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By Tyler Durden

If you thought that $80 billion a year would be a sufficient enough budget for the US government to systematically upgrade its computer systems, think again.

In a report released by nonpartisan congressional investigators found that about $60 billion of the government's $80 billion IT budget goes straight to maintenance just to keep the aging technology running, not to modernization according to ABC News.

To make matters worse, the government is expected to spend $7 billion less in 2017. In addition to screwing people out of their social security payments, we can now add jeopardizing critical IT systems to the list of 'out of the box' cost cutting measures that the US government has come up with. Then again, money must be freed up in order to fund such toys such as $4.4 billion destroyers.

GAO information technology expert David Powner sums up the situation quite nicely, telling a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a hearing that “clearly, there are billions wasted.”

Forget billions being wasted for a moment, how about the disturbing fact that The Defense Department's Strategic Automated Command and Control System, the control system used to coordinate the operational functions of the United States nuclear forces, runs on a 1970s IBM computing platform and uses 8'' floppy discs to store data.

That's not all, the list continues…

Treasury's individual and business master files, the authoritative data sources for taxpayer information. The systems are about 56 years old and use an outdated computer language that is difficult to write and maintain. Treasury plans to replace the systems but has no firm dates.

Social Security systems that are used to determine eligibility and estimate benefits, about 31 years old. Some use a programming language called COBOL, dating to the late 1950s and early 1960s. “Most of the employees who developed these systems are ready to retire and the agency will lose their collective knowledge,” the report said. “Training new employees to maintain the older systems takes a lot of time.” Social Security has no plans to replace the entire system but is eliminating and upgrading older and costlier components. It is also rehiring retirees who know the technology.

Medicare's Appeals System, which is only 11 years old, faces challenges keeping up with a growing number of appeals, as well as questions from congressional offices following up on constituent concerns. The report says the agency has general plans to keep updating the system, depending on the availability of funds.

The Transportation Department's Hazardous Materials Information System, used to track incidents and keep information regulators rely on. The system is about 41 years old, and vendors no longer support some of its software, which can create security risks. The department plans to complete its modernization program in 2018.

Although the report concluded that legacy IT investments are becoming obsolete and have outlived their effectiveness, nothing concrete has been done about the issue outside of recent legislation creating a $3 billion revolving fund for replacing and upgrading older technology – apparently something …read more

Source: How Bad Are The US Computer Systems? An 8” Floppy Disc Houses Nuclear Coordinate Data

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By Tyler Durden

Submitted by Paul Craig Roberts via Counterpunch.org,

Having successfully used the EU to conquer the Greek people by turning the Greek “leftwing” government into a pawn of Germany’s banks, Germany now finds the IMF in the way of its plan to loot Greece into oblivion.

The IMF’s rules prevent the organization from lending to countries that cannot repay the loan. The IMF has concluded on the basis of facts and analysis that Greece cannot repay. Therefore, the IMF is unwilling to lend Greece the money with which to repay the private banks.

The IMF says that Greece’s creditors, many of whom are not creditors but simply bought up Greek debt at a cheap price in hopes of profiting, must write off some of the Greek debt in order to lower the debt to an amount that the Greek economy can service.

The banks don’t want Greece to be able to service its debt, because the banks intend to use Greece’s inability to service the debt in order to loot Greece of its assets and resources and in order to roll back the social safety net put in place during the 20th century. Neoliberalism intends to reestablish feudalism—a few robber barons and many serfs: the One Percent and the 99 percent.

The way Germany sees it, the IMF is supposed to lend Greece the money with which to repay the private German banks. Then the IMF is to be repaid by forcing Greece to reduce or abolish old age pensions, reduce public services and employment, and use the revenues saved to repay the IMF.

As these amounts will be insufficient, additional austerity measures are imposed that require Greece to sell its national assets, such as public water companies and ports and protected Greek islands to foreign investors, principallly the banks themselves or their major clients.

So far the so-called “creditors” have only pledged to some form of debt relief, not yet decided, beginning in 2 years. By then the younger part of the Greek population will have emigrated and will have been replaced by immigrants fleeing Washington’s Middle Eastern and African wars who will have loaded up Greece’s unfunded welfare system.

In other words, Greece is being destroyed by the EU that it so foolishly joined and trusted. The same thing is happening to Portugal and is also underway in Spain and Italy. The looting has already devoured Ireland and Latvia (and a number of Latin American countries) and is underway in Ukraine.

The current newspaper headlines reporting an agreement being reached between the IMF and Germany about writing down the Greek debt to a level that could be serviced are false. No “creditor” has yet agreed to write off one cent of the debt. All that the IMF has been given by so-called “creditors” is unspecific “pledges” of an unspecified amount of debt writedown two years from now.

The newspaper headlines are nothing but fluff that provide cover for the IMF to succumb to presssure and violate its own rules. The …read more

Source: The Looting Stage Of Capitalism Begins: Germany’s Assault On The IMF

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The Wall Street bank joins a growing number of employers that seek to provide employees with more qualitative, constructive and ongoing feedback.

…read more

Source: Goldman Sachs overhauls performance reviews

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A British exit from the European Union would hurt trade, investment and jobs, according to leaders of G7 nations. …read more

Source: World leaders: Brexit is a ‘serious risk to growth’

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Wells Fargo rolled out the yourFirstMortgage program that offers conventional home loans with down payments as low as 3%.

…read more

Source: Wells Fargo offers mortgages with 3% down payments

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By Tyler Durden

China's hard landing has already begun, warns economist Richard Duncan as the nation's credit-fuelled economic boom ended in 2015 and a protracted slump lies ahead. He has published a series of videos explaining why China’s economic development model of export-led and investment-driven growth is now in crisis leaving “China’s economy resembles a spinning top that is running out of momentum. It is wobbling and gyrating erratically.”

A former Hong Kong-based banking analyst, Duncan has also worked as an analyst at the World Bank, and as global head of investment strategy at ABN AMRO Asset Management in London. He has authored three books on the global economic crisis, including The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures. He is now chief economist at the Singapore-based hedge fund Blackhorse Asset Management. Duncan was also a speaker at last week’s Asian Leadership Forum in Seoul, South Korea. The South China Morning Post was a media partner to the event. He runs the blog Macro Watch, a subscription-based website providing analysis on global economic trends.

Source: The South China Morning Post

…read more

Source: China’s Credit-Fuelled Economy Is "Gyrating Like A Spinning-Top That’s Out Of Momentum"

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By Tyler Durden

After the latest State Department announcement that Hillary Clinton violated government rules, Judge Andrew Napolitano definitively says there is now ample evidence to indict. Sadly, he is much less certain on whether or not the indictment will actually come.

Here is Napolitano's case as he laid it out to Bill O'reilly:

“Today is a big deal for a couple of reasons. First, it directly refutes a statement she has made dozens of times, 'it was allowed', we now know that it was not allowed. She never even asked.“

“She signed a two page statement under oath on her first day on the job which was given after she had a two hour tutorial by two FBI agents telling her about the proper care and legal obligations for state secrets. In that oath she swore that she had the obligation to know how to care for state secrets and to recognize them.”

“Here is what's new in the report today. Her server in her house went down a couple of times, and when it went down the blackberry wouldn't work. The state department IT people said 'here use a state department blackberry', and she said through her assistant Huma Abedin 'no because we are concerned with the Freedom of Information Act', so she went dark and she had documents verbally read to her rather than transmitted to her through the state department email system.”

When Bill O'reilly was surprised to hear about the fact that Clinton was concerned about having documents subject to FOIA, Napolitano hammers home the the point that now the FBI has intent.

“Now what does this tell the FBI? This shows intent. You don't have to prove intent when you're talking about espionage, you can prove it by gross negligence, there's ample evidence of gross negligence. But avoiding the transparency laws shows a consciousness of evading the requirements.”

On whether or not Napolitano believes, after all of the above, that Clinton will actually be indicted, the judge wasn't so sure.

“I believe there's ample evidence to indict her and the only way she wouldn't be is if the president or the attorney general makes a political decision.”

And just as we said long ago, Napolitano also believes that one way or another, the FBI will get the evidence out to the public.

“Whether she's indicted or not I believe we'll learn what it is. I believe it'll happen before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, that's two months.“

* * *

Well then, based on Obama's guarantee that there will be absolutely no political influence in the decision on whether or not the DOJ decides to indict, we should expect the indictment in the coming months… right?

Full Interview

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

…read more

Source: Is There Ample Evidence To Indict Hillary? This Judge Thinks So

    

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Posted May 27th, 2016 in Uncategorized.

Gawker owner seeks a truce, debate with Peter Thiel

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Gawker owner Nick Denton wrote a long letter to Peter Thiel, the man who is bankrolling lawsuits against Gawker. He sought a truce and a debate. …read more

Source: Gawker owner seeks a truce, debate with Peter Thiel

    

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Posted May 27th, 2016 in Uncategorized.

Meanwhile In China, Cow-Collateralized Stock Buybacks

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By Tyler Durden

Over the past few years, we have written many strange stories about China’s often-ridiculous, perpetually-bubbly, always on the precipice financial system. The story about China’s literal “cash cows”, however, is by far the strangest.

As everyone knows by now, the primary reason the global equity market, taking its cues from the US, is where it is now is due to a relentless stream of debt-funded stock buybacks. Earlier this year Bloomberg stumbled on the same thing we have written since 2013, namely that “there is only one buyer keeping the bull market alive.”

And, as it turns out, even China figured it out. There is only one problem… well two:

• The first is that to buyback your own stock, a company needs to generate a substantial amount of cash flow which can then be used to directly buyback your own shares (making management/shareholders who use corporate cash flows to make themselves wealthier in the process). Unfortunately most Chinese companies, many of which are stunning case studies in fraud, have a glaring problem when it comes to actual profitability and generating cash flows.
• The second problem is that unlike in the US, following the recent (and now largely burst) corporate bond bubble, issuing bonds to fund buybacks – and in general lending to risky companies – appears to now be rather frowned upon in China.

So in the absence of these two necessary conditions, how is a Chinese company to boost its stock price by buying back its stock? The answer, as it turns out is cows, and specifically a cow sale-leaseback transaction.

That’s precisely what China Huishan Dairy Holdings, which operates the largest number of dairy farms in the country, has done.

According to Bloomberg, the company is selling about a quarter of its herd, about 50,000 animals, to Guangdong Yuexin Finance Lease Co. for 1 billion yuan ($152 million) and then renting them back. The reason: to obtain urgently needed cash (let some other sucker CEO worry about paying the coupon on the lease), so it can repurchase glorious amounts of its stock.

And yes, cows were used as collateral. “It’s not very common to use cows as collateral,” said Robin Yuen, an analyst at RHB OSK Securities Hong Kong Ltd. “The value of a cow would fluctuate depending on milk prices and other factors, so it’s a risky asset for lenders. It would be hard to do forced selling – there’s no liquid market for a large number of cows.“

Puns intended.

To be sure, there is a politically correct spin on the situation, and that’s what the Bloomberg story focuses on. It writes that “with an estimated $1.3 trillion of risky loans in the country, Chinese banks are becoming more cautious about lending, forcing some companies to look for new ways to borrow.” As a result finance leasing has been growing in popularity, especially for purchases of equipment. “In Huishan Dairy’s case, the story is an increasingly common one in China of rising debts, slumping commodity prices and …read more

Source: Meanwhile In China, Cow-Collateralized Stock Buybacks

    

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Posted May 26th, 2016 in Uncategorized.

Chart Of The Day: May Registrations For The Libertarian Party Jump 20-Fold

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By Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

People are going to be pissed off no matter who wins this election and that is a very important social dynamic I believe is vastly under appreciated by the majority of mainstream pundits and analysts out there. This is also very distinct from the environment that prevailed in 2008. Four years ago, the financial markets were crashing and the economic future of America was circling the toilet bowl, yet a majority of Americans embraced the potential of a young, inexperienced biracial politician from Illinois who was saying all of the right things. Despite the gigantic disappointment he has proven to be as President, there is no denying that he had all of the Democrats and most Independents under his spell on this day four years ago.

Fast forward to 2012 and the county isn’t “divided” as mainstream media talking heads like to say. The country is pissed off. Genuine and legitimate frustration permeates the land from sea to shining sea and rightly so. Ever since the banker coup of 2008, crony capitalism has been institutionalized as the only real way to make money. If you aren’t connected or “too big to fail,” sorry but America isn’t the place for you. What makes the economic nightmare so much worse is that it is being coupled with a complete and total decimation of civil liberties. One by one the Bill of Rights is being ignored and indeed trampled on systemically by the political and economic oligarchs emboldened by their successful takeover of the executive, legislative and for the most part judicial branches of government.

– From the 2012 post: The Seventy Percent

The following data points are simple incredible.

From The Hill:

The Libertarian Party has seen a sustained surge of new members joining, with first-time registrants in May on pace to increase 20-fold over the same period from last year. New data obtained by The Hill shows that the Libertarian National Committee averaged around 100 new members a month last year, bottoming out with just 74 first-time registrants last May.

But beginning in early 2016, as the contours of the Republican and Democratic races began took shape, new membership began creeping upward to 148 in January, 323 in February, 546 in March, 706 in April, and now 1,292 in the first three weeks of May alone.

From 74 registrants to 1,292 in a year. While the absolute numbers remain small, that’s an extraordinary increase. Here’s what it looks like in chart form:

For the last year the Libertarian Party would get about 100 new members a month. Then, starting in January… pic.twitter.com/Bvu26wGUT8

— Jonathan Easley (@JonEasley) May 25, 2016

The Libertarian National Committee has also seen a spike in fundraising, bringing in $205,000 in April, its largest monthly haul since 2004.

A party operative told The Hill they are on pace …read more

Source: Chart Of The Day: May Registrations For The Libertarian Party Jump 20-Fold

    

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Posted May 26th, 2016 in Uncategorized.