Archive - Aug 18, 2015 - Story

The Colorado Appeals Court ruled that the owners of a bakery do not have any right to control their property, and that they shall be forced to provide bakery services to a couple that the owner would rather not do business with. In other words, they have no property rights.

The US and world economies are frauds that are coming unraveled. The Greek bailout is the most recent example of “kick the can down the road” solutions. The US housing bubble was an attempt to cover up/recover from the dot-com bust. Now the US is in a financial bubble engineered to recover from the housing bubble debacle. Soon this bubble will burst. Only the date is unknown.

UPDATE: At the end of the morning session there is more blood on the streets as The PPT never turned up... Chinese stocks are now down 10-12% since Monday's close.

Following yesterday's massive CNY120bn liquidity injection - the largest since Jan 2014 - and the notable absence of the plunge protection team in the afternoon rout ("we're only here for emergencies"), we note that margin debt fell for the first time in 8 days as Chinese farmers and grandmas realized once again that the stock market is not a free-ride to nirvana. Chinese stock futures indicate the losses will be extended at the open (SHCOMP -2.7%) as the Yuan fix is held unchanged.

Saddled with a corporate media that marches in lockstep with the government, elected officials who dance to the tune of their corporate benefactors, and a court system that serves to maintain order rather than mete out justice, Americans often feel as if they have no voice, no authority and no recourse when it comes to holding government officials accountable and combatting rampant corruption and injustice. In the face of such abject injustice, outright corruption and overt inequality, it’s hard to feel empowered to believe the average citizen can make a difference.

You can stop waiting for a global financial crisis to happen.  The truth is that one is happening right now.  All over the world, stock markets are already crashing...

Asian currency war contagion is spreading. Tonight's victim is the Dong with Vietnam 'devaluing' the reference rate (for the 3rd time this year) by 1% to 21,890 and also widened the trading bands from 2% to 3% (since the recently widened 2% band was already broken)...

Follow the plunge protection.

Until recently, the "socialization" of New York under newish mayor Bill DeBlasio mostly involved snowfall snafus, exploding manhole covers, giant sinkholes in the middle of the city, and boycotting NYPD cops. The rest was mostly still on auto pilot, and as a result, worked. However, slowly but surely, even the mecca of crony capitalism where at least 1% of the population has never had it better, is starting to succumb to the general economic malaise of the second great depression. Case in point, crime in Central Park is up 26% this year, which at a time of record wealth, gentrification and all time high stock prices, should be unheard of. It also confirms that not all is well with the "recovery" propaganda.

What seems undeniable about the Law of War Manual, is that there are self-contradictions within it. To assert that it "reads like it was written by Hitler's Ministry of War,” is going too far. But, to say that it’s hypocritical (except, perhaps, on torture, where it’s clearly a repudiation of GWB’s practices), seems safely true. Parts of the document are propaganda. The purpose isn’t to fool the public, who won’t read the document. The purpose of the propaganda is to enable future presidents to say, “But if you will look at this part of the Manual, you will see that what we are doing is perfectly legal.” Those mutually contradictory passages are there in order to provide answers which will satisfy both  the ‘hawks’ and  the ‘doves.’

Between micromanaging the economy, equities, the yuan, and public opinion, there's no question that China has its hands full these days. But with everyone's attention now focused sqaurely on Beijing's plunge protection team and the PBoC's "controlled" yuan devaluation, the market may be ignoring the biggest risk of all...

Preppers talk about the day when paper currency becomes worthless and how they plan to barter when things fall apart. But, what will most people do when the government check they depend on stops forever more. Over 50% of the people in America now get some kind of government check every month. That is a question that we think many people have not come to grips with yet. You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. When the government checks stop and your savings are gone, what will you do?

The stunning imbroglio of Hillary Clinton's path to The White House took another absurd twist tonight when just hours after The FBI confirmed an "attempt" was made to wipe the hard drive of her email server (or in other words, remove all data on it), the former secretary of state seemed to mock the claims in a press conference. When asked specifically if she wiped the server, she 'ummed' and 'ahhed' then jokingly said "what with a cloth or something?"

The career-politician's Kryptonite - saying what you really think...

Scholars, commentators, and other public figures who defend liberty in some areas and authoritarianism in other areas - or combine a defense of economic or civil liberty with a defense of the warfare state - undermine the case for the liberties they claim to cherish. Restoring the link between economic liberty, civil liberty, and peace is a vital task for those seeking to restore a society of liberty, peace, and prosperity.

As it turns out it is not just in the US that the "smart money" is bailing out as fast as it can: according to Bloomberg, the wealthiest investors in China’s stock market are also scrambling for the exits. To wit: "The number of traders with more than 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) of shares in their accounts shrank by 28 percent in July, even as those with less than 100,000 yuan rose by 8 percent, according to the nation’s clearing agency. While some of the drop is explained by falling market values, CLSA Ltd. says China’s rich have taken advantage of state buying to cash out after the nation’s record-long bull market peaked in June."