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By Tyler Durden

Tillerson’s confirmation hearing, in which the former Exxon CEO will seek to distance himself from Putin and say that Russia “must be held accountable for its actions” adding that “Russia today poses a danger, but it is not unpredictable in advancing its own interests.” begins at 9am Eastern, and can be watched below.

* * *

Earlier:

Anticipating questions at his upcoming confirmation hearing, in which his “close relationship” with Russia will likely be in the spotlight for most of the session, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of State on Wednesday will tell senators that Russia “must be held accountable for its actions” and that “Russia today poses a danger, but it is not unpredictable in advancing its own interests.”

“Our NATO allies are right to be alarmed at a resurgent Russia,” Tillerson, 64, will say before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, according to his prepared remarks. At the same time, he faults a lack of U.S. leadership for Russia’s aggressiveness, citing “weak or mixed signals with ‘red lines’ that turned into green lights” adding “we must also be clear-eyed about our relationship with Russia.”

Having been accused of being friendly with Putin during his tenure as Exxon CEO, it should not come as a surprise that his remarks are a sharp departure from comments by Trump, who has called for a friendlier relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Critics have raised questions over Tillerson’s close ties to Russia since his nomination for secretary of State. He received Russia’s Order of Friendship Award from President Vladimir Putin in 2013 and he opposed sanctions against the country following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

As Bloomberg adds, “it’s also a stark turnaround for an oil baron who staked billions of dollars on Russia’s crude bonanza and as recently as 3 1/2 years ago was feted by Russia with its Order of Friendship. One of Tillerson’s most decisive moves as chief executive officer and chairman of Exxon was to make Russia the company’s biggest single exploration prospect globally.”

Now, Tillerson faces the challenge of assuring lawmakers that he can pursue the broader interests of U.S. foreign policy after his 41-year career at Exxon, the world’s largest energy company by market value.

Tillerson’s hearing comes at an awkward time, just a day after reports surfaced that intelligence officials had briefed the president-elect on a shadowy, unverifiable dossier alleging the Russian government had compromising information on him. The 35-page document, made up of a collection of memos filled with explosive claims about Trump’s relationship to Russia – which may or may not have been originated on 4chan – has been circulating among journalists and officials for months.

Still, despite the recent surge in hacking-related newsflow, Tillerson will avoid the topic. In his testimony, Tillerson says Russia has acted against U.S. interests and urges an “open and frank dialogue” so that “we know how to chart our own course.” But, as Bloomberg adds, he makes no mention of U.S. intelligence findings that Russia hacked into …read more

Source: Rex Tillerson Confirmation Hearing: Live Webcast

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By Tyler Durden

The price of bitcoin slid over 1,200 Yuan in heavy trading in China, crashing nearly 20%, and down more than $100 under $800 on comparable US markets Wednesday, after China’s central bank said it had launched “spot investigations” on bitcoin exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai in order to fend off market risks.

The investigation of exchanges, including BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin, was to look into “possible market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing and other issues”, according to the statements posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website.

To regular readers this should come as no surprise: precisely one week ago, when Bitcoin hit record highs in China, we explicitly warned:

for those buying into bitcoin here on the momentum, most of which originates in China, we urge readers to be cautious as by now the PBOC has certainly noticed that the digital currency remains one of the final, and most successful, means of bypassing capital controls in China. Should Beijing mandate that bitcoin no longer be a means to illegally transfer capital offshore, there is risk of a dramatic, and sharp, drop in its price.

Well, Beijing noticed, and the “dramatic, sharp” drop in price has taken place as expected; worse with China now openly aggressive against bitcoin “manipulation” it is difficult to see where the next burst of buying momentum will come from, if only in the near term. However, one possibility is that Chinese capital control-evaders will now gravitate to other alternative digital currencies, such as Ethereum, which have so far been far less prominent among Chinese bubble chasers.

ETH up as BTC down. How soon until Chinese bubble shifts to Ethereum

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 9, 2017

As Reuters further adds on the Chinese crackdown, authorities have been ratcheting up efforts to stop capital outflows and relieve pressure on the yuan to depreciate. The currency lost more than 6.5 percent against the U.S. dollar last year.

With bitcoin’s soaring price and the relative anonymity it affords, some believe the digital currency has become an attractive option for tech-savvy Chinese to hedge against the yuan and circumvent rules that limit the amount of foreign exchange individuals can buy each year.

“Some”… such as this site, which said to buy bitcoin precisely on that catalyst back in September 2015 when it was $230. However, after surging five-fold it was inevitable that China would notice, and the time to take profit had come.

More:

The Shanghai arm of the PBOC said it visited BTCC on Wednesday.

“The checks focused on whether the firm was operating out of its business scope, whether it was launching unauthorized financing, payment, forex business or other related businesses, whether it was involved in market manipulation, anti-money laundering or (carried) fund security risks,” it said.

In a separate statement, the PBOC in Beijing, where officers visited the offices of OKCoin and Huobi, said “the spot checks were focused on how the exchanges implement policies including forex management and anti-money laundering”.

A Huobi executive who declined to be …read more

Source: Bitcoin Plummets After China Launches "Market Manipulation" Investigations Of Bitcoin Exchanges

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Airbus said Wednesday its A380 superjumbo has a bright future — despite disappointing sales so far. …read more

Source: Airbus isn’t giving up on its A380 superjumbo

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BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unverified memos alleging that Russian operatives have compromising personal and financial information about President-elect Donald Trump has set off a fierce debate about the ethics of the decision and the responsibilities of journalists. …read more

Source: Should BuzzFeed have published Trump memos?

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By Tyler Durden

Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

At the start of this new year, a new law took effect in Illinois which required hairdressers to obtain training in domestic abuse prevention. Hairdressers. The seeds of the idea were where any stylist in the state would take advantage of what is presumed a very close relationship between a woman and the person, presumed also to be a woman, using a hairdryer on her to spot possible abuse or even violence and know how to direct the victim toward help. Though protected, for now, from reporting requirements and shielded in untested fashion from liability, this is now part of the credentialing process for anyone seeking to enter the profession or stay within its ranks, at least in Illinois (and whichever states ultimately follow, as you probably have a good idea already those that will).

Thus, without one hour of training every two years a formerly credentialed hairstylist will transition simply to being a former hairstylist. Her (presumably) ability to wield objects of beautification being fully undisturbed, the loss of ability to perform with them as an economic service is clearly, in this case, not about those abilities.

You see occasionally statistics bandied about the internet where in the 1950’s fewer than one in twenty jobs required some government body’s expressed, explicit approval, but sixty years later the imposition of government credentials is somewhere between one and three or four. The world has become enthralled by them to the point of these kinds of extremes. Some of it is surely the desire for reduced liability, to retain or hire the credentialed expert so that if something goes wrong you are less likely to be sued for it. But what happens when in the real world “credentialed expert” makes that disastrous outcome more likely? Would that be the case where credentials themselves aren’t what they are supposed to be?

In August 2013, Paul Krugman was writing favorably about Milton Friedman. The context of that discourse was the period immediately following the “fiscal cliff” which was supposed to bring about immediate disaster, as Krugman himself predicted on several occasions. The favorable light under which Friedman was being remembered in this one specific instance boiled down to what Krugman called him being a “realist.”

One way to think about Friedman is that he was the man who tried to save free-market ideology from itself, by offering an answer to the obvious question: “If free markets are so great, how come we have depressions?”

In Krugman’s view, Friedman was acceptable in the narrowest sense because he opened the door for government intervention among the so-called right. I doubt Krugman was unaware that it was this same door that caused Friedman to apologize for it in the 1990’s given what it became. Ironically, it was in Friedman’s Nobel lecture in 1976 which describes Krugman’s brief positivity about him:

I well recall a dinner at a Cambridge University college when I was sitting between a fellow economist and R. A. Fisher, the great …read more

Source: The Well-Reasoned Basis Of Populism

    

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By Tyler Durden

UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has a brilliant idea to 'fix' the supposed income-inequality problem – impose a maximum limit on how much people can earn in Britain. This proposal was immediately met by derision by economists and leaders as “incoherent”, “it doesn't make any economic sense at all, and “totally idiotic” – all of which are completely correct.

As The Telegraph reports, Corbyn told the BBC Radio 4 Today program…

“If we want to live in a more egalitarian society and fund our public services, we cannot go on creating worse levels of inequality…

I would like to see a maximum earnings limit quite honestly, because I think that would be a fairer thing to do.”

Mr Corbyn refused to say at what level the cap should be set, although he later told Sky News it would be “somewhat higher” than the £138,000 he earns as an MP and Leader of the Opposition.

However, before we move on to the responses to this proposal, it turns out that the income gap between the richest and poorest people in Britain is at a 30-year low, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

Disposable income for the poorest fifth of the population in Britain rose by £700, or 5.1%, last year according to the ONS while disposable income for the richest fifth fell by £1,000, or 1.9%.

But those are just facts. Corbyn's plan has been branded “totally idiotic” by a former top economic adviser.

Academic Richard Murphy, who advised Mr Corbyn during his leadership bid, said the proposal was “incoherent”.

He told World At One: “It doesn't make any economic sense at all. You cannot impose such a cap.”

“Jeremy needs to sit down and get some proper advice. Whoever is advising him now is not giving the right advice or Jeremy isn't simply asking them before making these comments.”

Asked if the Government would consider taking up Jeremy Corbyn's wage cap proposal, a spokesman for the Prime Minister has said: “It is not a policy we are pursuing.”

They added that they had “not seen the details of what is actually being proposed”.

Danny Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee and a former member of Corbyn’s economic advisory committee, has taken to Twitter to describe the wage cap proposal as “totally idiotic” and a “lunatic idea”.

Ouch!

…read more

Source: UK Labour Leader Slammed For "Totally Idiotic" Salary Cap Plan

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Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong has been summoned for questioning over suspicions including bribery, prosecutors said Wednesday. …read more

Source: Samsung heir is named as suspect in corruption probe

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By Tyler Durden

Submitted by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

So-called “liberals? and “progressives?, who once derided those on the political right who accused their ideological forbearers of kowtowing to the “Reds? and “Soviets? during the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy, have dusted off McCarthy’s playbook and are using the very same tactics against Donald Trump and his supporters. The modern-day McCarthyites, mostly neo-conservative Republicans and Hillary Clinton Democrats, are hitting the airwaves, print media, and the Internet hard with accusations of Russian links by Trump and his advisers while haphazardly throwing around lists of alleged “Russian agents?.

There is very little difference between what McCarthy told the Ohio County Republican Women’s Club in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1950:

“I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department?.

In November 2016, a shadowy and anonymous group of self-described “nonpartisan? public policy wonks, computer scientists, and national security specialists calling themselves “PropOrNot? (Propaganda or Not) published a list of 200 websites cited as “peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans?. The Washington Post, Associated Press, and other corporate-controlled media outlets dutifully reported this diatribe as “news?. At least during the witch-hunting days of McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), those accused of being Communist agents knew who their accusers were and could face them down publicly.

Rather than condemn the modern-day witch-hunting by faux liberals and progressives, the American media has provided the accusers with maximum support. When CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow called out McCarthy for his bullying tactics on nationwide television, he received support from America’s major newspapers:

The conservative Washington Evening Star wrote: “everyone… resents and detests the bully boy tactics which Senator McCarthy so often employs.

The New York World Telegram: [describing McCarthy’s tactics] “Bamboozling, bludgeoning, distorting way?.

The New York Times: [Condemned] “the unwarranted interference of a demagogue?.

Today, The New York Times has been leading the charge against Trump and his transition team, citing an unfounded U.S. Intelligence Community report calling out the news network RT and Sputnik News for “interfering? in the U.S. election by pushing “fake news?. The Times is engaged in a sort of demagoguery that Murrow, if he were alive today, would assuredly condemn. After exposing McCarthy before the nation as a dangerous demagogue, Murrow summed up his broadcast by issuing a stark warning the American public:

“We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home?.

The list of 200 “pro-Russian? websites produced by an anonymous entity and endorsed by the corporate media also crept into the U.S. intelligence report on alleged Russian hacking of Democratic National Committee computers and private email of Clinton campaign officials. The U.S. Intelligence Community, which is well-known for marketing false intelligence …read more

Source: The Disgusting Embrace Of Witch-Hunting McCarthyism By ‘Liberals’

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By Michael Snyder

A Quinnipiac University Poll that was released on Tuesday says that Donald Trump only has an approval rating of 37 percent.  Meanwhile, that same survey found that Barack Obama currently has an approval rating of 55 percent.  Of course considering the fact that Quinnipiac polls showed Hillary Clinton winning the election in November easily, perhaps we should not put too much stock in these results.  But other polling organizations have come up with similar results.  In fact, an average of nine recent polls indicates that Trump’s approval rating is somewhere around 42 percent.  So without a doubt there are a whole lot of people out there that do not like Donald Trump.

But the business community sure seems thrilled with him.  We just witnessed one of the greatest post-election stock market rallies in American history, numerous corporations have already announced that they will be bringing jobs back to the United States, and Bloomberg is reporting that small business optimism has hit the highest level that we have seen since the end of 2004…

Optimism among America’s small businesses soared in December by the most since 1980 as expectations about the economy’s prospects improved dramatically in the aftermath of the presidential election.

The National Federation of Independent Business’s index jumped 7.4 points last month to 105.8, the highest since the end of 2004, from 98.4. While seven of the 10 components increased in December, 73 percent of the monthly advance was due to more upbeat views about the outlook for sales and the economy, the Washington-based group said.

On the surface, all of these numbers appear to be contradictory.  If the American people are not feeling good about our new president, then it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that the small business community would be so optimistic.

But of course the American people are not a single monolithic entity in 2017.  We are a deeply, deeply divided nation, and Donald Trump is the single most polarizing political figure to come along in generations.

Those that love Trump tend to really love Trump, and most of those people are quite optimistic about the future.

And those that hate Trump tend to really hate Trump.  Yesterday, I explained that the radical left wants to transform Inauguration Day into an epic riot, and many of his opponents are planning to spend the next four years doing whatever they can to destroy him.

Just look at what happened today.  The top story on CNN was about how the Russians supposedly have “compromising personal and financial information” on Donald Trump that they can use to blackmail him…

Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.

The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, …read more

Source: Trump’s Approval Rating Is Supposedly Only 37 Percent, But Small Business Optimism Just Hit The Highest Level In 12 Years

    

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By Tyler Durden

While we wish one of our favorite market commentators’, Mint’s Bill Blain, all the best as he recovers from his recent heart attack, we would like to share with readers his inaugural for 2017 note, which lays out his current concerns about the state of the markets, and the global economy.

From the January 10 edition of Blain’s Mid-Morning Porridge

Let me start by stating the issues causing me some worry:

Throughout my career, years ending in 7 haven’t been good.

1987 saw a massive stock market crash, in 1997 we got the Asian Financial Crisis, and 2007 saw the start of the Global Financial Crisis and consequences we’re still struggling with today. In the case of year 7s, the trend is not our friend.

I’m told by my stock picking chartists there is a 10-yr stock cycle that looks to have peaked. Many factors about this succession of market turnaround moments worry me – firstly, the scale of crisis seems to be multiplying as each 10-yrs event. A simple stock market rout in 1987 became near global catastrophe in 2007.

Thankfully we haven’t ever had the kind of absolute global market meltdown doomsters say will happen, but it does strike me that market moves – whether caused by an evil conjunction of rogue algorithims and Hi-Speed-Trading, or simple human foolishness – are becoming increasingly chaotic, thus raising the scale of crashes.

The second aspect is how financial crisis are solved. Each is new – but it worries me the efforts made to ensure the last crisis doesn’t happen again may contribute to the causes the next one. I certainly don’t believe the deluge of regulatory tat since 2008 has made the world safer. It has not… it has made it more.. difficult. It’s a game of consequences…

And change is definitely coming…

I’ve been looking at the dismal science of Economics. It’s proper name is political economy and its not a proper science. It’s a language for understanding complex events and responding to them,rather than mathematical rules. Over the past 10-years we’ve seen a massive economic experiment in monetary economics. It’s hasn’t gone well. It strikes me the legions of central bank economists are akin to the ancient alchemists looking to change base metal into gold….

The piper will soon want paid. The next phase – underway already – will be a reversal back to fiscal economics. That one potentially positive reality for the US and UK, but yet another minefield for Europe. It’s a big if to see whether Trump delivers the fiscal boost the market expects, or whether the continued weakness of sterling continues to push the FTSE into the stratosphere. I have my doubts…!
In Europe a swing towards Fiscal policy spells crisis.

The fact that France and Italy could be steaming towards fiscal stimuli will break the current ECB monetary consensus, while Germans become increasing strident about the need for higher rates and an end to QE. Add to that a hefty dose of European politics. …read more

Source: Bill Blain: "Throughout My Career, Years Ending In 7 Haven’t Been Good"

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