European programs that provide residency or citizenship to wealthy investors who shell out big bucks are losing their appeal after the U.K. decided to exit the EU. …read more
Source: Investors will shun Europe’s ‘golden visas’ after Brexit
On the surface, things seem pretty quiet in mid-July 2016. The biggest news stories are about the speculation surrounding Donald Trump’s choice of running mate, the stock market in the U.S. keeps setting new all-time record highs, and the media seems completely obsessed with Taylor Swift’s love life. But underneath the surface, it is a very different story. As you will see below, the conditions for a “perfect storm” are coming together very rapidly, and the rest of 2016 promises to be much more chaotic than what we have seen so far.
Let’s start with China. On Tuesday, an international tribunal in the Hague ruled against China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. The Chinese government announced ahead of time that they do not recognize the jurisdiction of the tribunal, and they have absolutely no intention of abiding by the ruling. In fact, China is becoming even more defiant in the aftermath of this ruling. We aren’t hearing much about it in the U.S. media, but according to international news reports Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army “to prepare for combat” with the United States if the Obama administration presses China to abandon the islands that they are currently occupying in the South China Sea…
“Chinese president Xi Jinping has reportedly ordered the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for combat,” reports Arirang.com. “U.S.-based Boxun News said Tuesday that the instruction was given in case the United States takes provocative action in the waters once the ruling is made.”
A U.S. aircraft carrier and fighter jets were already sent to the region in anticipation of the ruling, with the Chinese Navy also carrying out exercises near the disputed Paracel islands.
Last October, China said it was “not frightened” to fight a war with the U.S. following an incident where the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen violated the 12-nautical mile zone China claims around Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago.
Meanwhile, the relationship between the United States and Russia continues to go from bad to worse. The installation of a missile defense system in Romania is just the latest incident that has the Russians absolutely steaming, and during a public appearance on June 17th Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to get western reporters to understand that the world is being pulled toward war…
“We know year by year what’s going to happen, and they know that we know. It’s only you that they tell tall tales to, and you buy it, and spread it to the citizens of your countries. You people in turn do not feel a sense of the impending danger – this is what worries me. How do you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? While they pretend that nothing is going on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore.”
And of course the Russians have been feverishly updating and modernizing their military in preparation for a potential future conflict with …read more
Source: War Is Coming And The Global Financial Situation Is A Lot Worse Than You May Think
By Tyler Durden
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts, originally posted at Strategic-Culture.org,
FBI Director James Comey got Hillary off the hook but wants to put you on it. He is pushing hard for warrantless access to all of your Internet activity.
Comey, who would have fit in perfectly with Hitler’s Gestapo, tells Congress that the United States is not safe unless the FBI knows when every American goes online, to whom they are sending emails and from whom they are receiving emails, and knows every website visited by every American.
In other words, Comey wants to render null and void the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and completely destroy your privacy rights.
The reason Washington wants to know everything about everyone is so that Washington can embarrass, blackmail, and frame on felony charges patriots who stand up in defense of the US Constitution and the rule of law, and dissidents who criticize Washington’s illegal wars, reckless foreign policies, and oppression of American citizens.
Washington’s demand for power has nothing to do with our security. It has to do with destroying the security that the US Constitution gives us.
The security that Comey wants to protect is not our security or the national security of the United States. Comey’s intent is to make Washington secure despite its violations of statutory law and the US Constitution. The way Comey intends to do this is by intimidating, harassing, and arresting Washington’s critics.
Comey wants the unconstitutional power to demand from the providers of telephone and Internet services all records and information about you. These demands are not to be subject to oversight by courts, and the communication companies that serve you are prohibited from telling you that all of your information has been given to the FBI.
US Senators rushed to stick their swords into the Fourth Amendment. John Cornyn slapped an FBI-written amendment on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2015. This caused the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International to withdraw their support for the act, which caused the act to be withdrawn.
Senator John McCain rushed to the aid of the FBI. This Constitution-hating senator proposed an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill that would use a provision in the unconstitutional PATRIOT Act to grant the unlimited unaccountable power to the FBI to totally destroy your privacy.
McCain’s amendment failed, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) changed his vote so that he could negate the Senate’s vote with a vote to reconsider.
The FBI’s senators will continue with amendments to legislation, related or not, until they deliver to the FBI the power it wants.
Unfortunately, most Americans today, unlike their forebears, are too ignorant and uneducated to know the value of the privacy rights that our Founding Fathers put in the US Constitution. The imbeciles say nonsense such as: “I haven’t done anything wrong. I have nothing to fear”. God help the imbeciles.
If the American people were sufficiently sophisticated, they perhaps would wonder why such a large chunk of the US Senate had rather represent the FBI …read more
Source: Paul Craig Roberts Warns "’Adolf Hitler’ Is Alive & Well In The US"
By Tyler Durden
The State Department restarted their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails following the DoJ’s unanimous recommendation that Attorney General Loretta Lynch not pursue criminal charges for Hillary’s negligence in handling classified documents. FBI insiders now believe a deal was struck when Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch on a Phoenix airport tarmac in June. Agents have also said they were forced to sign a document that went above and beyond the typical NDA signed when performing investigations
When news broke of the infamous tarmac Lynch-Clinton meeting we said: “Well then, if Lynch says it was a completely random encounter with Hillary Clinton’s husband on a tarmac (admit it, that happens often to most people), and nothing was discussed that pertains to official business, then that certainly must be the truth.”
We were sarcastic. We may also have been right.
According to The New York Post, which not only cited a source saying that “FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting”, but it also reports that FBI agents had been required to sign a Case Briefing Acknowledgment Addendum. To wit:
In an unusual move, FBI agents working the Hillary Clinton email case had to sign a special form reminding them not to blab about the probe to anyone unless called to testify.
As for what that “special form” is:
Sources said they had never heard of the “Case Briefing Acknowledgment” form being used before, although all agents must initially sign nondisclosure agreements to obtain security clearance.
A retired FBI Chief opined on agents signing a Case Briefing Acknowledgment saying:
“This is very, very unusual. I’ve never signed one, never circulated one to others”
Zero Hedge searched for “Case Briefing Acknowledgment” throughout various databases and found no credible hits relating to such a document. Which is odd in light of that by-chance meeting on a tarmac because the document was acknowledged in a July 1 letter from Stephen Kelly, the top legislative affairs official for the FBI in a response to Chairman Charles Grassley’s letter requesting more information about the Case Briefing Acknowledgment.
The Clintons continue to display an uncanny ability for creating the best timed coincidences.
* * *
Stephen Kelly, Asst. Director Office Congressional Affairs Letter To Grassley
Source: FBI Agents Were Told To Sign A "Very, Very Unusual" NDA In Hillary Email Case
By Tyler Durden
Germany's AfD politician Steffen Königer ridiculed the Greens in the Brandenburg Parliament for their proposal of a “Campaign for Acceptance of Gender and Sexual diversity, Self-Determination and against Homo and Transphobia in Brandenburg” as well as “Giving equal rights and societal equality for LGBTTQQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans, Two-spirit, Queer, Questioning) people in Brandenburg” by quoting 60 of the Genders considered by Leftists to be actual identities… straight from Facebook's Gender option list.
He finished his introduction of almost 2 minutes by stating that his party rejects the proposal.
Enjoy…
Full List of Genders, official English version:
Gentlemen, ladies, agender, androgyne, androgynous, bigender, cisgender, cis female, cis male, cis men, cis women, cisgender females, cisgender males, cisgender men, cisgender women, females to males, FTM, gender fluid, gender nonconforming, gender questioning, gender variant, genderqueer, intersex, males to females, MTF, neither, neutrois, non-binary, other, pangender, trans, trans*, trans females, trans* females, trans males, trans* males, trans men, trans* men, trans people, trans* people, trans women, trans* women, transfeminine, transgender, transgender females, transgender males, transgender men, transgender people, transgender women, transmasculine, transsexual, transsexual females, transsexual males, transsexual men, transsexual people, transsexual women, people of spirit, womyn, womyn*, two-spirit, three-spirit, four-spirit, Other.
Pick one? Or two if you like... you're in a safe space here.
Source: 60 Different Genders? Leftist LGBTTQQ-Proposal Ridiculed By AfD Politician In German Parliament
By Tyler Durden
Amid record unemployment, painful labor reforms, economic collapse, and the most serious social unrest in decades, the shockingly 'let them eat cake'-ish revelations of French President Hollande's lifestyle will do little to improve the socialist's ratings from their record lows. As Bloomberg reports, a French satirical magazine has exposed the fact that Hollande’s hairdresser is paid a gross salary by the state of ~$11,000 per month (more than a European parliament member).
Although just a third less than Hollande’s salary, it is more than the gross monthly wage of a European Parliament member, which stands at about 8,213 euros, excluding expenses.
The salary paid to the Socialist president’s coiffeur at the Elysee presidential palace was confirmed by the government after satirical magazine Canard Enchaine published details of the terms, including an image of his contract.
As The Express reports, despite preaching austerity during his premiership, Mr Hollande’s outrageous contract with the barber is causing outrage.
The hairdresser, who the leaked contract names only as Oliver B, is set to earn half a million pounds over the course of Hollande’s current premiership, in exchange for being available at every waking moment and signing a contract promising not to speak about his position.
It read: “Mr B. commits to maintaining the utmost secrecy, during and after the completion of his contract, on the work he has done and the information he has had access to.”
The hairdresser issue sits at odds with Hollande’s campaign promise in 2012 that he’d be a “normal” head of state in contrast with his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, who earned the label of the “bling-bling” president for his Ray-Ban sunglasses and fancy vacations. It also comes at a time when Hollande is seeking to push through a bill that would shrink workers’ benefits and making firings easier.
“Everyone needs their hair done, no?” Stephane Le Foll, the government spokesman, said after the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace Wednesday in Paris. “I can understand people’s questions, I can understand their judgments. He’s not just anybody, that’s all.”
Revelations about his hairdresser come two years after one of his closest aides, Aquilino Morelle, was forced to resign amid allegations of a conflict of interest and also because he reportedly used his Elysee office, overlooking the palace’s lawn, to have a shoe-shiner come in to brush his expensive leather shoes.
Vive La Revolution…
Source: ‘Shampoo Socialism’? Hollande’s Hairdresser Costs French Taxpayers $11k Per Month
The FDIC got hacked by Chinese spies, then US officials tried to cover it up. That’s according to a Congressional report that was released this week. …read more
Source: Report: China hacked FDIC and U.S. covered it up
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
In early 1870, the Kingdom of Prussia and French Empire were about to go to war.
It was one of countless conflicts between the dozens of European kingdoms and empires throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and this one was over before it even started.
Prussia’s military might was legendary. They had recently beaten the pants off of Austria and Denmark, and they’d go on to neutralize or capture over 80% of French soldiers within a matter of months, while losing just 2% of their own.
Very few wars have been so one-sided.
And yet despite its nearly unparalleled military successes and clear dominance in European politics, Prussia lacked something critical: financial power.
Prussia’s economy was robust and healthy. But businesses across all German kingdoms depended almost exclusively on the British banking system to conduct international trade.
It was similar to how nearly the entire world depends on Wall Street mega-banks today for global trade. Germany lacked its own strong financial system.
So on March 10, 1870, King Wilhelm I of Prussia (soon to be German Emperor) granted a banking license to a trio of local entrepreneurs and gave them explicit instructions to establish a banking powerhouse.
And that’s exactly what they did. The bank was called Deutsche Bank, and it eventually grew into one of the largest banks in the world.
Deutsche Bank has seen a lot in its years; multiple world wars and the devastation of Europe. Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. Nazi Germany.
The bank even outlasted its own country, as the Kingdom of Prussia was formally abolished in 1947.
But as the world learned in 2008 when the 158-year old investment bank Lehman Brothers went bust, even giant, centuries-old financial institutions can collapse.
Banking is such a bizarre industry when you think about it.
Regular, everyday people like you and I fork over our hard-earned savings to banks.
They take our money and do some of the most insane things with it… whether loaning it to jobless, homeless people, or buying the negative-yielding debts of bankrupt governments.
You and I would never do anything so foolish with our own funds. Yet we hand everything over to banks and give them full license to engage in this madness.
And even when their decisions blow up and they go to the taxpayer with hat in hand for a bailout, they prove that they have memories like goldfish.
Today, banks are up to the same tricks as they were 10 years ago, except they’ve taken things to a whole new level.
And Deutsche Bank is leading the charge.
One of the major issues in the 2008 crisis was that banks were over-leveraged and had very thin levels of capital.
In other words, the banks’ rainy-day reserve funds as a percentage of their overall balance sheets were extremely low, so even a small loss in their investment portfolios would cause financial Armageddon.
That’s precisely what happened.
Lehman Brothers famously had a capital ratio of less than 3% of its assets. So when the value of its assets fell by more than 3%, the bank was finished.
Well-capitalized …read more
Source: Bancopalypse 2.0 – Some Disturbing Figures From The Looming Financial Crisis
By Tyler Durden
Some stocks did not rise today… but do not worry – one clever CNBC chap noted “flat is kind of a win!” – nevertheless, panic began to sweep the mainstream media as a new record high was not achieved in some indices…
Another day, another record high for stocks with a pre-open ramp…
but that was the best of it… although the panic bid resumed after Europe closed…
In cash, Trannies which went vertical as CSX earning sleaked before the bell)
But stocks remain the post-payrolls winner…
Notably The Dow stuck around its previous record high again 18,351 intraday…
Another new high in July, which FBN Securities technical analyst JC O’Hara notes could be a problem…
Since 1950, 27 years posted a new 52-week high in July; avg. 3-month pattern suggests “new high momentum fizzled” into sideways trading, with median pullback 7.5%, avg. decline nearly 12.5%..
After a July high, stocks bottom in late October.
“Chasing the market is not the best option” especially amid “plethora of severely overbought breadth indicators.”
And today, bonds notably decoupled from stocks once again…
Having decoupled for a few days, VIX dipped today to a 12 handle – smells a lot like managers unwinding hedged positions (i.e. covering hedge and reducing underlying exposure)…
Treasury yields tumbled 2-5bps (long-end outperforming) as yesterday's CNBC call for the start of the Great Rotation is dashed…
The USD Index ended very modestly lower but basically flat on the week as the chaos in GBP and JPY swung the other way today (GBP weakness on May and cabinet apointments and JPY strength on Heli money denials) biggest drop in Cable in 7 days…
Silver and Gold gained on the day, as did Copper extending its post-payrolls gains to 6%!! but crude tumbled…
Biggest 3-day surge in Copper in over 4 months…
Dramtically bigger than expected Distillates build and production rise sent oil sliding today back to 9 week lows (below $45)
As the 2015 analog looks increasingly spooky…
Charts: Bloomberg
Source: Some Stocks Fall: Mainstream Media Proclaims "Flat Is Kind Of A Win!"
By Tyler Durden
One week ago, we looked at an epic build up of gasoline inventories on the East Coast, also known as PADD1, which had slammed the crack spread to record lows for this time of the year, and asked if “This What Finally Drags Crude Oil Lower.” We were referring to the collapsing Crack Spreads, which show that something disturbing is taking place for US refingers who are no longer able to “internalize” the massive crude glut.
U.S. gasoline crack spread a proxy for refiner margins, has dropped 34 percent in two weeks. On Wednesday, it hit a five-year low for this time of year below $13 a barrel. That is less than half the crack spread of $28 a barrel at this time last year.
As of today, the WTI crack spread was $13.1, largely unchanged from a week ago.
We then quoted Andrew Lebow, senior partner at Commodity Research Group in Darien, who summarized it best by saying that “PADD 1 is a holy mess. It is very unusual. If a market becomes extremely oversupplied, like PADD 1, they are going to have to cut runs.” That is another way of saying refiners will have to stay shut, which in turn will force crude to build up in various on and offshore storage locations.
Our summary of the strange events taking place in the US refining industry:
with the inventory bottlenecking having reached all the way to the gasoline level, in lieu of refiner buying, crude producers will be forced to start selling oil and dumping prices just to get marginal demand as both onshore and offshore storage is near capacity. Most likely this will happen in the next few weeks, when coupled with the near full Chinese SPR, the slump in Chinese oil demand, the elimination in Nigerian supply overhangs, the resumption of Libyan exports, it will send the price of oil tumbling, and incidentally replaying the summer of 2015 when crude crashed…
One week later, and with gasoline and distillate inventory builds continuing to rise precariously, it appears that this sentiment is starting to permeate the analyst community. This is how WSJ's Market Talk blog describes what is going on:
Inventories of gasoline and other refined products in the US rose strongly last week, weighing on prices today. It's the result of months of cheap crude prompting refiners to buy more crude and run at higher rates to turn it into products. Lipow Oil Associates sees the start of a “death spiral” as “product inventories are high, margins come under pressure, refiners reduce crude runs and therefore the crude-oil glut grows to the point where someone wants to discount” to unload it–inspiring refiners “to kick up their runs again.” .
End result: today WTI closed the NYMEX session at its lowest level since May 10. It may be only the beginning.
Source: Talk Of Oil "Death Spiral" Emerges
Welcome to Esh Carmel Blog.
