 October 2016, took a LBMA statement of 6500 tonnes of gold being in London, the earliest reference to which was from 8 February 2016 Internet Archive page cache, and also took a Bank of England statement that the Bank held 4725 tonnes as of the end of February 2016 period, and then it factored in that the UK net imported more than 800 tonnes of non-monetary gold up to August 2016, and also that ETFs had added about 399 tonnes over the same period. It also calculated, using GoldChartsRUS ETF data, that the London-based gold-backed ETFs held about 1679 tonnes of gold as of the end of September 2016.

Therefore, as of the end of September 2016, there could have been at least 7300 tonnes of gold held across the LBMA and Bank of England vaults, i.e. 6500 tonnes + 800 tonnes = 7300 tonnes. As it turns out, this estimate was quite close to the actual quantity of gold held in the LBMA and Bank of England vaults at the end of September 2016, which the LBMA’s new reporting now confirms to have been 7590 tonnes. The estimate is a lower number because it was unclear as to which initial date the LBMA’s 6500 tonnes reference referred to (in early 2016 or before).

Previous Vault Estimates Silver

At the beginning of July 2017, an article on the BullionStar website titled “How many Silver Bars are in the LBMA Vaults in London?” estimated that there were about 12,000 tonnes of Good Delivery silver bars held across 4 LBMA vault operators in London on behalf of 11 silver-backed Exchange Traded Funds. These ETFs and the distribution of their silver bars across the 4 vault operators of Brinks, Malca Amit, JP Morgan and HSBC can be seen in the following table.

Table 3: ETF Silver held across LBMA commercial vaults in London, early July 2017 

The above article about the number of silver bars in the London vaults also drew on some data from precious metals consultancy Thomson Reuters GFMS, which each year publishes a table of identifiable above ground global silver supply in its World Silver Survey. One category of silver within the GFMS identifiable above ground silver inventories is called ‘Custodian Vaults’. This is distinct from silver holdings in ETFs and silver holdings in exchange inventories such as in COMEX approved vaults in New York. A simple way to view ‘Custodian Vaults’ silver holdings is as an opaque ‘unreported holdings’ category as opposed to the more the transparent ETF holdings and COMEX holdings categories.

For 2016, according to GFMS, this ‘Custodian Vaults’ silver amounted to 1571.2 million ounces (48,871 tonnes), of which 488.7 million ounces (15,200 tonnes), or 31% was represented by what GFMS calls the ‘Europe’ region. Unfortunately, GFMS do not break out the ‘Custodian Vaults’ numbers by individual country because they say that they receive the data on a confidential basis and cannot divulge the granularity. The early July article on BullionStar had speculated that:

“With 488.7 million ozs (15,201 tonnes) of silver held in Europe in ‘Custodian vaults’ that is not reported anywhere, at least some of this silver must be held in London, which is one of the world’s largest financial centers and the world’s highest trading volume silver market.”

“Apart from London, there would presumably also be significant physical silver holdings vaulted in Switzerland and to a lessor extent in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and maybe Austria etc. So whats’s a suitable percentage for London? Given London’s extensive vaulting network and prominence as a hedge fund and institutional investment centre, a 40-50% share of the European ‘custodian vault’ silver holdings would not be unrealistic, with the other big percentage probably vaulted in Switzerland.

This would therefore put previously ‘Unreported’ silver holdings in the London vaults at between 6080 tonnes and 7600 tonnes (or an additional 182,000 to 230,000 Good Delivery Silver bars).

Adding this range of 6080 – 7600 tonnes to the 12,040 tonne figure that the 11 ETFs above hold, gives a total figure of 18,120 – 19,640 tonnes of silver stored in the LBMA vaults in London (545,000 – 585,000 Good Delivery silver bars).

But here’s the catch. With the LBMA now saying that as of the end of March 2017 there were 1.031 billion ounces of silver, or 32078 tonnes, stored in the LBMA vaulting network in London (and 31238 tonnes of silver in London as of end of December 2016), of which at least 12,000 tonnes is in silver-backed ETFs, then that still leaves about 20,000 tonnes of silver in the London vaults, which is higher than the silver total attributed to the entire ‘custodian vault’ category’ in Europe (as per the GFMS 2016 report).

The HSBC vault in London which contains the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) gold

Large Bars but also Small Bars and Gold Coins

According to the LBMA’s press release, while “the LBMA vault holding data …represent the volume of Loco London gold and silver held in the London vaults offering custodian services“, surprisingly the new LBMA data includes “all physical forms of metal inclusive of large wholesale bars, coin, kilo bars and small bars.”

The inclusion of gold coins, smaller gold bars and gold kilobars in the LBMA vault data is bizarre because only large wholesale bars are accepted as Good Delivery in the London gold and silver markets, not gold coin, not smaller bars, and not gold kilobars. Even the LBMA website states that “the term Loco London refers to gold and silver bullion that is physically held in London. Only LBMA Good Delivery bars are acceptable for trading in the London market.”

Furthermore, the entire physical London Gold Market and physical London Silver Market revolve around the LBMA Good Delivery lists. Spot, forward and options trades on the London OTC gold and silver market are only referenced to a unit of delivery of a Good Delivery bar, both for gold and for silver.

For example, in the LBMA’s “A Guide to the London Precious Metals Markets” it states that:

“Unit for Delivery of Loco London Gold

This is the London Good Delivery gold bar. It must have a minimum fineness of 995.0 and a gold content of between 350 and 430 fine ounces…. . Bars are generally close to 400 ounces or 12.5 kilograms”

For silver, the same guide states that:

“Unit for Delivery of Loco London Silver

This is the London Good Delivery silver bar. It must have a minimum fineness of 999 and a weight range between 750 and 1,100 ounces, although it is recommended that ideally bars should be produced within the range of 900 to 1,050 ounces. Bars generally weigh around 1,000 ounces.”

Additionally, all the new London-based gold futures contracts launched by the LME, ICE and CME also reference, if only virtually, the unit for Delivery of loco London gold, i.e. the London Good Delivery gold bar. They do not reference smaller gold bars or gold coins.

In contrast to the LBMA , the COMEX exchange where the famous COMEX 100 ounce gold futures contract is traded only reports vault inventories of gold and silver where the bars satisfy that contract for delivery, i.e. the contract for delivery is one hundred (100) troy ounces of minimum fineness 995 gold of an approved brand in the form of either “one 100 troy ounce bar, or three 1 kilo bars”. COMEX do not report 400 oz gold bars or gold coins specifically because the contract has nothing to do with these products. Then why is the LBMA reporting on forms of gold that have nothing to do with the settlement norms of its OTC products in London?

Additionally, the LBMA website also states that “only bars produced by refiners on the [Good Delivery] Lists can be traded in the London market.“ All of this begs the question, why does the LBMA bother including smaller bars, kilogram bars and gold coins? These bars cannot be used in settlement or delivery for any standard London Gold Market transactions.

Perhaps these smaller gold bars and gold coins have been included in the statistics so as to boost the total reported figures or to make reverse engineering of the numbers more difficult? While the combined volumes of smaller bars and kilobars probably don’t add up to much in terms of tonnage, the combined gold coin holdings of central banks stored at the Bank of England could be material.

For example, the United Kingdom, through HM Treasury’s Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA), claims to hold 310.3 tonnes of gold in its reserves, all of which is held in custody at the Bank of England. The latest EEA accounts for 2016/2017, published 18 July 2017 state that “The gold bars and gold coin in the reserves were stored physically at the Bank’s premises.” See Page 43, Exchange Equalisation Accounts for details. Many more central banks, for historical reasons, also hold gold coins in their reserves. See Bullionstar article “Central Banks and Governments and their gold coin holdings” for some examples.

As another example, the Banque de France in Paris holds 2435 tonnes of gold of which 100 tonnes is in the form of gold coins, and 2,335 tonnes of gold bars. Even though these gold coins are held in Paris, this shows that central bank gold coin holdings could materially affect LBMA gold reporting that includes ‘gold coins‘ within the rolled up number. But such gold coins cannot be traded within the LBMA / LPMCL gold trading / gold clearing system and if present would overstate the number of Good delivery gold bars within the system.

The Bank of England gold page on its website also only refers to Good Delivery ‘gold bars’ and says nothing about gold coins, which underlines the special status to which the Bank of England assigns Good Delivery gold bars in the London Gold Market.  Specifically, the BoE gold page states that:

“..we provide gold storage on an allocated basis, meaning that the customer retains the title to specific gold bars in our vaults”

 “Values are given in thousands of fine troy ounces. Fine troy ounces denote only the pure gold content of a bar.

“We only accept bars which comply with London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) London Good Delivery (LGD) standards. LGD bars must meet a certain minimum fineness and weight. A typical gold bar weighs around 400 oz“

The Bank of England has now confirmed to me, however, that the gold holdings number that it reports on its website “is the total of all gold held at the Bank” and that this “includes coins that belong to the Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA) which are held by the Bank on behalf of Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT)”

This means that the total gold number being reported by both the Bank of England and the LBMA needs to be adjusted downward by some percentage so as to reflect the amount of real Good Delivery gold bars in the London vaults. What this downward adjustment should be is unclear, as neither the Bank of England nor the LBMA break out their figures by category of gold bars versus gold coins.

LBMA numbers – Obscured Rolled-up numbers

Another shortcoming in the LBMA’s vault reporting is that it does not break down the gold and silver holdings per individual vault. The LBMA will be only releasing 2 highly rolled-up numbers per month, one for gold and one for silver, for example, 7449 tones for gold and 32078 tonnes for silver in the latest month.

Contrast this to New York based COMEX and ICE gold futures daily reporting, which both do break down the gold holdings per New York vault. Realistically, the LBMA was never going to report gold or silver holdings per vault, as this would be a bridge too far towards real transparency, and would show how much or how little gold and silver is stored by each London vault operator / at each London vault location.

This does not, however, stop the LBMA from claiming transparency and in its 31 July press release it states that:

“According to the Fair and Effective Markets Review (see here for further details) 
‘…in markets where OTC trading remains the preferred model, authorities and market participants should continue to explore the scope for improving transparency, in ways that also enhance effectiveness.’“

Real transparency, as opposed to lip-service transparency, would be supported by providing an individual breakdown of the number of Good Delivery gold and silver bars stored in each of the 8 sets of vaults at each month end. If they want to include gold coins, smaller gold bars, and gold kilo bars as extra categories, then this could also be itemised on a proper report. It would also only take any decent software developer about 1 day to write and create such a report.

There is also the issue of independently auditing these LBMA numbers. The issue is essentially that there is no independent auditing of these LBMA numbers nor will there be. So there is no second opinion as to whether the data is accurate or not.

The Bank of England gold vault reporting is also short of transparency as it does not provide a breakdown of how much of the reported gold is held by central banks, how much gold is held by bullion banks, how much of the central bank gold is out on loan with the bullion banks, and how much gold, if any, is held on behalf of ETFs at the Bank of  England as sub-custodian. Real transparency in this area would provide all of this information including how much gold the LPMCL bullion clearing banks HSBC, JP Morgan, UBS, Scotia Mocatta and ICBC Standard hold at the Bank of England vaults.

On the issue of ETF gold held at the Bank of England, it has been proven that at times the Bank of England has acted as a gold custodian for an ETF, for example, during the first quarter 2016, the SPDR Gold Trust held up to 29 tonnes of gold at the Bank of England, with the Bank of England acting in the capacity of sub-custodian to the SPDR Gold Trust. See BullionStar article  “SPDR Gold Trust gold bars at the Bank of England vaults” for details.

The London Float

If we look back now at the LBMA vault data for gold as of 31 March 2017, how much of this gold could be bullion banks (London float) gold.

LBMA total gold vaulted: 7449 tonnes

Bank of England gold vaulted: 5081 tonnes

Gold in commercial LBMA vaults: 2368 tonnes

Gold in ETFs: 1510 tonnes

Gold in commercial vaults not in ETFs: 858 tonnes

Gold in commercial vaults not in ETFs that is allocated to institutions & hedge funds = x

i.e. 7449 – 5081 = 2368 – 1510 = 858

Assume 10% of the gold at the Bank of England is bullion bank gold. Also assume bullion banks gold hold some gold in LBMA commercial vaults.

Therefore total bullion bank gold could be (0.1 * 5081) + (858 – x) = 508 + 858 – x = 1366 – x.

Since x has to be > 0, then the bullion bank London float is definitely less than 1300 tonnes and probably less than 1000 tonnes. The bullion banks might argue that they can borrow more gold from central banks, take gold out of the ETFs, and even import gold from refineries. All of these options are possible, but still, the London bullion bank float is not that large. And it is this number in tonnes of gold which should be compared to the enormous volumes of ‘paper gold’ trading that occur in the London Gold Market each and every trading day.

In May 2011, during a presentation at the LBMA Bullion Market Forum in Shanghai China, on the topic of London gold vaults, former LBMA CEO Stewart Murray included a slide which stated that:

Investment – more than ETFs

ETFs

• Gold Holdings have increased by ~1,800 tonnes in past 5 years, almost all held in London vaults
• Many thousands of tonnes of ETF silver are held in London

Other holdings

• Central banks hold large amounts of allocated gold at the Bank of England
• Various investors hold very substantial amounts unallocated gold and silver in the London vaults

The last bullet point of the above slide is particularly interesting as it references “very substantial amounts’ of unallocated gold and silver. Discounting the fact for a moment that unallocated gold and silver is not necessarily held in vaults or held anywhere else, given that it’s just a claim against a bullion bank, the statement really means that investors have ‘very substantial amounts‘ of claims against the bullion banks offering the unallocated gold and silver accounts i.e. very substantial liabilities in the form of unallocated gold and silver obligations to the gold and silver unallocated account holders.

If a small percentage of these claim holders / investors decided to convert their claims into allocated gold and silver, especially allocated gold, then where are the bullion banks going to get the physical gold to give to these converting claim holders? Neither do the claim holders of unallocated positions have any way of knowing how accurate the LBMA vault reporting is, because there is no independent auditing of the positions or of the report.

Malca Amit vaults, London

UBS and LBMA

The last line of the LBMA press release about the new vault reporting states the following:

“A detailed explanatory commentary follows, prepared by Joni Teves, Precious Metals Strategist, UBS”

This line includes an embedded link to the Teves report within the press release. This opens a 7 page report written by Teves about the new vault reporting. By definition, given that this report is linked to in the press release, it means that Joni Teves of UBS had the LBMA vault reporting data before it was publicly released, otherwise how could UBS have written its summary.

In her report, Teves states that a UBS database estimates that there are “1,485 tonnes of gold worth about $60bn and about 13,759 tonnes of silver worth about $7.85bn are likely to be held in London to back ETF shares“.

These UBS numbers are fairly similar to the ETF estimates for gold (1510 tonnes) and silver (12040 tonnes) that we came up with here at BullionStar, and so to some extent corroborate our previous ETF estimates. Teves also implies that some of the gold in the Bank of England figure is not central bank gold but is commercial bank gold as she says:

 “let’s say for illustration’s sake that about 80% to 90% of BoE gold holdings are accounted for by the official sector.“

The statement on face value implies that 10% – 20% of Bank of England gold is not central bank gold. But why the grey area phrase of “let’s say for illustration’s sake”. Shouldn’t the legendary Swiss Bank UBS be more scientific than this?

Teves also says assume “negligible amount (in commercial vaults) comprises official sector holdings“, and she concludes that “this suggests that over the past year, an average of about 2,945 to 3,450 tonnes ($119-$139 bn) of investment-related gold was held in London.”

What she is doing here is taking the average of 9 months of gold holdings held in the LBMA commercial vaults (which is 2439 tonnes) and then adding 10% and 20% respectively of the 9 month average of gold held at the Bank of England (which is 506 and 1011 tonnes) to get the resulting range of between 2945 and 3451 tonnes.

Then she takes the ETF tonnes estimate (1485) away from her range to get a range of between 1460 and 1965 tonnes, as she states:

 … “Taking these ETF-related holdings into account would then leave roughly around 1,460 to 1,965 tonnes or about $59bn to $79bn worth of gold in unallocated and allocated accounts as available pool of liquidity for OTC trading activities“

But what this assumption fails to take into account is that some of this 1,460 to 1,965 tonnes that is in allocated accounts is not available as a pool of liquidity, because it is held in allocated form by investors precisely so that the bullion banks cannot get their hands on it and trade with it. In other words, it is ring fenced. Either way, a model will always output what has been input into it. Change the 10% and 20% range assumptions about the amount of commercial bank gold in the Bank of England vaults and this materially alters the numbers that can be attributed to be an ‘available pool of liquidity for OTC trading activities’.

Additionally, the portion of this residual gold that is in ‘unallocated accounts’ is not owned by any investors, it is owned by the banks. The ‘unallocated accounts’ holders merely have claims on the bullion banks for metal that is backed by a fractional-reserve trading system.

In her commentary about the silver held in the London vaults, Teves does not comment at all about the huge gap between her ETF silver in London (which UBS states as 13,759 tonnes), and the full 32000 tonnes reported by the LBMA,and does not mention how this huge gap is larger than all the ‘Custodian Vault’ silver which Thomson Reuters GFMS attributes to the entire ‘Europe’ region.

Conclusion

The amount of gold in the London LBMA gold vaults (incl. Bank of England) that is not central bank gold, that is not ETF gold, and that is not institutional allocated gold is quite a low number. What this actual number is difficult to say because a) the LBMA will not produce a proper vault report that shows ownership of gold by category of holder, and b) neither will the Bank of England in its gold vault reporting provide a breakdown between the gold owned by central banks and the gold owned by bullion banks. So there is still no real transparency in this area. Just a faint chink of light into a dark cavern.

On the topic of London vaulted silver, there appears to be a lot more silver in the LBMA vaults than even GFMS thought there was. It will be interesting to see how GFMS and the LBMA will resolve their apparent contradiction on the amount of silver stored in the London LBMA vaults.

This article originally appeared on the BulionStar.com website as "LBMA Gold Vault Data – How low is the London Gold Float?”

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Authored by Jonathan Newman via The Mises Institute,

via http://ift.tt/2u6vUPb Tyler Durden

Brazilian superstar soccer player Neymar (yes one name… on the right in the image below), just smashed all previous records for crazy spending by European football soccer teams.

Dwarfing the money in America's NFL, NBA, or MLB, the 25-year-old forward has agreed to join French side Paris St.Germain (PSG) for a stunning EUR222 million ($250 million).

As Statista's Martin Armstrong notes, the previous record, set last season when Manchester United bought midfielder Paul Pogba from Juventus, was an already astronomical €105 million.

You will find more statistics at Statista

How can a deal like this come about? The answer is release clauses. It is reasonably common practice for players, not just the elite, to have a clause in their contract which would force the club to sell if triggered.

Neymar's is €222 million. While this is an obscene amount of money, it is by no means the highest release clause. Real Madrid and Portugal megastar Cristiano Ronaldo reportedly has a clause in his contract set at €1 billion.

The unprecedented scale of the deal also sparked rumours that Barcelona could make a complaint to European footballing organisation UEFA over a failure to adhere to Financial Fair Play rules. Introduced seven years ago, the rules are designed to stop clubs from spending more than they earn.

*  *  *

This year he was placed third on Forbes magazine’s list of the highest-paid footballers behind Ronaldo and Messi.

Born in Mogi das Cruzes, a small city east of Sao Paulo, Neymar da Silva Santos Junior is the only son of former professional footballer Neymar Santos and wife Nadine.

On the pitch, during his four seasons in Catalonia, Neymar has helped Barcelona win the Spanish league twice, the Champions League once, the Spanish cup on three occasions and the FIFA Club World Cup.

*  *  *

While the transfer fee itself is a record, the now-former Barcelona player will also be paid £595,000 ($780,000) a week, it was reported. This means PSG will have to fork out £31million ($41 million) a year in wages, taking the total cost of the deal to more than £350 million over five years ($450 million).

With bonuses also included if he plays well, it could reach more than £450million ($600 million)!

But, as The Daily Mail reports, money is no issue for the French side, which is one of the world’s richest clubs following their takeover by Qatar Sports Investments (QSi), an arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund with access to £194billion.

QSI already has its own Masters golf tournament, sponsors the ‘Qatar’ Goodwood Festival and Royal Ascot, and is controversially set to host 2022 World Cup, a deal which has been surrounded by allegations of bribery and corruption.

The country – currently locked in a bitter diplomatic dispute with its neighbours who have accused its government of supporting terrorism – is seeing its economy collapse (and currency crash) as it is forced to import cows directly due to blockade shortages of milk, but is still willing to cough up all this money for one gifted young soccer player in the hope of winning Europe's biggest soccer competition – The Champions League… which has so far eluded them.

Priorities…

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I gave a talk at FreedomFest last month. Unfortunately, the video was not recorded (not even the projector worked). However, the topic is so important that I recorded the talk back in my office, to put a video to put on the Internet. My talk covers 6 areas:

1. Two pseudo gold standards
2. What do people need from a monetary system?
3. What is the role of the banker?
4. Why does gold circulate or not circulate?
5. A working definition of the gold standard
6. How do we get from here to there?

The video can be found on YouTube here or watch it below. For those interested in additional reading material, see my articles on why the world needs an Unadulterated Gold Standard, how interest rates are set in a gold standard and the need to remove capital gains tax on gold (and why that isn’t cronyism).

© 2017 Monetary Metals

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Authored by Denis MacEoin via The Gatestone Institute,

• Theresa May herself is also not entirely to be trusted in this area. Despite her calls for no tolerance for extremism, she has recently been widely criticized for blocking publication of a major report into foreign funding of extremist Muslim groups.
• For years now, radical preachers, terrorist recruiters, and fundamentalists who openly hate this country, its democratic values, and its tolerance for all faiths, have walked British streets, campaigned on university campuses, and converted and radicalised young men and women.
• What seems not to be understood about "the religion of peace" is that "peace" comes only after the entire world has been converted to Islam so that a "Dar al-Harb", the "Abode of War," will no longer even exist.
• Since the beginning of March, 17,393 people have been listed as terror suspects. — French Senate report: "Prevention of Radicalism and Regional Authorities", April 2017.

On May 26, four days after the major terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, British intelligence officials stated that they had identified 23,000 jihadist extremists living in the UK, all of them considered potential terrorist attackers. According to The Times,

About 3,000 people from the total group are judged to pose a threat and are under investigation or active monitoring in 500 operations being run by police and intelligence services. The 20,000 others have featured in previous inquiries and are categorised as posing a "residual risk".

 

The two terrorists who have struck in Britain this year — Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, and Khalid Masood, the Westminster killer — were in the pool of "former subjects of interest" and no longer subject to any surveillance.

A police officer stands guard near the Manchester Arena on May 23, 2017, following a suicide bombing by an Islamic terrorist who murdered 22 concert-goers. (Photo by Dave Thompson/Getty Images)

The report adds that the two men who beheaded British soldier Lee Rigby in London, in 2013, had been known to the security services, just as Abedi and Masood were, but had been dropped to low priority.

David Anderson, QC, the former reviewer of anti-terrorism laws, noted concerns in his 2015 report about the "speed with which things can change" around suspects and "the difficulties in knowing how best to prioritise limited surveillance resources". Senior police have also spoken of the difficulty in identifying the triggers that might "reactivate" extremist behaviour.

Others had expressed similar concerns about how the jihadi ideology, based in radical religious belief, is so intensely ingrained that it never leaves individuals and may easily reactivate a desire to commit atrocities.

Ben Wallace, Minister of State for Security at the Home Office, told The Times that the existence of a database of thousands of potential attackers clearly indicates just how serious the threat has become: "This reveals the scale of the challenge from terrorism in the 21st century," he said. "Never has it been more important to invest in intelligence-led policing."

One problem is that the police and MI5 lack enough resources to investigate any more than 3,000 suspects at a time, leaving the other 20,000 free to pass without surveillance and under the radar. According to a report issued this year by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), and detailed in The Guardian, budget cuts to the police forces in England and Wales have left law enforcement inadequately prepared:

In a stark message about the current state of policing, Zoë Billingham, Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, said the "disturbing" practices did not apply to the majority of forces but the watchdog could see the problems spreading if action was not taken.

 

"We're leading to a very serious conclusion regarding the potentially perilous state of policing," she said. "It's a red flag that we're raising at this stage. A large red flag."

Ironically, this austerity-produced situation stands in stark contradiction to comments by one of the country's leading security experts:

Anthony Glees, head of security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, said: "To have 23,000 potential killers in our midst is horrifying. We should double the size of MI5, as we did in World War Two, and expand the number of intelligence-led police by thousands. We can't go on as if this wasn't happening."

In April, as Islamic State was facing defeat in Mosul and Raqqa, a small national study found that many young British Muslims believed that jihadists returning from Syria to the UK should be given a "second chance" and should "reintegrate" within society. This is estimated to be around 800 or 850 individuals. One person interviewed argued that:

When people feel isolated and angry because they are not being treated with respect and if they go out and fight in Syria and when they come back there is no help, then I promise you, you will see more terrorism because these young people will think why should I do anything when my own Government don't care about me.

That appears to be a threat that ignores completely what sorts of crimes returnees may have committed abroad. As such individuals do return, they may well add significantly to the list of potential terrorists living in a country they had already found occasion to hate. In 2016, "the Government admitted [that] just 14 of nearly 400 returnee fighters have been jailed, raising fears the rest are living off the radar and may be vulnerable to radicalisation."

Adam Deen of London's anti-radical Quilliam Foundation stated that:

What is important here is that the more Isis are under siege and the more territory they're losing, the more they're going to channel their efforts and energies into terrorism," he said in an interview with The Independent.

 

Those individuals that have managed to get back into the country will be activated or will be conspiring to commit some kind of terrorist act. That's a major concern.

Britain is not alone in facing such potential threats, but it may have the largest population of potential terrorists.

There is confusion in Germany, for example, as to how many such individuals there are. According to a report from the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), the number of suspects is on the rise, but they list only 657 people as capable of carrying out an attack, alongside another 388 "relevant persons" who might lend assistance to perpetrators. Separate information, however, from the country's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz), stated that the number of radical Salafists in Germany had risen from 8,350 in 2015 to 10,100 in 2016 (with 680 classified as "dangerous"), and that hundreds of jihadis entered among the more than one million migrants welcomed into the country during the two previous years. Overall, however, the same agency estimates that 24,400 Islamists are active in Germany, a figures similar to that of the UK.

Things are little better in France, which, according to Gatestone author Yves Mamou, has a large but never-quantified Muslim population of at least six million. In April 2017, the French Senate published its "Prevention of Radicalism and Regional Authorities" report, showing that since the beginning of March, 17,393 people had been listed as terror suspects. As in Britain, French authorities said that not all suspects are being constantly monitored; smaller numbers are investigated at regular intervals.

In May, the general secretariat of the international police organization, Interpol, published a list of Islamic State fighters who were thought to have already returned to Europe and may be planning suicide attacks in different countries:

Interpol has circulated a list of 173 Islamic State fighters it believes could have been trained to mount suicide attacks in Europe in revenge for the group's military defeats in the Middle East.

 

The global crime fighting agency's list was drawn up by US intelligence from information captured during the assault on Isis territories in Syria and Iraq

 

European counter-terror networks are concerned that as the Isis "caliphate" collapses, there is an increasing risk of determined suicide bombers seeking to come to Europe, probably operating alone.

The situation in the UK is, in some ways, the most alarming, not only because of cuts to the police budget. Cuts have also been made to the security and intelligence services, even more sharply since the June general election. Prior to that, on June 4, Prime Minister Theresa May delivered a speech the day after the London Bridge attack. Her speech included strong promises to tackle terrorism by introducing fresh measures to strengthen existing legislation.

While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is – to be frank – far too much tolerance of extremism in our country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society. That will require some difficult, and often embarrassing, conversations.

 

Since the emergence of the threat from Islamist-inspired terrorism, our country has made significant progress in disrupting plots and protecting the public. But it is time to say "Enough is enough".

She even named the ideological basis for the attacks:

while the recent attacks are not connected by common networks, they are connected in one important sense. They are bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism.

This was progress. Three days after that, May presented proposals for fresh legislation to clamp down hard on Islamic extremism. They included amendments to Britain's 1998 Human Rights Act, which protects potential terrorists; tougher Terrorism Prevention Investigation Measures based on a 2011 Act, but in 2016 only used for six individuals; more deportations of suspects, and longer prison sentences, even though much radicalization takes place in prisons.

That was one day before the June 8 general election. May, overly confident that she would win handily and increase her majority in parliament, led a disastrous campaign that left her with a much reduced majority, forcing her to make an alliance with Northern Ireland's controversial Democratic Unionist Party. Tim Worstall, writing for Forbes magazine, wrote:

"It would be both reasonable and fair to say that Theresa May has just run the worst British election campaign of modern times… Theresa May has in fact achieved something that no one in modern times has managed, to start a general election campaign 20 percentage points up and then arrive without even a parliamentary majority for her party. There simply isn't anything to compare with this in the annals".

To make matters worse, the Labour party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, came close to winning the election and performed considerately better than anyone might have thought a month earlier. Corbyn and his increasingly far-left party had been considered unelectable. Now, they were a force to contend with in the House of Commons.

Corbyn is the last person to be entrusted with Britain's security. Addressing a Stop The War Coalition conference in 2011, he told the crowd: "I've been involved in opposing anti-terror legislation ever since I first went into Parliament in 1983". He has also opposed the UK's involvement in all foreign wars: Sir Gerald Howarth, the former Tory defence minister, said: "Jeremy Corbyn has opposed every British military intervention and represents complete capitulation and weakness". He refused for many years to condemn IRA terrorism, preferring to condemn the British army posted there. He called terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbullah his "friends"; refused to denounce them as late as 2016, and only said he regretted his support for them after heavy pressure was put on him.

Since the election, Labour has made it clear that it opposes any changes in current human rights legislation, and claims that terrorism can be tackled through the laws presently in force. Given the strains the British government is now under, especially with weak negotiations for Brexit and May's increasing unpopularity even within her party, the strong opposition within parliament is certain to weaken further attempts to block radicalism and terrorism, particularly where action against both involves (as it inevitably will) Muslims from various ethnic minority groups.

There has already been vehement opposition to the government's core anti-radicalization program, Prevent, with schoolteachers, students, and others claiming it snoops on Muslim communities. Within the Labour party, Corbyn's radical followers in the Momentum Movement are already planning to force the deselection of members of parliament who oppose Corbyn, unless the such MPs "get on board" by wholeheartedly supporting the leader and his far-left policies. As this takes place, the hard left will strengthen its grip on parliament and make it even more difficult for strong new legislation to be passed.

Theresa May herself is also not entirely to be trusted in this area. Despite her calls for no tolerance for extremism, she has recently been widely criticized for blocking publication of a major report into foreign funding of extremist Muslim groups. Following an enquiry commissioned by May's predecessor David Cameron, the report was due for publication in 2016, but is unlikely now to be revealed for public scrutiny because it is deemed too "sensitive". The sensitivity derives from Saudi Arabia being exposed as a major financier of Islamic extremism worldwide, yet May and the UK government depend heavily on selling arms and other things to the Wahhabi kingdom.

According to the London-based Henry Jackson Society, in its short report on foreign funding of extremism,

The foreign funding for Islamist extremism in Britain primarily comes from governments and government linked foundations based in the Gulf, as well as Iran. Foremost among these has been Saudi Arabia, which since the 1960s has sponsored a multimillion dollar effort to export Wahhabi Islam across the Islamic world, including to Muslim communities in the West.

 

In the UK this funding has primarily taken the form of endowments to mosques and Islamic educational institutions, which have in turn played host to extremist preachers and the distribution of extremist literature. Influence has also been exerted through the training of British Muslim religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, as well as the use of Saudi textbooks in a number of the UK's independent Islamic schools.

 

A number of Britain's most serious Islamist hate preachers sit within the Salafi-Wahhabi ideology and are linked to extremism sponsored from overseas, either by having studied in Saudi Arabia as part of scholarship programmes, or by having been provided with extreme literature and material within the UK itself.

If the British government itself prefers to cover up such ties, opting to rescue its trade balance at the cost of endangering the lives of its own citizens, our concern for the future security of the country deepens immeasurably. The UK, like much of Western Europe and Scandinavia, stands at a crossroads. For years now, radical preachers, terrorist recruiters, and fundamentalists who openly hate this country, its democratic values, and its tolerance for all faiths, have walked British streets, campaigned on university campuses, and converted and radicalized young men and women. Sometimes they have been watched, but almost none has been deported, almost none has been imprisoned, and almost none has been singled out, due to the pretense that "Islam is a religion of peace". In Islam, the whole world is divided into two parts" the Dar al-Islam [Abode of Islam] and the Dar al-Harb [Abode of War]. What seems not to be understood about "the religion of peace" is that "peace" comes only after the entire world has been converted to Islam so that a "Dar al-Harb", the "Abode of War," will no longer even exist.

Theresa May's promise of tightened legislation to protect the British public was the right response to three major recent terror attacks. Yet fall-out from the election and May's own wish to protect Saudi Arabia from scrutiny are likely to guarantee that the serious measures we so much need may never be implemented. When there are further attacks and more people die, who will step forward to give us the protection we need? Or by then will it be too late?

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While Machiavellian disciples argue that for a leader it's better to be feared than loved, the United States often sees itself as a benign hegemon, holding its shielding hand over the world, ever since she won the Second World War.

In fact, as Statista's Dyfed Loesche notes, many people around the world today fear that the United States isn't always a force for good in international politics.

According to Pew Research Center, the United States' standing in the world has gone down overall.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Surprisingly, people in allied countries, such as NATO-member Turkey, or partner countries in East Asia, such as South Korea and Japan, feel threatened by American might.

On the other end of the scale, people in India, Israel and Poland have a more positive outlook on America's role in the world.

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Authored by Robert Birdge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a calculated bet that the embattled Trump administration will interpret his expulsion of hundreds of US diplomats from Russia as more of a friendly warning than an overtly hostile act.

As US lawmakers on the weekend sent to President Trump's desk a bill that would make it virtually impossible for the US leader to revoke a new round of anti-Russia sanctions without congressional approval, Putin announced that 755 American diplomats «will have to leave Russia as a result of Washington's own policies».

Speaking on Sunday, the Russian leader – clearly exasperated by the clinical bout of Russophobia that took possession of the American psyche long before a rich real estate developer named Donald Trump emerged on the scene – delivered a message loaded with both strength and regret when he said: «We've been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like, it's not going to change in the near future … I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered».

All things considered, Putin's response was exceptional for its balance and restraint. Although 755 diplomats may sound like a small army, slashing the US side by that number gives Moscow and Washington exactly 455 civil servants each. That sounds not only fair, but logical. 

At the same time, Putin announced the seizure of two US properties in Moscow – a warehouse and a riverside retreat nestled in a wooded area along the shores of the Moscow River. Once again, this maneuver is merely tit-for-tat on the part of the Russians, and lacks enough punch to inflict any mortal wound on US-Russia relations. That is, unless the Americans – who have until Sept. 1 to comply with the expulsion order – wish for it to. 

Importantly, Putin's expulsion order is not against the Trump administration. It is a well-timed response to a malicious move by ex-President Barack Obama, who, in the waning hours of his disastrous presidency, declared 35 Russian diplomats «persona non grata», while performing a land grab on Russian properties. He gave these officials and their families just 72 hours to leave the country – and right before New Year's, the most popular Russian holiday.

At the time, Putin, confident that bilateral relations would improve under Trump, shrugged off Obama's desperate last act on the political stage. 

«We will not create problems for American diplomats. We will not expel anyone,» he said. «Furthermore, I invite all children of US diplomats accredited in Russia to the Christmas and New Year tree in the Kremlin».

Ironically, then-President-Elect Donald Trump called Putin «very smart» for not allowing Obama to cause him to react harshly to the expulsion, thereby delivering a long-term setback to US-Russia relations. What could not have been anticipated at the time, however, was to what extent the 'Deep State' – that disruptive and destructive shadow force that comprises the real power behind the Oval Office – would go to destroy the Trump presidency (It is worth mentioning that the very existence of the Deep State precludes the ludicrous notion that Russia somehow «hacked American democracy» since Moscow understands better than anyone that regardless of the US political party in power – Democrat or Republican, take your choice – the real decisions are made by a monolithic, supra-political structure that does not tolerate political freedom in any form, and least of all democratic. Any attempt to rig such a fixed system would be pure folly).

The fact that Trump almost immediately declared his intent to sign the Russian sanctions bill indicates that he either caved in to the relentless pressure by the establishment, or he was never very sincere about restoring relations with Russia in the first place. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. However, judging by the unhinged anti-Russia comments by members of his staff (UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, for example, in March told NBC: «We cannot trust Russia … We should never trust Russia»), it seems Trump was the only one in Washington in favor of fixing the US-Russia relationship. 

Indeed, after US lawmakers voted in favor of the anti-Russia bill, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered a comment that was so stupid it had to be calculated. The House and Senate votes in favor of more Russian sanctions, Tillerson said, «represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States». 

Huh?

And then Tillerson signed off with the following statement that actually carried a thinly veiled threat: «We will work closely with our friends and allies to ensure our messages to Russia, Iran, and North Korea are clearly understood». 

Tillerson, however, will now have to work extra hard to get the message across to America's European allies, especially the Germans, who are fuming mad about the latest anti-Russia sanctions. That's because the sanctions target any company that is involved in Russia’s energy export pipelines, like Nord Stream 2, a joint Russia-German project to carry Russian natural gas under the Baltic Sea, bypassing American client states, like Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States. 

In other words, what we have here is the American superpower attempting to deny the right of economic cooperation between two consenting states. In the event the US fails to get what it wants, which seems to be everything under the moon, its infantile will is enforced by the small yet lethal firearm known as 'sanctions.' Fortunately, such bumbling 'diplomacy' is transparent even to the most knee-jerk Russophobes for the very simple reason it places their own financial security at great risk.

So what is the source of this latest anti-Russia mood coming out of Washington? Briefly, it began in earnest in September 2015 when Russia made the decision to enter the Syrian fray – legally, it should be added, with an expressed invitation by President Bashar Assad – to fight against the terrorists of Islamic State. Strangely, the more damage Russian forces inflicted upon this malevolent group, the more it was criticized by US politicians. 

However, the anti-Russia witch hunt really hit its stride when it became clear that Hillary Clinton would lose the 2016 presidential election to the populist Donald Trump. The Deep State that backed her needed a scapegoat for the devastating loss, and Russia, as usual, provided a convenient suspect. To this day, seven months after Trump entered the White House, the world has not seen a single scrap of hard evidence to suggest Russian interference in the election. But that has not stopped the media from continuing its non-stop attacks on both Trump and Putin (We may eventually see Vice President Mike Pence, who espouses the world view of the US elite, take over the reins of the US presidency. This week, after meeting the trembling leaders of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Pence delivered this line of rubbish: «Russia seeks to redraw international borders by force, undermine democracies of sovereign nations and divide the free nations of Europe»). 

Although we may hope that Donald Trump will see the writing on the wall as far as US-Russia relations go, and find ways to restore bilateral relations between the world's two nuclear powers, things are not so simple as that. Trump has been assailed by a mainstream media that can only be described as out of control and half-insane. Worse than the military industrial complex, it is truly hell-bent on war, which became clear after Trump bombed a Syrian airfield in April and became an overnight darling of the Neo-Liberal goon squad. When Trump eventually curbed his appetite for violence and bloodshed, he once again became a target for media-sponsored destruction.

Clearly, either the media and its many powerful proponents will get their way and bring down Trump, or Trump – and in direct contradiction to history's tragic lessons (read Kennedy and Lincoln) – will somehow emerge victorious against the Deep State. The options for Russia, not to mention the American people themselves in such a dire and dangerous situation, are rather slim. A bit like leaving Las Vegas with more in your pocket than when you first arrived.

In conclusion, Putin's move was a long time coming, yet this may have been exactly what the Deep State – anxious for any excuse to permanently wreck US-Russia relations – had been eagerly anticipating.

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Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

We should be scared to death that Sally Q. Yates served as a prosecutor in the Justice (sic) Department for 27 years. In the New York Times, Sally takes high umbrage to Trump’s criticism of his attorney general, Sessions, and blows Trump’s disappointment with Sessions into an attack by Trump on the rule of law.

Sally has it backwards. The rule of law is being attacked by the appointment of a special prosecutor to find something on Trump in the absence of any evidence of a crime.

In 1940 US attorney general Robert Jackson warned federal prosecutors against “picking the man and then putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.

 

It is in this realm – in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense – that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies.

 

It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views or being personally obnoxious to, or in the way of, the prosecutor himself.”

Robert Jackson has given a perfect description of what is happening to President Trump at the hands of special prosecutor Robert Mueller. Trump is vastly unpopular with the ruling establishment, with the Democrats, with the military/security complex and their bought and paid for Senators, and with the media for proving wrong all the smart people’s prediction that Hillary would win the election in a landslide.

From day one this cabal has been out to get Trump, and they have given the task of framing up Trump to Mueller. An honest man would not have accepted the job of chief witch-hunter, which is what Mueller’s job is.

The breathless hype of a nonexistent “Russian collusion” has been the lead news story for months despite the fact that no one, not the CIA, not the NSA, not the FBI, not the Director of National Intelligence, can find a scrap of evidence. In desperation, three of the seventeen US intelligence agencies picked a small handful of employees thought to lack integrity and produced an unverified report, absent of any evidence, that the hand-picked handful thought that there might have been a collusion. On the basis of what evidence they do not say.

That nothing more substantial than this led to a special prosecutor shows how totally corrupt justice in America is.

Furthermore the baseless charge itself is an absurdity. There is no law against an incoming administration conversing with other governments. Indeed, Trump, Flynn, and whomever should be given medals for quickly moving to smooth Russian feathers ruffled by the reckless Bush and Obama regimes. What good for anyone can come from ceaselessly provoking a nuclear Russian bear?

The new Russian sanctions bill passed by Congress is an act of reckless idiocy. It was done without consulting Europe which will bear the cost of the bill and might reject it, thus sending shock waves through the fragile American empire.

Congress’ thoughtless bill is a violation of the separation of powers. Foreign policy is the executive branch’s arena. The feckless Obama put the sanctions on. Obviously, if a president can put sanctions on, a president can take sanctions off.

Trump should take his case to the American people, not via Twitter, but with a major speech. Fox News and Alex Jones, either of which has a larger audience than CNN and the New York Times, would broadcast Trump’s speech. Trump should make the case that Congress is over-reaching its constitutional authority and also preventing a reduction in dangerous tensions between nuclear powers. Trump should ask the American people forthright if they want to be driven into war with Russia by gratuitous provocation after provocation.

Because of the powers that Bush and Obama thoughtlessly gave the presidency, Trump can declare a national emergency, cancel Congress, and arrest whomever he wishes. Of course, the presstitute media would do everything possible to sway the people and the US military against the state of emergency, but if there were a real “Russian collusion,” Trump would have Putin initiate a major crisis that would bring the people and the military to Trump’s side. That no such thing will happen is total proof that there is no “Russian collusion.”

Even the Washington Post, an initiator and leader of the breathless “Russian collusion” lie has now published an article, “The quest to Prove Collusion is Crumbling,” that concludes that the entire orchestration is a hoax. 

As the Washington Post article says, “the story that never was is not happening.”

So the great “superpower America,” the “exceptional, indispensable country,” has wasted 7 months of a new presidency in a hoax when it could have been repairing the relations with Russia and China that were seriously damaged by the criminal Bush and Obama regimes. What are the utter fools that comprise the American Establishment thinking? Why do the morons want high tensions with the two powers that can remove the United States and its impotent European and British vassals from the face of the earth in a few minutes? Who gains from this? What is wrong with the American people that they cannot understand that they are being driven to their destruction? Insouciant America is clearly not a sufficiently strong term.

To come back to the ridiculous Sally Q. Yates, clearly Sally is the embodiment of the Insouciant American. She says she spent 27 years as a Justice (sic) Department prosecutor. Yet, she is able to write this utter nonsense: “I know from first hand experience how seriously the career prosecutors and agents take their responsibility to make fair and impartial decisions based solely on the facts and the law and nothing else”

Where was Sally Q. Yates when US attorney Rudy Giuliani used the presstitute media to frame up Michael Milken and Leona Helmsley? Giuliani never had any valid indictment against Milken but used the media and FBI harassment of Milken’s relatives to force Milken into a plea bargain and then had Milken double-crossed by the bimbo judge, who was denied her reward to the Supreme Court because it came to light that she illegally employed illegal aliens.

Today, thanks to the corrupt American media, 99.9% of people who remember the Milken case think that Milken was convicted of insider trading, a charge for which no evidence was ever presented and which was totally absent from the coerced plea bargain that the media helped Giuliani secure.

As best I remember my investigation of the Helmsley case, Rudy dropped charges against a corrupt accountant in exchange for false testimony against Helmsley. As I remember, both Judge Robert Bork and Alan Dershowitz, attorneys in the case, told me that the charge of tax evasion against Helmsley was preposterous. The Helmsley hotels were fully depreciated and were surviving by guest rentals alone. If the Helmsleys had wanted to reduce their income tax, all they needed to do was to sell their existing depreciated holdings and purchase other hotels in order to crank up the depreciation that reduces income tax.

Whatever Justice (sic) Department case you look at, it stinks to high heaven. It is extremely difficult to find any justice in America.

But Sally is certain that President Trump’s criticism of his weak AG means the end of the rule of law in the US.

As many on the left would say, the US has never had a rule of law. It has a rule of power. How else do we explain the enormous war crimes of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes, and the war crimes to come from the Trump or successor Pence regime, that never will be tried at Nuremberg?

via http://ift.tt/2ups03b Tyler Durden

China's 19th National Congress of the Communist Party – the quinquennial confab where the party selects new members of the Politburo, its ruling council – is expected to begin this fall (official dates have not yet been publicly announced). And in an effort to guarantee that the leadership reshuffle goes off without a hitch, President Xi Jinping is tightening the government’s grip on the internet to help protect the official narrative that Xi's "Chinese Dream" remains intact.

According to Reuters, China held a drill on Thursday with internet service providers to practice taking down websites deemed harmful.

“Internet data centers (IDC) and cloud companies – which host website servers – were ordered to participate in a three-hour drill to hone their "emergency response" skills, according to at least four participants that included the operator of Microsoft's cloud service in China.

 

China's Ministry of Public Security called for the drill "in order to step up online security for the 19th Party Congress and tackle the problem of smaller websites illegally disseminating harmful information", according to a document circulating online attributed to a cyber police unit in Guangzhou.”

The Communist Party “protects” China’s 1.4 billion citizens from the influence of subversive foreign using nationwide system of internet censorship known as the “Great Firewall.” But as the country’s financial regulators grow increasingly concerned about the country’s dangerously overleveraged economy, which is threatening to sink the country’s fragile stock market, it’s likely that the government sees local business media as a threat. Two years ago, following the spectacular runup and collapse of the Shanghai Composite, authorities arrested one of China’s most respected financial journalist and forced him to make an on air “apology” after the government blamed his reporting for triggering the crash.

Earlier this year, authorities began a crackdown on VPNs like the Tor network which can allow mainland residents to circumvent the “great firewall.”

“China has been tightening its grip on the internet, including a recent drive to crack down on the usage of VPNs to bypass internet censorship, enlisting the help of state-owned telecommunication service providers to upgrade the so-called Great Firewall.

Apple last week removed VPN apps from its app store, while Amazon's China partner warned users not to use VPNs.”

During the drill, the country’s internet data centers were asked to practice shutting down target web pages and report relevant details to the police, including the affected websites' contact details, IP address and server location, according to Reuters. With five of the seven Politburo members retiring, this year’s National Congress presents President Xi with his best opportunity yet to consolidate power. And as tensions escalate between China and several of its geopolitical rivals (notably the US, which is theatening a trade war, and India, which could instigate a real war), expect the crackdown to continue.

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