Israel

Anthrax Was As Important As 9/11 In "Justifying" the War on Terror, the Iraq War, and the Patriot Act

The propagandistic American “media” and the crazed neoconservatives have set humanity on the path to destruction. The American people and the entire world need to understand that the threat to life on earth resides in Washington and that until Washington is fundamentally and totally changed, this threat will remain as the worse threat to life on earth. Global Warming can disappear instantly in Nuclear Winter.

Vladimir Putin holds his annual live Q&A event where, over the course of more than four priceless hours, the Russian President takes questions from across the country and discusses everything from foreign relations, to military might, to his sleeping habits, to not wanting to be cloned. 

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will establish an AIIB currency basket with China set to push for the yuan to take a prominent role and for “special currency funds” to be established in order to issue yuan-denominated loans through the fund. "The AIIB's grand vision for infrastructure investment [comes] with challenges but China should do its best to establish the yuan as a currency for settlement and denomination," one analyst says.

Neither Russia nor China is an imminent threat to the US, but a cataclysmic event is looming in the economic front, one which will forever change the perception of America by the rest of the world; or how we, Americans, perceive ourselves. It’s back to what that great cartoonist (and sociopolitical commentator), Walt Kelly, told us a half century ago as America struggled during the Vietnam War:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” 

• Shale Oil Boom Could End in May After Price Collapse (BBG)
• Oil above $58 on U.S. shale output report, Mideast (Reuters)
• Ackman Says Student Loans Are the Biggest Risk in the Credit Market (BBG)
• Alibaba Disputes U.S. Group’s Claim it Tolerates Fake Goods on Taobao (WSJ)
• Petrobras takes steps to avert a technical default (FT)
• Yen’s Drop Is Approaching Its Limit, Says Abe Adviser Hamada (BBG)
• 'Slicing and dicing': How some U.S. firms could win big in 2016 elections (Reuters)
• Fed official warns ‘flash crash’ could be repeatedv (FT)

Everywhere in the West monstrous lies stand unchallenged. The lies are institutionalized in history books, course curriculums, policy statements, movements and causes, and in historical memory. America will be hard pressed to survive the lies that it lives.

UPDATE: *RUSSIA WILL SUPPLY S-300 TO IRAN QUICKLY: INTERFAX

We showed yesterday the web of interconnected rifts and relationships among The Middle East's local and proxy war members and it seems this morning tensions are escalating once again. As Bloomberg reports, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday lifting a ban on the delivery of S-300 anti-missile rocket systems to Iran. The ban was introduced by former President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 under pressure from the West following UN sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program.

While today's macro calendar is empty with no central bank speakers or economic news (just the monthly budget (deficit) statement this afternoon), it’s a fairly busy calendar for us to look forward to this week as earnings season kicks up a gear in the US as mentioned while Greece headlines and the G20 finance ministers meeting on Thursday mark the non-data related highlights.

It appears that when the US inadvertantly "misplaced" $500 million of weapons in Yemen, the bulk of which fell right in Houthi rebel hands, it created a very credible adversary... for the US and its Saudi-backed coalition allies. Because despite the bombing campaign by the Saudi-headed coalition, AP reports that the rebels seized a key provincial capital in a heavily Sunni tribal area on Thursday as their patron Iran called the two-week air campaign a "crime" and appealed for peace talks. According to media reports the Houthius overran Ataq, capital of the oil-rich southeastern Shabwa province, after days of airstrikes and clashes with local Sunni tribes. The capture marked the rebels' first significant gain since the Saudi-led bombing began.

• Greece pleads cash running out, told to hasten reforms (Reuters)
• ECB Cash Said Likely to Fall Short of Greek Request This Week (BBG)
• Chinese Stock Buying Frenzy Sweeps Into Hong  (WSJ)
• Shell’s $70 Billion BG Deal Meets Shareholder Skepticism (BBG)
• Yemen's Houthis seize provincial capital despite Saudi-led raids (Reuters)
• Iran Nuclear Deal Gives Syria’s Bashar al-Assad Reason to Worry (WSJ)
• Slow apps, low battery life limit appeal of Apple Watch (Reuters)
• Gilead’s $1,000 Pill Is Hard for States to Swallow (WSJ)
• The Oil Industry's $26 Billion Life Raft (BBG)

The era of infrastructure investment and multilateral banks and financial institutions controlled, in large part, by Washington - often as an aggressive strategic policy tool - has come to an end. 

The only one tilting at windmills now is Washington, which is stuck between persisting on the idea that this institution is somehow lacking when it comes to Western underwriting “standards” and executing a completely humiliating mea culpa which isn’t really an option given The White House’s steadfast refusal to support the Chinese venture.

Previously, Elliott Management's Paul Singer has explained that he believes "there is one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence" - an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Today we dig deeper into that risk... Why are we writing about EMP? Because in any analysis of societal risk, EMP stands all by itself.