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In just a few short days, China has proved that investors who have been underestimating the geopolitical risks stemming from the simmering tensions between the US and China over the latter’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and paranoia over the fate of Taiwan – a de facto independent state that President Xi Jinping is aggressively seeking to bring under the heel of Beijing – have done so at their own peril.

Earlier this week Xi Jinping, the Chinese ~~emperor for life~~ president provoked an angry rebuke from the island’s pro-independence president when he demanded during a landmark speech earlier this week that Taiwan submit to “reunification” with Beijing.

And as if tensions between China and the international community weren’t already high enough amid a worsening economic slowdown that’s threatening global economic growth and a tenuous trade “truce” with the US, in another speech delivered on Friday during a meeting of top officials from China’s Central Military Commission which he leads, Xi took his belligerent rhetoric one step further by issuing his first military command of 2019: that “all military units must correctly understand major national security and development trends, and strengthen their sense of unexpected hardship, crisis and battle.”

China’s armed forces must “prepare for a comprehensive military struggle from a new starting point,” Xi said adding that “preparation for war and combat must be deepened to ensure an efficient response in times of emergency.”

Xi’s order prioritizes training with a focus on combat readiness, drills, troop inspections and resistance exercises.

It applies to all units of the PLA, including troops, academies and armed police, and is designed to “ensure new challenges are met and battles are won,” according to a copy of the guidelines seen during the television report.

In other words, Xi just ordered the Chinese military to prepare for war.

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

2018 Chaos, 2019 Mayhem

December 19, 2018

2018 Chaos, 2019 Mayhem

Titian The rape of Europe 1560-62

It took me a while to decide which word(s) best define the past year and the next one, but I think this is pretty much it. 2018 was chaotic more than anything else, and that chaos will give rise to mayhem in 2019.

What I think is striking is that this is true across the board, in all walks of life so to speak. In finance, in politics, in energy markets, in ecological matters, and perhaps most of all in the ways all these topics are being covered by what once were trusted media.

I’m going to have to come back to all these topics separately, so it’s promising to be a very busy holiday season, but it’s also good to try and put them together in one place, if only to show how interconnected everything is. And how futile it is to look at the economy without seeing its connection to energy flows and ecosystems. And vice versa.

In finance and economics, we’ve seen an avalanche of falling numbers recently, in stock prices, bond prices, housing, across the globe, and obviously that evokes a lot of comments in the financial press. But that press, and bankers investors on their own, still talk about markets.

However, as I wrote in April 2018, if there is no price discovery, and there isn’t, there ARE NO markets, and it would be good and beneficial if many more people absorb that simple reality. Many more so-called traders and investors would be a start, but by no means enough. Lots more people who have nothing to do with the ‘markets’ should understand why there is no such thing anymore.

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

All US Homes Are Overvalued

June 9, 2018

All US Homes Are Overvalued

Dorothea Lange Children and home of cotton workers at migratory camp in southern San Joaquin Valley, CA 1936

My long time pal Jesse Colombo, now at Real Investment Advice, recently linked on Twitter to a Zero Hedge article, which quoted CoreLogic as saying more than half of American homes are overvalued. CoreLogic calls itself “a leading provider of consumer, financial and property data, analytics and services to business and government.”

Well, CoreLogic is way off. All American homes are overvalued. How can we tell? It’s easy. It’s so easy it’s perhaps no wonder that people overlook the reasons why. But we all know them: The Fed has pushed some $20 trillion down the throats of the financial system. It has also lowered interest rates to near zero Kelvin. Then the government added a “relaxation” of lending standards and an upward tweak of credit scores. And Bob’s your uncle.

These measures haven’t influenced just half of US homes, they’ve hit every single one of them. Some more than others, not every bubble is as big as San Francisco’s, but the suggestion that nearly half of homes are not overvalued is simply misleading. It falsely suggests that if you buy a home in the ‘right’ place, you’ll be fine. You won’t be. The Washington-induced bubble will and must pop, and precious few homes will be ‘worth’ what they are ‘worth’ today.

Here’s what Jesse tweeted along with his link to the Zero Hedge article:

“Almost half of the US housing market is overvalued” – this is why U.S. household wealth is also overvalued/in an unsustainable bubble.

He followed up with:

U.S. household wealth is in a bubble thanks to Fed-inflated asset prices. This is creating a “wealth effect” that is helping to drive our spurious economic recovery. This economy is nothing but a sham. It’s smoke and mirrors. Wake the F up, everyone!!!

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

Rothschild Humiliates Obama, Reveals That “America Is The Biggest Tax Haven In The World”

April 6, 2016

Rothschild Humiliates Obama, Reveals That “America Is The Biggest Tax Haven In The World”

In his speech yesterday, following the Treasury’s crack down on corporate tax inversions, Obama blamed “poorly designed” laws for allowing illicit money transfers worldwide. Since the speech came at a time when the entire world is still abuzz with the disclosure from the Panama Papers, Obama touched on that as well: “Tax avoidance is a big, global problem” he said on Tuesday, “a lot of it is legal, but that’s exactly the problem” because a lot of it is also illegal.

There is one major problem with that: of all the countries in the world, it is none other than the country of which Obama is president, the United States, that has become the world’s favorite offshore “tax haven” destination.

As Bloomberg, which first broke the story about Nevada’s use as a prominent tax haven early this year, writes, “Panama and the U.S. have at least one thing in common: Neither has agreed to new international standards to make it harder for tax evaders and money launderers to hide their money.”

Over the past several years, amid increased scrutiny by journalists, regulators and law enforcers, the global tax-haven landscape has shifted. In an effort to catch tax dodgers, almost 100 countries and other jurisdictions have agreed since 2014 to impose new disclosure requirements for bank accounts, trusts and some other investments held by international customers — standards issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a government-funded international policy group.

In short: while Obama is complaining about corporate tax avoidance and slamming Panama, he is encouraging it in the U.S.

Places like Switzerland and Bermuda are agreeing, at least in principle, to share bank account information with tax authorities in other countries. Only a handful of nations have declined to sign on. The most prominent is the U.S. The other ona is, of course, Panama, and we just saw what happened there.

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

Shuffling The Deckchairs On The USS Perpetual Growth

April 2, 2016

Shuffling The Deckchairs On The USS Perpetual Growth

The USS Perpetual Growth was picking up speed, steaming over calm seas despite a growing chorus of capital market Cassandras fearing trouble under the surface and further out at sea.

“Full speed ahead” Skipper Yellen barked to her economates, unperturbed by ominous radar images or the uselessness of econometric expertise at the zero bound, unmindful of passenger dysentery because 95.1% of the ship’s births were full.

“Look at all this liquidity!” she likely informed Captain Blithely, her commander in chief on shore, who had spent his presidency too disengaged of economic matters (or too politically astute) to have a cogent public thought on the matter, or perhaps smart enough to figure out everyone in Washington answers to the banks and that fixing their collateral damage social programs would be the best he could hope to do.

Indeed, the Fed Chair had gone rogue among her peers, charting her central bank’s shipping lane on a divergent path from her counterparts, Draghi and Kuroda, who were steering their monetary fleets to port. Captain Yellen seemed oblivious to the economic (and rhetorical) dangers of relying on consumption: an economy should not be beholden to eating its own productive cells.

We have argued there could be only one reason the Fed would want to hike rates: it is now responsible for US dollar policy and it wants a strong one to weaken other currencies, to prop up exporting economies, and to attract global capital and deposits to the US. Alas, the wind just died – not just for the US, but for all ships at sea.

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

It’s Official: Canada Has Sold All Of Its Gold Reserves

March 3, 2016

It’s Official: Canada Has Sold All Of Its Gold Reserves

One month ago, when looking at the latest Canadian official international reserves, we noticed something strange: Canada had sold nearly half of its gold reserves in one month. According to the February data, total Canadian gold reserves stood at 1.7 tonnes. That was just 0.1 per cent of the country’s total reserves, which also include foreign currency deposits and bonds.

As we noted, the decision to sell came from Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s office.

“Canada’s gold reserves belong to the Government of Canada, and are held under the name of the Minister of Finance,” explained a spokesperson for the Bank of Canada on Wednesday. “Decisions relative to gold holdings are taken by the Minister of Finance.”

Reached by Global News on Wednesday evening, a spokesperson for the finance department said the sale “was done in the normal course of business for the government. The decision to sell the gold was not tied to a specific gold price, and sales are being conducted over a long period and in a controlled manner.”

This latest sell-off is indeed part of a much longer-term pattern of moving away from gold as a government-held asset. According to economist Ian Lee of the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, Ottawa has no real reason to keep its gold reserves other than adhering to tradition.

“Under the old system, (gold) backed up currencies,” Lee explained. “The U.S. dollar was tied to gold. One ounce was worth US$35. Then in 1971, for lots of reasons I won’t get into, Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard.”

Gold and dollars were interchangeable until that point, he said, but in the modern financial world, the metal is no longer considered a form of currency. “It is a precious metal, like silver … they can be sold like any asset.”

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

The Most Ominous Warning That Oil Storage Is About To Overflow Has Arrived

February 11, 2016

The Most Ominous Warning That Oil Storage Is About To Overflow Has Arrived

It was just last week when we said that Cushing may be about to overflow in the face of an acute crude oil supply glut.

“Even the highly adaptive US storage system appears to be reaching its limits,” we wrote, before plotting Cushing capacity versus inventory levels. We also took a look at the EIA’s latest take on the subject and showed you the following chart which depicts how much higher inventory levels are today versus their five-year averages.

And now with major US refiners dumping crude, as we detailed overnight, those fears are surging.

U.S. Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday showed inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub hit a record 64.7 million barrels last week – just 8 million barrels shy of its theoretical limit – stoking concerns that tanks may overflow in coming weeks.

And now, given the “super-contango” in 3-month it is extremely clear that storage concerns are at their highest in 5 years…

Simply put, as one trader noted, speculators are now “making the leap to Cushing storage never being more full… will actually overfill, or even stop taking crude oil deliveries outright.”

It was just last week when we said that Cushing may be about to overflow in the face of an acute crude oil supply glut.

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

China Has A “Colossal Credit Bubble” And No One Knows How It Will Unwind, Marc Faber Warns

January 6, 2016

China Has A “Colossal Credit Bubble” And No One Knows How It Will Unwind, Marc Faber Warns

A little over a week ago, Marc Faber dialed in from Thailand to chat with Bloomberg TV about the outlook for US equities, the American economy, and USTs in the new year.

The US is “already in a recession,” the incorrigible doomsayer said.

Stocks will head lower in 2016, Faber continued, taking the opportunity to mock the sellside penguin brigade for adopting a universally bullish take on markets going forward. “Well, I don’t think that the U.S. will continue to increase interest rates,” he concluded, before predicting what we’ve been saying for years, namely that in the end, the Fed may be forced to do an embarrassing about-face and return to ZIRP and eventually to QE. “In fact, given the weakness in the global economy and the deceleration of growth in the U.S., I would imagine that by next year the Fed will cut rates once again and launch QE4.”

On Wednesday, Faber was back on Skype with Bloomberg to chat more about his outlook for 2016.

Asked why he believes the US is already in a recession, Faber says all one need do is “look at exports, look at industrial production and the slowdown in credit growth.”

As for what’s likely to work as an investment now that central banks have created bubbles everywhere you look, Faber says the following:

“With the exception of those that held Bitcoins, the performance of all asset classes has been poor. The Fed has created an atmosphere where the future return on assets whether it’s stocks or bonds or art will be poorer.”

Next, he bemoans the lack of market breadth, and warns that although the “indices are holding up well, the majority of market is already down 20% or more.” The S&P, he says, peaked in May and will fall 20-40%.

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

The Godfather Of Climate Change Calls Obama’s Deal “A Fraud, It’s Bullshit”

December 13, 2015

The Godfather Of Climate Change Calls Obama’s Deal “A Fraud, It’s Bullshit”

Amid all the self-congratulatory mutual masturbation that has effused since the “historic” signing of a climate ‘deal’ with no enforcement mechanism, few are better qualified (or more outspoken) to describe the utter farce that COP21 is than former NASA scientist James Hansen, who as The Guardian notes, is considered the father of global awareness of climate change…

“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

The talks, intended to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, have spent much time and energy on two major issues: whether the world should aim to contain the temperature rise to 1.5C or 2C above preindustrial levels, and how much funding should be doled out by wealthy countries to developing nations that risk being swamped by rising seas and bashed by escalating extreme weather events.

But, according to Hansen, the international jamboree is pointless unless greenhouse gas emissions aren’t taxed across the board. He argues that only this will force down emissions quickly enough to avoid the worst ravages of climate change.

Hansen has been a nagging yet respected voice on climate change since he shot to prominence in the summer of 1988.

The Nasa scientists, who had been analyzing changes in the Earth’s climate since the 1970s, told a congressional committee that something called the “greenhouse effect” where heat-trapped gases are released into the atmosphere was causing global warming with a 99% certainty.

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

“It’s A Bloodbath” – Here Is The Biggest Casualty Of Canada’s Recession

November 11, 2015

“It’s A Bloodbath” – Here Is The Biggest Casualty Of Canada’s Recession

In the past year, we have extensively profiled the collapse of ground zero of Canada’s oil industry, Calgary, as a result of the plunge in the price of oil, in posts such as the following:

Since then it has only gotten worse for Canada, and as of two it culminated with the first official recession in 7 years.

Additionally, in September we profiled the expected collapse of the Calgary commercial real estate market when we reported that in Alberta Canada now has 1.7 million square feet of empty office space, the most in North America, with another 5.2 million under construction! After years of booming construction, the natural resource rich country is starting to feel the pinch.

Overnight Bloomberg followed up on this stunning deterioration when it, too, reported that “office-tower owners in Canada’s energy hub are about to feel the full force of the oil-price crash.”

Using data from real estate brokers including Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. and Avison Young, Bloomberg calculates that vacancy is already at a five-year high in Calgary and rents are the lowest since 2006 after thousands of office jobs were cut. Energy company tenants have now begun to ask for rental relief and are offering subleases for as little as half the going rate.

The backlog is even worse: five new office towers with about 3.8 million square feet (353,031 square meters) of space hits the market in the next three years.

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

Obama Unveils Roadmap To ‘Bailout’ Puerto Rico: “New” Bankruptcy Rules & Federal Fiscal Oversight

October 22, 2015

Obama Unveils Roadmap To ‘Bailout’ Puerto Rico: “New” Bankruptcy Rules & Federal Fiscal Oversight

America is not Greece, but judging from the Obama administration’s just-unveiled plans to bailout Puerto Rico’s disastrous debt situation, the American territory may have to sacrifice a little more sovereignty to get some relief. Obama is pressing for Congress to give Puerto Rico (PR) sweeping powers to reduce its $73 billion debt burden through a form of bankruptcy protection not now available to American territoriesand will also ask lawmakers to establish an independent body to monitor the island’s fiscal affairs (a la Troika). While the proposals likely face an uphill battle in Congress, as NYTimes reports, both Democrats and Republicans are under pressure to respond because Puerto Ricans are flooding the US, particularly in central Florida, and are becoming an increasingly important voting block in the 2016 presidential race.

Puerto Rico is teetering under debt amassed from years of borrowing as the economy failed to grow and residents left for the U.S. mainland. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla is seeking to persuade investors to accept less than they’re owed, saying tax increases and spending cuts alone won’t be sufficient to eliminate the government’s budget shortfalls.

Creditors say that the island’s government has been seeking to portray the fiscal situation in Puerto Rico as beyond repair, hoping to force the administration and Congress to act. As The NY Times reports, on Wednesday, Puerto Rico took the unusual step of announcing that talks over restructuring about $750 milllion of the island’s debt had broken off, a move that some creditors saw as posturing to Washington for help.

It appears to have worked… (as Bloomberg details)

President Barack Obama is pressing for Congress to give Puerto Rico sweeping powers to reduce its $73 billion debt burden through bankruptcy, escalating administration involvement as the Caribbean island’s access to cash dries up.

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

What Keeps Neil Howe Up At Night: An Interview With The Author Of “The Fourth Turning”

October 14, 2015

What Keeps Neil Howe Up At Night: An Interview With The Author Of “The Fourth Turning”

“Underproduction, undercapacity, deflation, currency wars, demographics, falling birth rates” – those are the biggest fears which Fourth Turning author, and head of Saeculum Research Neil Howe, lays out in this interview excerpt courtesy of RealVision TV.

While Howe goes on an interesting tangent on the one topic that will surely be absent from all presidential debates, namely the fact that migration into the US is “actually in huge decline“, and that the largest immigrant group into the US is Asian (after all someone has to buy those luxury NYC condos), what is more interesting are Howe’s parallels of the current economic situation to the Great Depression: “whole areas of the world no longer having a global superpower, no longer having global institutions that enforce orders so you have these huge areas of failed states and power vacuums and regional authoritarian governments – that’s exactly what people saw in the 1930s and we’re seeing it now in Russia, China, Iran doing whatever they want.”

He continues:

“Another interesting economic parallel is the crisis of overvaluation: in the 1930s it was the gold standard, for southern Europe it’s the Euro, and for China they have a fixed rate regime that they’re attending to too little too late. It’s the nature of an authoritarian regime to always to do too little and too late. Everyone is too timid to tell the person in power “this is what you need to do.” I think China faces an absolute choice between a huge devaluation to restimulate its economy, because becoming competitive I think the carry trade is going to go and I think even domestic savings are going to flee. If they don’t do that they have very few options left at this point. They have $3.5 trillion of reserves – you’ll be amazed how quickly that goes. So that’s another parallel.

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

Fukushima Kids Suffer Thyroid Cancer Up To 50x Normal Rate, New Study Finds

October 9, 2015

Fukushima Kids Suffer Thyroid Cancer Up To 50x Normal Rate, New Study Finds

Children living near the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate 20 to 50 times that of children elsewhere, according to a new study. As AP reports, most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima prefecture have been given ultrasound checkups since the meltdown and thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children. “This is more than expected and emerging faster than expected,” according to the lead author of the study, and raises doubts about the government’s less fearful view.

Right after the disaster, the lead doctor brought in to Fukushima, Shunichi Yamashita, repeatedly ruled out the possibility of radiation-induced illnesses. The thyroid checks were being ordered just to play it safe, according to the government. But, as AP reports, a new study says children living near the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate 20 to 50 times that of children elsewhere, a difference the authors contend undermines the government’s position that more cases have been discovered in the area only because of stringent monitoring…

Most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima prefecture (state) have been given ultrasound checkups since the March 2011 meltdowns at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The most recent statistics, released in August, show that thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children, a number that rose by 25 from a year earlier. Elsewhere, the disease occurs in only about one or two of every million children per year by some estimates.

“This is more than expected and emerging faster than expected,” lead author Toshihide Tsuda told The Associated Press during a visit to Tokyo. “This is 20 times to 50 times what would be normally expected.”

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

Lawrence Wilkerson: “The American ‘Empire’ Is In Deep, Deep Trouble”

October 5, 2015

Lawrence Wilkerson: “The American ‘Empire’ Is In Deep, Deep Trouble”

Former US army colonel and Chief of Staff for Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson unleashed a most prescient speech on the demise of the United States Empire.

As Naked Capitalism’s Yves Smith notes, Wilkerson describes the path of empires in decline and shows how the US is following the classic trajectory. He contends that the US needs to make a transition to being one of many powers and focus more on strategies of international cooperation.

The video is full of rich historical detail and terrific, if sobering, nuggets, such as:

“History tells us we’re probably finished.

The rest of of the world is awakening to the fact that the United States is 1) strategically inept and 2) not the power it used to be. And that the trend is to increase that.”

Wilkerson includes in his talk not just the way that the US projects power abroad, but internal symptoms of decline, such as concentration of wealth and power, corruption and the disproportionate role of financial interests.

Wilkerson also says the odds of rapid collapse of the US as an empire is much greater is generally recognized. He also includes the issues of climate change and resource constraints, and points out how perverse it is that the Department of Defense is the agency that is taking climate change most seriously. He says that the worst cases scenario projected by scientists is that the world will have enough arable land to support 400 million people.

Further key excerpts include:

“Empires at the end concentrate on military force as the be all and end all of power… at the end they use more mercenary based forces than citizen based forces”

“Empires at the end…go ethically and morally bankrupt… they end up with bankers and financiers running the empire, sound familiar?”

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

The Start Of China’s Unrest? Southern China City Rocked By “Massive” Bomb Explosions, At Least 6 Dead

September 30, 2015

The Start Of China’s Unrest? Southern China City Rocked By “Massive” Bomb Explosions, At Least 6 Dead

Over the weekend when we reported that one of China’s largest coal miners had laid off 100,000, or 40% of its workforce, we noted that China’s hard-landing is starting to hit where it really hurts: employment, or rather the lack thereof, and the one logical consequence: “now, many migrant workers struggle to find their footing in a downshifting economy. As factories run out of money and construction projects turn idle across China, there has been a rise in the last thing Beijing wants to see: unrest.”

Moments ago we may have witnessed the first direct, and deadly, manifestation of this unrest when as Xinhua reported, a series of “massive” explosions rocked the southern Chinese city of Liuzhou earlier today, killing at least three six people and injuring more than a dozen, state media reported.

CCTVNEWS

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#UPDATE At least three killed, 13 injured in Wednesday’s explosions in Liuzhou, Guangxi pic.twitter.com/1MTVjwUKcI

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CCTVNEWS ✔@cctvnews

#Update 6 killed, dozens injured in parcel blasts in Liucheng county, #Guangxi. More casualties reported in nearby Liuzhou city

7:53 AM – 30 Sep 2015

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CCTVNEWS ✔@cctvnews

#BREAKING Rescue work underway after series of explosions in Liucheng county, China’s Guangxi

Guangxi on Wednesday (Xinhua)

5:48 AM – 30 Sep 2015

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

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