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Look Out Below: Corporate Debt In Emerging Markets Has QUADRUPLED Since 2004

Look Out Below: Corporate Debt In Emerging Markets Has QUADRUPLED Since 2004

Governments have – of course – dramatically increased their debt since 2008 to fund questionable actions.

But 141 years of history shows that excessive private debt in and of itself can cause depressions.

American corporations are piling on record amounts of debt. And see this.

Private debt has also gone absolutely ballistic in China recently.

But it’s not just the U.S. and China …

The Telegraph reports today:

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) … said corporate debts in emerging markets ballooned to $18 trillion (£12 trillion) last year, from $4 trillion in 2004 as companies gorged themselves on cheap debt.

It said the quadrupling in debt had been accompanied by weaker balance sheets, making companies more vulnerable to US rate rises.

What could possibly go wrong?

Why Saudi Arabia’s Pursuit Of Market Share Is Self-Defeating

Why Saudi Arabia’s Pursuit Of Market Share Is Self-Defeating

The Saudis are on track to sacrifice ~$100 billion in crude export revenues in 2015, or 45 percent of 2014’s ~$219 billion in crude export revenues, in pursuit of market share, the measure of success Saudi Oil Minister Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi announced at the November 27, 2014 OPEC meeting.

What do the Saudis plan as their encore in 2016? Will they continue pursuing market share over other goals (e.g., total revenue, economic diversification, OPEC conciliation), or will they alter course, and if so, is there a superior alternative?

Publicly, Saudi officials appear unwavering in support of market share. The crude oil futures markets and many pundits reflect this official line. Saudi economic fundamentals, IEA projections through 2020 for the oil market, and the currency markets—pressuring the Riyal-US$ peg—suggest the pursuit of market share is at best a chimera, at worst necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating bacteria) for Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi Economic Reality Check

Depending on the data series used, the Saudi economy either is escaping unscathed, if not prospering, from the move to market share or is suffering from that move. The IMF Press Release reporting on an IMF team’s findings, published June 1, 2015, expressed the former:

“The decline in oil prices is resulting in substantially lower export and fiscal revenues, but the effect on the rest of the economy has so far been limited. Real GDP growth is projected by IMF staff at a healthy 3.5 percent this year, unchanged from 2014, with an increase in oil production and continued government spending expected to support the economy. Growth, however, is projected to slow to 2.7 percent in 2016 as government spending begins to adjust to the lower oil price environment. Over the medium-term, growth is expected to be around 3 percent. Inflation is likely to remain subdued.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture

Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture

CAMBRIDGE – Inflation – its causes and its connection to monetary policy and financial crises – was the theme of this year’s international conference of central bankers and academics in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But, while policymakers’ desire to be prepared for potential future risks to price stability is understandable, they did not place these concerns in the context of recent inflation developments at the global level – or within historical perspective.

For the 189 countries for which data are available, median inflation for 2015 is running just below 2%, slightly lower than in 2014 and, in most cases, below the International Monetary Fund’s projections in its April World Economic Outlook. As the figure below shows, inflation in nearly half of all countries (advanced and emerging, large and small) is now at or below 2% (which is how most central bankers define price stability).

Most of the other half are not doing badly, either. In the period following the oil shocks of the 1970s until the early 1980s, almost two-thirds of the countries recorded inflation rates above 10%. According to the latest data, which runs through July or August for most countries, there are “only” 14 cases of high inflation (the red line in the figure). Venezuela (which has not published official inflation statistics this year) and Argentina (which has not released reliable inflation data for several years) figure prominently in this group. Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and a handful of African countries comprise the rest.

The share of countries recording outright deflation in consumer prices (the green line) is higher in 2015 than that of countries experiencing double-digit inflation (7% of the total). Whatever nasty surprises may lurk in the future, the global inflation environment is the tamest since the early 1960s.

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jackson-hole-banking-conference-inflation-by-carmen-reinhart-2015-09#T1r408ZIPrXMqX7L.99

 

Europe’s Biggest Bank Dares To Ask: Is The Fed Preparing For A “Controlled Demolition”

Europe’s Biggest Bank Dares To Ask: Is The Fed Preparing For A “Controlled Demolition”

Why did we focus so much attention yesterday on a post in which the IMF confirmed what we had said since last October, namely that the BOJ’s days of ravenous debt monetization are coming to a tapering end as soon as 2017 (as willing sellers simply run out of product)? Simple: because in the global fiat regime, asset prices are nothing more than an indication of central bank generosity. Or, as Deutsche Bank puts it: “Ultimately in a fiat money system asset prices reflect “outside” i.e. central bank money and the extent to which it multiplied through the banking system.

The problem is that the BOJ and the ECB are the only two remaining central banks in a world in which Reverse QE aka “Quantitative Tightening” in China, and the Fed’s tightening in the form of an upcoming rate hike (unless the Fed loses all credibility and reverts its pro-rate hike bias), are now actively involved in reducing global liquidity. It is only a matter of time before the market starts pricing in that the Bank of Japan’s open-ended QE has begun its tapering (followed by a QE-ending) countdown, which will lead to devastating risk-asset consequences. The ECB, which is also greatly supply constrained as Ewald Nowotny admitted yesterday, will follow closely.

But while we expanded on the Japanese problem to come in detail yesterday, here are some key observations on what is going on in both the US and China as of this moment – the two places which all now admit are the culprit for the recent equity selloff, and which the market has finally realized are actively soaking up global liquidity.

Here the problem, as we initially discussed last November in “How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed“, is that as a result of the soaring US dollar and collapse in oil prices, Petrodollar recycling has crashed, leading to an outright liquidation of FX reserves, read US Treasurys by emerging market nations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

Whitewashing the IMF’s Destructive Role in Greece

Whitewashing the IMF’s Destructive Role in Greece

This autumn may see anti-austerity coalitions gain power in Portugal, Spain and Italy, while Marine le Pen’s National Front in France presses for outright withdrawal from the eurozone. These countries face a common problem: how to resist the economic devastation that the European Central Bank (ECB), European Council and IMF “troika” has inflicted on Greece and is now intending to do the same to southern Europe.

To resist the depression and debt deflation that the troika seeks to deepen, one needs to bear in mind the dynamics that make the IMF un-reformable. Its destructive role in Greece provides an object lesson for how southern Europe must shun its horde of ideologues, as Third World countries learned to avoid it by May 2013, the year that Turkey capped the world’s extrication from IMF “advice.” Already in 2008, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced: “We cannot darken our future by bowing to the wishes of the IMF.”[1]Greek voters have now said the same thing.

To soften resistance to the IMF’s austerity demands, a public relations drive is being mounted to rehabilitate the myth that the Fund can act as an honest broker mediating between anti-labor finance ministers and the PIIGS – Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. On Friday, August 28, three Reuters reporters published a long “think piece” trying to show that the IMF is changing and that its head, Christine Lagarde, has seen the light and seeks to promote real debt relief.[2]

 

The timing of this report seems significant. The IMF got “back in business” in 2010 when its head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, overrode its staff and many Board members in order to join the troika and shift the country’s bad debt from French and German bankers onto the Greek people. That is the story I tell in Killing the Host, whichCounterPunch published in an e-version last week. (The hard-printand Kindle versions are now available on Amazon.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trouble South Of The Border

Trouble South Of The Border

Mexico’s vulnerabilities pose a huge risk to the U.S.

Too big to fail is a seven-year phenomenon created by the most powerful central banks to bolster the largest, most politically connected US and European banks. More than that, it’s a global concern predicated on that handful of private banks controlling too much market share and elite central banks infusing them with boatloads of cheap capital and other aid. Synthetic bank and market subsidization disguised as ‘monetary policy’ has spawned artificial asset and debt bubbles – everywhere. The most rapacious speculative capital and associated risk flows from these power-players to the least protected, or least regulated, locales.

The World Bank and IMF award brownie points to the nations offering the most ‘financial liberalization’ or open market, privatization and foreign acquisition opportunities. Yet, protections against the inevitable capital outflows that follow are woefully inadequate, particularly for emerging markets.

The financial world has been focused largely on the volatility of countries like China and Greece recently. But Mexico, the third largest US trading partner (after Canada and China), has tremendous exposure to big foreign banks, and the largest concentration of foreign bank ownership of any country in the world (mostly thanks to NAFTA stipulations.)

In addition, the latitude Mexico has provided to the operations of these foreign financial firms means the nation is more exposed to the fallout of another acute financial crisis (not that we’ve escaped the last one).

There is no such thing as isolated “Big Bank” problems. Rather, complex products, risky practices, leverage and co-dependent transactions have contagion ramifications, particularly in emerging markets whose histories are already lined with disproportionate shares of debt, interest rate and currency related travails.

Mexico has benefited to an extent from its proximity to the temporary facade of US financial health buoyed by Fed policy, but as such, it faces grave dangers should any artificial bubble pop, or should the value of the US dollar or US interest rates rise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Meanwhile In Greece, Pension Funds Tap Emergency Loans

Meanwhile In Greece, Pension Funds Tap Emergency Loans

This has not been a great year to be a pensioner in Greece.

Over the course of the country’s fraught bailout talks, Greece’s pension system was frequently in the troika’s crosshairs. As for PM Alexis Tsipras, pension cuts were generally considered to be a so-called “red line” and intractable disagreements over pension reform quite frequently resulted in the total breakdown of negotiations.

Meanwhile, the increasingly untenable financial situation and acute liquidity squeeze very often meant that payments to pensioners were in doubt, even as Athens went out of its way to assure the public that whatever funds were left in Greece’s depleted coffers would go to public sector employees before they would go to EU creditors or to Christine Lagarde.

The situation reached it’s “heartbreaking” low point on July 1 when Greek banks that had been shuttered after the institution of capital controls opened for a few hours to ration payments to long lines of pensioners who were forced to effectively beg for €120.

In theory, the bailout agreement – while promising more austerity and more pressure on the bloated pension system – should at least guarantee that there will be money in the banks to make monthly payments, but that assumption now looks to be in doubt because as Kathimerini reportsboth IKA and ETAA are tapping a contingency fund that guarantees social security programs for fear that the provisions of the bailout will not provide for sufficient enough savings to fund the remainder of this year’s payouts. Here’s the story:

Greece’s state insurance funds are resorting to external loans to cover their needs as fears grow that the measures of the third bailout will not be enough to cover the rest of 2015’s liquidity needs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

China chooses her weapons

China chooses her weapons

China’s recent mini-devaluations had less to do with her mounting economic challenges, and more to do with a statement from the IMF on 4 August, that it was proposing to defer the decision to include the yuan in the SDR until next October.

The IMF’s excuse was to avoid changes at the calendar year-end and to allow users of the SDR time to “adjust to a potential changed basket composition”. It was a poor explanation that was hardly credible, given that SDR users have already had five years to prepare; but the decision confirming the delay was finally released by the IMF in a statement on Wednesday 19th.

One cannot blame China for taking the view that these are delaying tactics designed to keep the yuan out, and if so suspicion falls squarely on the US as instigators. America has most to lose, because if the yuan is accepted in the SDR the dollar’s future hegemony will be compromised, and everyone knows it. The final decision as to whether the yuan will be included is not due to be taken until later this year, so China still has time to persuade, by any means at her disposal, all the IMF members to agree to include the yuan in the SDR as originally proposed, even if its inclusion is temporarily deferred.

China was first rejected in this quest in 2010 and since then has worked hard to address the deficiencies raised at that time by the IMF’s executive board. That is the background to China’s new currency policy and what also looks like becoming frequent updates on her gold reserves. It bears repeating that these moves had little to do with her domestic economic conditions, for the following reasons:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Ukraine fails to secure debt write-off at US talks

Ukraine fails to secure debt write-off at US talks

Ukraine failed to convince its biggest creditors to significantly reduce its debt obligations during a ‘last chance’ two-day negotiation in San Francisco, California. The delegation from Kiev hoped to restructure some $19 billion in debt.

The Ukrainian delegation was headed up by Illinois-born Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko. Meanwhile, the creditors were represented by Franklin Templeton Investments, which holds about $8.9 billion worth of Ukrainian debt in the form of bonds.

The two sides said they had conducted “detailed discussions” in the city, but no progress has reportedly been achieved.

READ MORE: Creditors offer Ukraine 5% debt write-down – media

Even though there have been no official statements concerning the negotiations, Ukraine had previously asked for a 40 percent debt write-off, Bloomberg cited sources as saying. Reportedly, Franklin Templeton Investments was only willing to offer a 5 percent reduction to bond principal conditional on economic performance.

Ukraine described the talks near Templeton’s headquarters as the “final opportunity” to agree on something prior to next month’s due date for $500 million worth of bonds.

Even lobbying by influential US hedge fund billionaire George Soros, who recently had an article published in the Wall Street Journal titled ‘Ukraine Deserves Debt Relief,’ did not seem to make an impact.

In the piece, Soros argued that investors should stand behind Ukraine in its request for debt relief, which would help the country save some $15.3 billion in debt-servicing costs over the next four years as well as lower debt to below 71 percent of GDP by 2020. Ukraine must achieve those milestones if it hopes to take advantage of a proposed IMF bailout program.

The country’s GDP is expected to shrink 9 percent this year, with annual inflation expected to jump to 46 percent, the IMF has warned. The debt will hit 95 percent of GDP this year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Euro ministers give blessing to Greek bailout, wooing IMF on debt

Euro ministers give blessing to Greek bailout, wooing IMF on debt

Euro zone finance ministers have agreed to lend Greece up to 86 billion euros ($96 billion) after Greek lawmakers accepted their stiff conditions despite a revolt by supporters of leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Assuming approval by the German and other parliaments, 13 billion euros should be in Athens next Thursday to pay pressing bills and a further 10 billion will be set aside at the European Stability Mechanism, earmarked to bolster Greek banks’ capital.

In all, euro zone governments will lend 26 billion euros in a first tranche of the bailout before reviewing Greece’s compliance with their conditions in October.

One remaining uncertainty – aside from Tsipras’ ability to deliver sweeping budget cuts and privatizations opposed by many of his own party – is the role of the International Monetary Fund. After backing two previous bailouts, the IMF renewed its call for the Europeans to grant Athens debt relief – a bone of contention between the Eurogroup and the Washington-based Fund.

Managing Director Christine Lagarde told the Eurogroup by telephone that she could not commit until the IMF board reviewed the situation in the autumn. Officials said the Fund needed more assurances and detail on Greek reforms, notably to pensions, and steps to persuade it that Greece’s debt burden was sustainable.

But after deadlock since January that ravaged the already weak Greek economy and ended in a dramatic U-turn a month ago by the anti-austerity leftist government to avert Athens’ expulsion from the euro, there was a cautious sense of optimism among ministers gathered in a Brussels deep in summer holiday languor.

 

“After six months of very difficult negotiations with lots of ups and downs, we finally have an agreement,” Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos told reporters on Friday. His appointment by Tsipras six weeks ago in place of his abrasive predecessor has been hailed by counterparts as a mark of a new Greek “realism”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Greeks: How did we lose our way?

Greeks: How did we lose our way?

In the heart of Athens everyday Greeks show us how they face the hardship and constraints brought on by the crisis.

For five years Greece has been mired in economic crisis, haunted by the spectre of expulsion from the eurozone.

A Greek exit seemed closer than ever this summer until a last-minute deal with the creditors – the international Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank and other eurozone countries – kept Greece in, but at the cost of more painful austerity measures and a humiliating further loss in sovereignty.

The grim figures of Greece’s great depression are well-known: a 25 percent contraction in the economy; youth unemployment at over 50 percent.

But while almost all Greeks have stories of hardship and anxiety to tell, life does go on.

Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips heads to the Athenian middle-class neighbourhood of Nea Smyrni to see how Greeks are getting by, and hear their hopes and fears for the future.


The banks used to phone us. They’d say, ‘Take this money and have a lovely holiday!’ or ‘Take this money and buy the car of your dreams.’ The people who accepted this money made a big mistake.

Sandy Karaiskou, 68-year-old pensioner


The bailout agreement impacts all Greeks, but pensioners and small business owners are particularly worried.

We meet 68-year-old pensioner Sandy Karaiskou who lives on her own. Sandy was an airhostess for Olympic Airways, the Greek national airlines that went bust in 2009.

She takes us on a tour of her neighbourhood to meet her local baker and pharmacist, and to a laiki, the weekly street market.

Baker Dimitris Papavassiliou struggles to keep his business afloat. He talks to us about how the crisis has changed his family and work life and what will happen to his employees. He tells us about how he thinks the past governments are responsible for the crisis.

“Previous governments didn’t take the measures that they should have taken and failed to enforce necessary reforms. And now it’s escalated into a mountain,” he says.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Military Uses IMF and World Bank to Launder 85% of Its Black Budget

US Military Uses IMF and World Bank to Launder 85% of Its Black Budget

Though transparency was a cause he championed when campaigning for the presidency, President Obama has largely avoided making certain defense costs known to the public. However, when it comes to military appropriations for government spy agencies, we know from Freedom of Information Act requests that the so-called “black budget” is an increasingly massive expenditure subsidized by American taxpayers. The CIA and and NSA alone garnered $52.6 billion in funding in 2013 while the Department of Defense black ops budget for secret military projects exceeds this number. It is estimated to be $58.7 billion for the fiscal year 2015.

What is the black budget? Officially, it is the military’s appropriations for “spy satellites, stealth bombers, next-missile-spotting radars, next-gen drones, and ultra-powerful eavesdropping gear.

 

However, of greater interest to some may be the clandestine nature and full scope of the black budget, which, according to analyst Catherine Austin Fitts, goes far beyond classified appropriations. Based on her research, some of which can be found in her piece “What’s Up With the Black Budget?,” Fitts concludes that the during the last decade, global financial elites have configured an elaborate system that makes most of the military budget unauditable. This is because the real black budget includes money acquired by intelligence groups via narcotics trafficking, predatory lending, and various kinds of other financial fraud.

The result of this vast, geopolitically-sanctioned money laundering scheme is that Housing and Urban Devopment and other agencies are used for drug trafficking and securities fraud. According to Fitts, the scheme allows for at least 85 percent of the U.S. federal budget to remain unaudited.

Fitts has been researching this issue since 2001, when she began to believe that a financial coup d’etat was underway. Specifically, she suspected that the banks, corporations, and investors acting in each global region were part of a “global heist,” whereby capital was being sucked out of each country. She was right.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Sorry Troika, Spain’s Economic Recovery Is “One Big Lie”

Sorry Troika, Spain’s Economic Recovery Is “One Big Lie”

During six months of protracted and terribly fraught negotiations between Athens, Berlin, Brussels, and the IMF, the idea that Spain, Italy, and Ireland somehow represented austerity “success stories” was frequently trotted out as the rationale behind demanding that Greece embark on a deeper fiscal retrenchment despite the fact that the country is mired in recession. Here’s the official line from the German Council of Economic Experts:

The economic turnarounds in Ireland, Portugal, Spain and – until the end of last year – also in Greece show that the principle “loans against reforms” can lead to success. For the new program to work, Greece has to show more ownership for deep structural reforms. And it should make use of the technical expertise offered by its European partners.

As we’ve shown, the idea that the periphery has truly implemented anything close to “austerity” is absurd on some measures – like debt-to-GDP for instance.

Equally absurd to the 44.2% of Italian youths who are unemployed and, no doubt, to the nearly 23% of Spain’s population that are jobless, is the idea that the policies imposed by the troika in exchange for aid have done anything at all to engineer what Germany’s economic wisemen are calling “turnarounds.”

Here, courtesy of The New York Times, is what “success” and “recovery” looks like in Spain:

Spain, heralded by many as a success story for austerity policies, is on track for more than 3 percent growth this year and has created more than one million jobs since the beginning of 2014.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

China Provides Another Threat to Oil Prices

China Provides Another Threat to Oil Prices

First it was a stock market meltdown, now it’s a weakening currency.

China continues to present significant risks to the oil market. On August 11, China decided to devalue its currency in an effort to keep its export-driven economy competitive. The yuan fell 1.9 percent on Tuesday, the second largest single-day decline in over 20 years. The yuan dropped by another 1 percent on Wednesday.

Related: Bullish Bets On Oil Go Sour

The currency move followed shocking data that revealed that China’s exportsplummeted by 8 percent in July. A depreciation of the currency of 3 percent will provide a jolt to Chinese exporters, but will slam companies and countries that export to China.

China insisted that the devaluation was a “one-off” event. “Looking at the international and domestic economic situation, currently there is no basis for a sustained depreciation trend for the yuan,” the People’s Bank of China said in a statement.

Related: When Will Oil Prices Turn Around?

But it also appears to be a move to allow the currency to float more freely according to market principles, something that the IMF has welcomed. “Greater exchange rate flexibility is important for China as it strives to give market-forces a decisive role in the economy and is rapidly integrating into global financial markets,” the IMF said. Although there is still quite a ways to go, the move is also seen as a prerequisite for the yuan to achieve reserve-currency status.

 

For oil, the move has raised concerns that oil demand will take a hit. China is the world’s largest importer of crude, and a devalued currency will make oil more expensive. On August 11, oil prices dropped to fresh six-year lows, surpassing oil’s low point from earlier this year. But with China’s economy – once the engine of global growth – suddenly looking fragile, it would be difficult to argue with any certainty that oil has hit a bottom.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

You Can Add Iraq And Ukraine To The List Of Economies That Are Collapsing

You Can Add Iraq And Ukraine To The List Of Economies That Are Collapsing

Earth Blue Planet - Public DomainThe list of nations around the globe that have collapsing economies just continues to grow.  In recent weeks I have written about the ongoing saga in Greece, the stock market crash in China, the debt crisis in Puerto Rico and the economic meltdown in South America.  But there are more economic flashpoints that I have not even addressed yet.  For example, did you know that a full-blown economic collapse is happening in Iraq right now?  And did you know that the economy of Ukraine is contracting rapidly and that it cannot pay its debts?  Back in 2008, the financial crisis was primarily centered on the United States, but this time around it is turning out to be a truly global phenomenon.

When the U.S. “liberated” Iraq, the future for that nation was supposed to be incredibly bright.  But instead, things have just gone from bad to worse.  This has especially been true since we pulled our troops out and allowed ISIS to run buck wild.  At this point unemployment in Iraq is at Great Depression levels, the economy is steadily contracting and government debt is spiraling wildly out of control

But Iraq’s oil industry, and the government’s budget, is beingsqueezed by low oil prices. As a result, the nation’s finances are being hit hard: the market price is now half that needed to break even, expanding the budget deficit, forecast to return to balance until the rise of IS, to a projected 9% of GDP.

In the past, Iraq’s leaders approved budgets without seriously taking into account a drop in the price of oil. Now the severe revenue shortfall is forcing leaders to cut back on new investments. Russia’s Lukoil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Italy’s ENI are also cutting back, eyeing neighbouring Iran’s pending economic opening as a safer investment.

Despite improving its finances after the US troop withdrawal, the drop in oil prices and the rising costs of battling IS have pushed Iraq’s economy into a state of near-crisis. According to the IMF, the nation’s GDP shrank by 2.7% in 2014 andunemployment is estimated to be over 25%.

Things are even worse in another nation that was recently “liberated”.  The new U.S.-friendly government in Ukraine was supposed to make things much better for average Ukrainians, but instead the economy is absolutely imploding

The country’s GDP contracted by 6.8 percent last year, and is forecast to shrink by another 9 percent this year — a total loss of roughly 16 percent over two years.

Just like in much of southern Europe, the banks are absolutely overloaded with bad loans and the entire banking system is on the verge of total collapse.  The following comes from a CNN article that was posted earlier this year…

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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