Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
‘Batman v Superman’ fights off bad reviews for big $82 million opening day
“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” starring Henry Cavill as Superman and Ben Affleck as Batman is the main event at this weekend’s box office.
Source: ‘Batman v Superman’ fights off bad reviews for big $82 million opening day
Georgia, N.C. and beyond: The clash over ‘anti-gay’ bills
In North Carolina and Georgia legislation that is perceived as anti-LGBT has been met with differing degrees of corporate backlash. With similar bills being debated in other states, the struggle is just getting started.
Source: Georgia, N.C. and beyond: The clash over ‘anti-gay’ bills
Chairman Of Insolvent Chinese Steel Company Hangs Himself Day Before Bond Maturity
By Tyler Durden
Back in October when we first looked at ground zero of the commodity price collapse, we found something striking: as of the end of 2014,
And since in the intervening time period, both commodity prices have dropped far lower, while Chinese corporate debt has proceeded to soar exponentially, we said it was “safe to assume that up to two-third of Chinese commodity companies are now at imminent danger of default, as they can’t even generate the cash to pay down the interest on their debt, let alone fund repayments.”
We concluded that “we fully expect this to be the source of the next market freakout: when the punditry turns its attention away from macro China, which has more than enough problems to begin with, and starts to focus on the cash flow devastation in China at the micro, or corporate, level.“
To be sure, the Chinese government has done everything in its power to delay this day of reckoning and mask just how extensive the devastation at the local level is, by focusing its entire recently concluded People’s Congress on the topic of sustainability and debt leverage, going so far as to propose a wholesale, and utterly mind-boggling, debt-for-equity exchange at the bank level, one which would involve the nationalization of China’s insolvent commodity enterprises. Alas, we along with most rational observers, are skeptical this plan would ever get off the ground, as it would mean encumbering banks not with secured if impaired loans, but with unsecured equity in still insolvent companies, in the process making China’s solvency problems even worse.
That said, the punditry has indeed started to focus away from macro China and to the “devastation at the corporate level”, most notably in a recent Reuters article which suggested that “China’s campaign to slim down its bloated industries could be derailed by more than $1.5 trillion of debt in its steel, coal, cement and non-ferrous metal sectors, which threatens to overwhelm local banks.“
The story is well known: China is providing more than 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in the next two years to handle layoffs from coal and steel, but that will only be made available once debts have been settled. Critics say there is no clear mechanism for tackling the debt burden, which will put huge strain on the weakest sections of the banking sector.
The debt figures, revealed in papers submitted to China’s parliament this month, highlight the dilemma facing state firms grappling with surplus capacity and how difficult it will be to pull off this central plank of Beijing’s economic reform plans.
Costs for the estimated 1.3 million coal-sector layoffs alone are as much as 195 billion yuan, and coal industry delegates attending parliament urged government to provide more support to deal with the mounting debts of hundreds of stricken “zombie” firms.
* * *
A lawyer who handles steel industry non-performing loans for mid-sized Chinese …read more
Source: Chairman Of Insolvent Chinese Steel Company Hangs Himself Day Before Bond Maturity
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"Satanic Cocktail" Of Nails And Acetone Used In Devilish Brussels Bomb Design
By Tyler Durden
Nearly four days have passed since four men detonated explosives-laden belts and luggage in the Brussels airport and metro killing nearly two dozen people and injuring hundreds and there’s still quite a bit of ambiguity regarding who exactly is dead, who’s still at large, and who was at the scene in the first place.
Part of the confusion stems from the fact that the attackers who died in the blasts were strewn all over the crime scene in pieces, but authorities did manage to determine that among those who blew themselves up were brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El-Bakraoui, one of which was the subject of an Interpol red notice and the other was flagged by Turkey as a “foreign fighter” and deported. Also thought to have been killed in the airport bombings: bombmaker Najim Laachraoui, who is said to have played an instrumental role in building the explosives used in the Paris attacks.
Following the bombings, the taxi driver who delivered Ibrahim Bakraoui, Laachraoui, and a third assailant to the airport called the police. The driver became suspicious when the men were reluctant to let him assist with their luggage which he described as exceptionally heavy. The driver then led police back to the apartment in Schaerbeek (the site of Friday’s sweeping police operation) where he had picked the three men up. On the fifth floor, authorities found 33 lbs of explosives, 180 liters of chemicals, guns, a suitcase full of nails, and an Islamic State flag. Nothing suspicious about that.
Apparently, the apartment was a bomb making factory and in it, the Bakraouis (possibly with the help of Laachraoui or another bombmaker), built the TATP-based explosives used in Tuesday’s attacks. TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, has become an ISIS favorite and for those unlucky enough to find themselves in close proximity when it’s detonated, it’s bad news. Dubbed “the mother of Satan” by Palestinian militants, the white powder is cheap to make and the ingredients are impossible to trace, making it ideal for the clandestine activities of the Islamic State cells operating under the radar of European anti-terror police.
“Used in the 2005 London bombings and the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, and found in a series of foiled bomb attempts in Europe since 2007, TATP appears to be Islamic State’s explosive of choice,” Reuters writes. Here’s more:
Making a TATP bomb, although a more lengthy process than the fertilizer-based explosives used by other European militants, is cheap and simple and recipes and videos by chemistry buffs abound on the Internet. It was discovered by a 19th century German chemist and is very powerful, even in small quantities.
All the ingredients – acetone found in cleaning products, hydrogen peroxide found in wood bleach and sulphuric acid used to unblock kitchen pipes – were available at one Brussels hardware store this week for less than 40 euros ($45).
Nails and …read more
Source: "Satanic Cocktail" Of Nails And Acetone Used In Devilish Brussels Bomb Design
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Was This The Worst Economist Forecast Of All Time
By Tyler Durden
When it comes to predicting the future, there has traditionally been a stealthy contest between economists and weathermen as to who is the worst predictor of coming events. Lately, there was some confusion when economists – this
Did the forecast humiliation end there? Oh no.
The gap between forecast and reality got bigger and bigger thereafter. In fact, over 30 years later, Japan’s nominal GDP and GDP per capital now is where it was 30 years ago even as Japan has piled up a total debt load that is now over 400% of GDP.
Finally, as a consequence, bond yields fell further and further, continuously undershooting forecasts.
Does this look familiar? If not, recall this chart?
And this:
Comical economists aside, “Japanification” is precisely what is happening to the rest of the “developed world” as global growth continues to deteriorate, global debt grows and the only short-term resolution is to keep rates as low as possible… and now, negative across 28% of the entire world.
This weekend we will lay out HSBC’s thoughts on what “turning Japanese” means for the rest of the world. Spoiler alert: only bad things.
In the meantime we ask, when will “economists” be finally laughed off the global stage for the charlatan comedians they all are?
Source: Was This The Worst Economist Forecast Of All Time
The Slow, Inevitable Collapse Of The Two-Party System
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Russell Whitehouse via OrientalReview.org,
In this election year, it’s clear that a seismic political shift is rumbling through America. Widespread discontent for the status quo is surfacing from both the left and right. A year ago, it would have been impossible to envision a card-carrying socialist and a pre-WWII style populist mounting legitimate presidential campaigns (much less without Super PACs). Now, far-left and far-right sentiments are emerging from the underground as perfectly palatable options to Middle America. Establishment darlings like Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush & Marco Rubio have faced extreme pressure from the New Normal in their respective political tents.
It has become clear that the traditional 2-party system in America is starting to erode. Sanders’ supporters view Clinton as too untrustworthy & beholden to Big Business. Meanwhile Trump’s blue-collar base has rejected rank-and-file Republicans as being too unsympathetic to their economic concerns, while his surprising chunk of the evangelical contingent is refuting the Bush-flavored puritanism of Ted Cruz. Conversely, Clinton’s supporters reject Sander’s bold platform as delusional and Cruz’s base is increasingly being filled by #NeverTrump neocon purists and Romey-ite country club Republicans.
One can see political parallels across the pond, in the UK’s 2015 Parliamentary elections. The two main parties in Westminster Palace, Conservative and Labour (roughly equivalent to the GOP and Democrats), were shaken up by two popular insurgencies. UKIP, the UK Independence Party, rose up from the rising flames of the relatively conservative British heartland’s fears of free trade in the EU and immigration, winning an eighth of the popular vote in England. To the north, SNP, the Scottish National Party, won 95% of Scotland’s seats by inspiring among other things, record youth turnout and social media support (sound familiar?), with a message of social democracy and defiance against the British status quo.
Intra-party schisms are also forming in the two Anglophone democracies. The Tories are tearing themselves apart over the Brexit, austerity and jockeying to succeed Cameron as Party Leader, while the American neocons are assessing the fallout of Trump’s ascendance while in free fall. Labour officials are debating whether to follow their insurgent leader Jeremy Corbyn to the far Left after 20 years of Tony Blair’s New Labour movement, which moved the party to the center to win back the support of big business and blue-collar voters. The New Labour centrist putsch coincided with Bill Clinton (and later Obama’s) similar efforts as the face of the Democrats. Now, Democratic voters are beginning to second-guess this political realignment, spearheaded by the presumptive Democratic nominee’s husband. Her opponent Bernie Sanders is siphoning away the youth vote and blue-collar moderates from the Democratic establishment, two of the Party’s traditional constituencies, by railing against neoliberal policies like free trade and social welfare cuts.
Given the rise of social-democratic populism and nativist-protectionist populism to either flank of American politics, it would make sense to …read more
Source: The Slow, Inevitable Collapse Of The Two-Party System
How to Destroy ISIS Propaganda and Wipe Out Its Ability to Recruit
The Little-Known Secret to Destroying ISIS Propaganda
I'm not opposed to killing every ISIS member and recruit. After all, they're trying to kill us.
But Russia and the U.S.-led coalition haven't been able to wipe out ISIS with bombs.
Why not?
Military history shows that you usually cannot defeat your enemy unless you understand him at least a little bit.
For example, the great Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War:
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
Part of why we haven't won the battle against ISIS is we don't understand why their recruitment has been so successful.
Specifically, ISIS pitches itself to ignorant, naive, unemployed, young Muslims as the group which will stop the Christian and Jewish “occupiers” from stealing their lands.
(That's obviously no excuse for joining a terrorist group.)
But if the actual truth – that ISIS kills far more Muslims than Christians or Jews – were publicized, ISIS' propaganda and recruiting success would collapse.
In other words, ISIS ability to recruit fighters and supporters would evaporate, and the group itself would quickly wither.
“Between 82 and 97% of Terrorism-Related Fatalities” Are MUSLIM
The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center – the United States government organization The State Department commented:
NCTC [i.e. the National Counterterrorism Center] maintains its statistical information on the U.S. government's authoritative and unclassified database on terrorist acts, the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS).
***
Muslims continued to bear the brunt of terrorism ….
- In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97 percent of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.
- Muslim majority countries bore the greatest number of attacks involving 10 or more deaths ….
According to a 2009 report published by the Counter Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Al-Qaeda kills over seven times more Muslims than non-Muslims.
The UN reported last year that Muslims are the largest victims of ISIS in Iraq.
In 2013, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism's Global Terrorism Database – joint government-university program on terrorism, hosted at the University of Maryland noted that between 2004 and 2013, about half of all terrorist attacks, and 60% of fatalities due to terrorist attacks, took place in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan – all of which have a mostly Muslim population:
The head of the Global Terrorism Database told BBC:
While she doubts that 95% of terrorism victims are Muslim, she thinks the truth might not be far off.
Source: How to Destroy ISIS Propaganda and Wipe Out Its Ability to Recruit
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America’s Top Rogue Mercenary – Blackwater’s Erik Prince Is Under Federal Investigation
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports.
– From the post: New York Times Reports – Blackwater Threatened to Kill a State Dept. Official and the U.S. Government Did Nothing
A little over two years ago, I published a post titled, How Erik Prince, Founder of Blackwater, Will Help China Subjugate Africa. Here’s what we learned at the time:
Shares of DVN Holdings, controlled by Hong Kong businessman Johnson Ko Chun-shun and state-owned Citic Group, surged 7.3 per cent after it appointed Erik Prince – former owner of controversial US security firm Blackwater – as chairman, and granted him more share options.
Prince last November sold to DVN a company that plans to build a pan-Africa provider of aviation, logistics, risk management, security services and exploration support services, needed by many Chinese businesses active in Africa. He received US$3 million plus the first batch of options.
Prince has logistics, aviation, manufacturing, resources and energy business interests in Africa, the Middle East and North America, and is the founder of Frontier Resource Group, a private equity firm active in African aviation, exploration, mining and logistics, DVN said.
The firm subsequently paid US$42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of US export rules, to avoid criminal charges, The New York Times reported.
The writing was on the wall back then, and it appears the Department of Justice has finally picked up on the shadiness of it all.
Earlier today, The Intercept published a detailed account of the ongoing investigation into America’s number one mercenary, Erik Prince. Here are a few excerpts:
Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.
What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence.
The Intercept interviewed more than a half dozen of Prince’s associates, including current and former business partners; four former U.S. intelligence officers; and other sources familiar with the Justice Department investigation. All …read more
Source: America’s Top Rogue Mercenary – Blackwater’s Erik Prince Is Under Federal Investigation
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The "Restaurant Recovery" Is Over: Casual Dining Sales Tumble For Fourth Straight Month
By Tyler Durden
While the US manufacturing sector has been in a clear recession for the past year as a result of the collapsing commodity complex, so far the stable growth in low-paying service jobs – at least according to the BLS’ statistical assumptions – such as those of waiters and bartenders have kept the broader service economy out of contraction (even though recent Service PMI data has been downright scary).
This is now changing: as we showed a month ago, according to the lagged effect of the collapse of the Restaurant Performance Index, that party is over:
… just like it was in 2008;
But while such macro indices suffer from the same calendar and statistical aberrations which the BLS is all too famous for, a confirmation of the troubling restaurant downward trend was provided yesterday by company-level channel checks, courtesy of Sterne Agee, which show that same store sales trends at America’s casual dining restaurants – those which cater to the vast majority of the US middle class – have suffered a fourth consecutive month of declines, something not observed since the first financial crisis, sliding a whopping 3% in March.
From Sterne Agee’s March 24 channel checks:
Our channel checks for casual dining suggest a decline in casual dining same store sales (SSS) trends in the first half of March. While it is too early to determine if this is a trend, it appears that a fourth month in a row of negative SSS may occur, which we believe would be a disappointment to investors.
Casual Dining Stocks are Under Pressure in Recent Trading: On a month-to-date basis, we note that casual dining stocks have been under pressure, with an average price decline of -3.1%, including bottom-tier performers: Buffalo Wild Wings -10.2%, Red Robin -8 4% and Brinker -8.3.
To be sure, Sterne Agee tries to spin this disturbing trend as faborably as posible:
While there is much debate on whether the discounting/promotional environment in the quick service (QSR) space is affecting casual dining, we think it is too early to call this a shift in consumer behavior or change in trend.
However, it is becoming all too obviouos that not only has the great gas price collapse of 2015/2016 done anything to boost consumer spending on such core discretionary items as dinner, but that the purchasing power of the US middle class continues to deteriorate with every passing month – having troughed so far in March – and that economists are clueless to explain the reason behind this.
And the worst news is that with gas prices set to anniversary their 2015 lows in a few months at which point they will start rising due to the base effect, suddenly the great “gas …read more
Source: The "Restaurant Recovery" Is Over: Casual Dining Sales Tumble For Fourth Straight Month
