national security

Lately, we hear a lot about Orwell’s “1984? and Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” but perhaps the best crystal ball to our current state of affairs is Plato’s Republic.  You see both Rand and Orwell were describing a world outside of themselves.  A world they couldn’t understand or accept.  And while those works are brilliant and incredibly prophetic, I expect that to understand a world borne of narcissistic sociopathy one must examine the construct of such a world by a narcissistic sociopath.

The continuation of the two major themes witnessed over the past month continued overnight: i) the USDJPY rout accelerated, with the Yen running to within 2 pips of 119 against the dollar as Albert Edwards' revised USDJPY target of 145 now appears just a matter of weeks not months (even though subsequent newsflow halted today's currency decimation and the Yen has since risen 100 pips , and ii) the global economic slowdown was once again validated by global PMIs missing expectations from Japan to China (as noted earlier) and as of this morning, to Europe, where the Manufacturing, Services and Composite PMI all missed across the board, driven by a particular weakness in France (Mfg PMI down from 48.5 to 47.6, below the 48.8 expected), but mostly Germany, after Europe's growth dynamo, which disappointed everyone after yesterday's rebound in the Zew sentiment print, printed a PMI of only 50.0, down from 51.4 a month ago, down from 52.7 a year ago, and below the 51.5 expected. And just as bad, Europe's composite PMI just tumbled to 51.4, the lowest print in 16 months!

The average person assumes the powers-that-be actually know what they are doing and would never lead us into disaster, but quoting my breakfast companion, that would be a very poor assumption. Simply, while mass war on the level of the wholesale slaughter commonplace in the last century is unimaginable to most in the modern context, it is never more than the equivalent of a faulty alarm system away from occurring. Those history buffs among you will confirm that up until about a week before World War I began, virtually no one in the public, the press, the political class, or even the military had any idea the shooting was about to start. And 99.9% of the people then living had no idea the war was about to begin until after the first shot was fired.

Senate leaders failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance The USA Freedom Act - which would have limited the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records - and as Bloomberg reports, it's unlikely a new version can be drafted for another vote before the congressional term expires this year. The 58-42 vote to move the measure forward came mostly along party lines as Senator Saxby Chambliss - the top Republican on the intelligence committee - rambling that the bill "eliminates tools critical to the intelligence community’s ability to prevent terrorist attacks, and its adoption would greatly degrade our ability to fight domestic terrorism in particular." In other words - it's for own good, now shut up!

In what the pro-Russian separatists call "an act of genocide," Ukraine's President Poroshenko signed a decree Friday that will explicitly withdraw state support for the regions within a month. While appearing to implicitly recognize the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as autonomous, the decree means that the central bank will no longer service bank accounts, prisoners will be transferred (inmates with minor offences will be released), and perhaps most troubling as the cold winter begins, the order covers all public services, including crucial ones, such as schools, hospitals, and emergency services; and local heating and power plants will be subject to new laws that could involve cutting energy supplies altogether to the plants that don’t pay. Luhansk's leader exclaimed, "the total socio-economic blockade of Donbass is de facto an act on genocide and devastation of our people," and as the images below show, bank runs have already begun across the region with long lines forming at ATMs.

If there were no puppet masters in Washington DC or the Kremlin, what would happen next week?  

Endless War Is the Agenda

"As a drearily soulless, principle-free, power-hungry veteran of DC’s game of thrones, she’s about as banal of an American politician as it gets."

The "compromise" refrain from last week's devastating, for the democrats, midterm election result lasted about one week. Because according to the NYT, here comes Obama with a package of executive actions which will assure Congress full of furious Republicans, which will result in a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration enforcement system but more importantly, will result in up to five million potential democrat voter illegal immigrants "from the threat of deportation and provide many of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have direct knowledge of the plan."

China May Be Closing the Gap on U.S. Military Superiority

While Putin was busy laying the groundwork for another major commodity gas pipeline expansion project, one that would make China the largest natural gas client of Gazprom, surpassing Europe and fully concluding Russia's pivot from west to east, US president Obama had slightly less lofty ambitions out of the annual APEC summit in Beijing: coordinating with China's leader Xi Jinping on how to best avoid war, or as the WSJ phrased it "military confrontations." So in order to prevent military conflict in the coming years, China and the US have penned two deals. “It’s incredibly important that we avoid inadvertent escalation and that we don’t find ourselves again having an accidental circumstance lead into something that could precipitate a conflict” said a White House official.

"Weakness, indecision and unreliability are terrible characteristics in a dangerous world. Strength does not mean bombing everyone. It means having capabilities, choosing one’s spots, and doing what you say you will do." The West might be war-weary, but the jihadis and other combatants in the Middle East are just getting started.

"The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or euros. The sooner the better." - Ron Paul

The good news is that New York's first Ebola patient, Dr. Spencer, is "showing improvement."

The bad news is: *NYC: 357 INDIVIDUALS ACTIVELY MONITORED AS OF NOV. 5

Contained indeed and "hard to catch." Perhaps that explains why Obama just asked for $6.2 billion to manage this monster.

• To salvage his presidency, Obama faces pressure to reboot - but will he? (Reuters)
• Pro-Russian separatist Zakharchenko wins Ukraine rebel vote (Reuters)
• Russia's Recognition of Ukrainian Separatist Election Is 'Incomprehensible,' Germany Says (Moscow Times)
• Man Running World’s Biggest Wealth Fund Tackles China Riddle (BBG)
• Russian Supply Underpins Global Oil Glut (WSJ)
• Argentina accuses Procter & Gamble of tax fraud, says suspends operations (Reuters)
• ECB Skips Fireworks for Day One of New Role as Supervisor (BBG)
• HSBC Hit by $1.7 Billion of Provisions (WSJ)