freeze Archives - The Automatic Earth

Through delay, the Supreme Court has effectively conveyed immunity on Donald Trump. He has gotten what he wanted—to push off his federal criminal trial until after the election. pic.twitter.com/wDT7S28XHx

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) June 20, 2024

And how about Jim Acosta? Never seen those people before on this platform. Did they buy their way in?

Trump today isn't the candidate he was in 2016 or 2020.

Now a convicted felon and found liable for rape and financial fraud, Trump has made his plans for a second term clear: revenge.

We cannot allow a convicted felon motivated solely by self-interest back in the White House. pic.twitter.com/SkeOW4aZZo

— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) June 20, 2024

“The report also notes how Biden’s support among Black and Latino women is in free fall, calling it “especially striking.”

• Biden Haemorrhaging Voters In All Demographics (MN)

Analysis By The New York Times reveals that support for Joe Biden among women is at a 20 year low for any Democrat. The polling shows that Donald Trump has an eight-point lead over Biden among women. The turnaround is once again insane. Four years ago, Biden led Trump by 13 points among women. Now, Trump has gained 21 points. The figures were gleaned from the Times’s average of more than 30 polls conducted since January. The Times notes “Overall, twice as many women say they were better off financially under Mr. Trump.”It adds that “Young women, a key constituency that Democrats are hoping to retain this cycle, were nearly three times as likely to say things were better for them financially under Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden.” The report also notes how Biden’s support among Black and Latino women is in free fall, calling it “especially striking.”

“He is winning among Black women in the KFF survey by 58 percentage points, but that represents a significant drop from his 86 percentage point margin among Black women in the approach to the 2020 election, according to an average of New York Times/Siena College polls from that election,” the report notes. It adds that “Biden’s lead with Hispanic women has also shrunk substantially, to about 12 points.”As we previously highlighted, Biden’s loss of support among Black voters as they shift allegiance to Trump is historic. CNN data reporter Harry Enten expressed shock at just how much support Biden has lost among the demographic, noting “We’re careening towards a historic performance for a Republican presidential candidate, the likes of which we have not seen in six decades.”

Meanwhile yet another poll, this one from Quinnipiac, shows that Biden’s support among young voters is plummeting. “Biden is out of step with young people on a number of key issues,” Aidan Kohn-Murphy, the founder of Gen-Z for Change, which was previously TikTok for Biden, told the Washington Post. He called “the frustrations of young progressive leaders a barometer of widespread dissatisfaction among Gen Z voters.” Pundits and Democratic insiders have suggested that the upcoming debate against Trump is Biden’s final chance to turn things around, and if he doesn’t he could be forced to stand down.

'This Is The Entire Election': Van Jones Says If Biden 'Messes Up' During Debate, 'It's Game Over' pic.twitter.com/RMvaAg3FMu

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 20, 2024

“..Blinken told Moscow that Ukraine would join NATO and that Washington thought it was OK to put nuclear weapons there. “So no wonder the Russians hit the roof..”

• Trump Points To ‘Cause’ Of Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was triggered by the irresponsible and provocative rhetoric of US President Joe Biden and his administration about Kiev joining NATO, Donald Trump has said. Trump, who is seeking a rematch with Biden for the presidency in November, made the comments during a conversation on foreign policy with ‘All-In’ podcast co-host David Sacks on Thursday. “For 20 years, I heard that if Ukraine goes into NATO, it’s a real problem for Russia. I’ve heard that for a long time. And I think that’s really why this war started,” Trump said. The Republican presidential candidate pointed out that there had been no talk about armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine when he was in the White House, but as soon as Biden replaced him, things began to deteriorate. “I thought that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin may be – well, look, he’s a good negotiator, I thought he was going to be doing that for negotiation purposes,” Trump said.

“Then all of a sudden, they attacked, and I said, ‘what’s going on here?’” According to the former president, one of the key issues was the rhetoric coming out of the White House. “Biden was saying all of the wrong things. And one of the wrong things he was saying [was] ‘no, Ukraine will go into NATO’,” Trump said. Sacks pointed out that in January 2022 or thereabouts, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Moscow that Ukraine would join NATO and that Washington thought it was OK to put nuclear weapons there. “So no wonder the Russians hit the roof,” he noted. “Well, let’s say you were running Russia. You wouldn’t be too happy,” Trump replied. “And that’s always been off the table. It’s always been understood that that was a no-no,” he added, addressing Kiev’s potential NATO membership.

Floating the idea of Ukraine in NATO was “very provocative,” Trump said. “And now it’s even more provocative. I hear routinely they’re now talking about Ukraine entering NATO. And now I hear France wants to go in and fight. Well, I wish them a lot of luck!” Putin has specifically pointed to Western statements about Ukraine’s possible membership in the US-led bloc as a security threat Moscow could not ignore. Ukraine’s neutrality has been one of the non-negotiable Russian conditions for the conflict to end. NATO has argued that its “open door” policy is essential and that no one had the right of veto over it, but also that its expansion eastward was not the cause of the conflict. In an interview with Time magazine earlier this month, Biden claimed that the US is “the strongest nation” because of NATO expansion, and that he told Putin he would get “NATOization of Finland” instead of “the Finlandization of NATO” during their June 2021 summit in Switzerland.

Wait a minute. Didn’t Biden, Blinken and the deep state media tell you that Russia invading Ukraine was totally ‘unprovoked’? pic.twitter.com/8jRHeFlvsB

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) June 21, 2024

“Ukraine would’ve never happened, the Israeli attack would’ve never happened, and inflation would’ve never happened – those are three big things..”

• Trump Talks Ukraine, NATO And Hints At “The Next AI Trade” (ZH)

Just two weeks after Craft Ventures co-founder David Sacks hosted a high-profile fundraiser for former President Trump at his Silicon Valley mansion, filled with venture capitalists and tech elites, Trump made an appearance on Sacks’ podcast on Thursday, covering a wide range of topics from taxes and tariffs to energy to artificial intelligence to foreign policy decisions to Ukraine to China to Covid to immigration and many other issues the Biden administration seems to be failing on. The podcast features Sacks, entrepreneurs Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, who spoke with Trump for about 50 minutes – asking intelligent and clear questions. There were no ‘gotchas’ like you see with corporate media activists. Sacks began the interview by explaining how business leaders at his fundraiser expressed tremendous difficulty in today’s economy under the Biden administration.

“You got the crypto guys who just want a framework. They just want the government to tell them how to operate – and they can’t get that. You have no M&A happening right now in tech. The real estate guys can’t get loans because interest rates are through the roof, and there’s a credit crunch. So I think one of the common themes we just heard across that dinner was that it was just so hard to do business right now,” Sacks said. He then asked the former president: “What are the three things that you would do to kind of get things moving again, you know if you’re reelected?” Trump responded: “Regulation Regulation and Taxes – Okay. I gave the biggest tax cut in the history of our country a lot to the business,” adding, “As you know, companies were paying 40% 45% including state and city taxes in many cases, and we got it down to 21% – would like to get it down lower.”

Trump defended his tariff proposals against criticism that they would spark more inflation, asserting the policy was essential for maintaining the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. He stated he would penalize countries that abandoned their peg to the dollar by slapping them with tariffs on their products coming in the US, adding, “With tariffs, it gives you a tremendous power.” Trump then pivoted to energy, in which he said, “We have more liquid gold under our feet,” referring to fossil fuels. He focused on energy independence and the need for reliable power, not necessarily overloading the nation’s power grid with unreliable wind and solar. The former president appears to have been sold on ‘The Next AI’ trade and the importance of powering up America for the digital age. “To be a leader in AI, the amount of electricity that is like double what we have right now and even triple what we have right now,” he said, adding that “a windmill turning with its blade knocking out the birds and everything else is not going to be able to make us competitive.”

Trump also said, “Nuclear is okay with me … and you have to do it in a way that makes sense,” explaining that the future of America’s nuclear power plant revival is likely to be based on small, advanced reactors instead of massive plants. Sacks then shifts the conversation to foreign policy, asking Trump, “Can you guarantee that no matter what, you’re not going to put American boots on the ground in Ukraine?” Trump responded: “I wouldn’t do it. It’s different for France. You know they’re neighbors, and more or less, we have an ocean in between. It’s different for Germany, although Germany’s much less involved than it should be, and other countries, but uh, you know, we have a big ocean in between.” “Ukraine would’ve never happened, the Israeli attack would’ve never happened, and inflation would’ve never happened – those are three big things,” Trump continued.

“..this Court may have engaged in actions fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities attendant to donning the black robe and sitting in judgment,”

• Trump Seeks Recusal of NY Civil Fraud Judge Who Fined Him $454 Million (ET)

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump demanded a recusal of a New York civil fraud trial judge over allegations that he discussed the case with a third party. “Allegations have surfaced revealing this Court may have engaged in actions fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities attendant to donning the black robe and sitting in judgment,” Trump attorneys Alina Habba and Clifford Robert wrote in a motion on Thursday. In the motion, his attorneys cited public comments made by a real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey to a local NBC affiliate that he had allegedly spoken with Judge Arthur Engoron several weeks before the judge fined the former president $454 million for falsely inflating his and his company’s assets. At the time, a spokesperson for the judge denied anything wrong occurred. “I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago. I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking. … I wanted him to know what I think and why … I really want him to get it right,” Mr. Bailey said in the interview.

Later, he said that the ”word Donald Trump” was never mentioned in their conversation. In his comments to NBC, Mr. Bailey claimed that the judge asked him “a lot of questions” and he “gave him everything I knew.” He added, “He had a lot of questions, you know about certain cases. We went over it.” The judge has not publicly responded to Mr. Bailey’s specific claims. No witnesses have confirmed the lawyer’s allegations about the conversation. Meanwhile, a New York State’s Office of Court Administration spokesman denied that the conversation took place about the Trump case, adding that Judge Engoron’s decision was not influenced by any outside forces. The Epoch Times contacted the court administration office for comment last month but received no reply. “No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person,“ court spokesperson Al Baker told multiple news outlets.

”The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual.” But attorneys for the former president argued that the alleged conversation with Judge Engoron violated the New York Code of Judicial Conduct because it was not disclosed to the former president’s counsel. “Mr. Bailey has publicly stated that these communications with this court occurred mere weeks prior to issuance of the decision and final judgment in this case,” the Trump attorneys claimed. “The code flatly prohibits such communications.” The motion also took issue with the court’s statement last month that Judge Engoron wasn’t influenced, saying that it “does nothing to mitigate the perception of impropriety created by the fact of the ex parte communication.” Ex parte communication is a type of interaction by a judge with people interested in the outcome of a case, including a juror, witness, parties, attorneys, and law enforcement personnel. They are generally prohibited because they can influence the outcome of the case.

“The Code does not carve out an exception for short conversations or communications this Court subjectively or defensively deems insignificant. Rather, the Code seeks to prevent a judge from acting in a way that would undermine the integrity of the proceedings and the judiciary more broadly,” former President Trump’s attorneys added. The former president has appealed Judge Engoron’s judgment against him, saying that the fine was “in excess of its jurisdiction.” New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the civil lawsuit in 2022, seeking to penalize the Trump Organization and asking the judge to bar the former president from doing business in New York state. In his decision, Judge Engoron ruled that the “defendants submitted blatantly false financial data” as they attempted to borrow money at better loan rates, which resulted in ”fraudulent financial statements.” “Indeed, Donald Trump testified that, even today, he does not believe the Trump Organization needed to make any changes based on the facts that came out during this trial,” the judge wrote.

“Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari,” or appeal..”

• Appeals Court Denies Steve Bannon’s Emergency Bid to Avoid Prison (ET)

A federal appeals court late on June 20 denied Steve Bannon’s emergency request to delay his prison sentence. In a split ruling, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that Mr. Bannon’s request “does not warrant a departure from the general rule that a defendant ’shall … be detained’ following conviction and imposition of a sentence of imprisonment.” Mr. Bannon, 70, who was an adviser to President Donald Trump, was convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison. He had been allowed to remain free pending an appeal, but after the appeals court in May rejected his appeal, the judge recently ordered him to report to prison on July 1. Defendants can remain free if they raise a “substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal [or] an order for a new trial” and Mr. Bannon had done that, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said previously. However, in light of the appeals court ruling, that was no longer the case, Judge Nichols said on June 6. He gave Mr. Bannon leave to seek a stay of his order, which, if granted, would delay the prison sentence.

Mr. Bannon has said he was relying on counsel when he declined to cooperate with congressional subpoenas. In an emergency motion to the appeals court, his lawyers said that there is a substantial question surrounding whether people who rely on the advice of counsel can be prosecuted under a law that bars “willfully” not complying with subpoenas from the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate. In Licavoli v. United States, a 1961 ruling, the appeals court concluded that deliberately refusing to abide by congressional subpoenas was a violation of the law. That a defendant did so “upon the advice of a lawyer is no defense,” the court said at the time. While both Judge Nichols and an appeals court panel cited Licavoli in denying Mr. Bannon’s arguments, Mr. Bannon’s lawyers said that the Supreme Court would likely reject the precedent if presented with the case. “As the panel acknowledged, the Supreme Court has since emphasized the ‘general’ rule‘ that ’willfully’ means a defendant must act with ‘knowledge that his conduct was unlawful,’ an interpretation that strongly favors Mr. Bannon,” they wrote.

“But the panel felt obligated to disregard the Supreme Court’s “‘general’ rule” because of the sixty-year-old decision in Licavoli. The Supreme Court itself is not so bound, however, and there is at least a fair chance that court would stick to its general rule—and adopt Mr. Bannon’s interpretation of §192—which necessarily makes the issue a ’substantial’ one.”Prosecutors, on the other hand, urged the court to deny Mr. Bannon’s motion, asserting he has failed to show that he’s raised a substantial question of law or fact as needed. U.S. Circuit Judges Cornelia Pillard, appointed under President Barack Obama, and Bradley Garcia, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sided with the government. Mr. Bannon “argues that the Supreme Court, or this court sitting en banc, is likely to overrule our squarely applicable decision in Licavoli v. United States,” they said. But the judges said that the nation’s top court “has treated the willfulness requirement of the contempt of Congress statute in ways that ‘firmly support … Licavoli’s holding.’”

They added later: “Bannon’s proposal—that to prove willful default the government must establish that the witness knew that his conduct was unlawful—cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s approach to the statute. If an assertion of good-faith reliance on advice of counsel excused a witness’s wholesale noncompliance, even as it is plainly unavailable to a more cooperative witness who appears but refuses to answer certain questions, Congress’s power of inquiry would be ‘nulli[fied].’” In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Walker, an appointee of President Trump’s, wrote that the Supreme Court could very well end up ruling in favor of Mr. Bannon. “For a court unbound by Licavoli, like the Supreme Court, the proper interpretation of ‘willfully’ in Section 192” is “a ‘close’ question or one that very well could be decided the other way,” he said. Due to this, “Bannon should not go to prison before the Supreme Court considers his forthcoming petition for certiorari,” or appeal, the judge added.

“The decision has been made to turn the US into a Tower of Babel..”

• Biden Regime Amnesties 350,000 Illegal Aliens (Paul Craig Roberts)

The anti-American Biden Regime is fully intent on turning the once proud United States of America into a Tower of Babel. During Biden’s 3.5 years in the White House, his open, undefended border policy has allowed 3.6 million immigrant-invaders to occupy large areas of the US. California and Seattle, Washington, now hire immigrant-invaders to police American citizens. When citizens are policed by illegals, is it any longer their country? Various American cities in the hands of democrats want to legalize voting by immigrant-invaders. Democrat members of Congress want to hire immigrant-invaders as US soldiers. The question before us is: Does US citizenship any longer have any value and any meaning?

Polls show that Hispanic Americans themselves support the deportation of immigrant-invaders. Hispanic Democrats say they are going to vote for Trump. According to the report, they see the Biden regime’s open border policy “as a slap in the face when millions of people not only did not have to go through the process but on top of that, are getting resources that they don’t qualify for.” The Biden regime could not care less as the intention is to steal the election yet again, or imprison Trump, or assassinate him. The decision has been made to turn the US into a Tower of Babel. That train has left the station.

“The roster of “Joe Biden’s” failures is so deep that all Mr. Trump has to do is remind the audience what they well-know adds up to an apparently deliberate effort to wreck the nation..”

• A Door Closes, A Window Opens (Kunstler)

Now that the gunplay and colorful flash-mobbery of Juneteenth has concluded, it’s on to next week’s big debate between the two major party candidates — if debate is even the right description for what is more like a joint press conference conducted by one candidate’s PR firm. What does the reality-starved public think it will see? Probably anything but a fair fight. It’s hard to imagine what possessed “Joe Biden” to decide this was a good idea for him (unless he wasn’t the decider). Since we’re in an era of archetypal psychodrama, the event looks more like a ritual sacrifice. His recent public performances have been, shall we say, less than reassuring in both utterance and physical poise. He comes off as Captain Queeg meets Mr. Magoo. So, you have to wonder if some ancient tropism-of-the-mind steers him to certain destruction, egged on by those of his own faction who will benefit from his exit.

The sordid spectacle of the Alvin Bragg prosecution has backfired spectacularly as even the president’s own cheerleaders begin to perceive the frightful dishonesty of a politicized DOJ that could just as easily be turned on them. Rachel Maddow and Joy Behar rehearsed their persecution fantasies for all to see on air this week — and, of course, and as usual, it was a sheer psychological projection of what their own party has been up to for eight long years. One supposes that “Joe Biden” will follow exactly that script next Thursday, as he accuses Mr. Trump of being “a dictator,” Adolf Hitler 2.0, seeking to use the levers of power to terrorize the defenders of democracy. It’s hard to see how he might get away with that. All Mr. Trump has to do is aver to the long list of malicious prosecutions, including the ones aimed at himself, launched lately against “JB’s” opponents.

And he might throw in the regime’s lust to suppress free speech and truth itself — as in the Hunter Biden laptop monkey-business and hiding the facts around the Covid-19 fiasco. Speaking of which, this would be the best opportunity for Mr. Trump to come clean, if he can, about his role in the mRNA vaccine roll-out that has now morphed into what looks like the biggest disaster in modern medicine. It appears obvious that, as president, Mr. Trump was buffaloed by “the experts” in a culture that worships expertise. How exactly would he have opposed the White House Coronavirus Task Force headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci? And backed by the combined forces of the CDC, the FDA, the NIAID, the NIH, and every medical board from sea to shining sea? Should he have just said, Nah, we’re not gonna do that? I don’t think so. But there won’t be a better moment, or a bigger audience, to explain how all that actually worked, and went wrong.

Since Mr. Trump’s temperament has drawn the most intense objurgation from his detractors, the easiest thing he can do in this debate is just mind his manners, and not allow himself to be baited or taunted. The roster of “Joe Biden’s” failures is so deep that all Mr. Trump has to do is remind the audience what they well-know adds up to an apparently deliberate effort to wreck the nation: the open border and the growing record of atrocious crimes committed by illegal aliens plus the immense anxiety about the intentions of jihadists and other nefarious foreigners ushered in by Homeland Security; the idiocy of our role in the Ukraine War and how easily the conflict could be concluded by willing negotiation; the cratering on-the-ground economy of goods and services (minus government hand-outs, bail-outs, subsidies, and statistical shell games); the out-of-control Deep State intel blob that is eating away at our basic liberties; the insane race-and-gender hustles aimed at sowing hatred and disordering normal modes of human relations; and much more that has been done to insult and humiliate the people of this land.

I wrote in the comments yesterday that I saw a huge increase in anti-Trump tweets on my X. When I see Mary Manley write “Trump has repeatedly forgotten who the current president is..”, that feels the same.

• Simon Says Freeze (Manley)

The fundraiser appeared to be the second time that Biden had wandered away from the stage of a political event and needed to be guided back by another political leader. While critics of the president say his cognitive abilities are failing, the White House has shot back that Republicans are manipulating videos and spreading “disinformation”. A recent star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles has sparked a debate about whether or not US President Joe Biden froze on stage and had to be snapped back to reality by former President Barack Obama, whom Biden was vice president to. The claim was first published by the New York Post on Sunday, who said the president had to be led off stage by Obama in an awkward moment. The sitting president, the former president, as well as the celebrity late-night host Jimmy Kimmel stood for applause following a 45-minute interview at the Peacock Theater. But while the men stood for applause, “Biden’s gaze seemed to become fixed on the crowd for a full 10 seconds until [Obama] took his wrist and led him offstage,” the New York Post claimed.

The Biden campaign reportedly raised more than $30 million at the event where Hollywood stars including George Clooney, Julia Robert and Barbara Streisand headlined. Tickets to the event ranged from $250 to $500,000. The Biden campaign is trying to fight back against the financial upswing of former President Donald Trump’s campaign which raised more than $50 million during an April fundraiser in Florida. Polling has also shown Biden falling behind Trump in key states including Arizona, Nevada and Florida. However, hundreds of anti-Israel protesters swarmed the event and attempted to block entry to the fundraiser. According to the Post, protesters shouted such chants including, “Biden, Biden you’re a liar, we demand a ceasefire.” Police were called in to keep the protesters away from the theater, but no arrests were made, the Post said, citing the Los Angeles Police Department. The White House hit back against the claims that Biden had froze, and accused right-wing critics of selectively editing videos in a “misinformation” campaign against the president.

The White House shared footage of what they say was the president pausing to take in the applause. “It tells you everything that we need to know about how desperate Republicans are here,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s daily press briefing. She added that “the manipulated videos [are] done in bad faith”. Last week, the Post also shared a clip of the US leader apparently freezing during a skydiving demonstration in Italy on Thursday where he was meeting with other G7 leaders. Biden seemed to walk away from the group of leaders to speak to a parachuter when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had to reel him back in for the photo op. Both Biden and Trump have been criticized for their age and mental health. Trump is just three years younger than Biden who is 81-years-old. Biden has often stumbled over his words, fallen on a stairway and said hello during a White House event to a former congresswoman who had recently died.

Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly forgotten who the current president is, and identified his former ambassador to the UN as the former speaker, has often mispronounced simple words and repeatedly rambled and followed tangents during his speeches, US News reported. The American psychologist Dr. John Gartner claimed that Trump – America’s apparent presidential frontrunner – first showed intermittent examples of mental collapse in 2017 and that “now, he is getting worse.” “He can’t get through a whole rally without revealing himself. And, because this is a progressive illness, he will continue to get worse. And if he is like most patients like this, at some point, he is literally going to fall off the cognitive cliff and he will be completely incapacitated,” Gartner told The Hill.

And don’t expect a fifth.

• Putin’s Peace Initiative Is Russia’s Fourth Proposal On Ukraine – Lavrov (TASS)

The peace initiative that Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined on June 14 is Moscow’s fourth proposal on settling the Ukraine conflict, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. “Now we have come up with the next, actually fourth proposal from Russia [on Ukrainian settlement] in the form of an initiative by President Putin on June 14,” the top diplomat said at a press conference after a session of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) Council of Foreign Ministers. Had the agreement on the political settlement not been disrupted in February 2014, Ukraine would have now been within the 1991 boundaries that “it dreams so sweetly now,” Lavrov said.

Ukraine itself “destroyed its territorial integrity with the hands of those who came to power through a bloody state coup and began to impose Russophobic and Neo-Nazi rules,” Russia’s top diplomat stressed. “Agreements were reached in Minsk in February 2015 and, had they been implemented, Ukraine would have restored its territorial integrity but, of course, already without Crimea. But Ukraine showed no desire to preserve its territorial integrity at the cost of providing elementary autonomous rights to Donbass, Lugansk and Donetsk, including the right to speak in their mother tongue,” he went on to say.

“The next stage, when a chance was missed again to keep Ukraine’s territorial integrity in some form involved the Istanbul accords of April 2022 that also guaranteed Ukraine its territorial integrity but based on the realities that had emerged on the ground by that time,” the Russian foreign minister said. “And again, as you know, Western handlers prohibited [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky to sign these agreements,” Lavrov said. “I have no doubts that serious politicians, and some have remained there somewhere, understand the need to use some intellectual and diplomatic skills and begin to think about realpolitik instead of concocted illusions,” Russia’s top diplomat said.

“Some German politicians have since floated other “incentives” to entice Ukrainians to return home, including stripping them of welfare payments..”

• Kiev Talking To EU About Extraditing Ukrainian Citizens (RT)

Kiev is holding negotiations with Brussels on the potential extradition of any Ukrainians who crossed into the bloc illegally, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told the US-funded broadcaster RFE/RL. Ukraine’s border guards are struggling to stem the flow of men fleeing the country to evade military service amid continued mobilization efforts. “We are consulting with our colleagues from the European Union,” Klimenko said when asked if Kiev would like the EU to extradite those who have crossed illegally. “These negotiations will continue regarding the possible return of our citizens,” he added. Ukraine announced a general mobilization in February 2022, and barred most men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Kiev’s draft campaign has been marred by widespread corruption; thousands have attempted to depart illegally by either forging documents or attempting to bypass border controls.

Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly said they want individuals of military age to be returned from abroad. In October last year, Klimenko revealed that authorities were seeking ways to “justly” penalize citizens who had fled abroad to avoid conscription. Multiple EU states, including Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, have refused to consider such extraditions, arguing that Ukrainians must be treated as refugees in the bloc. Some German politicians have since floated other “incentives” to entice Ukrainians to return home, including stripping them of welfare payments. In the interview published on Friday, Klimenko admitted that the EU was “mostly” unanimous in its rejection of extradition. He also confirmed that border guards are detaining “dozens of people every day” who seek to cross the border illegally, either by swimming across rivers, traversing forests and mountains or using fake documents at checkpoints.

In early June, the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service said that at least 45 men had died of drowning and other causes in attempts to depart. Klimenko also admitted it is “difficult” to man the nation’s western border because of a lack of personnel. “The border with Romania, with Slovakia, Poland, Moldova, Hungary is minimally protected on our side” he said. The minister refused to reveal the total number of border detentions since the start of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow, but said “tens of thousands” was an exaggeration. Some 12,700 men have illegally crossed from Ukraine into Romania alone since the start of the conflict, RFE/RL has reported, citing border police.

“..the head of the now dying state has emphatically dashed the constitutional status of the Verkhovna Rada as the sole representative and legislative body..”

• Medvedev Cites Facts Of Zelensky Usurping Power (TASS)

Vladimir Zelensky has been usurping power long before his presidential authority expired on May 21, 2024 by committing a number of political crimes, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said. “The talentless buffoon and his clique of gangsters had long before stopped giving a damn to the Constitution of their own state, and began joyfully, nostrils flared in drug-induced excitement, greedily grab the power,” Medvedev wrote on his VKontakte page. He explained that in 1999, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine stated that the aim of the functional division of state power into legislative, executive and judicial (see Article 6 of the Constitution of Ukraine) was to prevent any of the branches from fully assuming the state power. Article 75 of the Ukrainian Constitution says that the sole body of legislative power in Ukraine is the Parliament — the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

“Article 106 of the said Constitution states that the head of the state ‘signs laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,’ and ‘has the right to veto laws adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with their subsequent return for repeat consideration by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine,'” Medvedev noted, pointing out that, according to the Ukrainian Constitution, the president may not sign a law only when he used his veto right and returned it to the Parliament for reconsideration. “However, to the head thug of a criminal community zelensky the Base Law is null and void. As his country’s president, he neither signed nor ‘returned for repeat consideration’ (did not veto) as many as 32 laws, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada! Just think: he simply hid them in his drawer thus depriving the people of regulating a huge number of issues. He began doing it occasionally back in 2020, and then systematically, since February 2022, as Russia started fighting against the Bandera regime,” Medvedev stressed.

“In this way, the head of the now dying state has emphatically dashed the constitutional status of the Verkhovna Rada as the sole representative and legislative body,” the Russian Security Council deputy chairman noted. Medvedev pointed out that in 2019, Zelensky “assigned control over preparation of proposals on signing or vetoing laws – all on the sly and by an arbitrary edict – to the head of his so-called office, a weird character surnamed Yermak who de-facto became the second (or the first?) person of the country 404. To put it plainly, established a criminal conspiracy with him in order to usurp power.” “The conclusion is simple: these operetta characters turned into criminals back in 2020. Their goal is plain: to establish dictatorship of their own. The fact that their unlawful actions weren’t met with due response in Ukraine eventually led to the special military operation,” the Russian official said.

In his opinion, “hiding behind a sham declaration of presidential elections cancellation, the Kiev camarilla hopes to profit from the war till the very last day and fight till the very last Ukrainian.” “The only possible way to treat zelensky and his accomplices is as criminals who committed a felony under the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Article 109). The decrees they issue are illegitimate and cannot be executed. The officials they appoint are not authorities. They are impostors and have no right to issue edicts,” Medvedev concluded.

“I can pull the emergency brake. The train will stop, and we Hungarians will get off this train..”

• Hungary ‘Won’t Ride NATO War Train’ – Orban (RT)

The US appears intent on continuing to fight Russia in Ukraine and hopes to win, but Hungary is acting to counter this destructive policy, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. The vocal opponent of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict expressed fresh criticism during a weekly interview on Kossuth Radio on Friday. “It appears that the Western world, led by the Americans, wants to defeat Russia, with the Germans playing the role of extras,” Orban claimed. He described the strategy as “hopeless,” adding that it is disastrous for the Ukrainians and Russians dying on the battlefield and is potentially escalatory. The Hungarian leader claimed, however, that “we have already slowed the train to war,” citing the outcome of the recent European Parliament elections in which his party enjoyed success while some pro-Ukrainian groups suffered setbacks.

The Hungarian government has secured assurances from both outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and his presumed successor, Mark Rutte, that Budapest will not be dragged into a “mission” that the US-led bloc is establishing in Ukraine, the prime minister said. Hungary will not contribute troops, weapons, or money to the plan, Orban vowed. “I can pull the emergency brake. The train will stop, and we Hungarians will get off this train,” he said. “And if we become very strong and the stars are lucky, we will convince the driver not to go any further.” Moscow has described the Ukraine conflict as a US-initiated proxy war.

After several member states publicly said this month that they will allow Kiev to strike targets deep inside Russia with Western-supplied weapons, President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow could supply similar arms to enemies of the West. French President Emmanual Macron, who has called on NATO countries not to rule out troop deployments to Ukraine, was among the EU leaders to have suffered the biggest in the European Parliament elections. He subsequently dissolved the French parliament, and is facing the threat of becoming a lame duck for the rest of his term as his political alliance contemplates a potential wipeout in the national legislature. Supporters of the NATO involvement in the Ukraine conflict say its mission will be limited to training Ukrainian troops on the country’s soil.

“..even if we succeed, which is not at all realistic, we will have to pay such a high price that it will not be worth it..”

• Orban Says West’s Quest To Defeat Russia In Ukrainian Conflict Hopeless (TASS)

Western countries led by the United States and supported by Germany want to defeat Russia in Ukraine, but these plans are hopeless and will cost such a high price that they are simply not worth it, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the Kossuth radio. “The situation looks like the Western world wants to defeat Russia with the help of Germany under the leadership of the United States,” the prime minister said. “I think it is hopeless. And even if we succeed, which is not at all realistic, we will have to pay such a high price that it will not be worth it,” Orban emphasized.

While blaming Russia for the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, he pointed out that the main reason for the conflict was Kiev’s intention to join NATO. “In the end, the question is whether Ukraine will become a NATO member or not. This war is about Sevastopol, where there will be a NATO flag or a Russian flag at the exit to the Black Sea. The Russians say that the Russian flag is flying there now, and they don’t want to change it to a NATO flag, and they don’t want to border NATO countries,” the Hungarian prime minister said.

A man leading his party into a historic defeat might want to tone it down a notch..

• British PM Threatens Teens With Sanctions For Refusing National Service (RT)

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has followed up on his controversial election promise to introduce mandatory national service for UK teenagers with a warning that objectors could face significant restrictions. The scheme, which would see youngsters volunteer with community groups or join the armed forces, was announced by Sunak last month. He argued that the measure would help revive the “national spirit” and provide “life-changing opportunities for our young people.” National service in the UK, previously introduced during WWI and WWII, was ended in 1960. Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Sunak was asked about the possible consequences for people who decline to take part in the compulsory activity, which would extend to all 18-year-olds, male and female. The prime minister suggested that possible sanctions for those avoiding service could include restrictions on access to financial services and driving licenses.

Under the scheme, British youths will be required either to join the military full-time for one year or volunteer one weekend per month at community organizations such as the police or the National Health Service (NHS). Sunak has insisted that the program would provide young people with “life-changing opportunities” and “real world skills” and would help create a “shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country.” A pilot version of the program is planned to be launched in September of next year if the Conservatives remain in power, and is expected to cost British taxpayers around £2.5 billion ($3.19 billion) a year.

According to the Daily Mail, the plan to reintroduce national service was drawn up by Sunak and his team in secret. The authors behind the 40-page document have argued that it is necessary to expand the UK’s armed forces in the face of “growing international threats posed by countries such as Russia and China.” Sunak’s scheme has been heavily criticized by opposition parties. “This is not a plan – it’s a review which could cost billions and is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the armed forces to their smallest size since Napoleon,” a Labour spokesman stated last month. Other members of the opposition party have accused Sunak of trying to get 18-year-olds to fix the problems that the government has created.

Neuralink

Nolan Arbaugh on Joe Rogan talking about how Neuralink would be unstoppable for first-person shooters (Call of Duty, Quake, Fortnite) pic.twitter.com/GW8vjSUtba

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) June 21, 2024

Cats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1804123146456326533

Francisco
https://twitter.com/i/status/1803965056423747911

Jaguarundi

The jaguarundi is a wild cat native to the Americas that shows several features seen in mustelids such as otters and weasels. This is a rare footage, because it's shy and reclusive.pic.twitter.com/Bm2kybBWJk

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 21, 2024

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Debt Rattle May 19 2023

May 192023

May 19, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:31 am Finance Tagged with: China, FBI, freeze, Gorsuch, Kinzhal, Kissinger, Patriot, peace summit, special envoy, whistleblower 17 Responses »

John Falter The Windy City 1946

• The US Should Be a Force for Peace in the World (EMN)

• Ukraine Has ‘Five Months Left’ To Impress US – FT (RT)

• US Wants To ‘Freeze’ Ukraine Conflict – Politico (RT)

• Kiev Pilots Not Allowed To Train On EU F-16s Amid US Skepticism – NYT (TASS)

• Putin Warned Patriot Air Defences Wouldn’t Survive Long in Ukraine (MWM)

• Zelensky Asks G7 For Peace Summit Without Russia – FT (RT)

• US Not Ready For Practical Steps On Peace Settlement In Ukraine – Lavrov (TASS)

• Chinese Special Envoy Meets With Zelensky (RT)

• Kissinger Changes His Mind On Ukraine Joining NATO (RT)

• Ensuring Regional Security Not Feasible Via NATO Expansion – China (TASS)

• Congress Could Have the Final Say on the Russian Collusion Scandal

• It’s Over Folks (Denninger)

• FBI Concerned Jan. 6 Footage Would Expose Undercover Agents, Informants (ET)

• Justice Neil Gorsuch Speaks Out Against Lockdowns and Mandates (BI)

• Rand Paul: Elon Musk Will Go Down As A Historic Champion For Free Speech (SM)

RFK

The deep state media tries to discredit @RobertKennedyJr because as President he would be the biggest threat to them. Robert knows what the deep state did to his dad and uncle. He knows how they operate. He has the knowledge and the motive to destroy them. pic.twitter.com/yUajnITkbf

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 18, 2023

Macgregor Trump jr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1659105972923637761

Lest We Forget: Obama and Biden sat in that August 3, 2016 Situation Room briefing and said, yeah, let’s let the highest officials in our administration fabricate evidence to frame the opposing party candidate Donald Trump.

The following is the text of a full-page ad by the Eisenhower Media Network in the New York Times on May 16, 2023.

• The US Should Be a Force for Peace in the World (EMN)

sThe Russia-Ukraine War has been an unmitigated disaster. Hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded. Millions have been displaced. Environmental and economic destruction have been incalculable. Future devastation could be exponentially greater as nuclear powers creep ever closer toward open war. We deplore the violence, war crimes, indiscriminate missile strikes, terrorism, and other atrocities that are part of this war. The solution to this shocking violence is not more weapons or more war, with their guarantee of further death and destruction. As Americans and national security experts, we urge President Biden and Congress to use their full power to end the Russia-Ukraine War speedily through diplomacy, especially given the grave dangers of military escalation that could spiral out of control.

Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy made an observation that is crucial for our survival today. “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy–or of a collective death-wish for the world.” The immediate cause of this disastrous war in Ukraine is Russia’s invasion. Yet the plans and actions to expand NATO to Russia’s borders served to provoke Russian fears. And Russian leaders made this point for 30 years. A failure of diplomacy led to war. Now diplomacy is urgently needed to end the Russia-Ukraine War before it destroys Ukraine and endangers humanity.

Russia’s current geopolitical anxiety is informed by memories of invasion from Charles XII, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler. U.S. troops were among an Allied invasion force that intervened unsuccessfully against the winning side in Russia’s post-World War I civil war. Russia sees NATO enlargement and presence on its borders as a direct threat; the U.S. and NATO see only prudent preparedness. In diplomacy, one must attempt to see with strategic empathy, seeking to understand one’s adversaries. This is not weakness: it is wisdom. We reject the idea that diplomats, seeking peace, must choose sides, in this case either Russia or Ukraine. In favoring diplomacy we choose the side of sanity. Of humanity. Of peace.

We consider President Biden’s promise to back Ukraine “as long as it takes” to be a license to pursue ill-defined and ultimately unachievable goals. It could prove as catastrophic as President Putin’s decision last year to launch his criminal invasion and occupation. We cannot and will not endorse the strategy of fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. We advocate for a meaningful and genuine commitment to diplomacy, specifically an immediate ceasefire and negotiations without any disqualifying or prohibitive preconditions. Deliberate provocations delivered the Russia-Ukraine War. In the same manner, deliberate diplomacy can end it.

“If we get to September and Ukraine has not made significant gains, then the international pressure on [the West] to bring them to negotiations will be enormous..”

The US will blame Zelensky for the failure, and wash its own hands.

• Ukraine Has ‘Five Months Left’ To Impress US – FT (RT)

Ukraine needs to demonstrate some “advances” over the next five months as the US would consider these crucial to the future of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing several European and American officials. Washington has to show that the massive military support the US and its allies have been providing to Ukraine has not been in vain, the paper also said. “It is important for America to sell this war as a successful one, as well as for domestic purposes to prove that all of those aid packages have been successful in terms of Ukrainian advances,” a European official told the FT.

The polls show that public support for Ukraine is waning in the US, and President Biden’s administration has to show that the tens of billions of dollars it spent on assistance for Kiev made a major difference on the frontlines, the media outlet said. According to FT sources, Washington believes the next five months are critical to the outcome of the conflict. “If we get to September and Ukraine has not made significant gains, then the international pressure on [the West] to bring them to negotiations will be enormous,” another source told the FT, on condition of anonymity. September will see the UN General Assembly and G20 leaders’ summit take place one after another. Both events could be used to make the warring parties sit down at a negotiating table, FT said.

The Western military support for Kiev is also about to reach its limits, the sources warned. “The message [to Kiev] is basically that this is the best you’re going to get,” a European official told the paper. “There’s no more flexibility in the US budget to keep writing checks, and European arms factories are running at full capacity.” The US continues to be Ukraine’s biggest backer when it comes to arms supplies. Washington’s allies are concerned about its capacity to keep up the same level of support and expect it to go down in 2024 and a US presidential election. “We can’t keep the same level of assistance forever,” a European official said, adding that the current level of support might be sustained for a year or two but no longer.

It takes two -or more- sides to freeze a conflict.

• US Wants To ‘Freeze’ Ukraine Conflict – Politico (RT)

The administration of US President Joe Biden is reportedly considering ‘freezing’ the conflict in Ukraine for the foreseeable future instead of pushing for the country’s victory, according to sources cited by Politico on Thursday. Three serving and one former US official told the outlet that a long-term low-intensity stand-off was currently being discussed in the White House. The former official compared the possible scenario to how the Korean War of the early 1950s ended in an armistice. There was no formal peace agreement, and both Pyongyang and Seoul claim sovereignty over the entire Korean Peninsula, with a demilitarized zone separating the two parts. “A Korea-style stoppage is certainly something that’s been discussed by experts and analysts in and out of government,” the source said.

“It’s plausible, because neither side would need to recognize any new borders and the only thing that would have to be agreed is to stop shooting along a set line.” The benefits for the US would be that a frozen conflict would be less costly for Western nations and draw less public attention, and consequently less pressure to assist Kiev, the outlet explained. Ukraine would still be allied with Washington and continue switching its military to NATO standards, as it seeks to join the bloc someday. The ‘Korean scenario’ for Ukraine drew media attention in January, after Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of the country’s national security council, claimed in an interview that Moscow had sent a top official to European capitals to promote it.

The Kremlin denied that and claimed Danilov may have mistaken a Ukrainian politician surnamed Kazak for his namesake in the Russian government, whom he identified as the messenger. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, argued that Danilov’s words were meant for “domestic consumption,” so that the Ukrainian government could measure the public reaction to it. The Russian official mused that “being split is the best-case scenario,” for Kiev, under the circumstances. Moscow called NATO’s expansion in Europe and its creeping takeover of Ukraine without its formal accession as one of the key reasons for sending troops against its neighbor. The conflict, Russia has maintained, is part of a US proxy war against it, in which Ukrainians serve as cannon fodder.

“..Kiev will need approvals from the United States where the fighters were made..”

• Kiev Pilots Not Allowed To Train On EU F-16s Amid US Skepticism – NYT (TASS)

Ukrainian pilots are not allowed to train on F-16 fighter jets owned by European countries, as Washington remains unconvinced that Kiev needs the expensive aircraft, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing a senior Ukrainian official. Despite the fact that some European countries have signaled that they are ready to send F-16s to Ukraine, authorities in Kiev will need approvals from the United States where the fighters were made. Without American consent, the training is likely to be limited to technical lessons and technical language only, the newspaper said. The Biden administration is unconvinced that Ukraine needs the expensive jets. Besides, the United States does not want its highly restricted systems to be duplicated or fall into enemy hands.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday that he had no update on F-16s. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on May 9 that his country is discussing the possibility of sending F-16 fighters to Ukraine with Great Britain, Denmark and “some other countries in Europe” and the United States. “An intensive dialogue” is underway, Rutte said. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba earlier said that some European allies had started work on the issue of sending US F-16 fighters to Kiev. However, there has been scarce comment on the plan in the West, while Ukraine itself admits that the process may not start any time soon. Meanwhile, the office of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier announced a new military support program to train Ukrainian pilots on Western warplanes.

“..We will crack the Patriot [like a nut] too, and something will need to be installed in its place, new systems need to be developed – this is a complex and lengthy process..”

• Putin Warned Patriot Air Defences Wouldn’t Survive Long in Ukraine (MWM)

On May 16 as part of a complex series of strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kiev the Russian Air Force employed the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile to neutralise a unit from an American Patriot air defence system, destroying its a radar and a control centre and reportedly at least one of its launchers. According to Russian sources, the Ukrainian crew operating the Patriot were aware a strike was incoming, but had only a limited warning time due to the Kinzhal missile’s very high speed – limiting opportunities for the missile system to change position or reload. The Patriot system targeted was one of two delivered, with Germany and the United States having each supplied a single unit.

The unit reportedly fired 32 surface to air missiles at the Kinzhal on approach, which at approximately $3 million each amounted to a $96 million barrage to attempt to destroy a missile with an estimated cost of under $2 million. The very high cost and limited number of the Patriot’s interceptors was a key argument for not sending the systems to Ukraine, with their effectiveness also having been brought to question not only due to the system’s highly troubled combat record, but also to the advanced capabilities of new Russian missiles such as the Kinzhal, Iskander and Zicron. These are considered nearly impossible to intercept particularly in their terminal stages. The delivery of Patriots was nevertheless seen as necessary due to the near collapse of Ukrainian air defences, as warnings have been given with growing frequency by both Western and Ukrainian sources that the arsenal of S-300 and BuK missile systems protecting the country has become critically depleted.

Destruction of the Patriot systems comes less than a month after the first systems were delivered in April, and follows a warning in December from Russian President Vladimir Putin that the destruction of the systems was an absolute certainty should they be deployed in Ukraine. He assured that with Washington “now saying that they can put a Patriot [in Ukraine]. Okay, let them do it. We will crack the Patriot [like a nut] too, and something will need to be installed in its place, new systems need to be developed – this is a complex and lengthy process” – indicating that NATO had no newer generations of long range air defence systems available to replace the Patriot once its vulnerability was demonstrated.

Macgregor

Colonel Douglas MacGregor back on with Redacted Inc. with an accurate synopsis of the current situation in Ukraine.

Russia have depleted Ukrainian air defense capabilities, hypersonic Kinzhal missiles are destroying US-supplied Patriot systems, and Russian Intelligence are keen… pic.twitter.com/qIcpgnhoR1

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) May 17, 2023

“..this proposal calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from all territories within Ukraine’s 1991 borders, to pay reparations, and to submit to war-crime tribunals.”

• Zelensky Asks G7 For Peace Summit Without Russia – FT (RT)

President Vladimir Zelensky has asked the G7 to consider holding a summit on the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine without the participation of Russia, an EU official has told the Financial Times. The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US and the EU will discuss the possibility of staging such an event this summer during a three-day Group of Seven meeting, which kicks off in Hiroshima on Friday, the outlet reported on Thursday. According to the official, the discussions at the high-profile meeting in Japan will focus on the ten-point peace plan that Zelensky has been promoting in recent months. Among other things, this proposal calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from all territories within Ukraine’s 1991 borders, to pay reparations, and to submit to war-crime tribunals.

Moscow has rejected the plan as “unacceptable,” pointing out that it ignores the reality on the ground and is actually a sign of Kiev’s unwillingness to resolve the crisis through talks. Zelensky’s spokesperson has confirmed to the FT that Kiev asked the G7 to consider the ten-point plan as Kiev is trying to get as many nations as possible to support the proposal. The Ukrainian leader himself is expected to address the summit in Hiroshima via video link. Ukraine is also interested in “China being involved in the implementation of the Ukrainian peace formula,” said Andrey Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, as quoted by the paper. On Thursday, Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials, including Yermak, held a meeting in Kiev with China’s newly appointed special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Li told the Ukrainians that Beijing is eager to serve as a peace broker to help reach a political resolution between Kiev and Moscow, based on the principles outlined in a 12-point roadmap published by China in late February.

Beijing’s plan, which calls for early talks between Russia and Ukraine without preconditions, got a positive reception in Moscow, which said it’s ready to discuss it further. However, the West reacted negatively, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claiming that Beijing lacked “credibility” as a mediator, having refused to condemn Moscow’s military operation. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the Chinese roadmap as merely “a set of wishful considerations.” On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow remains prepared to listen to peace proposals “based on a genuine wish to contribute to the stabilization of the world order,” including those recently made by Brazil and the African nations.

“..the US was ready to support any initiative for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine once it was first supported by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky..”

• US Not Ready For Practical Steps On Peace Settlement In Ukraine – Lavrov (TASS)

The US is not ready either at this stage or in the foreseeable future for any kind of constructive action with regard to the settlement in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference on Thursday following talks with Ugandan counterpart Jeje Odongo. “The United States is not ready either at this stage or, in my opinion, in the foreseeable future, for any constructive action regarding the settlement of the situation in Ukraine, which they themselves created the conditions for over many years,” he said. According to Lavrov, the United States created the situation in Ukraine “by way of its strategic course to oppose the objective formation of a multipolar world, to maintain its hegemony, and subjugate anyone and everyone to its will.”

“Ukraine is used as an obedient instrument within the framework of this course,” the foreign minister stressed. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on May 16 that Russian and Ukrainian authorities had agreed to receive an African delegation to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Ramaphosa spoke on behalf of six African nations: Egypt, Zambia, the Republic of Congo, Senegal, Uganda and South Africa. When asked to comment on the South African initiative, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that the US was ready to support any initiative for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine once it was first supported by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

China imposes itself step by step. Next step: Xi sends his special envoy. While “NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claimed that China lacked “credibility”..” That won’t fly anymore.

• Chinese Special Envoy Meets With Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has met with China’s newly appointed special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, who traveled to Kiev to convey Beijing’s views on a diplomatic resolution to Ukraine’s conflict with Russia. According to a statement published on Thursday by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Li held talks with Zelensky as well as the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, Andrey Yermak, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, and representatives from several other ministries. Beijing said both sides had agreed that the recent phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Zelensky had outlined the direction for future relations between their two nations, which it stated should be built on mutual respect and sincerity.

During his trip, Li reiterated that Beijing is willing to serve as a peace broker to help reach a political resolution to the conflict with Russia, based on the principles outlined in a 12-point roadmap published by China in late February. “There is no panacea in resolving the crisis. All parties need to start from themselves, accumulate mutual trust, and create conditions for ending the war and engaging in peace talks,” Li said, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s statement. The special envoy’s two-day trip to Ukraine is the first leg of a wider European tour, during which he is expected to visit Poland, France, Germany, and Russia. Beijing has explained that the trip aims to promote communication toward “a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”

China’s peace efforts have been welcomed by Russia as well as some European nations such as Hungary, and have been praised for acknowledging the national interests of both parties. The roadmap, however, has been criticized by some in the West. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claimed that China lacked “credibility” as it has refused to condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell insisted that “the only thing that can be called a peace plan is Zelensky’s proposal.” The Ukrainian president has demanded that Russia must withdraw from territories that Kiev claims as its own, as well as pay war reparations and face an international tribunal. The Kremlin has dismissed the initiative, claiming it does not take into consideration “the realities on the ground,” including the new status of four former Ukrainian regions as part of Russia.

Medvedev: “Henry Kissinger called for Ukraine to join NATO.

True, he will celebrate his 100th birthday in 10 days, and he also met with Brezhnev. However, he is completely wrong here. He called the conflict between the United States and China the main threat to humanity. I have always believed that it is important to consider direct and obvious threats, not hypothetical ones, to correctly assess the situation. Imagine that Ukraine is admitted to the North Atlantic Alliance by the current dull-witted leaders:
1) NATO is already waging a hybrid war against Russia;
2) the Ukrainian nationalist regime will not stop trying to regain the lost territories;
3) we will have to respond harshly to this with all possible means, and…
4) here is Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
Subtle arguments about preventing existential threats do not work during bloody conflicts. This should be clear even to those who are approaching their centenary. Best wishes on the upcoming centenary! Keep the clarity of mind that Sleepy Joe has lost.”

• Kissinger Changes His Mind On Ukraine Joining NATO (RT)

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger has signalled a U-turn in his views on Ukraine’s prospective NATO membership. The veteran politician told The Economist that he now believes peace in Europe cannot be achieved without Ukraine joining the US-led military bloc. Last fall, Kissinger insisted that “it was not a wise American policy to attempt to include Ukraine into NATO.” He said the bloc’s eastward expansion since the fall of Soviet Union in 1991 had essentially removed Russia’s historic “safety belt,” but insisted that was no justification for Russia’s “surprise attack” on Ukraine. However, in his interview on Wednesday with the British outlet, the politician, who turns 100 on May 27, suggested that “for the safety of Europe, it is better to have Ukraine in NATO.”

He acknowledged that he currently finds himself “in the weird position that people say, ‘Look at him, he’s changed his mind. Now he’s for membership of Ukraine in NATO.’” The reason for such shift is “twofold,” Kissinger said. “One, Russia is no longer the conventional threat it used to be. And, secondly, we have now armed Ukraine to a point where it will be the best-armed, most modern country and with the least experienced leadership in Europe,” he explained. According to the former US Secretary of State, the position taken by European countries towards Kiev’s membership is “madly dangerous.” “The Europeans are saying we don’t want them in NATO because they’re too risky and therefore we’ll arm the hell out of them and give them the most advanced weapons. How can that possibly work?” he asked.

Back in 2008, NATO declared that Kiev would join the bloc, but did not specify a date for that to happen. “The decision to leave open the membership of Ukraine in NATO was very wrong, and unwise,” Kissinger said. The possibility of Ukraine, which the Russians consider “the little brother closest to them organically, or historically,” being accepted into the US-led alliance became “a final turning point” for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin when he decided to send troops to the neighboring country in February 2022, he explained.

Last month, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius suggested that “this is not the time to decide” about Ukraine’s place in NATO. He was backed by Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda, who said it “would be too difficult” to make Kiev a member of the bloc while the conflict with Moscow continues. Russia, which sees NATO’s eastward expansion as a major security threat, had singled out Kiev’s push to join the bloc as among the main reasons for launching its military operation in Ukraine more than a year ago.

“..he would prefer to avoid a situation wherein Ukraine became a non-aligned neutral state.”

• Ensuring Regional Security Not Feasible Via NATO Expansion – China (TASS)

It is impossible to ensure European security by expanding military blocs, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a briefing on Thursday. “It is impossible to ensure regional security by means of strengthening and expanding military blocs. One country’s security should not be ensured at the expense of the security of others,”he said in response to a TASS request to comment on published remarks by Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State (1973-1977) and National Security Advisor to two presidents (1969-1975), about Ukraine’s potential accession to NATO. China expects all parties to the conflict to adhere to a common, comprehensive and sustainable security concept, Wang added. According to the senior diplomat, this could be achieved through dialogue and consultations based on respect for the legitimate security interests of all parties.

On May 17, The Economist magazine published an interview with Kissinger, who will turn 100 years old on May 27. In the interview, the doyen of US diplomacy and veteran practitioner of geopolitics said that Ukraine should become a member state of NATO. According to him, Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Alliance would be in the interests of both Kiev and Moscow, and would serve as a guarantee against any future attempts by the Ukrainian leadership to resolve territorial disputes by military means. Kissinger acknowledged that he had changed his point of view about Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO, saying he would prefer to avoid a situation wherein Ukraine became a non-aligned neutral state.

On May 15, the Washington Post reported, quoting sources, that the NATO countries had decided not to send Ukraine an invitation to become a member of the alliance at its upcoming summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, but are discussing the possibility of stepping up cooperation with Kiev and potentially establishing a timeframe for its entry into the military bloc. According to the authoritative US publication, a consensus exists among the alliance’s members that, in spite of Kiev’s fervent pleas, NATO will not be extending an official invitation to Ukraine to join the bloc during the Vilnius summit on July 11-12.

NATO adopted a political declaration at the Bucharest summit in April 2008 that Ukraine would eventually become a NATO member, but declined to provide a Membership Action Plan (MAP), the first step in a prospective member country’s legal procedure for joining the organization. In February 2019, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) approved amendments to Ukraine’s constitution enshrining its NATO aspirations into law. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly stated that Kiev was seeking to obtain an understanding of a specific date by which Ukraine could expect to join the alliance.

“..If history is any measure, nothing concentrates the mind as much as a subpoena and immunity grant..”

• Congress Could Have the Final Say on the Russian Collusion Scandal

[..] figures from Steele to Comey could be compelled to give full accounts in light of this Report. Congress has an interest in hearing from these witnesses as it explores how to make real reforms at the Justice Department and the FBI. The need for congressional action was made clear by the FBI itself in its immediate response to the Report. It insisted that it has reformed itself after what it described as “missteps identified in the report.” There are many ways to describe an investigation into false allegations raised by an opposing political party to derail a presidency. Calling that a “misstep” is like calling the explosion of the Hindenburg a “mislanding.” The FBI has now gone through regular cycles of scandals followed by assurances of self-reform.

Even if one is willing to suspend disbelief over the latest “trust us were the government” press release, it ignores that fact that the FBI was accused again in 2020 of playing a role in burying the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. If Congress wants to reform this system, Durham has given it a blueprint for how to do it. After the Report, there is now an undeniable right of Congress to seek this testimony as part of its legislative and oversight functions under Article I. While figures like Elias may “decline to be voluntarily interviewed,” this does not have to be voluntary exercise. In speaking with many witnesses, Durham was dealing with some potential crimes with expired statutes of limitation. If witnesses lie to Congress, they could also face charges under a new statute of limitations. If history is any measure, nothing concentrates the mind as much as a subpoena and immunity grant . . . and it may be time to concentrate some minds in Washington.

“..No republic can continue to exist when it becomes trivially easy for one political faction or another to deliberately weaponize law enforcement..”

• It’s Over Folks (Denninger)

America, that is. There is one last chance to save it: The FBI and DOJ must be disbanded, everyone working for it fired with no pensions, no benefits, no nothing, and if we need the functions of either agency and/or DHS they must be reconstituted with hard criminal penalties for anything that even smells like this in the future. If not, well, we’re done. We’re done because it is now seven years after this injustice occurred, it was not minor, it was not due to “oversight” or “accident” and by the most-charitable read the reason it happened is political bias through the entire organization from the top down leaving nobody to challenge it. Further, knowing this the Democrat party political campaign of the time (Hillary’s) deliberately suborned the acts of the FBI and instead of being told to shove it and being publicly outed for their attempt they got what they wanted including the personal and financial destruction of several people. A huge number of members of Congress then went on to use their speech and debate clause to slander people left, right and center all based on these lies.

Current law and the Constitution provide us no means of punishment of said members of Congress due to that speech and debate clause but no such protection exists for the principals nor the FBI personnel involved. Let me just cite this: “Given the foregoing, and viewing the facts in a light most favorable to the Crossfire Hurricane investigators, it seems highly likely that, at a minimum, confirmation bias played a significant role in the FBI’s acceptance of extraordinarily serious allegations derived from uncorroborated information that had not been subjected to the typical exacting analysis employed by the FBI and other members of the Intelligence Community. In short, it is the Office’s assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. Similarly, the FBI Inspection Division Report says that the investigators “repeatedly ignore[d] or explain[ed] away evidence contrary to the theory the Trump campaign … had conspired with Russia …. It appeared that … there was a pattern of assuming nefarious intent.” 1749 An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the FBI to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes. Unfortunately, it did not.”

That’s the most-charitable read. I decline to provide that given the repeated and amplified abuse out of the Democrat Party, including from Hillary, Schiff and others particularly considering that exactly zero of said persons have apologized or in any other way backed off from their knowing lies. Folks the capacity to do this on a forward basis must be destroyed. This is not optional. No republic can continue to exist when it becomes trivially easy for one political faction or another to deliberately weaponize law enforcement to go after disfavored individuals based on their political affiliation, inventing not just domestic events but claimed collusion with foreign powers that never occurred.

Indeed it is arguable that these very same people were in fact doing what they accused Trump of, but with Ukraine and China instead of Russia — and there is now developing hard evidence of the money flows involved in same. The extent to which they reached into policy during the Obama years and to which it influenced or even controlled the policies of the administration during the pandemic, an outbreak that we have every reason to believe sourced from that very same China, is not yet known. There are over 1 million dead Americans over the last three years as a direct and indirect consequence and sixty million, roughly, children who got screwed in whole or part out of their education during those three years. Never mind all the other people who got screwed and all of the inflation which we have and will continue to suffer under.

Greenwald

‼️ All Americans *need* to understand the Durham Report's dire implications for their democracy:@GGreenwald: "The most dangerous development of all in the US is that the Security State is fully liberated… to use their investigative powers to manipulate our politics, control… pic.twitter.com/BB41GE0BQp

— System Update (@SystemUpdate_) May 17, 2023

Gaetz

BREAKING: D.C. FBI Field Office CONFIRMED that undercover officers, confidential informants, and FBI assets were present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6thpic.twitter.com/RqtAzrbbWV

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) May 18, 2023

You can tell the level of undue pressure from the number of whistleblowers…

• FBI Concerned Jan. 6 Footage Would Expose Undercover Agents, Informants (ET)

FBI officials were concerned that footage from inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would show undercover agents and confidential informants, a whistleblower said in testimony revealed on May 18. George Hill, a retired supervisory intelligence analyst who worked out of the FBI’s Boston field office, recounted that the bureau’s Washington field office (WFO) pressured officials in Boston to open investigations on 138 people who attended a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, even though there were no indications the people violated the law. Boston officials pushed back, saying they would need evidence, such as footage of individuals inside the Capitol, to open investigations of the individuals. “Happy to do it. Show us where they were inside the Capitol, and we’ll look into it,” one official was quoted as saying.

Jim Jordan

The Libs are getting a taste of their own medicine on Capitol Hill after 4 straight years of "anonymous whistleblowers."

Jim Jordan has no time for their whining. pic.twitter.com/4jOhHpHoa9

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) May 18, 2023

Jim Jordan gives whistleblowers dark warning before testifying to expose Regime weaponization: “Get ready, because Democrats are gonna come after you.”

pic.twitter.com/CnMztqABq2

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 18, 2023

“We can’t show you those videos unless you can tell us the exact time and place those individuals were inside the Capitol,” WFO officials responded, according to Hill. Hill said Boston officials questioned why they couldn’t get access to the tranche of some 11,000 hours of footage from inside the Capitol. “Because there may be—may be—UCs, undercover officers, or … confidential human sources, on those videos whose identity we need to protect,” Washington-based officials responded. Hill recounted the discussions during testimony to the U.S. House’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The clip from the testimony was played during a hearing on May 18 and detailed in a report the panel released based on whistleblower disclosures.

Marcus Allen, another FBI employee who has also become a whistleblower, has alleged that he was retaliated against because he shared an email with other FBI workers that questioned whether FBI Director Christopher Wray was truthful while testifying to Congress. “You believe that Christopher Wray indicated that there were no confidential informants, no FBI assets that were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 that were part of the violent riot, isn’t that right?” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a member of the subcommittee, asked Allen. “Yes, sir,” Allen said. They appeared to be referring to testimony given behind closed doors. After playing the clip of Hill’s comments, Gaetz said, “You got retaliated against for the very thing, for saying the very thing that the Washington field office was telling Boston.”

FBI

BREAKING: F.B.I. Whistleblower, Garrett O’Boyle just ended today’s hearing with a chilling warning for future F.B.I Whistleblowers pic.twitter.com/7WiEpsome6

— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) May 18, 2023

Wray told one congressional panel in a public hearing in late 2022 that he wouldn’t say whether the bureau had confidential sources embedded among the Jan. 6 protesters. “As I’m sure you can appreciate, I have to be very careful about what I can say, about when we do and do not, and where we have and have not used confidential human sources,” Wray said. “But to the extent there’s a suggestion, for example, that the FBI’s confidential human sources or FBI employees in someway instigated or orchestrated Jan 6th, that’s categorically false.” [..] Garret O’Boyle, another FBI special agent who is now a whistleblower, told the House panel that he was pressured by at least one agent based in Washington to violate FBI policy and also the law by serving grand jury subpoenas against a person who was the subject of an anonymous tip. “They tried to get me to serve a federal grand jury subpoena when there was no proper predicate to do so,” O’Boyle said on May 18.

O’Boyle

FBI Whistleblower testifies for first time publically— Congress left STUNNED:

"I swore to Defend this country from enemies both foreign and domestic— even if that means sacrificing my life."

pic.twitter.com/3AVQvnrk8t

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 18, 2023

Gorsuch’s full text at the URL. This is the background.

• Justice Neil Gorsuch Speaks Out Against Lockdowns and Mandates (BI)

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion in Arizona v. Mayorkas marks the culmination of his three-year effort to oppose the Covid regime’s eradication of civil liberties, unequal application of law, and political favoritism. From the outset, Gorsuch remained vigilant as public officials used the pretext of Covid to augment their power and strip the citizenry of its rights in defiance of long standing constitutional principles. While other justices (even some purported constitutionalists) absconded their responsibility to uphold the Bill of Rights, Gorsuch diligently defended the Constitution. This became most apparent in the Supreme Court’s cases involving religious liberty in the Covid era.

Beginning in May 2020, the Supreme Court heard cases challenging Covid restrictions on religious attendance across the country. The Court was divided along familiar political lines: the liberal bloc of Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan voted to uphold deprivations of liberty as a valid exercise of states’ police power; Justice Gorsuch led conservatives Alito, Kavanaugh, and Thomas in challenging the irrationality of the edicts; Chief Justice Roberts sided with the liberal bloc, justifying his decision by deferring to public health experts. “Unelected judiciary lacks the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people,” Roberts wrote in South Bay v. Newsom, the first Covid case to reach the Court.

And so the Court repeatedly upheld executive orders attacking religious liberty. In South Bay, the Court denied a California church’s request to block state restrictions on church attendance in a five to four decision. Roberts sided with the liberal bloc, urging deference to the public health apparatus as constitutional freedoms disappeared from American life. In July 2020, the Court again split 5-4 and denied a church’s emergency motion for injunctive relief against Nevada’s Covid restrictions. Governor Steve Sisolak capped religious gatherings at 50 people, regardless of the precautions taken or the size of the establishment. The same order allowed for other groups, including casinos, to hold up to 500 people. The Court, with Chief Justice Roberts joining the liberal justices again, denied the motion in an unsigned motion without explanation.

Justice Gorsuch issued a one paragraph dissent that exposed the hypocrisy and irrationality of the Covid regime. “Under the Governor’s edict, a 10-screen ‘multiplex’ may host 500 moviegoers at any time. A casino, too, may cater to hundreds at once, with perhaps six people huddled at each craps table here and a similar number gathered around every roulette wheel there,” he wrote. But the Governor’s lockdown order imposed a 50-worshiper limit for religious gatherings, no matter the buildings’ capacities. “The First Amendment prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion,” Gorsuch wrote. “But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.”

Gorsuch understood the threat to Americans’ liberties, but he was powerless with Chief Justice Roberts cowing to the interests of the public health bureaucracy. That changed when Justice Ginsburg died in September 2020. The following month, Justice Barrett joined the Court and reversed the Court’s 5-4 split on religious freedom in the Covid era. The following month, the Court granted an emergency injunction to block Governor Cuomo’s executive order that limited attendance at religious services to 10 to 25 people. Gorsuch was now in the majority, protecting Americans from the tyranny of unconstitutional edicts. In a concurring opinion in the New York case, he again compared restrictions on secular activities and religious gatherings; “according to the Governor, it may be unsafe to go to church, but it is always fine to pick up another bottle of wine, shop for a new bike, or spend the afternoon exploring your distal points and meridians… Who knew public health would so perfectly align with secular convenience?”

“Thank God for someone who can still speak their mind and won’t take some guff off a journalist who tells him he can’t speak his mind.”

• Rand Paul: Elon Musk Will Go Down As A Historic Champion For Free Speech (SM)

Senator Rand Paul praised Elon Musk Wednesday for standing up for free speech, predicting that the Twitter owner will be recorded as a key figure in history in the fight against censorship. Referring to Musk’s compelling take down of a CNBC hack earlier this week, Paul noted “Thank God for someone who can still speak their mind and won’t take some guff off a journalist who tells him he can’t speak his mind.”
“Somewhere along the way something happened and people began to think that only certain forms of speech were acceptable,” The Senator urged.

“Then along came Elon Musk,” Paul continued, adding “The country, the Bill of Rights frankly, all of us, are going to be very thankful that a guy with a lot of money bought a social media entity and allowed us to see the government colluding to limit speech.” “People need to get this right. Private companies can decide what they want to air, newspapers can, television shows can. But what we cannot allow to happen is the government to collude with private business and use them basically as their extension and their arm of censor,” Paul emphasised. He added that “Elon Musk exposed this only because he had 44 billion dollars to buy a company and expose their inner workings off collusion with government.”

Rand Paul:

"Then along came Elon Musk. The country, the Bill of Rights frankly, all of us, are going to be very thankful that a guy with a lot of money bought a social media entity and allowed us to see the government colluding to limit speech."pic.twitter.com/8DFeUtTqAL

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) May 18, 2023

The celestial entrance known as ‘Heaven’s Gate’ located within the breathtaking Tianmen Mountain in China. Situated approximately 5,000 feet above sea level, Tianmen Cave in China stands as the world’s highest naturally formed arch. Accessing this remarkable landmark involves ascending 999 steps referred to as the “stairway to heaven,” where the number nine holds significant meaning in Chinese numerology, symbolizing good fortune and eternity.

Most people refuse to even think about pedophilia. But that creates the space for it to exist.

PEDOPHILES RULE OUR WORLD: Elites who rule our world also control all the major Pedophile rings in the world with the assistance of the CIA. Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, Royal Bloodlines, Actors, Elites are all involved in the child sex trafficking of 2 million children.… pic.twitter.com/4fPuJ3PsmW

— Truth Justice ™ (@SpartaJustice) May 18, 2023

Whale trap

Bertie Gregory filmed this Eden’s whale trap feeding in the Gulf of Thailand. This behaviour is thought to have developed because pollution has made the gulf a hypoxic environment

[source: https://t.co/UmkKAw0Seh]
[paper: https://t.co/222icskr20]pic.twitter.com/YSVihQlnLa

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 18, 2023

There’s a dog school in Canada so they don’t stay home alone. This is a picture taken on the way to school.

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Debt Rattle April 18 2016

Apr 182016

April 18, 2016 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: Brazil, Brexit, China, debt, default, Doha, earthquake, EM, freeze, oil, OPEC, selloff 2 Responses »

DPC Coaches at Holland House Hotel on Fifth Avenue, NY 1905

• Oil Prices Plunge After Doha Output Talks Fail (AFP)

• Oil Producers Get Worst Possible Outcome, Destroy Remaining Credibility (R.)

• Failure To Reach Oil Output Deal Sparks Selloff Across Emerging Markets (BBG)

• Loonie, Aussie Drop After Doha Failure; Yen Near 1 1/2-Year High (BBG)

• The Bad Smell Hovering Over The Global Economy (G.)

• Untried, Untested, Ready: Remedies for the Global Economy (BBG Ed.)

• China’s QoQ and YoY GDP Data Don’t Add Up (BBG)

• Is China Ready To Let More State-Owned Enterprises Default? (BBG)

• China Makes Plans for 1.8 Million Workers Facing Unemployment (WSJ)

• The Trucker’s Nightmare That Could Flatten Europe’s Economy (BBG)

• George Osborne: Brexit Would Leave UK ‘Permanently Poorer’ (G.)

• Brazilian Congress Votes To Impeach President Dilma Rousseff (G.)

• Australia’s Debt Dilemma Raises Downgrade Fears (BBG)

• Peter Schiff: ‘Trump’s Right, America Is Broke’ (ZH)

• Make America Solvent Again (Jim Grant)

• Is Capitalism Entering A New Era? (Kaletsky)

• Fears Of ‘The Big One’ As 7 Major Earthquakes Strike Pacific In 96 Hours (E.)

A curious piece of two-bit theater. It failed before it started. Why do it then? The west trying to pit Saudi vs Iran/Russia?

• Oil Prices Plunge After Doha Output Talks Fail (AFP)

Oil prices plunged on Monday after the world’s top producers failed to reach an agreement on capping output aimed at easing a global supply glut during a meeting in Doha. Hopes the world’s main producer cartel, OPEC, and other major exporters like Russia would agree to freeze output has helped scrape oil prices off the 13-year lows they touched in February. But crude tanked after top producer Saudi Arabia walked away from the talks, which many hoped would ease a huge surplus in world supplies, because of a boycott by its rival Iran. Oil tumbled in early Asian trade after the collapse of Sunday’s talks, with prices dropping as much as seven% in opening deals.

At around 0100 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for May delivery was down $2.11, or 5.23%, from Friday’s close at $38.25 a barrel. Global benchmark Brent crude for June lost 4.71%, or $2.03, to $41.07. “Despite many of the 18 oil producers believing the meeting in Doha was merely a rubber stamp affair for an oil production freeze, Saudi Arabia managed to throw a spanner in the works,” said Angus Nicholson at IG Markets. “With Saudi Arabia fighting proxy wars with Iran in Yemen and Syria/Iraq, it is understandable that they had little inclination to freeze their own production and make way for newly sanctions-free Iran to increase their market share.”

It’s impossible for a reporter to see that no output freeze was ever in the works, simply because no producer can afford a freeze.

• Oil Producers Get Worst Possible Outcome, Destroy Remaining Credibility (R.)

It was the worst possible outcome for oil producers at their weekend meeting in Doha, with their failure to reach even a weak agreement showing very publicly their divisions and inability to act in their own interests. Expectations for the meeting had been modest at best, with sources in the producer group predicting an agreement to freeze output. But even this meagre hope was dashed by Saudi Arabia’s insistence Iran join any deal, something the newly sanctions-free Islamic republic wouldn’t countenance. From a producer point of view, an agreement including Iran that shifted market perceptions on the amount of oil supply available would have been the best outcome.

The acceptable result would have been an agreement that froze production at already near record levels, with an accord that Iran would join in once it had reached its pre-sanctions level of exports. What was delivered instead was confirmation that the Saudis are prepared to take more pain in order not to deliver their regional rivals Iran any windfall gains from higher prices and exports. The meeting in Qatar on Sunday effectively pushed a reset button on the crude markets, putting the situation back to where the market was before hopes of producer discipline were first raised. What happens now is that the market will have to continue along its previous path of re-balancing, without any assistance from the OPEC or erstwhile ally Russia. Brent crude fell nearly 7% in early trade in Asia on Monday, before partly recovering to be down around 4%.

The potential is for crude to fall further in coming sessions as long positions built up in the expectation of some sort of producer agreement are liquidated in the face of the reality of no deal. It’s likely that recriminations will follow for some time among the oil producers, with the Russians and Venezuelans said to be annoyed at what they see as the Saudi scuppering of a deal that had almost been locked in. This will make it harder for any future agreement, with the OPEC meeting on June 2 the next chance for the grouping to reach some sort of agreement. For the time being, OPEC’s credibility is shot, and won’t be restored by even a future agreement as it will take actual, verifiable action to convince a now sceptical market. However, as the events in Doha showed, the Saudis are unlikely to agree to anything in the absence of Iranian participation, and that is also equally unlikely.

Naturally. Sell-off is waning already, by the way. But the trend is clear.

• Failure To Reach Oil Output Deal Sparks Selloff Across Emerging Markets (BBG)

The failure by the world’s biggest oil producers to agree on an output freeze spurred a selloff across emerging markets, with stocks halting a seven-day rally as Brent crude plunged as much as 7%. The ringgit led declines in developing-nation currencies as the disappointment stemming from the weekend meeting in Doha disrupted a recovery in commodity prices, putting pressure on Malaysian finances as a net oil exporter. Hopes an agreement would be reached had pushed Brent above $44 a barrel for the first time since December and spurred gains across asset classes in recent days. It’s now headed back toward $41 as the discussions to address a global oil glut stalled after Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations wouldn’t commit to any deal unless all OPEC members joined, including Iran.

“We have seen a high correlation between oil, commodity prices and emerging assets this year and we have seen a strong run up, so the latest development on the failure to agree on an oil output freeze should spark profit-taking among investors,” said Miles Remington, head of equities at BNP Paribas Securities Indonesia. Energy-related companies fell the most among the 10 industry groups of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which dropped 0.7% and retreated from last week’s highest level since November. While that was the biggest decline since April 5, the energy component slid 1.4% and industrial stocks 1%.

Japan can’t keep this up much longer.

• Loonie, Aussie Drop After Doha Failure; Yen Near 1 1/2-Year High (BBG)

The Canadian and Australian dollars dropped as crude tumbled after oil-producing nations failed to reach an accord to freeze output. The yen, used by investors as a haven, rose toward a 17-month high. The currencies of Australia, Canada, Malaysia and Norway all retreated at least 0.7% after negotiations in Doha ended without an agreement from OPEC and other oil producers to freeze supplies. Foreign-exchange traders sought the safety of Japan’s currency as the diplomatic failure threatens to send crude back toward the more than 13-year lows reached in February. World leaders at the end of last week signaled opposition to any efforts from Japan to directly halt the yen’s 11% climb this year.

“Lack of agreement from Doha has hit commodity currencies lower,” said Robert Rennie at Westpac Banking in Sydney. “The prospects of another near-term round of talks appear limited ahead of the June OPEC meeting.” The Aussie dropped 0.8% to 76.65 U.S. cents as of 7:01 a.m. London time, set for the largest decline since April 7. Canada’s loonie tumbled 1.1% to C$1.2962 against the greenback. Crude is the nation’s second-largest export. Malaysia’s ringgit slid 0.8% to 3.9348 per dollar. Oil futures fell as much as 6.8%, the biggest intraday drop since Feb. 1. “The oil price will reset lower and could even retest $30 over the next three months,”said James Purcell at UBS’s wealth-management business in Hong Kong.

“Short term, that will dampen enthusiasm for risk assets. However, markets are being slightly myopic. Economic data have improved in both China and the U.S. of late.” The lack of agreement at Doha highlights the deep divisions between OPEC members, and importantly, within Saudi Arabia, Westpac’s Rennie said. The Aussie should hold support from about 75.75 cents to 76 cents at least through the next day or so, he said. The yen jumped 0.7% to 107.96 per dollar, and touched 107.77. It reached 107.63 on April 11, the strongest since October 2014. Hedge funds and other large speculators pushed wagers on yen strength to a record last week as Japanese authorities appeared reluctant to intervene to reverse the strengthening currency.

Price discovery is the economy’s biggest enemy.

• The Bad Smell Hovering Over The Global Economy (G.)

All is calm. All is still. Share prices are going up. Oil prices are rising. China has stabilised. The eurozone is over the worst. After a panicky start to 2016, investors have decided that things aren’t so bad after all. Put your ear to the ground though, and it is possible to hear the blades whirring. Far away, preparations are being made for helicopter drops of money onto the global economy. With due honour to one of Humphrey Bogart’s many great lines from Casablanca: “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon.” But isn’t it true that action by Beijing has boosted activity in China, helping to push oil prices back above $40 a barrel? Has Mario Draghi not announced a fresh stimulus package from the European Central Bank designed to remove the threat of deflation? Are hundreds of thousands of jobs not being created in the US each month?

In each case, the answer is yes. China’s economy appears to have bottomed out. Fears of a $20 oil price have receded. Prices have stopped falling in the eurozone. Employment growth has continued in the US. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting growth in the global economy of just over 3% this year – nothing spectacular, but not a disaster either. Don’t be fooled. China’s growth is the result of a surge in investment and the strongest credit growth in almost two years. There has been a return to a model that burdened the country with excess manufacturing capacity, a property bubble and a rising number of non-performing loans. The economy has been stabilised, but at a cost. The upward trend in oil prices also looks brittle. The fundamentals of the market – supply continues to exceed demand – have not changed.

Then there’s the US. Here there are two problems – one glaringly apparent, the other lurking in the shadows. The overt weakness is that real incomes continue to be squeezed, despite the fall in unemployment. Americans are finding that wages are barely keeping pace with prices, and that the amount left over for discretionary spending is being eaten into by higher rents and medical bills. For a while, consumer spending was kept going because rock-bottom interest rates allowed auto dealers to offer tempting terms to those of limited means wanting to buy a new car or truck. In an echo of the subprime real estate crisis, vehicle sales are now falling. The hidden problem has been highlighted by Andrew Lapthorne of the French bank Société Générale. Companies have exploited the Federal Reserve’s low interest-rate regime to load up on debt they don’t actually need.

“The proceeds of this debt raising are then largely reinvested back into the equity market via M&A or share buybacks in an attempt to boost share prices in the absence of actual demand,” Lapthorne says. “The effect on US non-financial balance sheets is now starting to look devastating.” He adds that the trigger for a US corporate debt crisis would be falling share prices, something that might easily be caused by the Fed increasing interest rates.

BBG senior editor David Shipley displays the general fallacy: all that’s there are desperate attempts to go back to something that once was, only in a more centralized fashion. But there’s no going back.

• Untried, Untested, Ready: Remedies for the Global Economy (BBG Ed.)

The deeper the slump, economists used to say, the stronger the recovery. They don’t say that anymore. The effects of the crash of 2008 still reverberate, with the latest forecasts for global growth even more dismal than the last. The persistently stagnant world economy is more than just a rebuke to economic theory, of course; it exacts a human toll. And while politicians and central bankers – or economists, for that matter – can’t be faulted for their creativity, their remedies might have more impact if they were bolder and better-coordinated. By ordinary standards, to be sure, governments haven’t been timid. Without fiscal stimulus and aggressive monetary easing in the U.S. and other countries, things would look even worse. And yet, worldwide output is predicted to rise only 3.2% this year, falling still further below the pre-crash trend.

Simply doubling down on current strategies is unlikely to work. Large-scale bond-buying, or so-called quantitative easing, has run into diminishing returns. Negative interest rates, where they’ve been tried, haven’t revived lending, and central banks are unable or unwilling to cut further. What about new fiscal stimulus? Where possible, that would be good – but it’s hardest to do in the very countries that need it most, because that’s where public debt is already dangerously high. True, as the IMF’s new fiscal report says, almost all countries could become more growth-friendly by combining measures to curb public spending in the longer term (for instance, raising the retirement age) with steps to increase demand in the short term (cutting payroll taxes, raising employment subsidies and building infrastructure).

Getting fiscal policy right country by country would surely help – yet probably wouldn’t be enough: No single country can adequately deal with a global shortfall of demand. A finance ministry for the world isn’t happening any time soon. Still, it’s a pity that governments aren’t trying harder to coordinate their fiscal policies more intelligently, or indeed at all. The global slump persists partly because of international spillovers. Better coordination would take these into account: Countries that could safely deploy fiscal stimulus would give some weight to global as well as national conditions, and fiscal policy would be formed interactively. Even within the EU, where you’d expect economic coordination to be the norm, and where the single currency makes it essential, there’s no sign of it.

At the global level, in forums such as the IMF, you might expect the U.S. to take the lead in any such effort. So it should – but it will need to mend its shattered policy-making machinery first. If Washington can’t come to a decision on its own on taxes or spending, the question of coordination doesn’t arise. The last resort, if the slump goes on and governments can’t coordinate better, might be to combine monetary and fiscal policy in a hybrid known (unfortunately) as helicopter money. Governments would cut taxes and/or spend more, but meet the cost by printing money rather than by borrowing. In one variant, central banks might simply send out checks to taxpayers. That’s a startling idea, no doubt – but so was quantitative easing not long ago.

Quarter-on-quarter annualized growth rate is 4.5%..

• China’s QoQ and YoY GDP Data Don’t Add Up (BBG)

China’s growth rates for quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year GDP for the past year don’t match. That, combined with confirmation that 1Q output was underpinned by an unsustainable resurgence in real estate, tarnishes the newly acquired shine on the country’s economic prospects. The initial reaction to the 1Q GDP data, published Friday, was a sigh of relief. Growth at 6.7% year on year was in line with expectations and comfortably inside the government’s 6.5-7% target range. If anyone noticed that the normal quarter-on- quarter data was missing from the National Bureau of Statistics release, few thought anything of it. Then, on Saturday, the quarter-on-quarter data was published, and some of the relief turned to consternation.

Quarter-on-quarter growth in 1Q was just 1.1% – an annualized growth rate of 4.5%, and the lowest print since the data series became available in 2011. Worse, based on the accumulated quarter-on-quarter data over the last year, annual growth in 1Q was just 6.3% – substantially below the NBS’s 6.7% reading for year-on-year growth. Explaining the inconsistency between the two data points is tough to do. Accumulated quarter-on-quarter growth over four quarters should add up to year-on-year growth. In the past, it has. The divergence in the 1Q readings might reflect something as simple as difficulties with seasonal adjustment. Even so, against a backdrop of concerns about data reliability, it can only add to skepticism about China’s true growth rate.

Xi’s dilemma.

• Is China Ready To Let More State-Owned Enterprises Default? (BBG)

China’s state-owned enterprises are likely to suffer more defaults over the next year as the government shows its readiness to shut companies in industries struggling with overcapacity, according to Standard & Poor’s. “In a major policy shift, the central government appears willing to close and liquidate struggling enterprises in the steel, mining, building materials, and shipbuilding industries,” S&P analyst Christopher Lee wrote in a report Monday. “We believe this stance will exacerbate the problems of companies in these cyclical and capital-intensive sectors, which are facing sluggish demand amid slowing investment growth.”

The warning follows S&P’s decision earlier this month to cut China’s sovereign rating outlook to negative from stable because economic rebalancing is likely to proceed more slowly than it had expected. Moody’s Investors Service also downgraded the outlook to negative in March, highlighting surging debt and the government’s ability to enact reforms. The revisions were biased, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said in Washington on Friday. Premier Li Keqiang has pledged to withdraw support from so-called zombie firms that have wasted financial resources and dragged on economic growth, which is at the slowest in a quarter century. China’s central bank has lowered benchmark interest rates six times since 2014, underpinning a jump in debt to 247% of GDP.

China Railway Materials, a state-backed commodities trader, is seeking to reorganize debt and halted trading on 16.8 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) of bonds this month. Baoding Tianwei last year became the first government-backed company to renege on onshore bonds. Sinosteel defaulted on onshore debt in October. Leverage among the largest state-owned enterprises has reached a “critical” level, according to Lee. It is likely to worsen in 2016 as a weak top line is not fully offset by cost cuts and capital expenditure reductions, he wrote in the report.

1.8 million is a rounding error in China.

• China Makes Plans for 1.8 Million Workers Facing Unemployment (WSJ)

China etched in details of plans to help workers laid off from the bloated coal and steel industries, saying assistance would include career counseling, early retirement and help in starting businesses, among other measures. New guidelines released by seven Chinese ministries over the weekend build on previously announced commitments to restructure the coal and steel industries, whose excess production is dragging on the economy, and to take care of an estimated 1.8 million workers who will be displaced. The new measures place priority on finding jobs and cushioning the transition to reduce the unemployment that the authoritarian government sees as a threat to social stability.

“Proper placement of workers is the key to working to resolve excess capacity,” said the document issued by the labor ministry, the top economic planning agency and others. It urged local governments to “take timely measures to resolve conflicts” and to “avoid ignoring the issue.” Unlike a far-reaching restructuring of state industries two decades ago, Beijing is taking a cautious approach this time around, prompting some economists to caution that the protracted pace may make the situation worse. Government data released Friday showed economic growth slowing slightly in the first quarter, buoyed by new loans, debt and investment in real estate and factories—methods that are likely to lengthen the transition to a more consumer-driven society from one driven by investment and manufacturing.

Western-style “restructuring is not on the horizon here,” said ING economist Tim Condon. “Rebalancing, forget that. That’s for another day.” Government plans call for reducing some 10% to 15% of the excess capacity in the steel and coal sectors over the next several years. That is less than half the portion analysts say is needed to bring supply closer in line with demand. And steel and coal are only two of numerous other industries plagued by overcapacity that haven’t been addressed. The large number of ministries that have signed off on the plan dated April 7 but released more than a week later underscore the sensitivity, importance and breadth of resources China is devoting to the unemployment problem.

Europe goes blindly into the night.

• The Trucker’s Nightmare That Could Flatten Europe’s Economy (BBG)

[..] Germany, Austria, France and Sweden, among others, have reintroduced border checkpoints in some places. They are pressured by Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II – about 1 million migrants arrived in Greece and Italy in 2015 – terrorist attacks, and the growth of anti-immigration movements. But the economic cost of dumping Schengen, at a time when growth across the continent is still weak, would be massive. A permanent return to border controls could lop €470 billion of GDP growth from the European economy over the next 10 years, based on a relatively conservative assumption of costs, according to research published by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation. That’s like losing a company almost the size of BMW AG every year for a decade.

The open borders power an economy of more than 400 million people, with 24 million business trips and 57 million cross-border freight transfers happening every year, the European Parliament says. Firms in Germany’s industrial heartland rely on elaborate, just-in-time supply chains that take advantage of lower costs in Hungary and Poland. French supermarket chains are supplied with fresh produce that speeds north from Spain and Portugal. And trans-national commutes have become commonplace since Europeans can easily choose to, say, live in Belgium and work in France. For many Europeans, passport-free travel is part of being, simply, European. For the company hiring driver Unczorg, the security checks increase costs in terms of delays, storage and inventory.

Permanent controls would destroy the business model of German industry, says Rainer Hundsdoerfer, chairman of EBM-Papst. “You get the products you need for assembly here in Germany just in time,” he said by phone. “That’s why the trucks go nonstop. They come here, they unload, they load, and off they go. The cost isn’t the only prime issue” in reinstating border checks. “It’s that we couldn’t even do it.” Nor could anyone else, he adds: “Nothing in German industry, regardless of whether it’s automotives or appliances or ventilators, could exist without the extended workbenches in eastern Europe.”

This sort of over the top comment could be the biggest gift to the Leave side. Then again, they have Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage as their figureheads. Not going to work.

• George Osborne: Brexit Would Leave UK ‘Permanently Poorer’ (G.)

Britain would be “permanently poorer” if voters choose to leave the EU, George Osborne has warned, as a Treasury study claimed the economy would shrink by 6% by 2030, costing every household the equivalent of £4,300 a year. In the starkest warning so far by the government in the referendum campaign, the chancellor describes Brexit as the “most extraordinary self-inflicted wound”. Osborne will embark on one of the government’s most significant moves in the referendum campaign on Monday when he publishes a 200-page Treasury report which sets out the costs and benefits of EU membership. In a Times article the chancellor wrote: “The conclusion is clear for Britain’s economy and for families – leaving the EU would be the most extraordinary self-inflicted wound.”

Osborne warned that the option favoured by Boris Johnson – a deal along the lines of the EU-Canada arrangement – would lead to an economic contraction of 6% by 2030. Supporters of Britain’s EU membership say the EU-Canadian deal would be a disaster for the UK because it excludes financial services, a crucial part of the British economy. The chancellor asked whether this was a “price worth paying” as he said there was no other model for the UK that gave it access to the single market without quotas and tariffs while retaining a say over the rules. Osborne continued: “Put simply : over many years, are you better off or worse off if we leave the EU? The answer is: Britain would be worse off, permanently so, and to the tune of £4,300 a year for every household.”

“It is a well-established doctrine of economic thought that greater openness and interconnectedness boosts the productive potential of our economy. That’s because being an open economy increases competition between our companies, making them more efficient in the face of consumer choice, and creates incentives for business to innovate and to adopt new technologies.”

One corrupt clan fights the other. Rousseff may well be the cleanest of the bunch.

• Brazilian Congress Votes To Impeach President Dilma Rousseff (G.)

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday as a hostile and corruption-tainted congress voted to impeach her. In a rowdy session of the lower house presided over by the president’s nemesis, house speaker Eduardo Cunha, voting ended late on Sunday evening with 367 of the 513 deputies backing impeachment – comfortably beyond the two-thirds majority of 342 needed to advance the case to the upper house. As the outcome became clear, Jose Guimarães, the leader of the Workers party in the lower house, conceded defeat with more than 80 votes still to be counted. “The fight is now in the courts, the street and the senate,” he said. As the crucial 342nd vote was cast for impeachment, the chamber erupted into cheers and Eu sou Brasileiro, the football chant that has become the anthem of the anti-government protest.

Opposition cries of “coup, coup,coup” were drowned out. In the midst of the raucous scenes the most impassive figure in the chamber was the architect of the political demolition, Cunha. Watched by tens of millions at home and in the streets, the vote – which was announced deputy by deputy – saw the conservative opposition comfortably secure its motion to remove the elected head of state less than halfway through her mandate. There were seven abstentions and two absences, and 137 deputies voted against the move. Once the senate agrees to consider the motion, which is likely within weeks, Rousseff will have to step aside for 180 days and the Workers party government, which has ruled Brazil since 2002, will be at least temporarily replaced by a centre-right administration led by vice-president Michel Temer.

On a dark night, arguably the lowest point was when Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right deputy from Rio de Janeiro, dedicated his yes vote to Carlos Brilhante Ustra, the colonel who headed the Doi-Codi torture unit during the dictatorship era. Rousseff, a former guerrilla, was among those tortured. Bolsonaro’s move prompted left-wing deputy Jean Wyllys to spit towards him. Eduardo Bolsonaro, his son and also a deputy, used his time at the microphone to honour the general responsible for the military coup in 1964. Deputies were called one by one to the microphone by the instigator of the impeachment process, Cunha – an evangelical conservative who is himself accused of perjury and corruption – and one by one they condemned the president. Yes, voted Paulo Maluf, who is on Interpol’s red list for conspiracy. Yes, voted Nilton Capixiba, who is accused of money laundering. “For the love of God, yes!” declared Silas Camara, who is under investigation for forging documents and misappropriating public funds.

Australia played all on red. Which can you take to mean either China, for exports, or debt, for housing. Realizing that in the ned the house always wins, it’s a suicide strategy.

• Australia’s Debt Dilemma Raises Downgrade Fears (BBG)

1986 may seem like a long time ago, but for Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison some of the parallels with his current budget balancing act are getting too close for comfort. Back then, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s pulled their AAA ratings as weak commodity prices wrecked government income and external finances. With resources again in a funk and a widening funding gap, National Australia Bank and JPMorgan said last week Morrison needs to undertake repairs in his May 3 budget to safeguard the country’s top rankings. Moody’s warned Thursday that debt will grow without revenue-boosting measures. “Moody’s are understandably getting impatient,” said Shane Oliver at Sydney-based AMP Capital Investors.

“We’ve seen each successive budget update push out the return to surplus. This time around – like back in the middle of the ’80s when we did suffer downgrades – we again have a twin deficit problem.” Thirty years ago, then-Treasurer Paul Keating warned the country risked becoming a “banana republic” because of its reliance on resources and it took nearly 17 years to regain the two top credit scores. While Morrison’s language hasn’t been as strident, he has said Australia must live within its means and indicated a focus on reduced spending. The government expects Australia’s budget position to improve in coming years despite the environment for commodity prices as it controls expenditure growth, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said Thursday in an e-mailed response to questions.

“The Government is committed to responsible budget management which protects our AAA credit rating,” he said. “Our public debt remains low internationally and consistent with our plan, the government is committed to stabilizing and reducing our debt over time.” Australia’s general government net debt is projected to peak at 19.9% in 2017, lower than any Group of Seven economy, according to the IMF’s fiscal monitor. That number has climbed from minus 0.6% in 2009. “One differentiating feature between Australia and other Aaa rated sovereigns is that, while government debt has increased markedly in Australia, it has been more stable for other Aaa sovereigns,” Marie Diron at Moody’s in Singapore wrote. “We expect a further increase in debt and will look at policy measures and the economic environment to review our analysis on this.”

Japan and Europe are in a much better position than the US? Really?

• Peter Schiff: ‘Trump’s Right, America Is Broke’ (ZH)

Euro Pacific Capital’s Peter Schiff sat down with Alex Jones last week to discuss the state of the economy, and where he sees everything going from here. Here are some notable moments from the interview. Regarding how bad things are, and what’s really going on in the economy, Schiff lays out all of the horrible economic data that has come out recently, as well as making sure to take away the crutch everyone uses to explain any and all data misses, which is weather.

“It’s no way to know exactly the timetable, but obviously this economy is already back in recession, and if it’s not in a recession it’s certainly on the cusp of one” “We could be in a negative GDP quarter right now, and I think that if the first quarter is bad the second quarter is going to be worse” “The last couple years we had a rebound in the second quarter because we’ve had very cold winters. Well this winter was the warmest in 120 years so there is nothing to rebound from.”

On the Fed, and current policies, he very bluntly points out that nothing is working, nor has it worked, but of course the central planners will try it all anyway. He also takes a moment to agree with Donald Trump regarding the fact that the U.S. is flat out, undeniably broke.

“The problem for the Fed is how do they launch a new round of stimulus and still pretend the economy is in good shape.” “Negative interest rates are a disaster. It’s not working in Japan, it’s not working in Europe, it’s not going to work here. Just because it doesn’t work doesn’t mean we’re not going to do it, because everything we do doesn’t work and we do it anyway. It shows desperation, that you’ve had all these central bankers lowering interest rates and expecting it to revive the economy. And then when they get down to zero, rather than admit that it didn’t work, because clearly if you go to zero and you still haven’t achieved your objective, maybe it doesn’t work. Instead of admitting that they were wrong, they’re now going negative.”

“The United States, no matter how high inflation gets, we’ll do our best to pretend it doesn’t exist or rationalize it away because we have a lot more debt. America is broke, if you look at Europe and Japan even though there is some debt there, overall those are still creditor nations. The world still owes Europe money, the world still owes Japan money, but America owes more money than all of the other debtor nations combined. Trump is right about that, we are broke, we’re flat broke, and we’re living off this credit bubble and we can’t prick it. Other central banks may be able to raise their rates, but the Fed can’t.”

On how he sees everything unfolding from this point, Peter again points out that the economy is weak and it’s only a matter of time before this entire centrally planned manipulation is exposed for what it is, and becomes a disaster for the Federal Reserve. He likens how investors are behaving today to the dot-com bubble, and the beginning of the global financial crisis.

“Let each wage-earning citizen hold the whole of his or her untaxed earnings–actually touch them. Then let the government pluck its taxes.” “..in six months we would have either a tax revolution or a startling contraction of the budget!”

• Make America Solvent Again (Jim Grant)

[..] The public debt will fall due someday. It will have to be repaid or refinanced. If repaid, where would the money come from? It would come from you, naturally. The debt is ultimately a deferred tax. You can calculate your pro rata obligation on your smartphone. Just visit the Treasury website, which posts the debt to the penny, then the Census Bureau’s website, which reports the up-to-the-minute size of the population. Divide the latter by the former and you have the scary truth: $42,998.12 for every man, woman and child, as I write this. In the short term, the debt would no doubt be refinanced, but at which interest rate? At 4.8%, the rate prevailing as recently as 2007, the government would pay more in interest expense –$654 billion– than it does for national defense.

At a blended rate of 6.7%, the average prevailing in the 1990s, the net federal-interest bill would reach $913 billion, which very nearly equals this year’s projected outlay on Social Security. We always need protection against cockeyed economic experimentation. Once a national consensus on money and debt furnished this protective armor. Money was gold and debt was bad, Americans assumed. Most credentialed economists today will smile at these ancient prejudices. Allow me to suggest that our forebears knew something. Keynes himself would recoil at 0% bank-deposit rates, chronically low economic growth and the towering trillions that we have so generously pledged to one another. (All we have to do now is earn the money to pay them.) How do we escape from our self-constructed fiscal jail? According to the Government Accountability Office, unpaid taxes add up to more than $450 billion a year.

Even so, according to the Tax Foundation, Americans spend 6.1 billion hours and $233.8 billion each tax season complying with a federal tax code that runs to 10 million words. Are we quite sure we want no part of the flat-tax idea? An identical low rate on most incomes. No deductions, no H&R Block. Impractical? So is the debt. So is the spending (and the promises to spend more down the road). We need to stop the squandermania. How? By resuming the principled fight that Vivien Kellems waged against the IRS during the Truman Administration. It enraged Kellems, a doughty Connecticut entrepreneur, that she was forced to withhold federal taxes from her employees’ wages. She called it involuntary servitude, and she itched to make her constitutional argument in court. She never got that chance, but she published her plan for a peaceful revolution.

She asked her readers –I ask mine– to really examine the stub of their paycheck. Observe how much your employer pays you and how much less you take home. Notice the dollars withheld for Medicare, Social Security and so forth. If you are like most of us, you stopped looking long ago. You don’t miss the income that you never get to touch. Picking up where Kellems left off, I propose a slight alteration in payday policy. Let each wage-earning citizen hold the whole of his or her untaxed earnings–actually touch them. Then let the government pluck its taxes. “Such a payroll policy,” wrote Kellems in her memoir, Taxes, Toil and Trouble, “is entirely legal and if it were universally adopted, in six months we would have either a tax revolution or a startling contraction of the budget!” Black ink, sound money and the spirit of Vivien Kellems are the way forward. “Make America solvent again” is my credo and battle cry. You can fit it on a cap.

“The message of today’s populist revolts is that politicians must tear up their pre-crisis rulebooks and encourage a revolution in economic thinking.” No, it’s that today’s politicians must go.

• Is Capitalism Entering A New Era? (Kaletsky)

The defining feature of each successive stage of global capitalism has been a shift in the boundary between economics and politics. In classical nineteenth-century capitalism, politics and economics were idealized as distinct spheres, with interactions between government and business confined to the (necessary) raising of taxes for military adventures and the (harmful) protection of powerful vested interests. In the second, Keynesian version of capitalism, markets were viewed with suspicion, while government intervention was assumed to be correct. In the third phase, dominated by Thatcher and Reagan, these assumptions were reversed: government was usually wrong and the market always right. The fourth phase may come to be defined by the recognition that governments and markets can both be catastrophically wrong.

Acknowledging such thoroughgoing fallibility may seem paralyzing – and the current political mood certainly seems to reflect this. But recognizing fallibility can actually be empowering, because it implies the possibility of improvement in both economics and politics. If the world is too complex and unpredictable for either markets or governments to achieve social objectives, then new systems of checks and balances must be designed so that political decision-making can constrain economic incentives and vice versa. If the world is characterized by ambiguity and unpredictability, then the economic theories of the pre-crisis period – rational expectations, efficient markets, and the neutrality of money – must be revised. Moreover, politicians must reconsider much of the ideological super-structure erected on market fundamentalist assumptions.

This includes not only financial deregulation, but also central bank independence, the separation of monetary and fiscal policies, and the assumption that competitive markets require no government intervention to produce an acceptable income distribution, drive innovation, provide necessary infrastructure, and deliver public goods. It is obvious that new technology and the integration of billions of additional workers into global markets have created opportunities that should mean greater prosperity in the decades ahead than before the crisis. Yet “responsible” politicians everywhere warn citizens about a “new normal” of stagnant growth. No wonder voters are up in arms. People sense that their leaders have powerful economic tools that could boost living standards.

Money could be printed and distributed directly to citizens. Minimum wages could be raised to reduce inequality. Governments could invest much more in infrastructure and innovation at zero cost. Bank regulation could encourage lending, instead of restricting it. But deploying such radical policies would mean rejecting the theories that have dominated economics since the 1980s, together with the institutional arrangements based upon them, such as Europe’s Maastricht Treaty. Few “responsible” people are yet willing to challenge pre-crisis economic orthodoxy. The message of today’s populist revolts is that politicians must tear up their pre-crisis rulebooks and encourage a revolution in economic thinking. If responsible politicians refuse, “some rough beast, its hour come at last” will do it for them.

Japan, Philippines, Tonga, Vanuatu, Ecuador and more

• Fears Of ‘The Big One’ As 7 Major Earthquakes Strike Pacific In 96 Hours (E.)

Japan has been worst hit by the tremors. The latest quake to hit the country yesterday, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, injured more than 1,000 and trapped people in collapsed buildings, only a day after a quake killed nine people in the same region. Rescue crews searched for survivors of a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that struck Japan’s Kyushu Island, the same region rattled by a 6.2 quake two days earlier. Around 20,000 troops have had to be deployed following the latest 7.3 earthquake at 1.25am local time on Saturday. Roads have also been damaged and big landslides have been reported, there are also 200,000 households without power. The death toll in the latest Kyushu earthquake is 16 people and a previous earthquake that struck the area on Thursday had killed nine people.

There have been other large earthquakes recorded in recent days, including a major one in southern Japan which destroyed buildings and left at least 45 people injured, after Myanmar was rocked on Wednesday. Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 7,262 people have sought shelter at 375 centers since Friday in Kumamoto Prefecture. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to do everything he could to save lives following the disaster. He said: “Nothing is more important than human life and it’s a race against time.” On Thursday, The Japanese Red Cross Kumamoto Hospital confirmed 45 were injured, including five with serious injuries after a quake of magnitude 6.2 to 6.5 and a series of strong aftershocks ripped through Kumamoto city.

Several buildings were damaged or destroyed and at least six people are believed to be trapped under homes in Mashiki. Local reports said one woman was rescued in a critical condition Scientists say there has been an above average number of significant earthquakes across south Asia and the Pacific since the start of the year. The increased frequency has sparked fears of a repeat of the Nepal quake of 2015, where 8,000 people died, or even worse. Roger Bilham, seismologist of University of Colorado, said: “The current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude. “And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes.”

Debt Rattle April 17 2016

Apr 172016

April 17, 2016 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:35 am Finance Tagged with: 9/11, Brexit, China, Doha, free trade, freeze, Iran, oil, P2P, pope, refugees 4 Responses »

Underwood&Underwood Chicago framed by Gothic stonework high in the Tribune Tower 1952

• South Korea Exports To China Tumble 15.7% In Q1 (Yonhap)

• Chinese P2P Shadow Lender’s Woes Expose Its Global Tentacles (WSJ)

• Doha Oil Freeze Talks Face Last-Minute Trouble (Reuters)

• Iran Central Banker Dismisses Idea Of Oil Output Cut (CNBC)

• Greece’s Creditors Weigh Extra Austerity Measures to Break Deadlock (WSJ)

• Panama and a New Copernican Revolution (Tett)

• Wolfgang Schäuble Warns UK Of Tough Brexit Negotiations (FT)

• BlackRock Wields Its Big Stick Like a Wet Noodle (Morgenson)

• Foreign Investment Turns New Zealand Stock Market Into A Casino (BBG)

• Free Trade Has Won: Adapt Or Die Is The Only Option Left To Us (G.)

• Economists Ignore One of Capitalism’s Biggest Problems (Steve Keen)

• Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill (NYT)

• Varoufakis Joins French ‘Nuit Debout’ Anti-Labor Reform Protests (AFP)

• Pope Flies 12 Syrian Refugees to Vatican in Potent Symbol for EU (BBG)

China’s strongarming all of eastern Asia into submission to its exports. This could get very ugly.

• South Korea Exports To China Tumble 15.7% In Q1 (Yonhap)

South Korea suffered a 15.7% fall in exports to China in the first quarter this year, data showed Sunday, deepening its overall trade woes. It marks the biggest drop in seven years in South Korea’s outbound shipments to China, its single biggest market. China accounts for about 25% of South Korea’s total exports. Exports to China stood at $28.5 billion in the year’s first three months, down 15.7% from a year earlier, according to the Korea International Trade Association (KITA). By item, exports of semiconductors, flat panel displays, petrochemical products, car parts and synthetic resins recorded notable declines. Experts cited a structural problem and suggested a shift in trade strategy. “Over 70% of South Korean goods exported to China are intermediate goods. China’s demand for those is diminishing,” said Park Jin-woo, head of KITA’s strategic market research office.

“In particular, China is making massive investments and expanding facilities in such sectors as semiconductors, while reducing imports.” He stressed the need for targeting the consumer goods market instead. South Korea’s exports to the United States also sank 3.3% on-year to $16.8 billion in the January-March period and imports were down 4.9% to $10.1 billion. Trade with Japan remains in trouble as well. Exports fell 13.1% to $5.5 billion, representing a double-digit drop for the sixth consecutive quarter, and imports dwindled 11.2% to $10.6 billion. In contrast, exports to Vietnam, which has emerged as South Korea’s third-largest exports market, maintained an upward trend. Exports grew 7.6% to $7 billion, although growth rates showed signs of slowing.

Mom and pop, shadow banking, P2P, Hollywood, Ponzi, it’s all there.

• Chinese P2P Shadow Lender’s Woes Expose Its Global Tentacles (WSJ)

A crisis rocking a loosely regulated lending network is underlining the risks of a financing boom that has channeled Chinese household money into Hollywood movies and Wall Street deals Droves of teary-eyed investors from around China have descended on Shanghai Kuailu Investment Group’s swanky offices over the past week to demand their money back after the firm halted redemptions on wealth-management products for the roughly 250,000 clients of the firm and three affiliates. The uncertainty around investments handled by Kuailu could force a re-evaluation of a financing trend that has become widespread, in the latest knock to a financial system damaged by months of stock-market turmoil and a slowing economy.

Kuailu is one of thousands of finance companies in a universe of Chinese “shadow banks” that funnel investors funds to businesses and individuals, often with an assurance of high returns. Moody’s estimated credit extended by nonbank financing companies in China stood at $370 billion in mid-2015. Many Chinese refer to the diverse industry using English: P2P, as in peer-to-peer lending, though that business of matching small lenders and borrowers is just one segment of operations at Kuailu. Kuailu isn’t the first such lender to leave investors hanging amid recent collapses in the sector. What is distinctive is how its problems are exposing an international dimension to the industry, which bankers said is common but little understood.

The Shanghai firm invested in at least 20 feature films, including the coming release of “The Bombing” starring Bruce Willis, according to the company. Client money holds a slice of a $9 billion deal to privatize NYSE-listed Chinese Internet-security company Qihoo 360 Technology, firm marketing documents show. A crisis-management specialist that Kuailu’s founding chairman this month put in charge of sorting through $1.5 billion in liabilities told the WSJ it wasn’t a Ponzi scheme, a fear some investors have raised with the company. “No cash flow. That’s the issue,” said Xu Qi, who estimated assets cover about 90% of what is owed to investors, but that most of it is tied up in investments or projects that can’t be quickly converted to cash.

Companies like Kuailu got their start in peer-to-peer lending, initially a modest effort to supply money to Chinese households and entrepreneurs that was endorsed by top government officials as a way to power new streams of consumer activity. But crowdsourced lending has quickly expanded and now powers financing across China, from wedding loans to land speculation. Like banks, but with less regulation, such lenders compete aggressively for deposits, often via online platforms. Many attract money faster than they can thoroughly research investments, according to analysts.

B Movie.

• Doha Oil Freeze Talks Face Last-Minute Trouble (Reuters)

A meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers on an agreement to freeze output ran into last-minute trouble in Qatar on Sunday due to a new request by OPEC’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia, sources told Reuters. Oil ministers were heading into a meeting with the Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani – who was instrumental in promoting output stability in recent months – in an attempt to rescue the deal designed to bolster the flagging price of crude. “There is an issue. Experts are discussing how to find an acceptable solution. I’m confident they will come up with a solution,” one of the sources said. According to another source, Saudi Arabia said it wanted all OPEC members to participate in the talks, despite insisting earlier on excluding Iran because Tehran does not want to freeze production.

Saudi Arabia has taken a tough stance on Iran, the only major OPEC producer to have refused to participate in the freeze. Tehran says it needs to regain market share after the lifting of international sanctions against it in January. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Bloomberg that the kingdom would restrain its output only if all other major producers, including Iran, agreed to freeze production. More than a dozen nations inside and outside OPEC have officially confirmed they would attend the meeting in Doha but the role of Iran has been the key issue overhanging the talks. “We have told some OPEC and non-OPEC members like Russia that they should accept the reality of Iran’s return to the oil market,” Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, was quoted as saying by his ministry’s news agency SHANA on Saturday.

Iran will go all out.

• Iran Central Banker Dismisses Idea Of Oil Output Cut (CNBC)

Iran’s top central banker is adding to growing doubts about an agreement to freeze output at a meeting of oil producers in Doha, Qatar on Sunday. Ahead of a pivotal meeting that may determine the near-term outlook for crude prices, Iran on Saturday announced that it would not participate in the conference. The country, still trying to recover from Western sanctions, is seen trying to preserve market share, and has steadfastly resisted any suggestions that Iran should freeze or curb output in order to prop up prices. On the sidelines of an IMF meeting in Washington, D.C., Valiollah Seif, head of Iran’s central bank told CNBC that asking Iran to freeze output right now is unfair.

“What Iran is doing right now is trying to get back and secure its share of the market,” Seif said, adding that “what Saudi Arabia is asking Iran to do is not a very fair [or] logical request.” On several occasions, the leadership of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said they would agree to an output freeze as long as Iran did too. Currently, analysts believe the two rivals are unlikely to reach a near-term consensus. Seif told CNBC that Iran, as a member of OPEC, has a quota of 2.4 million barrels per day. Under sanctions for its nuclear program, that quota went unfilled.

At the same other members used their output to fill the gap. “And right now, Iran is trying to just take back the quota it is entitled to get, so we are going to do that and this is the main direction of our economy,” Seif added. He went as far as to say other OPEC members are to blame for the sharp fall in oil prices, which are down more than 37% year to date. “This request is coming from those countries which are responsible for this surplus production in the market, because they have exceeded output beyond their quota, and I think this is not fair,” Seif added. He cautioned that this was his personal viewpoint, and the ultimate decision lies with Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Zangeneh.

Predators experimenting on an entire nation.

• Greece’s Creditors Weigh Extra Austerity Measures to Break Deadlock (WSJ)

Greece’s creditors are considering seeking extra austerity measures that would be triggered if Athens misses its fiscal targets, in a bid to bridge differences between Europe and the IMF and break a deadlock threatening to unravel the Greek bailout. Under the proposal, say officials involved in the discussions, Greece would have to sign up to so-called contingency measures of up to about €3 billion, on top of the package of about €5 billion in tax increases and spending cuts Greece and its lenders are already negotiating. The country would only have to implement the extra measures if falls short of targeted budget surpluses for coming years that were set out in last year’s bailout agreement, the officials say.

The idea, which has support from the eurozone’s dominant power Germany, hasn’t yet been agreed upon, and officials on the creditors’ side say it would be politically hard for Greece’s embattled government to swallow. Creditors say the contingency-measures idea could finally overcome the monthslong disagreement between European institutions and the IMF about the outlook for Greece’s budget. That disunity has paralyzed talks about what Greece needs to do to secure a new IMF loan program and unlock rescue funding from Europe. Without billions of euros in fresh bailout funds, Greece faces bankruptcy in July, when large debts fall due. Months of talks without agreement have stoked concern in Europe about another Greek debt drama this summer, reviving fears the country could tumble out of the eurozone.

Athens has argued that imposing even-more austerity measures would go beyond what was agreed in the July 2015 bailout deal, according to people familiar with Athens’s thinking. The deadlock among creditors since last fall stems from Germany’s insistence that Greece get no more money from the eurozone’s bailout fund until the IMF agrees to lend more money too. Since Greece’s bailout odyssey began in 2010, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has insisted IMF involvement is essential. But the IMF is unconvinced by the math of the eurozone’s July 2015 bailout plan for Greece. The fund says it can’t resume lending to Greece unless there is a combination of a credible fiscal plan for Greece and debt relief from Europe.

The creditors and Greece agreeing on a fiscal plan would allow for the start of concrete talks on a second thorny issue: debt relief for Greece. Germany is deeply reluctant to offer much debt relief, but tends to agree with the IMF about the weaknesses of Greece’s budget, rather than with the more upbeat assessments of the European Union’s executive arm, the Commission. The Commission believes around €5 billion of austerity measures would be enough for Greece to hit a key target in the bailout plan: a primary budget surplus, meaning before interest payments, of 3.5% of gross domestic product. But the IMF is more pessimistic about Greek growth and finances. It insists about €8 billion of savings are needed to hit the target. The European side’s proposed measures, the IMF thinks, would only get Greece to a primary surplus of 1.5% of GDP.

Dream on.

• Panama and a New Copernican Revolution (Tett)

The name Nicolaus Copernicus is not usually mentioned in the same breath as corporate tax planning or Mossack Fonseca. This month, however, it probably should be. Six centuries ago, the Polish astronomer formulated a model of the universe that put the sun, rather than the earth, at the centre of the solar system. It was a paradigm shift that led to a transformation in the way that we view the universe. I suspect something similar might be happening with global finance. This month, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published some 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. Among other things, these gave details about offshore companies the firm created for the elite.

The leak has already provoked a number of political scandals: last week, the Icelandic prime minister resigned after it emerged that he had an offshore company in Panama; and David Cameron, the British prime minister, has faced a steady stream of criticism about an offshore company created by his late father. Meanwhile, revelations about Chinese and Russian billionaires could spark further recriminations. To my mind, it is not just the revelations concerning the rich and famous that make the Panama Papers so fascinating; after all, it is not illegal to create such companies, unless they are used to evade taxes or launder money. Instead, the most interesting issue is whether this leak will create something akin to a Copernican moment.

Think about it. Most of us vaguely know that money flows through offshore centres but the details of this world are very shadowy and opaque. Thus, insofar as any of us have ever tried to visualise the 21st-century “map” of global finance, we assumed that the visible onshore activity was the “sun” that dominated this universe — and offshore finance just a fuzzy little planet, that hovered on the edge. But the Panama Papers have given contours to that fuzzy, offshore world. More specifically, anyone who wants to get a sense of what has been happening in Panama can now go on to the ICIJ website and search those 11.5 million documents with keywords. Try it out at home — it is as simple as a Wikipedia search.

As further details tumble out, it’s not just more names that will be generated but numbers too. Even before the data were readily available, activist groups such as the Tax Justice Network had claimed that some $21tn-$32tn was being stashed in offshore centres, but they had no real way of verifying the figure. With the Panama Papers online, more precise figures could emerge — and with that the ability to compare them with the overall picture of global banking. Could this spark a bigger policy change, such as a crackdown on tax avoidance or money laundering? A cynic might argue not. Remember, powerful vested interests are involved. But if you want to get a sense of what can happen when that mental map flips, think about how attitudes to shadow banking have changed in the past decade.

EU does not rhyme with democracy, and never will. We’re going to see a lot of crazy claims and numbers pre-referendum.

• Wolfgang Schäuble Warns UK Of Tough Brexit Negotiations (FT)

Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, has warned British chancellor George Osborne that Berlin would be a tough negotiator if the UK votes to leave the EU. Speaking on the sidelines of the IMF spring meetings on Saturday, Mr Schäuble, one of the strongest forces in European politics, also jested that British football teams in a post-Brexit world should be excluded from the European champions league — something not actually linked to EU membership. His confirmation that Germany would not readily agree to an easy trading relationship with Britain after Brexit undermines the Leave campaign’s argument that the UK would be able to secure preferential EU trade deals without freedom of movement of people or the need for Britain to contribute to the EU budget.

The German finance minister, who is known for his unyielding negotiating positions, told German media that he wanted the UK to remain in the EU and did not want to inflame the British debate. But he added that if Britain were to leave, the process would not be easy. The Treasury confirmed that Mr Schäuble told Mr Osborne just how tough negotiations would be after Brexit during a bilateral meeting this weekend — and made the same joke about European football. In Washington this weekend, finance minsters from around the world have gradually been waking up to the possibility that Britain will seek to leave the EU within a matter of months. The IMF said it would wreak “severe damage” to the British and European economies.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF head, admitted this week that while she hoped Europe would avoid having to deal with Brexit, “the continued relationship with other countries in the EU would be at risk”. The difficulties of post-Brexit negotiations will be amplified by elections in Germany and France in 2017, European finance ministers said privately on the sidelines of the IMF meetings. With populist rightwing Eurosceptic parties threatening mainstream politics in both countries, the domestic incentives would prevent concessions to Britain as politicians would need to show their electorates that leaving the EU comes with a heavy price.

Many European officials and ministers have tried to avoid the subject of how they would negotiate with the UK after Brexit, saying instead that they hoped the British people would vote to remain. But some did speak out. Klaus Regling, head of the European Stability Mechanism, said that the leave campaign’s ambition to secure full access to the single market without accepting free movement of people and budget contributions “has never happened in Europe”. “I’m pretty certain [the negotiations ] would take quite a while — two years is not enough — so there would be several years of high uncertainty, which would have a negative impact on the UK economy,” Mr Regling said.

BlackRock and ‘corporate responsibility’.. Yeah, sure.

• BlackRock Wields Its Big Stick Like a Wet Noodle (Morgenson)

For several years, Laurence D. Fink, chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, the money management giant, has been on a crusade, exhorting corporations to change their short-term ways. Executives should forgo tricks that reward short-term stock traders, he argues, like share buybacks purchased at high valuations. Instead, corporate managers should focus on creating value for long-term shareholders. It’s an admirable argument that has won Mr. Fink wise-man status on Wall Street and accolades in the press. Hillary Clinton has echoed his ideas on the campaign trail. Certainly, as the head of BlackRock, Mr. Fink wields an outsize stick. With $4.6 trillion in assets and ownership of shares in roughly 15,000 companies, BlackRock is the world’s largest investment manager.

But if Mr. Fink really wants to get the attention of company executives on stock buybacks and other corporate governance issues, why doesn’t BlackRock vote more often against CEO pay packages of companies that play the short-term game? Executive compensation is inextricably linked to the shareholder-unfriendly actions Mr. Fink has identified; voting against pay packages infected by short-termism would help curb the problem. But BlackRock rarely takes such a stance. From July 1, 2014, to last June 30, according to Proxy Insight, a data analysis firm, BlackRock voted to support pay practices at companies 96.2% of the time. On pay issues, anyway, Mr. Fink’s big stick is more like a wet noodle. BlackRock’s “yes” percentage runs far higher than that of other money managers that express concern about corporate responsibility. Domini Funds supported pay practices only 6% of the time during the period, while Calvert Investments did so at 46% of companies.

As if Auckland real estate wasn’t bad enough yet.

• Foreign Investment Turns New Zealand Stock Market Into A Casino (BBG)

As fund manager Mark Williams deliberated from his London office where next to invest, the world’s most remote stock market was just too good to pass up. That’s worrying locals, 11,000 miles away in New Zealand. The S&P/NZX 50 Index is the world’s best-performing developed stock gauge this year, climbing more than 7% to a record after overseas buying of equities jumped 21% in 2015. That’s driven stock valuations in the South-Pacific nation close to a record high, leaving them more expensive than anywhere else in the region. Funds from Henderson Global Investors to Liontrust Asset Management are buying into New Zealand, lured by dividends almost double the global average, rising earnings and expectations the central bank will cut interest rates to maintain growth.

Yet with a market cap of about $75 billion, smaller than the publicly traded value of Nike, opportunities are becoming more limited, says Matthew Goodson, an Auckland-based investor. “We’ve seen significant offshore inflows into larger-cap stocks and that’s driven their valuations to unusually high levels,” Goodson, who helps oversee about $1 billion at Salt Funds Management, said by phone. “It’s swamped the market and it leaves them very vulnerable. We’re somewhat nervous.” Foreigners now own about one third of New Zealand’s market, about three times the overseas ownership of U.S. equities, according to estimates from brokerage JBWere. Mark Williams, a money manager at Liontrust, is optimistic, given he expects the nation’s central bank will cut its key interest rate from an already record-low 2.25%.

While New Zealand accounts for less than 0.1% of the MSCI All Country World Index, Williams said he has 4.5% of his fund invested in the country. He bought Spark New Zealand and Fletcher Building in March, attracted by dividend yields of more than 5%. Spark, a communications provider, is the largest member by weighting of the S&P/NZX 50 gauge. “We find plenty of opportunities in New Zealand,” Williams, who helps manage $6.7 billion running an Asian equity-income fund at Liontrust, said by phone from London. “Interest rates remain relatively high, so that could lead to further cuts.”

This author gets it spectacularly wrong.

• Free Trade Has Won: Adapt Or Die Is The Only Option Left To Us (G.)

The Tata Steel sale has revived the battle between protectionists and free traders, a debate that became particularly acute in the run-up to the creation of the World Trade Organisation in 1995, which marked the success of “free traders” all around the world. In the protectionist camp, there is now a wide range of political parties from the extreme left to the extreme right: from Syriza to Ukip, from the Front National to Podemos. The common element for all these parties is that they dream of returning to a time when “we were in control”; when we could easily open or close our borders; when the world was manageable and small and we did not have to compromise. That is why they want national rules rather than international ones; and that is also why ultimately most of them despise the EU, because it is based not on direct control but on compromise.

The problem with that notion is that such a cosy world does not exist any more. The new generations expect to talk, travel and trade with each other all over the world, no matter where they are. My children, for example, know more about startup products released for crowdfunding around the world than about what is sold in shops in our high street; they respond to fashions that are created thousands of miles away; and they expect products to reach them almost instantaneously, no matter where they are made. Fluidity, speed, seamlessness and complexity define the 21st century. Fighting those trends makes sense only if you are of such an age and means that you can afford the luxury of whingeing about the present and dreaming nostalgically about the past, but if you are still trying to make your way in life, you have to embrace change and adapt.

Companies are rightly responding as quickly as possible to those new demands and, as a result, we are witnessing a level of international outsourcing that we could never have imagined. “Made in” labels mean little nowadays: companies based in the west often have their production plants elsewhere and use components sourced from third countries; and are financed by investors in yet other countries. If that were not complex enough, when countries impose trade barriers and erect controls, companies simply move overnight. Regulators and governments often do not stand a chance. That does not mean regulators should let modern trade become the Wild West. But it means they need to have the flexibility and tools to react better and faster.

Banks create money out of nothing. They’re not intermediaries.

• Economists Ignore One of Capitalism’s Biggest Problems (Steve Keen)

I like Joe Stiglitz, both professionally and personally. His Globalization and its Discontents was virtually the only work by a Nobel Laureate economist that I cited favourably in my Debunking Economics, because he had the courage to challenge the professional orthodoxy on the “Washington Consensus”. Far more than most in the economics mainstream—like Ken Rogoff for example—Joe is capable of thinking outside its box. But Joe’s latest public contribution—“The Great Malaise Continues” on Project Syndicate—simply echoes the mainstream on a crucial point that explains why the US economy is at stall speed, which the mainstream simply doesn’t get. Joe correctly notes that “the world faces a deficiency of aggregate demand”, and attributes this to both “growing inequality and a mindless wave of fiscal austerity”, neither of which I dispute.

But then he adds that part of the problem is that “our banks … are not fit to fulfill their purpose” because “they have failed in their essential function of intermediation”: Between long-term savers (for example, sovereign wealth funds and those saving for retirement) and long-term investment in infrastructure stands our short-sighted and dysfunctional financial sector… Former US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke once said that the world is suffering from a “savings glut.” That might have been the case had the best use of the world’s savings been investing in shoddy homes in the Nevada desert. But in the real world, there is a shortage of funds; even projects with high social returns often can’t get financing. I’m the last one to defend banks, but here Joe is quite wrong: the banks have very good reasons not to “fulfill their purpose” today, because that purpose is not what Joe thinks it is.

Banks don’t “intermediate loans”, they “originate loans”, and they have every reason not to originate right now. In effect, Joe is complaining that banks aren’t doing what economics textbooks say they should do. But those textbooks are profoundly wrong about the actual functioning of banks, and until the economics profession gets its head around this and why it matters, then the economy will be stuck in the Great Malaise that Joe is hoping to lift us out of. The argument that banks merely intermediate between savers and investors leads the mainstream to a manifestly false conclusion: that the level of private debt today is too low, because too little private debt is being created right now. In reality, the level of private debt is way too high, and that’s why so little lending is occurring.

I can make the case empirically for non-economists pretty easily, thanks to an aside that Joe makes in his article. He observes that when WWII ended, many economists feared that there would be a period of stagnation: Others, harking back to the profound pessimism after the end of World War II, fear that the global economy could slip into depression, or at least into prolonged stagnation. In fact, the period from 1945 till 1965 is now regarded as the “Golden Age of Capitalism”. There was a severe slump initially as the economy changed from a war footing to a private one, but within 3 years, that transition was over and the US economy prospered—growing by as much as 10% in real terms in some years. (see Figure 1). The average from 1945 till 1965 was growth at 2.8% a year. In contrast, the average rate of economic growth since 2008 to today is precisely zero.

Time for Trump?!

• Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill (NYT)

Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.

Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts. Several outside economists are skeptical that the Saudis will follow through, saying that such a sell-off would be difficult to execute and would end up crippling the kingdom’s economy. But the threat is another sign of the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States. The administration, which argues that the legislation would put Americans at legal risk overseas, has been lobbying so intently against the bill that some lawmakers and families of Sept. 11 victims are infuriated.

In their view, the Obama administration has consistently sided with the kingdom and has thwarted their efforts to learn what they believe to be the truth about the role some Saudi officials played in the terrorist plot. “It’s stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens,” said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who is part of a group of victims’ family members pushing for the legislation. President Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for meetings with King Salman and other Saudi officials. It is unclear whether the dispute over the Sept. 11 legislation will be on the agenda for the talks. Saudi officials have long denied that the kingdom had any role in the Sept. 11 plot, and the 9/11 Commission found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization.”

But critics have noted that the commission’s narrow wording left open the possibility that less senior officials or parts of the Saudi government could have played a role. Suspicions have lingered, partly because of the conclusions of a 2002 congressional inquiry into the attacks that cited some evidence that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a hand in the plot. Those conclusions, contained in 28 pages of the report, still have not been released publicly. The dispute comes as bipartisan criticism is growing in Congress about Washington’s alliance with Saudi Arabia, for decades a crucial American ally in the Middle East and half of a partnership that once received little scrutiny from lawmakers. Last week, two senators introduced a resolution that would put restrictions on American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which have expanded during the Obama administration.

French protests have been going on for a while. Not sure Yanis should desire a role in this.

• Varoufakis Joins French ‘Nuit Debout’ Anti-Labor Reform Protests (AFP)

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on Saturday addressed opponents of the French government’s workplace reforms at a protest in Paris, telling them the planned changes would “devalue labor.” “He (French President Francois Hollande) wants to devalue French labor… it can’t work,” Varoufakis told protesters as he paid a visit to the latest “Nuit Debout” (Up All Night) gathering at the city’s vast Place de la Republique. “Devaluing French labor can only deepen the crisis… I’m bringing to you solidarity from Athens,” he told the crowd. The labor reforms of France’s Socialist government aim to make it easier for struggling companies to fire people.

The government says they will make France’s rigid labor market more flexible but opponents say the reforms are too pro-business and will fail to reduce the 25% jobless rate among the young. Hundreds, at times thousands, of people have been demonstrating every night for the past two weeks at the Place de la Republique in central Paris. The labor reforms are a unifying theme of the gatherings but the so-called “Nuit Debout” movement is broader, embracing a range of anti-establishment grievances. The nightly protests have been marred by sporadic violence. The latest clashes erupted late Friday when, according to police, some 100 protesters set rubbish on fire and threw bottles and stones at officers, who responded with tear gas. Twenty-two people were arrested. The “Nuit Debout” demonstrations have spread to cities across France, becoming a major headache for the government.

I still can’t muster much enthousiasm about this. He should have used much harsher words. There are still 3,000 people locked up there, including many children.

• Pope Flies 12 Syrian Refugees to Vatican in Potent Symbol for EU (BBG)

Pope Francis made an emotional visit to the Greek island of Lesbos Saturday, plucking 12 Syrian refugees to take back to Rome with him and draw attention to what he called Europe’s most serious humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II. Francis, who has made migration a defining issue of his papacy, visited a refugee center as he appealed to the international community to deal with the migrants crisis as a humanitarian catastrophe. The pope said there was “reason to weep” on his visit to the refugees, and he brushed aside any political reasons for his invitation to have three families from Syria, 12 people including six children, accompany him on the flight home. “It is a purely humanitarian thing,” he told reporters on his chartered plane.

The Vatican will take financial responsibility for the families and an organization of volunteers, Comunità di Sant’Egidio, will initially host the groups, according to a statement. During the five-hour visit to Lesbos, the pontiff visited a refugee center with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church, and was welcomed by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He also criticized the use of walls to keep migrants out. “In reality, barriers create divisions instead of promoting the true progress of peoples, and divisions sooner or later lead to conflicts,” Francis said in a speech at the port of Lesbos.

The visit was made days after migrants to Greece started being sent back to Turkey under a European Union agreement that has been criticized by the Vatican and denounced by human rights groups as impractical and legally suspect. Lesbos has become a repository for migrants seeking a better life in the EU: there were 3,560 refugees on the island as of Wednesday morning with more arriving each day, according to a daily tally issued by the Greek authorities. As he began the journey to Greece, the pope told reporters on his flight that the trip is marked by sadness. “This is important. It is a sad trip,” he said. “Refugees are not numbers, they are people who have faces, names, stories and need to be treated as such,” the pontiff said through his Twitter account.

Debt Rattle April 16 2016

Apr 162016

April 16, 2016 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:24 am Finance Tagged with: bubble, China, cotton, debt, Draghi, ECB, Erdogan, freeze, Lesbos, Merkel, oil, pope 4 Responses »

NPC Pennsylvania Avenue storefront view, Washington DC 1921

• ECB Sees No Evidence Of Asset Bubbles: Draghi (Reuters)

• China Buys ‘Recovery’ With A Record Amount Of New Debt (ZH)

• Flood of Chinese Cotton Exports Sends Global Prices Tumbling (BBG)

• Greek Banks’ EFSF Notes Eligible For ECB’s QE Purchases (Reuters)

• Startup Investors Hit the Brakes (WSJ)

• Goodrich Petroleum Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection (WSJ)

• Saudi Prince Reiterates Oil Freeze Depends on Others Joining (BBG)

• Neoliberalism – The Ideology At The Root Of All Our Problems (Monbiot)

• Erdogan and the Satirist: Inside Merkel’s Comedy Conundrum (Spiegel)

• March Global Temperature Smashes 100-Year Record (G.)

• Pope Francis Flies To Lesbos To Highlight Humanitarian Crisis In Europe (G.)

• Pope Francis Visits Lesbos, Frontline Of Europe’s Refugee Crisis (Reuters)

• Lesbos Refugee Detention Centre Whitewashed For Pope’s Visit (Ind.)

Apparently not at all worried about credibility, then.

• ECB Sees No Evidence Of Asset Bubbles: Draghi (Reuters)

The ECB will continue to do what is necessary to boost inflation and has not seen evidence so far that exceptionally loose monetary policies are creating asset bubbles, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Friday. Draghi added that the economic outlook for the euro zone faces uncertainty due to risks to growth prospects in emerging market economies, a clouded outlook for oil prices and geopolitical risks. “While accommodative monetary policies over an extended horizon may have unintended consequences for certain sectors in the form of excessive risk-taking and misaligned asset prices, we do not currently see any broad-based evidence of excesses in the behavior of banks and other financial institutions and valuations of euro area asset prices,” Draghi said in a statement. Draghi also repeated the ECB’s forward guidance that the key policy rates will remain at the current or lower levels for an extended period of time, well past the horizon of the net asset purchases.

Over $1 trillion in just one quarter. My comment yesterday: “This is such a contradiction in terms it’s crazy the WSJ prints it: “China’s economy may have stabilized for now, thanks to gobs of new debt..”

• China Buys ‘Recovery’ With A Record Amount Of New Debt (ZH)

When China reported its economic data dump last night which was modestly better than expected (one has to marvel at China’s phenomenal ability to calculate its GDP just two weeks after the quarter ended – not even the Bureau of Economic Analysis is that fast), the investing community could finally exhale: after all, the biggest source of “global” instability for the Fed appears to have been neutralized. But what was the reason for this seeming halt to China’s incipient hard landing? The answer was in the secondary data that was reported alongside the primary economic numbers: the March new loan and Total Social Financing report.

As the PBOC reported last night, Chinese banks made 1.37 trillion yuan ($211.23 billion) in new local-currency loans in March, well above analyst expectations, as the central bank scrambled to keep the economy engorged with new loans “to keep policy accomodative to underpin the slowing economy” as Reuters put it. This was up from February’s 726.6 billion yuan but off a record of 2.51 trillion yuan extended in January. Outstanding yuan loans grew 14.7% by month-end on an annual basis, versus expectations of 14.5%. But it wasn’t the total loan tally that is the key figure tracking China’s credit largesse: for that one has to look at the total social financing, which in just the month of March rose to 2.34 trillion yuan, the equivalent of more than a third of a trillion in dollars!

And there is your answer, because if one adds up the Total Social Financing injected in the first quarter, one gets a stunning $1 trillion dollars in new credit, or $1,001,000,000,000 to be precise, shoved down China’s economic throat. As shown on the chart below, this was an all time high in dollar terms, and puts to rest any naive suggestion that China may be pursuing “debt reform.” Quite the contrary, China has once again resorted to the old “growth” model where GDP is to be saved at any cost, even if it means flooding the economy with record amount of debt.

And to put it all together, the PBOC also reported that the broad M2 money supply measure grew 13.4% in March from a year earlier, or precisely double the rate of growth of GDP. This means that it took two dollars in new loans to create one dollar of GDP growth. With China’s debt/GDP already estimate at 350%, how much longer can China sustain this stunning debt (and by definition, deposit) growth continue?

China has too much steel, too much cotton, and too much of lots of other things.

• Flood of Chinese Cotton Exports Sends Global Prices Tumbling (BBG)

China is about to open the floodgates on its huge supplies of cotton, sparking a rout in prices. The country plans to auction about 2 million metric tons from May through August, a government statement showed Friday. That’s almost equal to total shipments expected this season from American growers, the world’s top exporters. The auction sales would represent about 14% of the 13.9-million tons that the U.S Department of Agriculture estimates that China has in its stockpiles. Cotton futures fell the most in six weeks. The price slid more than 7% in the past year in part because the large Chinese inventories curbed overseas purchases from the Asian nation, the biggest consumer of the fiber.

“We knew this was coming, but it’s probably a bit more than what people were expecting” and reduces the country’s import outlook in the near term, Keith Brown, president of brokerage Keith Brown & Co. in Moultrie, Georgia, said in a telephone interview. Adding to the outlook for bigger supplies is favorable growing weather in U.S. cotton areas. Rains in the next few days will boost soil moisture in Texas, the country’s top producer, according to MDA Weather Services in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Drier conditions will aid planting in the U.S. Southeast, the forecaster said. American farmers are expected to increase plantings in the season that starts in August as low prices for competing crops leave farmers with few options, the USDA projects.

“Any increase in production, as well as any volume pushed out of Chinese reserves, will be added to globally available supply in the coming crop year,” industry researcher Cotton Inc. said in a report this week. “High levels of available supply can be expected to keep downward pressure on prices.” Still, the auction sales come as China’s crop is set to shrink this year to the lowest in more than a decade, USDA data show. That’s reducing global output by more than 16%, the biggest annual slide since at least 1961. As the Asian country depletes inventories, in the “long-run it’s positive,” for prices because it means that there will be less supply further down the road, boosting the outlook for eventual imports, Brown said.

Draghi buys anything now.

• Greek Banks’ EFSF Notes Eligible For ECB’s QE Purchases (Reuters)

The ECB has included European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) notes in its list of eligible securities for purchasing under its so-called quantitative easing program, an ECB spokesperson said on Friday. “Up to 50% of the outstanding amount can be purchased as this is the limit applicable to securities issued by eligible international organizations,” the spokesperson told Reuters. With holdings of more than €30 billion of such notes after rounds of recapitalization, Greek banks stand to make gains on the securities.

Bank shares were rebounding 16.2% on Friday after losses in the previous sessions. “The market jumped on this one-off positive piece of news after days of negativity,” said Eurobank analyst Nick Koskoletos. Banks had not been not allowed to sell the EFSF notes in the market but they repoed them with the ECB to obtain cheap funding. Apart from capital gains, selling a portion of their EFSF notes to the ECB could reduce the amount Greek banks borrow from it.

The focus on startups and unicorns smells of despair, a last ditch attempt to deny the demise of the economy.

• Startup Investors Hit the Brakes (WSJ)

Venture-capital investors hit the brakes on investing in the first quarter, following a funding bonanza the past two years that pushed valuations of once-hot technology startups to soaring heights. Funding for U.S. startups fell 25% from the fourth quarter to $13.9 billion, the largest quarterly decline on record since the dot-com bust, according to data from Dow Jones VentureSource. The numbers of deals also hit a four-year low of 884. The drop threatens to hasten a slump rippling through Silicon Valley that is pushing startups to slash marketing budgets, lay off staff and dial back lofty ambitions. Investors such as mutual funds and big banks that pumped money into startups on the promise of big returns have since retrenched, as a punishing market for initial public offerings has spoiled the runaway optimism.

The sky-high valuations of last year have retreated as a result. In the first quarter, the median value of U.S. startups plummeted to $18.5 million after hitting a peak of $61.5 million in last year’s third quarter. “I think investors are nervous, sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what happens,” said Brian Mulvey at PeakSpan Capital, which recently raised a venture fund of $150 million. Investors caution the first-quarter data spans a relatively small period and that capital tends to fluctuate widely throughout the year. VentureSource counts funding rounds for U.S.-based companies with at least one venture-capital firm as an investor. It doesn’t include startups only backed by individuals or majority-owned by corporations or private-equity firms. Several other data providers with varying methodologies show less of a decline.

Commodities break on plunging demand.

• Goodrich Petroleum Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection (WSJ)

Goodrich Petroleum filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday with investment firms slated to pick up the pieces, as yet another company sought court protection amid the shakeout in the oil and gas industry. Houston-based Goodrich, an oil and gas producer which struggled to cut its debt as crude prices tumbled, has a deal in place that would erase $400 million in debt from its books through a swap with a group of investors that own bonds the company issued last year. The Goodrich bondholders, who include Franklin Advisors, Penn Capital Management and Jefferies, have agreed to forgive $175 million in debt in exchange for ownership of the company. The deal is part of a larger bankruptcy-exit plan that would pay off or carry over $40 million of higher-ranking senior bank debt and wipe out $224 million in unsecured bonds.

Goodrich’s bankruptcy deal mirrors those proposed recently by other struggling oil producers as the energy slump transforms a U.S. industry once dominated by Texas oil men into one controlled by financial firms from across the nation. Falling oil prices have roiled the industry since the summer of 2014. Since that time, about 60 North American oil and gas companies have filed for bankruptcy, involving nearly $20 billion in debt, according to the law firm Haynes & Boone. On Thursday, Houston’s Energy XXI filed for bankruptcy to complete a debt-for-equity swap with a group of bondholders that includes Oaktree Capital Management.

Denver-based Venoco filed for bankruptcy last month after striking a deal with Apollo Global Management and MAST Capital Management that will erase nearly $1 billion in debt. Energy & Exploration Partners, Magnum Hunter Resources and New Gulf Resourcesare among other energy companies that have brokered similar deals. The rising number of debt-for-equity swaps is due to lenders’ unwillingness to accept the fire-sale prices that potential buyers are offering for oil assets, according to Ian Peck, head of Haynes & Boone’s bankruptcy practice.

Orchestrated theater. Too many producers can’t afford a freeze.

• Saudi Prince Reiterates Oil Freeze Depends on Others Joining (BBG)

Saudi Arabia won’t restrain its oil production unless other producers, including Iran, agree to freeze output at a meeting this weekend in Doha, the kingdom’s deputy crown prince said. The world’s biggest crude exporter would cap its market share at about 10.3 million to 10.4 million barrels a day, if producers agree to the freeze, Prince Mohammed bin Salman said during an interview on Thursday at King Salman’s private farm in Diriyah, the original home of the Al Saud royal family. “If all major producers don’t freeze production, we will not freeze production,” said Prince Mohammed, 30, who has emerged as Saudi Arabia’s leading economic force. “If we don’t freeze, then we will sell at any opportunity we get.”

At least 15 nations including Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world’s two largest crude oil producers, will gather in Doha on April 17 to discuss freezing output to stabilize an oversupplied market. Prince Mohammed has said Saudi Arabia’s commitment to a production cap would depend on Iran’s participation. Iran’s oil minister has dismissed the prospect of joining the deal as “ridiculous” for now. A Russian official said it was possible to reach a deal in Doha to freeze oil output, regardless of Iran whose crude shipments have risen by more than 600,000 barrels a day this month. That increase has added to the pressure on producer nations to reach an agreement to prop up prices as economies from Venezuela to Nigeria reel from the market rout. The meeting in Doha is only relevant if no deal is reached, prompting a sharp selloff in the markets, according to Ed Morse at Citigroup.

Promising, but incomplete.

• Neoliberalism – The Ideology At The Root Of All Our Problems (Monbiot)

[..] It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice and freedom should have been promoted with the slogan “there is no alternative”. But, as Hayek remarked on a visit to Pinochet’s Chile – one of the first nations in which the programme was comprehensively applied – “my personal preference leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism”. The freedom that neoliberalism offers, which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms, turns out to mean freedom for the pike, not for the minnows. Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation means the freedom to poison rivers, endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design exotic financial instruments.

Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth that lifts people out of poverty. As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted: for example, in the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, which Friedman described as “an opportunity to radically reform the educational system” in New Orleans. Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are imposed internationally, through trade treaties incorporating “investor-state dispute settlement”: offshore tribunals in which corporations can press for the removal of social and environmental protections. When parliaments have voted to restrict sales of cigarettes, protect water supplies from mining companies, freeze energy bills or prevent pharmaceutical firms from ripping off the state, corporations have sued, often successfully. Democracy is reduced to theatre.

Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition relies upon universal quantification and comparison. The result is that workers, job-seekers and public services of every kind are subject to a pettifogging, stifling regime of assessment and monitoring, designed to identify the winners and punish the losers. The doctrine that Von Mises proposed would free us from the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead created one. Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one. Economic growth has been markedly slower in the neoliberal era (since 1980 in Britain and the US) than it was in the preceding decades; but not for the very rich. Inequality in the distribution of both income and wealth, after 60 years of decline, rose rapidly in this era, due to the smashing of trade unions, tax reductions, rising rents, privatisation and deregulation.

Lots of criticism of Merkel for this, not sure that’s justified. She must be careful when it comes to trumping the law. Let the courts decide. It’s not as if they’ll lock the guy up. Many EU nations have similar antiquated ‘insult to foreign leaders’ laws, by the way.

• Erdogan and the Satirist: Inside Merkel’s Comedy Conundrum (Spiegel)

Jan Böhmermann has disappeared. He’s not giving interviews; he’s not answering his phone. Since Monday, he has also gone silent on Twitter, where he is normally extremely active. He has hardly left his home in Cologne in the last few days and he is also now under police protection. He had his Thursday show on the German public broadcaster ZDF cancelled and his Sunday radio show on RBB will likewise not be broadcast this week. It was cancelled last Sunday as well. Böhmermann was already in his home studio ready to record when he realized that he was in no mood to be funny. So he called it off. Friends and acquaintances who have had contact with him in the last few days are worried that he won’t be able to withstand the pressure.

The ZDF satirist is a sensitive person, even if that hasn’t always been part of his public persona. The scandal surrounding the disparaging poem he wrote about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has affected him more deeply than many have realized. Perhaps one has to be vulnerable to emotional pain in order to know how to inflict such pain on others. Two weeks ago, when he was still active on social media, he tweeted out the Beatles hit “The Fool on the Hill.” The song is about a simpleton sitting alone on a hill with a silly grin on his face – and everyone can see that he is a half-wit. It is essentially how people see Böhmermann, and it is how he wanted to be seen: The misunderstood fool. The tweet went out two days after his insulting Erdogan poem was broadcast on his ZDF show “Neo Magazin Royale” and one day after the broadcaster deleted the show from its video hub and distanced itself from Böhmermann’s verses.

And that was just the beginning. Prior to the scandal, Böhmermann had led a niche existence in Germany’s media landscape, but now everybody in the country knows who he is. The 35-year-old has triggered an affair of state, one which has served to demonstrate just how limited Chancellor Angela Merkel’s power really is. And how absurd German law can be. If Böhmermann intended to show just how powerful satire can be, he has been incredibly successful. The Böhmermann scandal is now entering its third week, and only now is it becoming clear just what the five-minute clip has set in motion. It didn’t just shine the spotlight on the Turkish president’s sensitivity and the limits of chancellor’s steadfastness, it has also unsettled all of Germany – a country which normally doesn’t spend much time thinking about satire and art and the freedoms associated with them.

On Friday, the need for doing so became even more apparent. Chancellor Merkel announced that the federal government had granted permission for criminal proceedings to go ahead against Jan Böhmermann under the controversial Paragraph 103 of the German Criminal Code. The law makes it illegal to insult the representatives of foreign countries. The federal government must approve the initiation of Paragraph 103 proceedings.

These things take much longer to sink in then they do to happen.

• March Global Temperature Smashes 100-Year Record (G.)

The global temperature in March has shattered a century-long record and by the greatest margin yet seen for any month. February was far above the long-term average globally, driven largely by climate change, and was described by scientists as a “shocker” and signalling “a kind of climate emergency”. But data released by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) shows that March was even hotter. Compared with the 20th-century average, March was 1.07C hotter across the globe, according to the JMA figures, while February was 1.04C higher. The JMA measurements go back to 1891 and show that every one of the past 11 months has been the hottest ever recorded for that month.

Data released released later on Friday by Nasa confirmed last month was the hottest March on record, but the US agency’s data indicated February had seen the biggest margin. The Nasa data recorded March as 1.65C above the average from 1951-1980, while February was 1.71C higher. The World Meteorological Organisation, the UN body for climate and weather, said the March data had “smashed” previous records.

Let’s see if this is more than just a show.

• Pope Francis Flies To Lesbos To Highlight Humanitarian Crisis In Europe (G.)

Pope Francis, widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest defender of refugees, flies into Lesbos on Saturday to highlight the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Europe. The Roman Catholic leader will spend five hours on the island with the Ecumenical head of world Orthodoxy, Patriarch Bartholomew I, and Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Ieronymos II. Imbued with added urgency on the frontline of the EU’s migrant emergency, the meeting is also being seen as a further warming of ties between the western and eastern branches of Christianity, almost 10 centuries after their bitter split in 1054. The pontiff, who has publicly criticised Europe’s “anaesthetised conscience” on refugees, will go straight to the menacing detention centre above the hilltop village of Moria where more than 3,000 men, women and children are held.

On Friday, just hours before Francis’ scheduled visit, detainees chanted “freedom, freedom” as demonstrators denounced their incarceration. Standing under the razor wire-topped fence, Sham Jutt, a young Pakistani, spoke of the refugees’ plight, saying he hoped the pope could intervene. “We expected a life of hope and now he is our only hope,” said the 21-year-old, adding that he had seen the camp change from being a registration centre to a prison following the controversial pact the EU signed with Turkey to stem the flows. “Now, with this agreement, we are very afraid they will deport us.” Greece’s leftist-led government described Saturday’s visit of religious leaders as “extremely significant”. Lesbos has borne the brunt of the refugee influx with over 850,000 of the 1.1 million Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis who streamed into Europe last year, coming through the island.

Prime minister Alexis Tsipras, also due to fly in, was expected to underline Greece’s increasingly fragile situation in talks with Francis. More than 50,000 migrants and refugees have been trapped in the country since Macedonia and other Balkan states cut off the migrant trail by closing borders. Greece has been struggling to house refugees in makeshift facilities even if arrivals have dropped dramatically since the deal came into effect on 20 March. For detainees who have arrived since then, conditions have deteriorated dramatically. Human rights organisations have withdrawn from Moria and other detention centres for fear of being associated with mass expulsions.

Before the church leaders’ visit, authorities had gone out of their way to clean up the camp, whitewashing graffiti-splattered walls, replacing tents with containers, installing air conditioning and taking families out of the overcrowded facility to an open-air holding centre nearby. “In every sense of the word, they have given it a whitewash,” said Jakob Mamzzak, a volunteer from California. “Today we even heard they had given [inmates] clean clothes, let them have their first shower in 25 days and brought them good food when the truth is conditions are inhumane.”

Taking 10 refugees with him on his way back.

• Pope Francis Visits Lesbos, Frontline Of Europe’s Refugee Crisis (Reuters)

Pope Francis arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday, turning the world’s attention to the frontline of Europe’s migrant crisis which has claimed hundreds of lives in the past year. Francis, leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, was scheduled to spend about six hours on the small Aegean island. Based on his schedule, he was to meet 250 refugees and have lunch with eight of them. Hundreds of people have died making the short but precarious crossing from Turkey to the Lesbos shores in inflatable dinghies in the past year, and the island is full of unmarked graves. “This is a trip that is a bit different than the others … this is a trip marked by sadness,” Francis told reporters on the airplane taking him to Lesbos.

“We are going to encounter the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since World War Two. We will see many people who are suffering, who don’t know where to go, who had to flee. We are also going to a cemetery, the sea. So many people died there … this is what is in my heart as I make this trip.” With Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Francis will visit Moria, a sprawling, fenced complex holding more than 3,000 refugees. “This is an island which has lifted all the weight of Europe upon its shoulders,” Tsipras told Francis at Lesbos airport, where a red carpet was rolled out for the pontiff’s arrival. Greek state TV reported Francis was planning to take ten refugees back with him to the Vatican, eight of them Syrians.

Aid organizations have described conditions at Moria, a disused army camp, as appalling. Journalists have no access to the facility on a hillside just outside Lesbos’s main town of Mytiline, but aid workers said walls were whitewashed, a sewer system fixed and several dozen migrants at the overcrowded facility were transferred to another camp, which the pope will not visit. . Aid organizations say queues for food are long, and people often wait for an hour or more. Saturday’s encounter with refugees would be ‘no frills’ and the religious leaders would eat the same food as everyone else at the camp, an official at the camp told Reuters.

The Pope should speak out a lot louder and clearer. Meeting a few preselected refugees won’t cut it.

• Lesbos Refugee Detention Centre Whitewashed For Pope’s Visit (Ind.)

A detention centre for asylum seekers in Greece is being urgently spruced up ahead of a visit by the Pope as thousands of people remain trapped inside, waiting to find out if they will be sent back to Turkey. Workers were dispatched to whitewash the wall surrounding Moria, a former refugee camp on the island of Lesbos, while others painted fences, cleared litter and moved stray tents. The last-minute efforts on Friday came ahead of Pope Francis’ arrival tomorrow with a delegation of Catholic and Orthodox leaders. Sacha Myers, who is working inside Moria with Save the Children, told The Independent that the now “very white” wall was not a priority for the families living inside Moria. “We hope the improvements continue but they don’t change the fact that we have still got thousands of people locked inside this detention centre with no idea how long they will be here,” she said.

“The camp was built to hold 2,000 people and now there are 2,900. Families are living on top of each other, there is absolutely no privacy. “We’re seeing a real deterioration in conditions.” Ms Myers, a communications and media manager for the charity, said she had met Iraqi and Syrian mothers whose babies were ill with diarrhoea and fever amid declining hygiene. “Some people are aware of the Pope’s visit,” she added. “They really want him to help them and understand their issues.” Save the Children is warning that child refugees are being held in appalling conditions at the centre, where they report illness, fights and theft. Charity workers described dirty rooms without enough beds, where children are denied legal services and basic support despite concerns for their mental and physical wellbeing.

High-profile visits by Angelina Jolie, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Labour MP Yvette Cooper, among others, have done little to improve the situation in Moris. It was set up last year as one of two refugee camps in Lesbos, but on 20 March the gates were locked as it was turned into a detention centre as part of the controversial EU-Turkey deal. The Pope will be joined by leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches as he tours Lesbos, which has seen the highest number of refugees arrive out of any island in Europe. After visiting Moria, they will have lunch with refugee representatives and make a joint declaration, before heading to the island’s capital for a prayer service in memory of the many asylum seekers who have drowned attempting to reach Europe.

The Vatican said the five-hour visit to Lesbos was purely humanitarian and religious in nature, not political, and wasn’t meant as a criticism of the deportation programme seeing some asylum seekers sent back to Turkey. Pope Francis said he intended “to express closeness and solidarity both to the refugees and to the Lesbos citizens and all the Greek people who are so generous in welcoming (refugees)”. The pontiff has been outspoken in calls for greater compassion and international co-operation in the refugee crisis, denouncing the “globalisation of indifference” during a trip to Lampedusa – another migrant hotspot.