A Not Very Rosy Picture (LIBOR BS Finally Smells Rank - Fanny/Freddie Rank Too - Privatized Profits/Socialized Losses) N. Korea/Guam Terrified of Crazed Leader & Intel Folk (Leak from DNC, NOT Hack) US Media Has to Keep Lying? (Dems Better Deal Spells Disaster) Bigger Systemic Risk Now Than 2008 (Glorifying Wasting the Earth's Bounty: Elites Rejoice) Trumponomics (NeoCon Lies & Monsanto Truth Revealed)

Anne Jones became so afraid to drink the water that came out of her well she installed a water purification system. A blue plastic jug, filled to the brim with purified water, sits on her kitchen counter.

. . . Jones’ home in Banks County, about 75 miles northeast of Atlanta, sits on the edge of the county landfill. Since 2015, trucks from North and South Carolina have filled it with at least 6.7 million tons of coal ash, a by-product of coal-fired electricity that contains heavy metals known to be toxic to plants, animals and people. And more of it is on the way.

. . . “Some of the landfills have received coal ash in the past, some want to receive it in the future and some we have no idea,” said April Lipscomb, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, who is helping assess the suitability of Georgia landfills for coal ash.

Pay no attention to the man in the corner video either.

Really.

Stop.

Manipulation of emotion in support of war is no accident.

This has to be the first finance link in anyone's blog today:

Taibbi:  Is LIBOR, Crucial Financial Benchmark, a Lie?

It was easy to miss, with the impending end of civilization burning up the headlines, but a beyond-belief financial story recently crept into public view.

A Bloomberg headline on the story was a notable achievement in the history of understatement. It read:

LIBOR'S UNCERTAIN FUTURE TRIGGERS $350 TRILLION SUCCESSION HEADACHE

The casual news reader will see the term "LIBOR" and assume this is just a postgame wrapup to the LIBOR scandal of a few years back, in which may of the world's biggest banks were caught manipulating interest rates.

It isn't. This is a new story, featuring twin bombshells from a leading British regulator – one about our past, the other our future. To wit:

1. Going back twenty years or more, the framework for hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of financial transactions has been fictional.
2. We are zooming toward a legal and economic clusterfuck of galactic proportions – the "uncertain future" Bloomberg humorously referenced.

LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate. It measures the rate at which banks lend to each other. If you have any kind of consumer loan, it's a fair bet that it's based on LIBOR.

A 2009 study by the Cleveland Fed found that 60 percent of all mortgages in the U.S. were based on LIBOR. Buried somewhere in your home, you probably have a piece of paper that outlines the terms of your credit card, student loan, or auto loan, and if you peek in the fine print, you have a good chance of seeing that the rate you pay every month is based on LIBOR.

Years ago, we found out that the world's biggest banks were manipulating LIBOR.

That sucked.

Now, the news is worse:  LIBOR is made up.

Actually it's worse even than that. LIBOR is probably both manipulated and made up. The basis for a substantial portion of the world's borrowing is a bent fairy tale.

The admission comes by way of Andrew Bailey, head of Britain's Financial Conduct Authority. He said recently (emphasis mine):

"The absence of active underlying markets raises a serious question about the sustainability of the LIBOR benchmarks. If an active market does not exist, how can even the best run benchmark measure it?"

As a few Wall Street analysts have quietly noted in the weeks since those comments, an "absence of underlying markets" is a fancy way of saying that LIBOR has not been based on real trading activity, which is a fancy way of saying that LIBOR is bullshit.

LIBOR is generally understood as a measure of market confidence. If LIBOR rates are high, it means bankers are nervous about the future and charging a lot to lend. If rates are low, worries are fewer and borrowing is cheaper.

It therefore makes sense in theory to use LIBOR as a benchmark for borrowing rates on car loans or mortgages or even credit cards. But that's only true if LIBOR is actually measuring something.

So, rest easy.

Just more BS.

Taibbi:  Government Misled Public on Fannie/Freddie Takeover 

While Russiagate rages, the bitter fight over the future of the real estate market continues

. . . The government originally insisted on a 10 percent annual dividend in exchange for what ultimately became a $187 billion rescue. In 2012, the government quietly changed that 10 percent deal to one in which the state simply seized all profits.

Government regulators euphemistically described this as "fully capturing financial benefits." The press paid almost no attention to this event.

"New Bailout Terms for Fannie, Freddie," wrote the Washington Post, in a page-8 yawner. "Treasury Pinches Fannie and Freddie," sighed the Philadelphia Inquirer, in 439 words on page 7.

This was not, however, an inside-pages news story. It was one of the most important decisions of the bailout era.

Also known as the government-sponsored entities, or GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were two of the biggest companies on earth, and held about $5 trillion in mortgage debt.

They had gone bust during the crash years for a variety of reasons, mostly due to incompetent and corrupt management. But by the summer of 2012, with the real estate market in recovery, the companies weren't bust anymore. On the contrary, they were about to start making money again – enormous piles of it, in fact. 

The government has always insisted it didn't know this. Not just in the summer of 2012 but numerous times since, officials have insisted that they needed 100 percent of Fannie and Freddie's profits because they wanted to protect taxpayers from likely future losses, and because Fannie and Freddie would otherwise be unable to pay back what they owed.

Mario Ugoletti, a special adviser to the director of the federal housing agency, said in 2013 of the companies' debts that it was "unlikely that [Fannie and Freddie] would be able to meet that amount consistently without drawing additional funds from Treasury."

But documents just released in a court case show that the government privately believed just the opposite before it made its historic decision to "sweep" the GSE revenues.

One key document is a memo from Mary Miller, assistant Treasury secretary for the financial markets, to then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Dated December 11th, 2011, Miller writes to Geithner that "Freddie is expected to be net income positive by the end of 2012, and Fannie by the end of 2013."

In another memo, circulated through the agencies, analysts concluded that the government would end up getting more through the "revenue sweep" than it would through "if the 10% [dividend] was still in effect."

The only reason this story is hitting the headlines at all this week is because the government's 2012 decision triggered an all-out pitched battle between two investor groups. Those who bet on Fannie and Freddie's revival were wiped out by the government's 2012 decision, while those who shorted the firms have made fortunes.

The documents that came out this week were released in a lawsuit brought by Fannie and Freddie shareholders who believe that the government stole billions of dollars in profits from them. 

The ordinary American is not likely to care much about the outcome of that case, unless the general principle of the government unilaterally seizing the profits of private companies strikes him as bothersome.

But this story has vast implications beyond a fight over investment returns.

Lurking underneath the scandal derisively termed "Fanniegate" is a monstrous struggle for future profits. The fight here is not just about the profits generated by the GSEs, but what to do about them generally. Finance lobbyists have successfully forged a bipartisan consensus that the companies need to be privatized. Essentially, Wall Street wants to step into the shoes of Fannie and Freddie.

In most versions of GSE reform currently winding their way through Congress, the same too-big-to-fail banks that blew up the mortgage markets in 2008 would assume most of the responsibilities of Fannie and Freddie. Crucially, securitized mortgages would continue to enjoy government backing under many of these proposals.

Privatized profits, socialized losses. Who doesn't love that formula?

____________

The same intel "folks" who brought to you non-existent WMDs are now peddling the notion that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47586.htm

It is mind-boggling, how the world has been brainwashed, accepting almost without questions Washington's atrocities and crimes on humanity. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47587.htm

The US government lies. They lie day and night. All the time about everything. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47589.htm

Fake news plus phony "intelligence" equal disaster http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47581.htm

Seventy years ago we vaporized 250,000 civilians, and yet still view the bombings as an act of mercy. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47590.htm

Mexican newspaper reveals secret arrangement between DEA and Sinaloa cartel http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47584.htm

The document states, that the "deep state" is trying to undermine President Donald Trump. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47585.htm  

 

North Korea: Fire, Fury and Fear

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I've come to believe 1000% that the USA is a nation of Amway sellers (okay, and alacratic buyers (still) too).

If you can't comprehend what that means, then Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and all the rest of the much-touted national "leaders" of the people will remain a mystery - understood only as the bearers of mythological incantations - that will confound you for the rest of your days.

The Deep State or Military-Industrial Complex or just the Powers That Be (choose your poison) seemingly have allowed Donald Trump six months to prove his qualifications to take their orders and shut up about it, and his time is largely up.

Or not. And he will be taking their orders as soon as he returns from his vacation. (Or else?)

The country (and world too) awaits his return with bated breath.

For good reason.
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Wondered why no one is talking now about that "Russian hack of the DNC?"

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Was the “Russian Hack” an Inside Job?

Executive Summary

Forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device, and that “telltale signs” implicating Russia were then inserted. 

Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack. Of equal importance, the forensics show that the copying and doctoring were performed on the East coast of the U.S. Thus far, mainstream media have ignored the findings of these independent studies [see here and here].

Independent analyst Skip Folden, a retired IBM Program Manager for Information Technology US, who examined the recent forensic findings, is a co-author of this Memorandum. He has drafted a more detailed technical report titled “Cyber-Forensic Investigation of ‘Russian Hack’ and Missing Intelligence Community Disclaimers,” and sent it to the offices of the Special Counsel and the Attorney General. VIPS member William Binney, a former Technical Director at the National Security Agency, and other senior NSA “alumni” in VIPS attest to the professionalism of the independent forensic findings.

The recent forensic studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original “Guccifer 2.0” material remains a mystery – as does the lack of any sign that the “hand-picked analysts” from the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the “Intelligence Community Assessment” dated January 6, 2017, gave any attention to forensics.

NOTE: There has been so much conflation of charges about hacking that we wish to make very clear the primary focus of this Memorandum. We focus specifically on the July 5, 2016 alleged Guccifer 2.0 “hack” of the DNC server. In earlier VIPS memoranda we addressed the lack of any evidence connecting the Guccifer 2.0 alleged hacks and WikiLeaks, and we asked President Obama specifically to disclose any evidence that WikiLeaks received DNC data from the Russians [see here and here].

Addressing this point at his last press conference (January 18), he described “the conclusions of the intelligence community” as “not conclusive,” even though the Intelligence Community Assessment of January 6 expressed “high confidence” that Russian intelligence “relayed material it acquired from the DNC … to WikiLeaks.”

Obama’s admission came as no surprise to us. It has long been clear to us that the reason the U.S. government lacks conclusive evidence of a transfer of a “Russian hack” to WikiLeaks is because there was no such transfer. Based mostly on the cumulatively unique technical experience of our ex-NSA colleagues, we have been saying for almost a year that the DNC data reached WikiLeaks via a copy/leak by a DNC insider (but almost certainly not the same person who copied DNC data on July 5, 2016).

From the information available, we conclude that the same inside-DNC, copy/leak process was used at two different times, by two different entities, for two distinctly different purposes:

-(1) an inside leak to WikiLeaks before Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, that he had DNC documents and planned to publish them (which he did on July 22) – the presumed objective being to expose strong DNC bias toward the Clinton candidacy; and

-(2) a separate leak on July 5, 2016, to pre-emptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish by “showing” it came from a “Russian hack.”

 * * *

Mr. President:

This is our first VIPS Memorandum for you, but we have a history of letting U.S. Presidents know when we think our former intelligence colleagues have gotten something important wrong, and why. For example, our first such memorandum, a same-day commentary for President George W. Bush on Colin Powell’s U.N. speech on February 5, 2003, warned that the “unintended consequences were likely to be catastrophic,” should the U.S. attack Iraq and “justfy” the war on intelligence that we retired intelligence officers could readily see as fraudulent and driven by a war agenda.

Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations on Feb. 5. 2003, citing satellite photos which supposedly proved that Iraq had WMD, but the evidence proved bogus.

The January 6 “Intelligence Community Assessment” by “hand-picked” analysts from the FBI, CIA, and NSA seems to fit into the same agenda-driven category. It is largely based on an “assessment,” not supported by any apparent evidence, that a shadowy entity with the moniker “Guccifer 2.0” hacked the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

The recent forensic findings mentioned above have put a huge dent in that assessment and cast serious doubt on the underpinnings of the extraordinarily successful campaign to blame the Russian government for hacking. The pundits and politicians who have led the charge against Russian “meddling” in the U.S. election can be expected to try to cast doubt on the forensic findings, if they ever do bubble up into the mainstream media. But the principles of physics don’t lie; and the technical limitations of today’s Internet are widely understood. We are prepared to answer any substantive challenges on their merits.

You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this. Our own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down.

Copied, Not Hacked

As indicated above, the independent forensic work just completed focused on data copied (not hacked) by a shadowy persona named “Guccifer 2.0.” The forensics reflect what seems to have been a desperate effort to “blame the Russians” for publishing highly embarrassing DNC emails three days before the Democratic convention last July. Since the content of the DNC emails reeked of pro-Clinton bias, her campaign saw an overriding need to divert attention from content to provenance – as in, who “hacked” those DNC emails? The campaign was enthusiastically supported by a compliant “mainstream” media; they are still on a roll.

“The Russians” were the ideal culprit. And, after WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016, “We have emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication,” her campaign had more than a month before the convention to insert its own “forensic facts” and prime the media pump to put the blame on “Russian meddling.” Mrs. Clinton’s PR chief Jennifer Palmieri has explained how she used golf carts to make the rounds at the convention. She wrote that her “mission was to get the press to focus on something even we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.”

Independent cyber-investigators have now completed the kind of forensic work that the intelligence assessment did not do. Oddly, the “hand-picked” intelligence analysts contented themselves with “assessing” this and “assessing” that. In contrast, the investigators dug deep and came up with verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of the alleged Russian hack.

They found that the purported “hack” of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else. Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider. The data was leaked after being doctored with a cut-and-paste job to implicate Russia. We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI.

 Read on for more of that FBI/NSA(?) goodness.

* * *

Jul 22, 2017

Lee Camp opens up a recent copy of The New York Times to read how the establishment media beats the war drums, in the most subtle ways. Lee guides you through how to read this paper by using an article about Iran’s presence in war-torn Iraq. Is Iran increasing influence in Iraq, or is just that the country’s struggling economy can’t provide for its population? Through this reading, you can see how transparent the mainstream media can be when they’re exacerbating tensions between Iran and the US. This and more on "Redacted Tonight VIP."

In this episode of Redacted Tonight, Lee Camp explores how the mainstream media shunned any investigative reporting into the REAL reason why Trump bombed Syria. Not only did it have nothing to do with a chemical attack, but evidence suggests there wasn't a chemical attack to begin with. Yet that didn't stop the media from feeding its never-ending obsession with war.

Next, on the heels of our nation’s 241st birthday, Lee reminds us that those miniature American flags we wave aren’t just cheaply made symbols of patriotism. They’re actually reminders of the death of an American labor force replaced by overseas workers who are paid pittance to make them, thanks to corporations who couldn't care less about Americans and care a lot more about deepening their already fat pockets. In the second half, Correspondent John F. O'Donnell joins Lee at the desk to discuss whether the violence wrought in the Revolutionary War was the only door open to America for gaining its independence, or if the evidence of nonviolent action that preceded battle suggests we could have achieved this much more peacefully. Finally, Correspondent Naomi Karavani exposes how Bush administration officials got a free pass for crapping over the human rights of thousands of innocent immigrants detained following 9/11. All this and more on "Redacted Tonight." 

A new bill in front of Congress literally makes political activism highly illegal. It's aimed at the BDS movement fighting for divestment from Israel. But it opens the door to just about any political speech and activism being called criminal. This is and INCREDIBLY dangerous bill and now is the time to act! 

If you can actually internalize the implications of this story, it very well may shatter your worldview of the US. The truth is that the mass media, across multiple platforms, is lending exposure to a 7-year-old Syrian girl, who is calling for the overthrow of Bashad al-Assad.

There’s a major problem, however. She’s clearly just reading words from a teleprompter, sounding them out phonetically without understanding their meaning. She also has a Twitter account that is way to geopolitically sophisticated for a child. Now she has a book deal with a major publishing company and was named as one of Time Magazine’s most influential people on the internet for 2017. All signs point to this being psy-op to push America’s foreign policy agenda. It parallels what the US government did leading up to the 1st Iraq War. This report by "Redacted" correspondent John F. O’Donnell has to be seen to be believed.

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On the home front we learn the latest (and greatest?) political developments (yeah, kinda scary too):

He has some self-interest in making that argument. After all, Schumer's interview with the Post was to preview the rollout of the Democrats' 2018 message: "A Better Deal." There's no better way to get some attention for a new message you cooked up than to slam your party's previous message -- and messenger. 

Schumer's critique is born out in the exit polling done in the 2016 election, however.

Neither candidate was at all well-regarded by the electorate. Trump was viewed favorably by 38% of people and Clinton by an only slightly better 43%. What the election came down to was this: Voters wanted change and viewed Trump as the candidate of change. Of the four in 10 voters who said a candidate who could "bring about needed change" was the most important trait for them, Trump won 82% to 14%. That's the entire election. 

That Schumer would be willing to slam Clinton's campaign -- and her defense of that campaign -- also speaks to the fact that most Democrats want to move beyond the former secretary of state and the 2016 election. It may be in Clinton's interest to re-litigate the election to ensure she isn't blamed, but most Democrats trying to win reelection (or election) next November want to put her campaign far in their rear-view mirror. (Remember that 10 Senate Democrats are seeking reelection in states Trump won last fall.)

The problem with Schumer's attempt to get beyond the 2016 election is that Democrats remain largely leaderless in the aftermath of an election that no one in the party thought they would lose. Schumer is simply not a well-known enough figure nationally to speak for the party. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is too unpopular among anyone outside of the Democratic base to be that person. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are prominent but cancel one another out somewhat as they both seek to be the leader of the liberal wing of the party. Former Vice President Joe Biden is in the background even as he makes clear a 2020 bid is an option. Former President Barack Obama seems very conscious of not injecting himself into every debate involving his successor. 

All of which means Clinton continues to fill that leadership vacuum with a message much more focused on reshaping her own personal narrative than re-positioning her party to persuade voters in 2018.

Oh, hadn't you heard? Hillary wants to be your personal religious guide now.

Kinda like the protestant Pope?

Certainly lays the ground for much more lucrative speechmaking.

Picture a female Billy Graham (or Sunday).
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Charles Hugh Smith holds nothing back:

A deeply polarizing new president, a disastrously misguided official narrative that the political Establishment doggedly supports despite a damning lack of evidence, and an economy teetering on the edge of recession – and worse.

Sound familiar? Welcome to 1969 redux. The similarities between the crises unfolding in 1969 and the present-day crises are not just skin-deep – they’re systemic.

Consider the basic parallels.

1. Nixon was if anything more polarizing than Trump. If there was any politician Democrats loved to hate, it was Nixon. Yet Nixon won a close race against an Establishment Democrat, at least partly because he ran as a “peace candidate” and because he spoke to the Silent Majority who disagreed with the nation’s direction. The Silent Majority was mocked and ridiculed by the mainstream media as racist, close-minded deplorables.

2. The Democratic Party had become the Establishment bastion of war-mongering. The Democratic White House had been obscuring its devastating strategic and tactical miscalculations behind a slick PR campaign and a pervasive and often illegal program of suppressing dissenters and whistleblowers.

3. At the behest of the Establishment, an immense propaganda machinery had been running full-tilt to paper over foreign-policy failures and tragedies (including but not limited to the Vietnam War). In 2017, this immense propaganda machine is focused on discrediting the Trump presidency by unearthing or fabricating evidence of collusion with our default Bad Guy, Russia.

4. The political Establishment had decided to tamp down discontent with the Vietnam War by borrowing vast sums to pay for both “guns” (the war) and “butter” (the Great Society social welfare programs). Paying for the war and a military capable of fighting one-and-a-half other wars (at that time, the Pentagon was geared to fight 2.5 wars) would have required some sacrifice in domestic spending, and that would have further inflamed popular resistance to the Vietnam War. The expedient (and predictably disastrous) choice was to ramp up deficit spending so no domestic sacrifice was needed to pay the crushingly high costs of the Vietnam conflict. In 2017, U.S. public debt basically doubled during the Obama/congressional guns and butter borrowing spree from $10 trillion to $20 trillion.

5. The U.S. economy had by most measures topped out in 1966 or 1967, and by 1969 the veneer of permanently rising prosperity was shredding. The first wave of globalization washed ashore as our enemies and allies in World War II had built powerful export economies that had the advantage of cheap currencies via a vis the U.S. dollar.

6. China was a potentially destabilizing force that threatened U.S. hegemony in the Pacific. In 1969, China was deep in the chaotic throes of the Cultural Revolution which decimated its educated and leadership classes and destroyed much of its physical cultural heritage. In 2017, China’s monumental economic growth is losing steam even as its designs to establish hegemony in the South China Sea increasingly threaten its Asian neighbors’ security.

7. The Cold War with the U.S.S.R. was heating up in numerous places around the world, including the Mideast and Southeast Asia.

8. Beneath the relative stability of the Cold War geopolitical stand-off, the global economy and social order was changing in profound ways. Technological advances were poised to fatally disrupt many established and supposedly permanent centers of power. Trade and capital flows were shifting in ways that undermined the Bretton Woods currency order, and social/cultural revolutions were spreading around the globe like wildfire.

9. The mainstream media parroted the official narratives and “facts” until the counter-evidence was too overwhelming to ignore.

And here we are again, in so many ways. A deeply polarized nation, angry over rising expectations that no longer match economic realities, an Establishment that doubles down on failed policies and narratives rather than admit catastrophic errors of judgment, a political order that pursues public relations and “signaling” over substance, a political/ financial Elite that chooses political and economic expediency, kicking the can down the road rather than tackle thorny problems head-on, a stagnating economy that is poised on the precipice of profound technological and social disruption, and a global order that is fraying and coming apart at the seams.

____________

“Bigger Systemic Risk” Now Than 2008 – Bank of England

– Bank of England warn that “bigger systemic risk” now than in 2008
– BOE, Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) concerns re financial system
– Banks accused of “balance sheet trickery” -undermining spirit of post-08 rules
– EU & UK corporate bond markets may be bigger source of instability than ’08
– Credit card debt and car loan surge could cause another financial crisis
– PRA warn banks returning to similar practices to those that sparked 08 crisis
– ‘Conscious that corporate memories can be shed surprisingly fast’ warns PRA Chair

Stark warnings have been issued by the Bank of England and its regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

In less than one week the two bodies issued papers and speeches to warn industry members that many banks are showing signs of making the same mistakes that led to the 2008 financial crisis – the outcomes of which are predicted to be worse than those seen just nine years ago.

Increased risks have been noted at different ends of the financial system, from the European corporate bond markets right through to retail lenders.

Read full story here….

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Earth’s Economy Glorifies Waste, Exploitation, Debt, Expediency and Magical Thinking

“Earth’s economy glorifies waste. Its economists rejoice when a product is disposed as waste and replaced with a new product. This waste is perversely labeled ‘growth.’

Aimless wandering that consumes fossil fuels is likewise rejoiced as ‘growth.’

The stripping of the planet’s oceans for a few favored species of edible fish is also considered ‘growth’ as the process of destroying the ocean ecosystem generates sales of the desired seafood.

Even more perversely, the resulting shortages are also causes of rejoicing by the planet’s elites, as their ability to purchase the now-scarce resources boosts their social status and grandiose sense of self-worth.

Read more ›

  ________________

The decade following 1969 was one of multiple global disruptions in the political, social, energy, geopolitical, currency and economic spheres. The difference now is that the buffers that existed in 1969 are now paper-thin, and so the potential downside of disruption and instability is much, much greater.

For that very large portion of the population of the USA! USA! USA! who haven't experienced the miracle recovery recorded in detail in the financial pages of major newspapers every day without pause for the last, what?, eight years . . .

The false reality constructed for Americans parallels perfectly the false reality constructed by Big Brother in George Orwells’ dystopian novel 1984.

Consider the constant morphing of “the Muslim threat” from al-Qaeda to the Taliban, to al-Nusra, to ISIS to ISIL, to Daesh with a jump to Russia. All of a sudden 16 years of Middle East wars against “terrorists” and “dictators” have become a matter of standing up to Russia, the country most threatened by Muslim terrorism, and the country most capable of wiping the United States and its vassal empire off of the face of the earth.

Domestically, Americans are assured that, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing, that is, flooding the financial markets with newly printed money that has driven up the prices of stocks and bonds, America has enjoyed an economic recovery since June of 2009, which must be one of the longest recoveries in history despite the absence of growth in median real family incomes, despite the (absence of) growth in real retail sales, despite the falling labor force participation rate, despite the lack of high value-added, high productivity, high wage jobs.

The “recovery” is more than a mystery. It is a miracle. It exists only on fake news paper.

According to CNN, an unreliable source for sure, Jennifer Tescher, president and CEO of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, reports that about half of Americans report that their living expenses are equal to or exceed their incomes. Among those aged 18 to 25 burdened by student loans, 54% say their debts are equal to or exceed their incomes. This means that half of the US population has ZERO discretionary income. So what is driving the recovery?

Nothing. For half or more of the US population there is no discretionary income there with which to drive the economy.

The older part of the population has no discretionary income either. For a decade there has been essentially zero interest on the savings of the elderly, and if you believe John Williams of shadowstats.com, which I do, the real interest rates have been zero and even negative as inflation is measured in a way designed to prevent Social Security cost of living adjustments.

In other words, the American economy has been living on the shrinkage of the savings and living standards of its population.

Last Friday’s employment report is just another lie from the government. The report says that the unemployment rate is 4.4% and that June employment increased by 222,000 jobs. A rosy picture. But as I have just demonstrated, there are no fundamentals to support it. It is just another US government lie like Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and so forth and so on.

The rosy unemployment picture is totally contrived. The unemployment rate is 4.4% because discouraged workers who have not searched for a job in the past four weeks are not counted as unemployed.

The BLS has a second measure of unemployment, known as U6, which is seldom reported by the presstitute financial media. According to this official measure the US unemployment rate is about double the reported rate.

Why? the U6 rate counts discouraged workers who have been discouraged for less than one year.

John Williams counts the long-term discouraged workers (discouraged for more than one year) who formerly (before “reforms”) were counted officially. When the long-term discouraged are counted, the US unemployment rate is in the 22-23 percent range. This is borne out by the clear fact that the labor force participation rate has been falling throughout the alleged “recovery.” Normally, labor force participation rates rise during economic recoveries.

It is very easy for the government to report a low jobless rate when the government studiously avoids counting the unemployed.

It is an extraordinary thing that although the US government itself reports that if even a small part of discouraged workers are counted as unemployed the unemployment rate is 8.6%, the presstitute financial media,  collection of professional liars, still reports, in the face of the government’s admission, that the unemployment rate as 4.4%.

Now, let’s do what I have done month after month year after year. Let’s look at the jobs that the BLS alleges are being created. Remember, most of these alleged jobs are the product of the birth/death model that adds by assumption alone about 100,000 jobs per month. In other words, these jobs come out of a model, not from reality.

Where are these reported jobs? They are where they always are in lowly paid domestic services. Health care and social assistance, about half of which is “ambulatory health care services,” provided 59,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality provided 36,000 jobs of which 29,300 consist of waitresses and bartenders. Local government rose by 35,000. Manufacturing, once the backbone of the US economy, provided a measly 1,000 jobs.

As I have emphasized for a decade or two, the US is devolving into a third world workforce where the only employment available is in lowly paid domestic service jobs that cannot be offshored and that do not pay enough to provide an independent existence. This is why 50% of 25-year olds live at home with their parents and why there are more Americans aged 24-34 living with parents than living independently.

This is not the economic profile of a “superpower” that the idiot neoconservatives claim the US to be. The American economy that offshoring corporations and financialization have created is incapable of supporting the enormous US debt burden. It is only a matter of time and circumstance.

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The Reign of Propaganda

July 20, 2017

Paul Craig Roberts

If truth has a chance it is in a different country than America.

Masters of propaganda from its inventor, Jewish public relations expert Edward Louis James Bernays, to the Nazi Minister of Propaganda Paul Joseph Goebbels, agree that a lie can be turned into truth by constant repetition.

The more pure the lie, the more complete the success in turning it into The Truth. Lies partly based in fact or half-truths open themselves to factual challenge. For a propagandist the best lie is a lie unfettered by even a distant relationship to truth. Such a lie can be turned into such self-evident truth that no evidence is necessary. As Nikki Haley and Hillary Clinton put it:  “Evidence! We don’t need any stinking evidence. We know Russia hacked our election!”

For the typical American, who doesn’t know anything, the confidence of the former Secretary of State and “rightful President of the USA” and the confidence of President Donald Trump’s own Ambassador to the United Nations are sufficient to convince them that the lie that Russia stole the US presidency for Trump is true. We all know it. Why? Because we have all heard it endlessly repeated for many months. As one acquaintance said: “If it were false, surely the media would have exposed it.” This insouciant naivete is characteristic of Western populations.

As Bernays and Goebbels knew, one good propagandist can control the opinion of the targeted group, whether it is a gender or a nation.

Initially for Bernays the targeted group was American women. As a propagandist for an American tobacco company, “the father of spin” promoted female smoking as a sign of feminist independence. He called cigarettes “Torches of Freedom.” He also provided the propaganda that enabled the United Fruit Company to have the US Government overthrow the elected government of Guatemala in 1954.

Goebbels turned Germans into servants of the Third Reich, an accomplishment the neoconservatives have yet to attain in the United States, but they are still working at it.

The neoconservatives, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, and the US presstitutes have succeeded in blocking Trump from withdrawing from Syria and from normalizing relations with Russia. They have succeeded in this by using their fabrication, “Russia-gate,” to put President Trump in a box. If Trump now normalizes relations with Russia, it will be presented to the world by the presstitutes as proof that the Putin/Trump conspiracy against Western democracy is real. If Trump were to normalize relations, thereby removing “the threat” that justifies the power and profit of the military/security complex’s budget, he would likely be impeached as a traitor to the USA. Trump’s tweets would be overwhelmed by the onslaught of the presstitutes.

Americans, British, Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Indians, and everyone else need to understand that Washington’s hostility toward Russia is in the service of powerful interest groups. These interest groups are more powerful than the President of the US.

Israel and its design on the Middle East is one of these powerful interest groups. As Admiral Tom Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “No American president can stand up to Israel.”

The neoconservatives, who serve both the Zionist state of Israel and the US military/security complex, are another of the powerful interest groups that constrain the American government. That the neocons are firmly allied with Israel and the military/security complex increases their power and influence. President Eisenhower warned Americans in 1961 in his last public address to the American people that the power of the military/industrial complex made it a threat to American democracy:

Eisenhower’s warning was 56 years ago. With the President of the United States concerned about the military/industrial complex 56 years ago, try to imagine how much more this power is entrenched after the decades of the Cold War and “Soviet Threat.” The power of the military/security complex is the premier power in Washington.

Eisenhower’s speech is the best speech any American President has ever delivered. It is only 14 minutes and 4 seconds long; yet it covers everything. There is awareness that we can be victims of our own success. Whatever their public position, neoconservatives have no alternative but to hate President Eisenhower with a passion, because he compared the threat to America from the military/industrial complex to the threat from the Soviet Union.

Americans need to wise up, as do the Russians, Chinese, Europeans and everyone else over whom the neoconservatives intend to exercise hegemony regardless of the cost. The total budget of the US military/security complex has been estimated at $1.1 trillion, a figure that is 70% of Russia’s estimated 2017 GDP. It is larger than the GDP of Mexico and Turkey. It is 45% of the GDP of France or England, and 32% of the GDP of Germany. There are 195 countries in the world. Only 14 of them have A Gross Domestic Product larger than the budget of the US military/security complex.

Washington’s wars in the Middle East involve many interests, including mundane ones such as who controls pipeline locations and energy flows. It also involves Israel’s interests. Twice Israel has sent its army into southern Lebanon for the purpose of occupying and annexing the water resources of southern Lebanon, and twice the militia Hezbollah has defeated and driven out the Israeli army, the fighting capability of which is overrated. Hezbollah receives financial and military support from Syria and Iran. Using their neoconservative allies and the orchestrated-by-propaganda American hatred of Muslims, Israel intends to use the US military to put Syria and Iran in the same state of chaos as Iraq and Libya. If deprived of outside support, Hezbollah can finally be defeated by the Israeli army. With Syria and Iran in chaos, the Russophobic neoconservatives can send jihadism into the Russian Federation to break up the biggest constraint on US unilateralism.

If we consider the combined power of these interest groups — the US military/security complex with an annual budget greater than the GDP of most countries, the neoconservatives with their ideology of US world hegemony and alliance with both Democratic and Republican parties, and Israel which has the US government in its pocket and brags about it — how is it possible for President Trump to do as he said he would do and normalize relations with Russia and withdraw from the US interventions in the Middle East? The prospect of Trump succeeding is remote.

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Keiser Report:  Bond Market Bubble (E1108)

August 10, 2017

In this episode of the Keiser Report Max and Stacy discuss the private prisons shaking down municipalities across America for more inmates. In the second half Max interviews Trace Mayer about the latest with bitcoin.

[KR1107] Keiser Report:  Trumponomics

  August 9, 2017

by Stacy Herbert

In this episode of the Keiser Report Max and Stacy discuss the coming sequel to the global financial crisis and the bond bubble warnings from Alan Greenspan. In the second half Max interviews Dr. Michael Hudson about Trumponomics, anti-trust, repeat banking offenders and his father’s proverbs.

Wilkerson:  Trump "Needs a Good War" and Pence is Waiting in the Wings to Lead It

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson and Paul Jay discuss the significance of the Comey affair, the prospect of the rise of VP Mike Pence as the real power in the White House, and the danger of war as a way out for a dysfunctional administration

Did you just adore that Reaganites-chasing-Russians-and-worse, ballooning deficits, screaming war hawks furor the first time?

Then get your ticket for its grand return.

CAUTION:  Everything You Hear About North Korea, War, Nukes and Kim Jong-un Are Neocon Lies

Aug 9, 2017 

Move over PNAC. The neocons have a new front. The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative housed at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), will develop comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors’ efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions. What?! Here we go again.

Monsanto Truth REVEALED, Google Censorship, Trump’s Soft Coup & More

August 11, 2017

In this episode of Redacted Tonight, Lee opens by revealing the government sanctioned poison pusher, Monsanto’s backdoor deals. Cancer causing pesticides like Roundup were widely used, despite science to prove otherwise, but the company made a concerted effort to get scientists, the media, and the government on their side by filling their pockets or intimidating them. Monsanto also has unholy partnerships with universities which taints scientific research even further. Then Lee covers some of the most mind-blowing headlines from the week starting with the prosecution of bankers in Vietnam while American bankers are experiencing an all-time low of fines. What’s more disturbing is that news sites that keep track of how the kleptocracy is screwing and killing us at the same time, the alternative media, are now being censored by the all-powerful Google search engine. Our toddler-in-chief gets some new babysitters in the oval office: military commanders and plans to privatize the war in Afghanistan. The opioid epidemic continues in the United States while the weak state of Afghanistan continues to supply the drug. Then, in the second half, correspondent Natalie McGill joins Lee at the desk to talk about a privately-run prison in New Mexico which powers a small town’s economy by incarcerating people. Finally, correspondent John F. O’Donnell breaks down the latest in boycott movements and anti-boycott legislation, especially anti-Israel boycotts. 

In this all new episode of Redacted Tonight VIP, Lee Camp sits down with one of the most progressive and qualified politicians, Tim Canova. Not only was he a Berniecrat candidate who ran against Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida on a progressive platform, but also he’s also a law professor who specializes in banking and finance. Lee and Tim discuss the current state of the two party system and its relationship to an economy that’s recovering and facing yet another crisis of automation. Canova touches upon the overlooked role of the Federal Reserve and the Democratic party in helping Big Banks after 2008, while the poor still suffered. In the second half of VIP, Lee Camp opens up a recent copy of The New York Times to read how the establishment media beats the war drums, in the most subtle ways.

Or not so.