Y Combinator-backed entrepreneur Matt Joseph says that his race is the elephant in the room at Silicon Valley investor meetings.
Source: Black entrepreneur: ‘Stop pretending like race isn’t an issue’
By Tyler Durden
Unfortunately for the establishment, the ongoing acts of sponsoreds civil disobedience are not creating the groundswell of anti-Trump terror they had hoped would bring down the anti-establishmentarian. In fact things have gone so far that even Arizona cops questioned their safety among Soros' puppet-protesters. As African-American police officer Brandon Tatum exclaims, the profane-language-using demonstrators “were the most hateful, evil people he has ever seen.”
As EndingTheFed.com reports, Brandon Tatum, an officer in the Tucson Police Department, shared a video Saturday night giving his perspective on Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona — and the disruptive protesters who hurled obscenities at the Republican candidate.
As he explains, Tatum says that as a black man, he did not feel unsafe around Trump’s supporters but was ready to fight protesters in self-defense. He calls them the most hateful, evil people he has ever seen. The demonstrators, who he recalls chanting the phrase “Black lives matter,” used profane language and gestures, leading a mother to cover her child’s ears.
One protester, he recounts, got beat up, but Tatum says that the man instigated a fight either by spitting on or assaulting a rally attendee. He hopes that his message makes it into the news so that typical CNN coverage of just the retaliation against the agitator doesn’t become the prevailing narrative about the rally.
As for Trump himself, Tatum says he went to the rally to decide for himself what he thought of the candidate rather than trusting someone else’s word. He states that he gained respect for the businessman and didn’t hear anything bigoted from his stump speech. “His character’s a lot different than what you would perceive it to be in the media,” he says.
* * *
Once more the tried and tested efforts of the 'management' to disrupt the democratic process in favor of their wealth-maintaining status quo is suffering unintended consequences are everywhere amid the blowback from these organized protests.
Source: Black Cop Exposes Anti-Trump Protesters As "Most Hateful, Evil People Ever"
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Mark St. Cyr
What’s The Frequency Janet?
Once again, in spectacular fashion, the financial “markets” have miraculously rebounded from the aptly moniker’d “Bullard Bottom” and without pause has traversed in a near vertical assent to recapture the levels where all the uncertainties began. In other words, after all the gyrations over the last 14+ months we are once again only back to the levels (as scored by the U.S. financial markets e.g., Dow, S&P, et al) where the Fed stood confidently in their economic policy acumen.
Remember those confident proclamations during that time? (paraphrasing) “The economy has recovered quite admirably as to allow the QE (quantitative easing) program to end.” That was a good one, no? Remember what happened next? Nothing, as in the “markets” basically went nowhere up, nor down for months on end.
Sure there were some great headlines made of this path to nowhere as the market screamed sideways in a pattern much like a cardiac reading with blips and spikes that allowed headlines such as “New Never Before Seen In The History Of Mankind Highs!” on a near weekly basis. Yet, although those headlines were true, all they did was mask the fragile, ever deteriorating economy those “meters” were hooked to.
The one thing that never changed during that whole period? The implied fortitude of resolve that the Fed would indeed strike the path towards normalization of monetary policy and begin raising interest rates away from the zero bound. After all, it was implied at near infinitum: The economy had shown great signs of improvement. e.g., employment at near “full” status and others.
So, with that “mission accomplished” narrative as the wind beneath their wings the table was surely set that in September of 2015 the Fed would indeed raise rates. Remember what happened next?
Ah yes: China. It seemed just like any prudent U.S. investor or market aficionado might infer; a rate hike here means trouble there. After all, did anyone not understand just how interconnected these “markets” are with currency funded carry trades and more? Oh yes, sorry, it seems the Fed either forgot or, never realized the obvious inherent risk and consequences. The result?
The U.S. financial markets fell is such a spectacular, as well as, cascading manner that for the first time in the history of the markets all three of the prominent futures markets were halted. Only after stick save inspired shenanigans as those delivered by CNBC™ fame Jim Cramer and his now infamous “Is that a pencil in your pocket or a note from Tim Cook?” reveal did the markets seemingly recover and stabilize.
Then, reality once again set in as the markets collectively held its breath near those lows as it awaited the Fed’s implied: “You’ve been warned we’re going to raise rates.” Then, as the markets reacted to this implied “fortitude” and drifted lower back towards that “bottom.” The Fed with all its proclamations for faith in forward guidance and clarity did the exact …read more
Source: What’s The Frequency Janet?
By Tyler Durden
Two
We won’t cry for hedge funds, however, and instead are much more interested in what current and future flows will look like.
According to the same JPM team which expected a continuation of the short squeeze half a month ago, as a result of central banks once again pandering to stock markets with the Fed shocking even the “Liesmans” of the world by going full dove even as the Fed has already met its labor and inflation mandates, the move has led to a significant “impact on investors’ sentiment and behavior is evident in flows. ETFs, a universe almost equally shared between retail and institutional investors in terms of ownership, saw another big inflow this week meaning that three quarters of the previous selling of equity ETFs during January and February has been reversed over the past three weeks.”
What is more notable from JPM’s note, is that CTAs – one of the most important marginal price setter on the way down when only CTAs were profitable at the expense of all other hedge funds, continued to cover their loss-making short equity exposures. By JPM’s equity beta measure, CTAs appear to have fully covered their shorts as shown below.
But while CTAs may be out, the short base in US equity futures remained elevated as of last Tuesday, March 15th, a day before the FOMC meeting, perhaps held by money managers outside CTAs.
JPM also suggests that there was even more short covering in the post-FOMC period not covered by the chart above, which certainly has collapsed the net short exposure but JPM believes that “given the size of the shorts as of last Tuesday, we doubt that the negative net spec position on US equity futures has been fully covered by this week. In total, by looking at Figure 1 and Chart A16 together, we conclude that the short covering phase that started a month ago is very advanced” but, as JPM hedges “it is not yet fully completed.”
That may be, but a far bigger catalyst for fund flows in the coming days is the end of corporate buybacks for the next 6 weeks as DB warned on Saturday morning:
… a warning which is especially poignant when one considers that BofA’s “smart money” clients have now been selling stocks for 7 consecutive weeks, leading Bank of America to admit the bitter truth that “clients don’t believe the rally, continue to sell US stocks.”
So why would anyone else, unless pressured by a short squeeze, buy… especially when as the central banks explicitly admitted, absent more liquidity support the market is set to tumble. A short squeeze, which as JPM admits, is almost over.
Finally, a major driver of market upside this past week was Quad Witching, the S&P rebal and OpEx, which as JPM’s head quant Marko Kolanovic warned …read more
Source: JPM: The Short Squeeze Is Largely Over
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Michael Krieger of
All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him…The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.
– H.L. Mencken
It does not take a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
– Samuel Adams
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
“Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
I believe it is the duty of every single American citizen to sit down and watch the following mini-documentary. In just 45 minutes, you will learn more about the state of the union and the the world around you than decades of schooling and mainstream media could ever provide. Ignorance is not bliss, and if it weren’t for the blinding levels of ignorance pervasive in modern society, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this current deplorable state we’re in — on a knife’s edge between manageable serfdom and total tyranny.
No one in American society is supposed to be immune from criminal prosecution, yet the Justice Department in the Obama administration took it upon themselves to grant such immunity to the mega banks and their employees. This is a tale of the traitors operating within the highest levels of the U.S. government, and it is a saga of how the rule of law was openly torched in front of our very eyes.
Readers often ask me “what can I do to help.” Here’s what you can do. You can watch this video, then send it to every single person you know and plead with them to watch it. If necessary, make it a point to to sit with them and watch it. That’s how important this is.
Until justice is served, this nation will never heal. Economically, culturally or spiritually.
Now without further ado.
Source: Must Watch Video – "The Veneer of Justice in a Kingdom of Crime"
By Tyler Durden
On Friday, the EU and Turkey came to an agreement on a set of proposals to stem the flow of Mid-East asylum seekers into Western Europe.
The focus of the discussions in Brussels was cutting off the sea route to Greece. On the front lines is the Greek island Lesbos where at least half of the 144,000 refugees who have entered Greece in 2016 have landed. More than a million people crossed the Aegean to Greece last year.
The new deal between the EU and Turkey calls for Ankara to take back all refugees arriving in Greece by sea after their asylum claims are processed. For every refugee that is sent back, Europe will take refugees directly from Turkey in a kind of one-for-one swap. The point is to discourage people smugglers by effectively making the sea trip pointless. “If returns begin migrants won’t want to pay $1,000-2,000 to a smuggler,” Antonis Sofiadelis, head of the coastguard operations on Lesbos explains.
As part of the deal, Turkey will also get as much as €6 billion in aid and will have its EU membership application fast-tracked. Here are the specifics (on which the deal is notably short) for those who might have missed it:
But while the deal is effectively in place now, sending refugees back to Turkey from Greece won’t be possible until April, the deadline for setting up the administrative infrastructure that will allow for the swift processing of asylum applications.
In the meantime, the flow continues. “They waved, cheered and smiled, elated to have made it to Europe at dawn on Sunday in …read more
Source: Thousands Of "Elated, Wet" Migrants Land On Lesbos, As Refugee "Deal" Fails To Stem Flow
By Tyler Durden
As reported
Who is the protester?
According to a profile by the Arizona Daily Star, his name is Bryan Sanders who describes himself as an indepedent “I’m not a republican, I’m not a democrat”, and in a video interview after he left the rally he said the crowd was like an angry mob. What he ignored to note is that it was him and his fellow protesters who were doing everything all they could to rile up this “angry mob” and provoke them, ostensibly in hope of being attacked – which is precisely what happened. In other words, this group of Trump protesters which seem to follow him from state to state may be nothing more than a group of provocateurs, who do their best to get beaten up in order to stem up anti-Trump sentiment, something Sanders implicitly admits.
This is what he said: “I was protesting Trump’s facism, his racism, his lies, his women-hating,” Bryan Sanders said in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star. Sanders said he was holding a sign that said “Trump is bad for America.”
“A guy grabbed the sign out of my hand as I was being escorted out of the building and sucker punched me,” he said. Sanders, who as noted above identified himself as an independent, said he also attended a Bernie Sanders rally the night before.
‘We’re gonna stop this; this is not going to continue,” he said. “If it takes somebody getting punched in the face, that’s what it takes, no problem.” And Sanders will make sure it is no problem by continuing to provoke the “angry mob” at Trump rallies with everything he’s got.
Meanwhile, Trump himself said earlier today that protesters who’ve dogged his recent presidential campaign appearances should bear some responsibility for violence committed against them by his supporters.
“These are professional agitators,” the Republican front-runner said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “There should be blame there, too.”
As Bloomberg reports, “violence flared again on Saturday when a protester wearing a Confederate flag imprinted with the candidate’s face was struck by a black Trump supporter at a rally in Tucson, Arizona. The Trump partisan was angered by another demonstrator wearing a white sheet over her head in an imitation of a Ku Klux Klan hood. As local authorities attempted to remove the protesters, the supporter kicked the man with the sign three times and punched him once.”
At the time, Trump termed the protester wearing the hood “really disgusting,” saying that agitators at his events were “taking away our First Amendment rights.”
“They’re going to get a little television so their mom can say, ‘Hello,”’ Trump said at the rally. He criticized the demonstrators outside the event “making it so it’s a very narrow passageway” for people to enter. “What’s the purpose?” he said. “I apologize for the people that are coming …read more
By Tyler Durden
As Evercore ISI (correctly) puts it, “no one can remember more than 7 bullets on anything.” So for those eager to catch up on all the latest news out of China, here are just 7 bullet points:
Curious for more: here are the details:
Overview. The last two weeks of NPC announcements and positive talk just don’t fit with what we see. Jan and Fed data are not sparkling. We still pick up mostly negative anecdotes. Our Jan and Feb SGI likely will be lower.
Beijing has been on the protect growth track for a year. But the rest of the world is not cooperating. Global growth numbers are not improving. Every added monetary easing move (real or promised) in the developed world makes us more nervous, not more comfortable.
China has big structural problems that are weighing it down. The understandable reaction is another Beijing fix. Every governmental minister got a hearing at the NPC – conditions, prospects, policy ideas – plus the obligatory cheerleading – this will happen; that bad won’t happen.’ It’s the next steps that leave us cold.
Here, briefly, four big problem areas that Beijing is trying to address. (Note. Ask us for more detail).
First problem, Housing. Housing is just out of equilibrium. Too many units have been built (in order to create demand and jobs), in the wrong places and available at too-high prices. There is renewed speculation in Tier 1 cities. Some buyers borrow to borrow — borrowing money for the down payment, in order to get a mortgage. …read more
Source: All The Latest Chinese News In Just 7 Bullets
Here’s a look at Donald Trump’s tweets about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and the network’s response.
Source: Trump, Megyn Kelly and Fox News: The record
By Tyler Durden
When you look out across markets and across the increasingly fraught geopolitical landscape, there are plenty of black swans waiting in the wings (no pun intended). And quite a few of them are Chinese.
China has, among other problems: a massive debt overhang that, all told, amounts to more than 250% of GDP; a decelerating economy that Beijing swears will be able to pull off a miracle and move away from the smokestack and away from export-led growth without slipping into recession; a currency crisis; a new property bubble in Tier-1 cities; and a burgeoning NPL problem in the banking sector.
All of those issues are of course inextricably bound up with one another. They are set like dominoes and once the first one tips, the rest will too as sure as night follows day.
And while twin crises (financial and economic) in China would wreak havoc on markets in both EM and DM – between which China exists in a sort of limbo – the real question is this: what would the consequences be for societal stability in China? That is, if it all falls down, will social upheaval ensue leading to a revolt against the Politburo?
That’s not some attempt to use hyperbole on the way to positing some anarchic future for the world’s engine of global growth and trade. In fact, the possibility for widespread unrest is so real that Chinese officials have begun to address it frequently in discussions of how they plan to deal with the mass layoffs that are bound to result from Beijing’s efforts to restructure the country’s collection of elephantine SOEs and stamp out excess capacity.
After Li Xinchuang, head of China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute told Xinhua that eliminating excess capacity in the steel industry will cost 400,000 jobs and could fuel “social instability”, the government went into spin mode. National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Xu Shaoshi said in February that Beijing’s attempts to curb overcapacity will increase unemployment in provinces with high output of steel and coal but will not cause social unrest. Similarly, Xiao Yaqing, who oversees the government commission that looks after state assets, said last week that the country won’t experience a wave of layoffs as a result of SOE restructuring.
But the cracks are already starting to show.
As we reported on Monday, thousands of miners in China’s coal-rich (or poor depending on one’s perspective) north have gone on strike over months of unpaid wages and fears that government calls to restructure their state-owned employer will lead to mass layoffs. As AFP noted, protesters were marching through the streets of Shuangyashan city in Heilongjiang province, venting their frustration at Longmay Mining Holding Group, the biggest coal firm in northeast China.
Speaking of Longmay, the company is laying off 100,000 workers and in a sign of things to come, around a quarter of them have been reassigned to the agriculture, timber and …read more
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