Ron Paul: Much Ado About Restrooms
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
Some say government must be involved in this issue in order to ensure that private businesses do not violate individual rights. Those who make this claim are accepting the idea that rights are no more than a gift from the government that can be revoked at the will and whim of legislators and bureaucrats. This argument turns rights from a shield protecting our liberties into a sword that can and will be used to increase government control of our lives.
Two weeks ago, the Department of Education waded into this debate by threatening to withhold federal funds from schools that do not allow transgender students to use the restroom of their choice. State and local officials around the country have promised to resist the Education Department’s new bathroom rules. However, given how addicted most state and local governments and school boards are to federal funds, it is likely that even most conservative state governments and school boards will eventually adopt the bathroom policies desired by federal bureaucrats.
Many of the conservatives who (correctly) denounce the Obama administration for trying to blackmail local schools either supported or were silent when a so-called conservative administration expanded the federal role in education via No Child Left Behind. These conservatives fail to realize that No Child Left Behind’s testing and other mandates are no different in principle from President Barack Obama’s bathroom mandates. Both use money stolen from the people and sent back to the states to force states to change their policies according to federal commands. Both are equally unconstitutional. Conservatives who want to defend local schools from federal bureaucrats must work to repeal, not reform, the Department of Education.
One positive result from this latest controversy is that it may encourage more parents to homeschool. Homeschooling is a means for parents to provide their children a quality education that meets the children’s needs. Homeschooling allows parents to ensure that their child's education reflects their values and beliefs, not the values and beliefs of federal bureaucrats.
Working with a team of top scholars, I have created my own homeschooling curriculum. My homeschooling curriculum provides students with a rigorous education in history, math, English, and other subjects. The curriculum is designed to benefit both college-bound students and those interested in pursuing other educational or career opportunities.
The curriculum features three tracks: natural sciences/math, social sciences/humanities, and business. Students may also take courses in personal finance and public speaking. The government and history sections of the curriculum emphasize Austrian economics, libertarian political …read more
Source: Ron Paul: Much Ado About Restrooms
Moody’s Downgrades Deutsche Bank’s Debt Two Notches Above Junk
By Tyler Durden
While not quite on the level of last week’s Berenberg downgrade (to Sell) which warned that DB’s problems are now “insurmountable“, shortly after the close Moody’s surprised the market with a downgrade that may have substantial repercussions on the funding costs (and perhaps viability) of the largest German, and European, lender.
Shortly after the market close, the rating agency decided to pile some more pain on the misery that has befallen Germany’s largest lender (who just today admitted it had rigged stocks in addition to seeing yet another MBS probe unveiled against it), when it downgraded the bank’s credit ratings across the board as follows: Senior debt to Baa2, or just two notches above junk, Long term deposits to A3 and counterparty risk assessment to A3.
Moody’s also downgraded Deutsche Bank’s short-term ratings and short-term counterparty risk assessments were also downgraded to Prime-2 from Prime-1 and to Prime-2(cr) and Prime-1(cr).
Moody’s downgrades Deutsche Bank’s ratings (senior debt to Baa2, long term deposits to A3 and counterparty risk assessment to A3(cr)); outlook stable
The full release:
Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded the ratings of Deutsche Bank AG and affiliates, including the bank’s long-term deposit rating, to A3 from A2, its senior unsecured debt rating to Baa2 from Baa1, its standalone baseline credit assessment (BCA) to ba1 from baa3, and its counterparty risk assessment to A3(cr) from A2(cr). Deutsche Bank’s short-term ratings and short-term counterparty risk assessments were also downgraded to Prime-2 from Prime-1 and to Prime-2(cr) and Prime-1(cr), respectively. Today’s rating action reflects the increased execution challenges Deutsche Bank faces in achieving its strategic plan.
Moody’s also downgraded the ratings of US–based Deutsche Bank Trust Corporation and its trust company affiliates. These trust companies’
long-term deposit ratings were downgraded to A2 from A1, their long-term issuer ratings were downgraded to Baa2 from Baa1, their standalone baseline credit assessment was downgraded to baa1 from a3; their long-term and short-term counterparty risk assessments were downgraded to A3(cr) from A2(cr) and to Prime-2(cr) and Prime-1(cr) respectively. The Prime-1 short-term deposit ratings of these trust companies were affirmed.
The outlook on the ratings is now stable, reflecting the potential long-term benefits to creditors of Deutsche Bank’s five-year strategy plan through 2020 once achieved. It also reflects actions taken by the management team to preserve capital and liquidity during the restructuring process. This rating action concludes Moody’s review for downgrade of Deutsche Bank and its subsidiaries which began on 21 March 2016.
RATIONALE FOR RATINGS DOWNGRADE
Deutsche Bank is engaged in a multi-year undertaking to simplify its businesses, fortify its controls, strengthen its balance sheet and stabilize its earnings. Once substantial progress has been made, Deutsche Bank will have a reduced risk profile, more balanced earnings and operate with more conservative levels of leverage. Accomplishing these objectives will be positive for Deutsche Bank’s creditors, and the newly appointed management team is diligently attempting to execute this plan.
However, the rating downgrade reflects increased risks to Deutsche Bank’s ability to successfully execute this ambitious, creditor-friendly plan. Deutsche Bank’s performance over the last several …read more
Source: Moody’s Downgrades Deutsche Bank’s Debt Two Notches Above Junk
CBS thrives despite Redstone’s Viacom turmoil
When Sumner Redstone split Viacom and CBS into separate companies in 2005, the appraisal was clear: CBS would be slow growing “old media” while “new media” Viacom would be in the fast lane. But CBS is thriving while Viacom struggles.
…read more
Source: CBS thrives despite Redstone’s Viacom turmoil
Equities Coil Despite USDJPY Turmoil As Bullish Stock Speculators Hit 16-Month Highs
By Tyler Durden
Today's ultra-low volume, ultra-low-range equity market can be summed up thusly…
Before we get started, just two quick charts to shut the mouths of all those proclaiming this is a hated rally and that sentiment is shitty… it's not!
Net speculative positioning for S&P 500 futures is at its highest since Feb 2015 as the major short position of the last few months has been unwound off the February lows…
And speculative shorts in VIX (bullish stocks) are at 3 year highs…
Which is ironic as VXX (VIX ETF) shares outstanding continue to explode…
US equity markets traded in a very unusually narrow range hugging VWAP all day…
With volume abysmal…
Trannies underperformed on the day… Notice once again that buying presure occurred as EU closed and selling resumed when NYMEX closed…
And Trannies are sending another unhealthy signal for the Dow Industrials…
Stocks held up despite The G7-hangover in USDJPY…
But the Long Bond remains best since The FOMC Minutes…
Notably equity risk has been rising the most off the April VIX lows with other asset classes seeing vol drop during the same time…
Treasury yields were mixed today but continued the curve flattening with 2s and 5s higher in yield and the rest of the curve lower…
The USD Index fell for the first time in 8 days, led by JPY strength and reversing earlie rgains once Europe closed…
JPY strengthening again after hopeful decline into this weekend's G7…
Commodities were relatively quiet with gold and copper flat (as crude pumped and dumped)…
Despite some panic buying at the US equity open, WTI crude fall for the 4th day in a row as Canadian producers prepare to resume more production at oil-sands sites after wildfires in Alberta caused loss of output. Crude traders watching “for news of a recovery in Canadian oil sands production as favorable weekend weather may have allowed further progress in containing wildfires,” Tim Evans, energy analyst at Citi Futures Perspective in New York, says in note. “Reports of the return of Libyan exports” also weighing on mkt, according to Phil Flynn, sr mkt analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago
Charts: Bloomberg
Source: Equities Coil Despite USDJPY Turmoil As Bullish Stock Speculators Hit 16-Month Highs
Monday Humor? The Hockey-Stick-Hype Of Stock-Market Hope
By Tyler Durden
By now it is widely-known that earnings are collapsing (2016 global EPS growth has been slashed from +16% to +8.2% in the last few months), so many – rightly – ask, why have stock prices not careened off the proverbial cliff as “mother's milk” dries up? The answer is simple… Always-over-optimistic analysts are 'predicting' a humor-free 19% growth in global earnings in 2017…
A veritable miracle of hockey-stickedness. While this may seem like a 'risk' one should be compensated for taking, the story for 'bullish' investors get worse.
Buyers of global stocks have never, ever, paid more for a dollar of Sales...
What could go wrong – The most expensive market ever and the biggest hockey-stick earnings hype ever?
Source: Monday Humor? The Hockey-Stick-Hype Of Stock-Market Hope
Dejected Neocons Lash Out At "Fascist, Huckster" Trump
By Tyler Durden
Six months ago we explained why the neocons hate Donald Trump and with his meteroric rise that dislike has only grown stronger and more desperate (and we suspect Trump's view of the hawkish warmongers has risen right alongside it). In fact, as The Hill reports, the rise of Donald Trump is threatening the power of neoconservatives, who find themselves at risk of being marginalized in the Republican Party. Whereas neoconservatism advocates spreading American ideals through the use of military force, Trump has made the case for nationalism and a smaller U.S. military footprint. Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the “isolationist” populism that neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness. Why us? Why are we paying everybody’s bills? Why are we fighting everybody else’s wars? It’s a bad deal! And that is why neocons hate The Donald.
Neoconservatism was at its height during the presidency of George W. Bush, helping to shape the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq; but now, as The Hill details, the ideology is under attack, with Trump systematically rejecting each of its core principles.
Whereas neoconservatism advocates spreading American ideals through the use of military force, Trump has made the case for nationalism and a smaller U.S. military footprint.
In what Trump calls an “America First” approach, he proposes rejecting alliances that don't work, trade deals that don’t deliver, and military interventionism that costs too much.
He has said he would get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and sit down with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — a throwback to the “realist” foreign policy of President Nixon.
As if to underscore that point, the presumptive GOP nominee met with Nixon's Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, earlier this week, and delivered his first major foreign policy speech at an event last month hosted by the Center for National Interest, which Nixon founded.
Leading neoconservative figures like Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan have assailed Trump’s foreign policy views. Kagan even called Trump a “fascist” in a recent Washington Post op-ed.
“This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac 'tapping into' popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him,” wrote Kagan, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Other neoconservatives say Trump’s foreign policy stances, such as his opposition to the Iraq war and the U.S. intervention in Libya, are inconsistent and represent “completely mindless” boasting.
“It’s not, ‘Oh I really feel that the neoconservatism has come to a bad end and we need to hearken back to the realism of the Nixon administration,’ ” said Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Do you see anybody who voted for …read more
Source: Dejected Neocons Lash Out At "Fascist, Huckster" Trump
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On Krugman’s Cherry-Picking Skills – Exhibit 1: The Clinton Boom
Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, after obliquely informing us of his acquaintance with a literary text, “Remembrance of Booms Past”, promptly forgets and cherry-picks the data. We learn that, under the watchful eye of Bill Clinton, the U.S. economy experienced an economic boom – a fact no one would deny. Krugman then takes a cheap shot at President Reagan, claiming that Reaganomics of the 1980s had nothing to do with setting the stage for the Clinton boom of the 1990s. This claim is debatable. Then, Krugman moves back onto solid ground with the fact that private investment surged in the 1990s and fueled the boom. Krugman reminds us that the surge in economic activity was aided by technical change. And then a very slippery bit of footwork, again: Clinton’s tax increase on the wealthy did not kill the boom. Well, this is certainly true. But, we don’t know how much stronger the boom would have been without Clinton’s tax increases. That’s of no interest to Krugman. The answer would spoil Krugman’s story: tax increases are associated with “goods”, not “bads”.
When we look back at the Clinton years, the stunning fact that emerges is that Clinton was the most fiscally austere, small-government President since 1952. The accompanying table supplies the facts – the Big facts – that Krugman chooses to ignore. Bill Clinton cut government’s share of GDP by a whopping 3.9 percentage points over his 8 years in office. When President Clinton took office in 1993, federal government expenditures accounted for 21.5 percent of GDP. At the end of his second term, President Clinton’s big squeeze left the government as 17.6 percent of GDP. Since 1952, no other president has even come close.
Some argue that Clinton was the beneficiary of the so-called “peace dividend,” whereby the post-Cold-War military drawdown led to a reduction in defense expenditures. The problem with this explanation is that the majority of Clinton’s cuts came from non-defense expenditures.
Admittedly, Clinton did benefit from the peace dividend, but the defense drawdown simply doesn’t match up to the cuts in non-defense expenditures that we saw under Clinton. Of course, it should be noted that the driving force behind many of these non-defense cuts came from the other side of the aisle, under the leadership of Speaker Gingrich.
Source: On Krugman’s Cherry-Picking Skills – Exhibit 1: The Clinton Boom
Microsoft goes to battle against terrorists online
Microsoft outlines its strategy to fight terrorist activities online. …read more
Source: Microsoft goes to battle against terrorists online
‘Beauty and the Beast’ trailer reveals new Belle
“Beauty and the Beast” teaser trailer gives a quick glimpse of Emma Watson as Belle in next year’s live-action film.
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If you drive less than 50 miles a day, this new rule will shock you.
…read more
Source: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ trailer reveals new Belle
Fed’s Williams Says "I Don’t Know What We’ll Do In June"
By Tyler Durden
Some were concerned earlier today, when SF Fed’s John Williams said that he sees about 2-3 rate hikes in 2016, followed by another 3-4 in 2017, suggesting a grand total between 5 and 7 more rate hikes over the next 18 months. However, those fears were promptly dissiptated when as Williams himself admitted during the reporter Q&A, he – like virtually everyone else at the Fed – has no idea what he is talking about. To wit:
- FED’S WILLIAMS SAYS `I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’LL DO IN JUNE’
Clearly unwavering from having zero credibility, her also added the following:
- WILLIAMS SAYS UPCOMING FOMC MEETINGS ARE `LIVE’ FOR RATE MOVE
- WILLIAMS SAYS FED FACING LOT OF UNCERTAINTIES SUCH AS BREXIT
- WILLIAMS SAYS BACK-TO-BACK RATE HIKES ARE POSSIBLE BUT UNLIKELY
- WILLIAMS: BACK-TO-BACK HIKES INCONSISTENT WITH GRADUAL FED PLAN
Some more Fed “observations” on the economy:
- WILLIAMS: WANT TO SEE DATA CONSISTENT W/BETTER 2Q GDP TRACKING
WILLIAMS: Q1 GDP PRETTY ANEMIC, Q2 TRACKERS SHOWING ABOVE 2%
WILLIAMS: EXPECTS TO MOVE VERY GRADUALLY THIS YEAR, NEXT - WILLIAMS: STILL SEE UNCERTAINTY ON BREXIT, CLD IMPACT JUNE
And the punchline:
- WILLIAMS: ‘GOOD THING’ MKTS RATE HIKE PRICING CLOSER TO FOMC’S
What he meant is “good thing” the Fed’s “dot plot” and rate hike forecast is closer to the market’s.
Source: Fed’s Williams Says "I Don’t Know What We’ll Do In June"
