Archive - Mar 16, 2015

Happy Sunshine Week and Freedom of Infomation Farce...

Having attacked its "closest ally" UK for "constant accomodation" with China, we suspect President Obama will be greatly displeased at yet another close-ally's decision to partner up with the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). As The Australian reports, "make no mistake," the decision by Australia's Abbott government to sign on for negotiations to join China’s regional bank, foreshadowed by Tony Abbott at the weekend,  "represents a colossal defeat for the Obama administration’s incompetent, distracted, ham-fisted dip­lomacy in Asia." It seems de-dollarization continues...

When even the propagandists smirk at their own propaganda, you know Washington has reached 'peak contempt' for its citizenry...

“Don’t mess with Texas.” Unless of course you are a thieving, violent cop; in which case Jason Villalba wants to make it open season on citizens by denying them their First Amendment rights.

Once upon a time, much of the state of California was a barren desert.  And now, thanks to the worst drought in modern American history, much of the state is turning back into one.  Back in early 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the entire state, but since that time water usage has only dropped by 9 percent.  That is not nearly enough.  The state of California has been losing more than 12 million acre-feet of total water a year since 2011, and we are quickly heading toward an extremely painful water crisis unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before.

Money is getting tight in China where the PBoC finds itself stuck between easing to counter economic deceleration and exacerbating capital outflows. 

"History’s fourth turnings are full of Hobson’s choices, full of grim choices. I think that the what the Fed got into -- back in 2000 as well 2009, 2010 and then with QE -- they got into that with a feeling of they had no choice; this is crisis intervention. And crisis intervention became a habit... I just think that the full consequences of it have not yet been fully perceived, and I think they will be when the financial markets ultimately reflect the damage that has been done to the economy as a whole. And I think that will happen probably over the next year and a half -- if it even takes that long."

"We have put in place the toughest ethics and transparency laws of any administration in history." - Barack Obama.

The lies end now. As reported moments ago, the White House is voiding a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA  (incidentally the same act that discovered none of Hillary Clinton's "personal" government-business emails since they were not even stored on government property!) which as USA Today explains, makes "official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office."

"Ladies and gentlemen. A few weeks ago, in Riyadh, I was at a small, private function along with the British central bank governor, Mark Carney. Mr Carney asked me two questions. First, why did the oil price drop? And the second, where is the price heading? I will tell you today what I said to him then."

- Ibrahim Al-Muhanna, Advisor to the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for Saudi Arabia

China overtakes Germany to become the world's third largest arms exporter just as Western military spending outside the US fails to keep pace with China and Russia.

To truly understand what The Fed does, we go to the source... "The Fed is best known for its influence in money and credit conditions in the economy in order to help the US economy experience strong growth in output and income, high employment, and stable prices." So factory output growth is now negative, income stagnant, the percentage of employed people in the population is catastrophic, and prices (oil collapse? stock explosion? record beef and beer prices?) are anything but stable.

"On a military base in Quantico, Virginia, the FBI keeps a collection of over 7,000 guns, including weapons used by John Dillinger and other famous American gangsters," BBC reports.

Between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 Billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. What they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 Trillion in federal business and support. Here is the visual representation of this stunning finding: for every dollar spent on influencing politics, the nation’s most politically active corporations received $760 from the government.

Israelis will elect a new parliament March 17. As WaPo notes, the main contest pits the right-wing Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against a surprisingly strong challenge from the Zionist Union, a center-left political alliance led by Isaac Herzog of the Labor party. Polls place Herzog's bloc ahead of Likud, but that's no guarantee of victory. Since Israel's first election in 1949, no single party has ever won an outright majority in the 120-seat Knesset, the name for the Israeli parliament. That means smaller political parties -- and there are 26 in total -- play a significant role in shaping the ruling coalition that forms the Israeli government after the ballots get counted. There appear to be three main scenarios for Israel's next coalition...