#VISION AND JANET CONTENT?!?!?!? IN THIS ECONOMY????

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I am so unbelievably excited for this you have no idea

[tzedektzedek-tirdof]

(The article is probably behind a paywall, so I’ve copied it below)

As the United States opened its new embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, tens of thousands of Gazans gathered at their territory’s boundary fence to protest the loss of Palestinian homes and villages when Israel was founded 70 years ago. Most were unarmed, but some protesters lobbed flaming tires or Molotov cocktails at the Israeli side. Israeli soldiers opened fire, killing more than 60 Palestinians and wounding thousands. Pro-Palestinian voices often described the Israeli response with words such as “murder” and “massacre.”

The reaction fit into a long rhetorical battle in which harsh criticism of Israel’s actions leads to accusations of bias against Jews. The right-wing Israeli news outlet Arutz Sheva, for instance, accused the United Nations agency that administers aid to Palestinians of encouraging anti-Semitism, citing a Fox News video that showed Gazan children chanting about the right to return to former Palestinian lands. Pro-Israel institutions have tried to blunt what they see as hate speech: South Carolina just passed a law deeming any criticism of Israel in public schools or universities to be anti-Semitic. More than 20 states have banned public contracts with companies that boycott of Israel. Meanwhile, fierce arguments have broken out over whether critics of Israel within Britain’s Labour Party are ignoring anti-Semitism.

Yes, anti-Semitism is alive and well, and increasingly it masquerades as criticism of Israel. But as the executive director of T’ruah, a Jewish organization dedicated to protecting human rights here, in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories, I know it’s possible to criticize Israel without veering into anti-Semitism. I do it every day.

People who pay special attention to Israeli policy are not necessarily anti-Semites: Human rights activists and organizations almost always choose a focus for their efforts. (One may reasonably work to end the genocide of the Rohingya community in Burma, for instance, without simultaneously addressing Bashar al-Assad’s slaughter of his people in Syria.) Israel attracts additional scrutiny because it is a top recipient of U.S. foreign aid and the only Western nation currently carrying out a military occupation of another people. Its territory is sacred to three major world religions. The existence of a strong U.S.-based lobby dedicated to promoting the policies of the Israeli government unsurprisingly generates a counterresponse. And Palestinians have built a national movement over the past five decades, unlike more recently displaced people. These trends shape a legitimate political dynamic.

But I also see plenty of criticism that crosses the line. Jews increasingly feel unwelcome on the left unless they abandon their commitments to Israel. A University of Virginia student told me that some progressive campus groups responded to the neo-Nazi incursions there (anti-Semitism on the right is often easier to spot) by dismissing Jewish students as “Zionist baby killers.” At rallies on college campuses, speakers regularly list “Zionists” in the same category as white supremacists and Nazis. Progressive leaders circulate lists of acceptable Jewish organizations, including only those that do not address Israel or that define themselves as Palestinian solidarity groups. If the left continues to ignore this trend, most of the Jewish community will be pushed out of progressive spaces.

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Despite what some pro-Israel organizations would have us believe, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Like all countries, Israel has a duty to uphold international human rights laws and to protect the rights of those living under its control. One may protest the use of live fire on unarmed protesters, the closure of the Gaza border and the subsequent humanitarian crisis, the military occupation of the Palestinian territories, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attacks on democracy and incitement against human rights leaders without invoking anti-Semitic tropes. Such policies would be wrong in any country, whether carried out by Jews or other people.

Although I do not believe that Israel is purposely carrying out a massacre in Gaza or attempting an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, such accusations are not, on their face, anti-Semitic. One may even boycott Israel without stepping into anti-Semitism if it’s clear that the tactic aims to pressure Israel to change its policies, just as many Americans recently boycotted North Carolina over now-overturned laws discriminating against transgender people. (I personally do not support boycotting Israel, partly because so much of the movement is rife with anti-Semitic undertones.)

So how can you tell the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Here are five useful markers.

Seeing Jews as insidious influencers behind the scenes of world events

On the left and the right, anti-Semitism often manifests in a nefarious belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy that wields outsize power. On the right, it’s “globalists” and “elites” who manipulate events. On the left, it’s “Zionists.” The terms may differ, but the fundamental conspiracy theory is the same. For example, after news broke that a private investigative firm made up of former Mossad officers had been digging up dirt on Obama administration officials who helped broker the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi tweeted, “Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world just wait for a few days and the ugly name of ‘Israel’ will [pop up].” This language parallels the last ad of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, which flashed pictures of George Soros, Lloyd Blankfein and Janet Yellen while warning of a “global power structure” that had damaged the U.S. economy. In another case, when professor Steven Salaita was denied a tenured position at the University of Illinois after a series of anti-Israel tweets, he wrote: “Support for Israel . . . exists in sites of authority, often an omnipresent but invisible accoutrement to swivel chairs, mineral water, and mahogany tables.”  

Also in this category is the theory, popular on the left, that Israeli trainers are to blame for racism and violence against people of color by U.S. police. (Durham, N.C., for instance, recently barred its police department from partnering with the Israeli police or military for training, citing this notion.) This includes insinuations that American Jewish organizations that help send U.S. police officers to Israel for counterterrorism training should be held responsible for the shootings of unarmed people of color. American police have used violence against marginalized people since long before Israel existed. White people have never needed Jews to teach them how to brutalize people of color on American soil. There are reasonable questions to ask about the content of training programs in Israel, but the suggestion — absent supporting evidence — that Jews bear guilt for U.S. police killings merely updates the old anti-Semitic trope that falsely accused Jews of managing the global slave trade .

Using the word “Zionist” as code for “Jew” or “Israeli”

“Zionism” denotes a movement, forged in the late 19th century and evolving ever since, for the existence of a modern Jewish state in the land of Israel. A Zionist, as I define myself, supports one or more of the many variations on this vision, which differ wildly in their political, religious and cultural emphases.

Critics of Israel sometimes use “Zionist” to assert a global power structure without specifically calling out Jews as its masterminds. After Salaita, the Illinois professor, also lost a position at the American University of Beirut, he wrote, “I was shocked that Zionist pressure could succeed in the Arab World.” The Nation of Islam’s Final Call newspaper asserts that “Zionist pressure ” will not stop Louis Farrakhan from continuing his anti-Semitic pronouncements, which have included calling Jews the “synagogue of Satan.”

The “Zionist” label attempts to reduce a state full of living, breathing humans to a simplistic political notion. It’s common for Palestinians and their supporters to refer to “Zionist occupation forces” instead of the “Israeli army,” or to the “Zionist entity” instead of “Israel.” At a demonstration I walked by this past week, protesters held signs mourning 70 years of “Israel,” in quotes.

One may disagree with the decision of the United Nations to recognize Israel decades ago, wish that the state had never come to be or aspire to the establishment of a binational state in its place without necessarily stepping into anti-Semitism. But refusing to call Israel or Israelis by their internationally accepted names denies the very existence of the state and its people’s identities. These coy linguistic tricks are as unacceptable as the right-wing penchant for denying the existence of Palestinians and Palestinian identity.

Denying Jewish history

As a means of rejecting the legitimacy of Israel, some stoop to asserting that Jews have no national history there — that they are, in other words, nothing more than European colonizers. For instance, the website Middle East Monitor referred recently to the “alleged Temple”in ancient Jerusalem (the ruins are still there). Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, likewise, resurrected the old canard that today’s Jews descend from Khazar converts in a recent and much-criticized speech.

The Jewish connection to Israel goes back millennia. After their expulsion by the Romans in 70 A.D., Jews continued to pray for a return to the land and to observe four fast days each year to mourn the exile. Zionism’s revolution came not in creating a new connection between Jews and the land of Israel, but in suggesting that a return to the land could be achieved through modern political means, rather than by waiting for the messiah.

Some critics also reduce Judaism to religion, in the mold of Western Christianity, rather than acknowledging our more complex sense of ourselves as a people with a history and an ancestral land, as well as religious and cultural practices. This includes dismissing Zionism as “white supremacy,” as the Chicago Dyke March did last year when its organizers argued that Zionism had no place in an anti-racist movement and that it “represents an ideology that uses legacies of Jewish struggle to justify violence.” Statements like these ignore the fact that, unlike most white people here and elsewhere, Jews have been subject to racially based discrimination — and that more than half of Israeli Jews are not Ashkenazi, meaning their families did not come from Europe.

Finally, disregard for Jewish history may take the form of using Nazi imagery to depict Israel or its army. This tactic cynically manipulates the greatest modern trauma of Jewish history to attack us, while minimizing the genocide of 6 million Jews. Israel may be violating its human rights obligations, but is not carrying out a Nazi-style extermination operation.

Dismissing the humanity of Israelis

In a conversation about terrorist attacks by Palestinians, one young activist told me, “I can’t judge how other people carry out their liberation movements.” Such lack of concern for Israeli lives is evident in failures to condemn rocket attacks against civilians, in the rejection of the term “terrorist” for anyone who acts against Israelis and in statements blaming Israelis for their own deaths. A movement motivated by concern for human rights requires caring about the dignity, well-being, concerns and self-determination of all people.

This means opposing the military occupation of the Palestinians, with its attending violence, as well as rejecting terrorism or rocket fire against Israelis. Human Rights Watch, which right-leaning groups often accuse of being anti-Israel, has modeled such an approach by regularly condemning Hamas for launching rockets at Israeli civilians. This approach also means standing with Israeli human rights leaders, who increasingly find themselves the targets of dangerous incitement by the country’s political leaders.

Assuming that the Israeli government speaks for all Jews

Rabbis who speak at rallies on domestic issues (the Trump travel ban, police killings, etc.) regularly tell me that audience members shout at them, “What about Palestine?” An explicit disavowal of a connection to Israel shouldn’t be a prerequisite for Jewish involvement in broader social justice issues, as has become the norm on college campuses and in many progressive spaces.

Imagine assuming that all Americans support President Trump’s policies, or asking Americans to expressly disown their own country before engaging in any international human rights campaigns. Reasonable people may disagree about Israeli policy, about nationalism or about whether the solution to the conflict should involve one state or two. But Jews who care about Israel — many of whom revile Netanyahu and his politics — should not be excluded from progressive spaces based on their answers to such questions.

Jews, along with other groups, must fight for human rights, in the United States and abroad. This work means insisting that Israel, like other countries, live up to its human rights commitments. The case can be made without bigotry and hate speech.

[billehrman]

Sell On the News

Congress, really only the Republicans led by the President, is about to give our country a huge Christmas gift: tax reform. And it’s about time. The financial markets have marched upward in anticipation of it for weeks, so now the question remains whether the market will sell off on the news once it is passed next week. We say: no! Why?

The market has another 15+% left in it for 2018 supported by global growth led by the United States

Tax reform will lower the corporate rate to 21% boosting U.S. profits

A 100% write off of capital expenditures will add to cash flow

Incredibly low interest rates due to low inflation and continued QE in the Eurozone and Japan continues to exert downward pressure on our rates

Continued strengthening in bank capital and liquidity ratios reduces the chance of systemic risk

Not a bad recipe for higher prices.

We have been talking about tax reform passing for the last six months and positioned our portfolios accordingly, which has led to our continued outperformance. The benefits of tax reform are broad-based and will lead companies, both domestic and foreign, to expand their U.S. operations, building new plants here, and hiring additional employees. It has not hurt that Trump has drastically reduced restrictive regulations, too. Finally, there will be some certainty to the tax code, so companies and individuals can plan accordingly. The benefits of tax reform will last over the next several years as all of this unfolds. Change does not occur over night. So don’t expect an economic downturn soon as many pundits have already predicted. Stay the course, and be patient!

The backdrop of global economic and financial news has been surprisingly strong through the fall and into the holiday season, which has supported the upward move in most of the stock markets. While growth has continued to improve, inflationary pressures have not built up which continues to confound the monetary authorities. Both the Fed and ECB met last week and raised their growth targets for the next several years but NOT their inflation forecasts. Again I say that the Philips curve is outdated. No wonder why most Artificial Intelligence (AI)-run portfolios continue to underperform. The past is NOT prologue. Mathematicians run money looking in the rear view mirror rather than through the windshield at what’s ahead.

Let’s take a look at some of the economic and financial stats that were reported last week to see if they support or detract from our continuing thesis of accelerating growth without inflationary pressures, low interest rates and higher corporate profits.

1.) The U.S. is again becoming the engine of global growth: Industrial production rose 0.2% in November after a revised 1.2% gain in October despite a 1.9% decline in utility output; capacity utilization was 77.1 in November, up 3.4 percent from a year ago but still well below the 10-year average; retail sales boomed 0.8% in November and were up 1.0% excluding automobiles; manufacturing sales rose 0.6% in October while inventories actually fell 0.1% which bodes well for future sales gains; import prices rose 0.7% in November led by fuel while export prices rose 0.5%; and finally the CPI increased 0.4% in November but core prices rose only 0.1% and only1.7% from a year ago.

It now appears that we will have another quarter of 3+% growth even before tax reform becomes law.

2.) The Fed met last week and raised the Fed funds rate a quarter percent as widely anticipated. I found it interesting that the Fed raised its growth forecast meaningfully for 2018 to 2.5% but did not alter its inflation forecast or the number of expected hikes in the fed funds rate. Inflation is not expected to reach 2.0% until the end of 2019. When Janet Yellen was asked whether stock prices were too high, she answered that economists are notoriously bad predictors of future stock prices. I will miss her, as she was excellent in so many ways.

3.) The joint reconciliation committee of Congress finally announced its final version of the new tax code at 5:30pm on Friday. There were only minor tweaks from earlier versions to garner enough support to pass both the House and Senate this week and be on the President’s desk before Christmas to sign. It is a shame that not one Democrat would support this bill. While not perfect, it is far better than our former tax law and begins to bring back manufacturing jobs to America. Let me reiterate: This bill is tremendous for corporate America and American jobs as it will lead to more plants being built here and a decline in our trade deficit over time. The winners and losers are clear and our portfolios are positioned accordingly.

4.) Even though the ECB meaningfully raised its economic growth targets, too, it did not raise its inflation forecasts nor did it alter its revised QE program buying 30 billion euros of debt per month at least thru next September. Draghi reiterated that the ECB would continue its aggressive QE until inflation breaches that magic 2% level.

Where do we stand now and what are the investment implications of all that is happening?

It remains clear that the global economy will continue to accelerate as we enter 2018 with the U.S. possibly leading the way at the margin after falling behind for much of 2017. Growth in China is still likely to exceed 6.3% in 2018, as exports will accelerate complementing continued strong growth in consumer demand. The emerging markets economies will do well, too, as they are tied to growth in the industrialized nations, as exports are the key driver in those markets.

The bottom line is the investing environment for 2018 looks excellent at this time. North Korea remains a key risk as well as monetary bodies moving faster, if growth and inflation are stronger than currently anticipated. We will watch all of this carefully.

We continue to emphasize the financials, the global industrials, low-cost industrial commodity companies, capital goods companies, domestic steel and aluminum companies, beneficiaries of U.S. tax reform, technology at a fair price to growth and special situations including Disney. We bought it when it got hit a few months ago below $100. We love its management and content. The deal with Fox was not too bad. Great management makes for a great investment. Again, patience is needed.

At this time, we want to thank our investors for the faith and support that they have continued to give us and to you, our friends, for your comments as they push us to think out of the box. It truly has been a wonderful period for Paix et Prospérité since we began in 2013. We had a thesis to prove - that a well-managed global hedge fund could still outperform all indices. Frankly, we have achieved it and went beyond our vision. We know our best is yet to come.

So remember to pause, review the facts, reflect and consider any emerging mindset shifts; always look at your asset composition along with risk controls; do independent research and…

Invest Accordingly!

Bill Ehrman Paix et Prospérité LLC

[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 7/30/2019

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Tuesday, July 30th, 2019. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

DO THE DOUBLE – Bring back the two competitions. That is the renewed cry of the artistes who said the new format for Soca Monarch, introduced by the National Cultural Foundation, is disadvantaging them. One of the loudest voices was newly crowned Soca Monarch Mikey, minutes after he won the inaugural competition on Sunday at the National Botanical Gardens, Waterford, St Michael.“The combined competition . . . needs revisiting,” Mikey said.“I honestly think sweet soca should have its shine and power soca should have its shine. I hope the powers that be saw with Lil Rick and myself that power soca is not dead and we still need our hearing, as we would say.”Mikey, who placed first with 98 points, did the power soca song Action Time Again. He was also the reigning Party Monarch 2018.Lil Rick, who came second, did the power soca song Jam Down. He is the reigning Sweet Soca Monarch. (DN)

SINGLE SOCA MONARCH HERE TO STAY – Despite cries of “unfair” from some artistes, Minister of Culture John King says there will be no going back to the days of a split Soca Monarch competition. Following yesterday’s competition at the “new” Botanical Gardens in Waterford, some artistes questioned the rationale of merging what essentially are separate sub-genres, Sweet Soca and Power Soca. One of the youngest persons in this ‘year’s competition Jamal Slocombe, argued that the categories should be treated differently and went as far as calling the move “regressive.” “I believe the competitions need to be split again because they are two different dynamics. An up-tempo song has a certain BPM (beats per minute), the lyrical content is treated differently, it has a different approach but a sweet soca song is a feel-good song. It can be played in your car; commercial use is also different… and I think Trinidad also recently returned to groovy and power soca competitions. I think it was really a regressive step to merge the competitions.” However, in an interview with Barbados TODAY this afternoon, King contended that a split competition only resulted in one category cannibalizing the other. “There is no need at all to revisit the separate competition concept. When this competition started, it was a competition geared at getting people to produce party music. It wasn’t split into two. It only became split after there were so many entries from different persons that you tried to find a way that would allow the varying sets of artistes to maximise the thing,” said King. The Minister added, “Over the years the audiences have been complaining that the Power Soca songs have not been of a very high standard and people were saying that they were only coming to hear the Sweet Soca songs. So, you have to make a decision as to what is in the best interest of your constituents and the artistes just have to be able to listen to their constituents and not just think in a one-dimensional way. It is not just about them but also the people who pay their money to come to see them to ensure that they have a competition.” Considering this, King told Barbados TODAY that it was fitting that Michael MikeyMercer, who performed the up- tempo song entitled Action Time, emerged as the eventual winner. “If you had asked anyone before this competition began yesterday, if they felt that a Power Soca would have been able to win the competition, 99.9 per cent of the people would probably have said no because that was the talk on the street for a long time. I am very happy to see that Mikey did what he had to do and this means now that the urge for people to get back to writing Power Soca will return and this will raise the quality, compared to what has been offered over the last five years,” he stressed. King, a veteran calypsonian, expressed confidence that as a result of the competition maintaining this format, the disparity between the top performers of years gone by and the inexperience of the current lot, would be bridged. “There is a clear need for us to begin to get some of the more seasoned artistes, those persons who would have come through the era of performing in bands and on the hotel circuit, to share their knowledge and experience with the younger artiste. You could see a stark difference and a wide gap between their understanding of performance within a competition,” said King, who pointed out that the National Cultural Foundation would need to consider hosting workshops to address this.

(BT)

‘ACTION TIME AGAIN’ FOR MIKEY– Despite the vast number of sweet soca tunes that resonated throughout the National Botanical Gardens in Waterford on Sunday, none of them quite hit the mark like Mikey’s Action Time Again. This was said to be the year of sweet soca, but the power soca stalwarts of Mikey and Lil Rick showed that the genre was here to stay. Earning his 12th career title to become first-ever MQI/98.1 The One 2019 Soca Monarch, Mikey copped the top prize of $20,000 and a Mazda BT 50 pickup truck. As he received the envelope from Prime Minister Mia Mottley and chief executive officer of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) Carol Roberts-Reifer, Mikey shouted: “This is a victory for power soca.”He earned the title with a score of 98 points, after delivering a rousing performance to the hundreds gathered. The last contestant of the evening at number 16, Mikey’s presentation kicked off with a hilarious skit featuring Eric The Queen Lewis and as he leapt on the stage, backed by the infectious beat, Mikey encouraged the crowd to chant “poussez”. Flags, placards, and inflated balloons were jumping and waving as the crowd answered Mikey’s call. A sudden burst of showers couldn’t stop the jam session as they continued to dance without a care. Coming second with 75 points, six-time Party Monarch Lil Rick had the crowd ready to Jam Down. He was the second competitor to grace the stage and one of the more memorable. Lil Rick paid tribute to the Mighty Grynner and the newly renamed Mighty Grynner Highway during his presentation. At the end of his performance, he was joined on stage by the King Of De Road himself as he jumped behind the music truck and departed from the stage, but not before giving a lyrical tongue-lashing to the other performers. Lil Rick went home with a cash prize of $30,000. Leadpipe was a clear crowd favourite and anticipated to be in the top three out the gate. His song Sometime has become the summer anthem and it was evident as the crowd sang the song word-for-word at the top of their voices. Numerous placards and flags could be seen in the audience naming Leadpipe as the winner of the inaugural Soca Monarch Competition. But he placed third, winning $20,000. The newcomers came prepared to compete, delivering high energy and unique performances. Betty B and her dancers looked stunning in their carnival costumes. She didn’t miss a beat and keep the audience engaged during her performance of Nah Going Home. The youngest contestant in the competition, Jamal Jslo Slocombe leapt on stage with a ferocity and high energy for his performance of Alive that instantly grabbed the attention of patrons. Skung Yung – real name Ian Alleyne – stole centre stage with his guitar solo. The goateed artist went from playing centre guitar in a band to being centre stage as a singer. His melodic and groovy performance of So Happy was a solid performance for a first-timer. Seasoned veterans, Biggie Irie (Magic), Adrian Clarke (Ah Like It) and Nathalee (Why We Live) gave solid performances. Also giving a stellar performance, was the “groom” of the evening, Shaquille, who performed Darlin’. He brought elements of the wedding chapel to the Soca Monarchstage, as he professed his love. TC dazzled in red for her performance of Music. Energetic and jovial, the former monarch brought on stage saxophonist Mylon Clarke for a musical mashup and jamming session. Sanctuary, Marzville, Damian Marvay, Faith and Jus D also gave consistent performances at the inaugural event.(BT)

VENUE PASSED THE TEST – From the first time Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports, John King saw the space now known as the National Botanical Gardens, he was sold on its potential to host the country’s largest events. On Sunday, his vision was put to the test and received the ‘thumbs up’ from numerous Barbadians, despite concerns about impending bad weather. The clouds hovered around the Stadium Road, St Michael venue from time to time, but eventually gave way to brilliant sun casting its warmth on thousands of  patrons eager to enjoy the Soca Monarch Competition. “We are here taking in some sun, whereas the Party Monarch [at Bushy Park] used to be later in the evening. I like it once the rain doesn’t fall,” reported Rashida Payne, who was enjoying the party early with her family. Ryan, a returning national who was visiting from New York for the first time since 2015 said he was “really impressed”. “This place is beautiful and I know there was a lot of talk about the mud and so on but trust me, I expect an epic celebration,” he told Barbados TODAY. Janet Barrow an elderly patron said she was hoping for a covered area with seating and said she longed for an eventual return to the East Coast Road. Her daughter, Sylvia White was impressed with the transformation. “I like the venue and what they’ve transformed it into. I’ve been to East Coast and I’ve been to Bushy Park but I’m comfortable with here. I was hoping there would be no rain, which I think, would have done some injustice, but other than that I’m having a good time and I love it,” she said. Meanwhile, Minister John King assured Barbados TODAY that after conducting a thorough postmortem of the event with his team, an in-depth analysis would be given. Nevertheless, he is satisfied with the preliminary reports. “I was pretty comfortable and satisfied that all the things you can expect from going into a new venue. In the absence of a blueprint as to how it would work, I thought the NCF did very well and I say kudos to them and all the other partners who worked with them including the NCC and the [MTW] Ministry of Transport and Works. It went off incident-free and people had a good time. “There were very positive reports from patrons as I walked through the crowd. So all in all they should give themselves a pat on the back. I know there are a number of things that we can do better, but you can only do that after you’ve done your reviews,” said Minister King.(BT)

NO NEED TO FEAR QEH – A substance critical to HIV patient blood-testing is running low. However, officials at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), the lone institution for such testing, said there is no need to fear, since testing will continue in emergency situations and especially in blood transfusion cases. Last week there was unease after a circular at the QEH advised that all HIV patient testing would be “suspended” from yesterday and blood bank samples would be run until further notice or “reagents have been depleted”. Yesterday, acting chief executive officer Louise Bobb confirmed to the DAILY NATION that they were low in reagents stock but the testing for the presence of HIV had not stopped. “We expect them to be replenished by the end of the week and in the meantime we will make sure that they are used for testing blood for transfusions,” she said.(DN)

‘STAND FIRM’ ON ANTI-GAY LAWS: CHURCH LEADERS –Several evangelical church leaders are calling on Government not to change the country’s Sexual Offences Act, despite a human rights challenge to those laws filed by trans woman Alexa Hoffmann, and two other Barbadians, a lesbian and a gay man. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which reviewed the issue in the last year, has given Barbados three months to respond to the challenge. Evangelical leader and former senator, Pastor David Durant, declared today that the religious community is strongly opposed to any change to the law. He said religious leaders are to meet in the coming days to formulate an official response and present a united front on the issue. He told Barbados TODAY: “Since the news broke, I have been receiving calls from pastors from across Barbados’ religious landscape and we are going to have a meeting so that we can make a united front and statement. So, the entire church body is making preparation to make a stand.” Acknowledging that sexuality was about choice, Durant contended that the church has a duty to steer persons towards the “right one”. He suggested that current anti-gay laws are differentiating markers between right and wrong. He said: “From what I am getting, the religious community is strongly opposed to this. There are choices and God has given us the power of choice and you could choose to go wrong or you can choose to go right. “Our position is, as the body of Christ, is to help people to make the right one. “For example, if a child does something wrong all the time and the parent neglects to guide that child in the right way, then that same child would grow up to dislike the parent.” But the former senator also expressed the view that the current penalties under the law are too harsh and he believes that Government should update the laws without “tampering” with the intent. He added: “I think the law is a bit archaic and it should be revisited to be stated in a more relevant manner. The penalties are way too harsh, but I don’t believe that the essence of the law should be tampered with.” Rev. Durant declared that contrary to what is being proffered by some in the international community, the local LGBT community experiences “no discrimination,” despite the existence of the laws in question. Barbados TODAY attempted to obtain the views of the East Caribbean Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. It promised to issue a statement on the issue, but one was not received at the time of publication. Efforts were also made to contact the Anglican Bishop but were unsuccessful. The views of the local Muslim community was also sought but their spokesman, Suleiman Bulbulia, said he could only offer comment after the matter was discussed internally and a consensus was arrived at. The IACHR has reportedly issued the Government a copy of the petition challenging sections 9 and 12 of the Sexual Offences Act. These sections effectively criminalise all forms of same-sex intimacy. Section 9 outlaws “buggery”, which the courts have defined as anal sex between men but also between a man and a woman. The maximum penalty is life in prison. Under Section 12, “serious indecency” is sweepingly defined as any act “involving the use of the genital organs for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire”. The maximum penalty is ten years in prison if the act is committed on or towards a person aged 16 or older. When contacted this morning, Attorney General Dale Marshall told Barbados TODAY: “I have not yet received nor seen any documentation in relation to any matter before the [human rights] commission. “If and when any such documents are received, it will be dealt with in the same way that we deal with challenges to the legitimacy of any of our laws. However, when asked to elaborate on the procedure for dealing with “challenges to the legitimacy of any of our laws”, the Government’s chief legal adviser offered no further comment.(BT)

NOT SO FAST –Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong has issued a stern caution to developers against “pre-judging” construction start dates for the long delayed Hyatt Centric hotel. He insists the requisite requirements of the Town and Country Planning Department must first be satisfied. In fact, Comissiong, who has been locked in a court battle since February 2017 to bar developers from constructing the 15-story hotel, is willing to do it again if developers fail to follow the correct procedure in its most recent application. He was responding to recent comments made by developer Mark Maloney, that construction on the new project could start as soon as November this year. “We are working towards being able to start within the next four months or so,” said Maloney on a recent edition of Starcom Network’s Down to Brass Tacks radio programme. At the time, Maloney promised to work closely with the planning department to ensure the process was properly followed including “a lot of studies” and “proper” public engagement. But Comissiong, the social activist whose appointment as ambassador followed Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s election victory last May, made it clear he would be monitoring the process just as closely as he did over two years ago. “If you come with a different scheme for a different type of hotel, then you have to make a separate application for the new project and it has to go through the proper processing which involves an Environmental Impact Assessment inclusive of the holding of town halls meetings at which citizens and residents of Barbados can ask questions and make objections and all of that will have to be recorded and taken into account by the town and country planning department before any decision can be made to grant planning permission,” said Comissiong. He asserted that such a project must be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as that of the Blue Horizons Hotel, which has been heavily criticised by the public . It was on this basis, he asserted: “I do not see how Mr. Maloney can be saying that he will start construction in November. Any application that he made has to be properly processed… just as a week ago, there was a town hall meeting in relation to the Blue Horizons Hotel for planning permission. Mr Maloney’s application cannot be treated any differently than the application submitted by the Blue Horizons Hotel.” “The point is that Mr Maloney or nobody else can come and authoritatively say that construction will start in November because you are prejudging the application process. “An application for planning permission on the beach must be treated more rigorously than an application on the land side on the road,” the activist insisted. Amid Comissiong’s queries, Government has signalled its intention to acquire the land on Bay Street, belonging to Ms Asha “Ram” Mirchandani, which currently houses the Liquidation Centre. The acquisition is at an advanced stage according to Minister of Housing and Lands, George Payne, who last week said the land had been secured. Since then, notices have been placed by the Chief Land Surveyor David McCollin on the property at Bay Street informing owners that Government has acquired the land for the purpose of Tourism Development and noted that any claims for compensation should be made on or before August 26, 2019.(BT)

WOMAN ATTACKED AND BURNT – Police are on the hunt for a man who barged into a house, choked a woman, doused her with a flammable substance and then set the house on fire yesterday. The 44-year-old woman was alone and lying in bed at Bartlett’s Tenantry, Sargeant’s Village, Christ Church in the afternoon when the intruder entered her bedroom and began choking her.  He then threw a liquid on her, lit the house and fled. Police said the woman managed to flee the house into the backyard where her screams were heard by some men in the neighbourhood. They pulled away the galvanised sheets enclosing the yard and rescued the woman from the burning structure. She was eventually transported to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital with more than 75 per cent burns on her body. The woman was staying at the home of her brother who is in a nursing home. Public relations officer Acting Inspector Rodney Inniss confirmed the police got a report around 1:55 p.m. and the woman was detained at the hospital for her injuries. (DN)

FIREY ATTACK – Residents at Bartlett’s Tenantry are outraged that a 44-year-old woman is now fighting for her life at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), after a man doused her with a flammable substance and lit the house she was in on Sunday afternoon. Members of the close-knit community said they were horrified that the intruder went into the house, entered the bedroom, and choked the victim, before she was able to run into the backyard screaming for help. She was said to have received burns to about 80 per cent of her body. The woman was rescued by a group of young men who removed galvanised sheets that enclosed the yard and lifted her to a lawn chair under a nearby breadfruit tree, where she was covered with a sheet. “He came over the fence and I was sleeping and he strangle me and throw the gas on me and light it. I was screaming . . . Please help me! He tried to kill me, he try to kill me,” the crying woman said in a video taken minutes after the incident circulating on social media. Residents said that the victim’s brother who is currently in a nursing home owns the wooden structure, which was extensively damaged by the blaze. When a Barbados TODAY team visited the area today, disturbed residents were still talking about the ordeal which they said rocked the community. One woman who requested anonymity, said when she heard the screams while cooking, she thought a child was being beaten. But after hearing the loud cry for at least four minutes, she then knew something was wrong. “I saw flames coming from the back room. My daughter ran out behind me and I ran back and went and called the fire station and I reported that there was a fire at Bartlett’s Tenantry and I called the police station at Worthing and then I called the ambulance. “Then we see like somebody trying to break a window. So then I tell them try pulling off the galvanise because it would be devastating if they die in the house. But I didn’t know that the old man was recently placed in a home. She only came in from overseas last week to look after him,” she said. “Eventually they got into the yard, and all of her skin was burned like 80 per cent, except her face. They lifted her right here and we put her on that stretcher there under a tree in the cool. The ambulance came and they asked for another sheet and I give them and they covered her, and then they get buckets of water and throw on her. “She was screaming all the time. She was saying someone came into the house and then tried to strangle her and she said that while they were trying to strangle her they threw the fluid on her, and it engulfed her and the house in flames,” she added. The woman, who cried shame on the person responsible for carrying out the horrendous act, said she was now praying and hoping that the victim survives. “I didn’t like the way she look. The police have a lot of work on their hands because they now have to find out who did it. I hope whoever did it is caught,” she said. Another resident said she was so troubled by the incident that she has not slept since it happened. Standing in her patio, the resident said she wished someone could tell her why someone would want to harm “that girl who don’t trouble nobody or get in people way”. “I feel real sad. She is a nice person in the area. Her brother lives there. The brother get sick, then the mother come in and look after him, and then the mother passed away six months ago. So the girl would come in from overseas to take care of her brother. She would go and come. She did not deserve this.” Police Public Relations Officer Acting Inspector Rodney Inniss confirmed that police are investigating the matter for which they received a call around 1:55 p.m on Sunday.(BT)

That’s all for today folks there are 155 days left in the year Shalom! #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #bajannewscaps #newsca psbystephaniefchase

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New Post has been published on Christian Worldview Institute

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Fed Trapped "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (w/ Julian Brigden) | Expert View

Julian Brigden, co-founder and head of research at MI2 Partners, believes the U.S. economy is at a critical inflection point. In this episode, Brigden interrogates the economic expansion and asks the tough questions about the rally in stocks: Why have U.S. equities outperformed the rest of the world so late in the cycle? What are the key risks? And what will central banks do next? Filmed on April 19, 2019 in New York.

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Fed Trapped “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” (w/ Julian Brigden) | Expert View https://www.youtube.com/c/RealVisionTelevision

Transcript: For the full transcript: https://rvtv.io/2Wda76E This is another classic example of the sort of academically driven policies that we’ve seen come out of the halls of central banking, which are no longer really populated by central bankers, but by academics. The theory was fine, OK? The theory was kind of like how you launch an aircraft off an aircraft carrier. You jam the aircraft back at the back of a deck. You let it build up enough momentum and speed. And then eventually you let the elastic band go, and the thing soars off into the bright blue yonder. That’s great on paper, but it comes, unfortunately, with some consequences. Hello, everyone. My name is Julian Brigden. I’m the co-founder of MI2 Partners, and the co-producer, along with Raoul, of Macro Insiders. I’m here today, because I think we’re at a really important inflection point in markets. I think the big debate now, at least in the equity market, and this opposition in the equity market, is that the central banks have once again pulled the rabbit out of the hat, and successfully reflated the bull market just like, in a way, that they did in early 2016. I think that’s possible. I’m not sure that we’re quite there yet. I think some of the assumptions that are being made are a little pre-emptive. And so I think there are some still risks. I think ultimately I’m pretty certain where the trend is going. But I think it’s important at this juncture to sort of take a step back, look at how we ended up here potentially, and what are those markers that you need to be watching. How did we get to where we are now? I put some slides in the presentation. And the first one that I’ve stolen from the Fed is Janet Yellen’s slide on optimal control from D-day of 2012– so 6th of June. If you look at that slide, what you’ll see is a sort of typical trajectory of where rates should have gone. And then you see a dotted green line that represents Janet Yellen’s policy, which she referred to as optimal control. This is another classic example of the sort of academically driven policies that we’ve seen come out of the halls of central banking, which are no longer really populated by central bankers, but by academics. And the theory was fine, OK? The theory was kind of like how you launch an aircraft off an aircraft carrier. You jam the aircraft back at the back of a deck, you let it build up enough momentum and speed, and then eventually you let the elastic band go, and the thing soars off into the bright blue yonder. source

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AYA Analytica financial health memo March 2018

As of March 2018, this regular podcast is available on our Andy Yeh Alpha fintech network platform.

Tech stock prices tumble due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilot incidence. Share prices tumble for technology stocks due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook user data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilot incidence. President Trump accuses Amazon of unfairly deferring tax payments via its European operational hub in Luxemburg. This common cross-border corporate scheme can be legitimate, but this scheme rings the alarm bell for the American, British, and other governments in light of borderline tax avoidance. Also, President Trump complains that U.S. Postal Service cannot make money because it fails to charge higher delivery prices on the single ecommerce giant Amazon. Meanwhile, Facebook faces the Cambridge Analytica user data debacle, and U.S. senators are likely to grill Zuckerberg in his congressional testimony. Both these recent Amazon and Facebook crises trigger sharp share price declines among the top tech titans Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter (FAMGANT). Moreover, Tesla experiences an autopilot incidence in March 2018 where an autonomous car crashes into a nearby barrier before the driver turns off the artificial intelligence software to correct the car path. This Tesla autopilot car crash aggravates the recent woes of Uber's recent autonomous car accident. Some tech stocks exhibit double-digits declines due to the recent crises.

CNBC's business anchorwoman Becky Quick interviews Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz on the current Sino-U.S. trade war. CNBC's business news anchor Becky Quick interviews Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz on the current trade war between America and China. When America imposes $60 billion tariffs on key Chinese imports such as steel and aluminum, China fights back with $3 billion tariffs on U.S. exports for at least 128 items. Stiglitz points out that the poor and less economically-privileged Americans with subpar socioeconomic status and educational attainment are likely to suffer due to higher prices of many consumption goods. Also, most U.S. corporations finance their capital investments with tax-deductible debt, and so tax cuts will largely benefit these large corporations and high net-worth investors in America. However, the typical U.S. household will face lower purchasing power, and fiscal stimulus may or may not boost real investment and productivity growth. For this reason, President Trump's economic policy reform may wreak havoc in real macroeconomic activities, especially if GDP per capita growth cannot exceed investor expectations and inflationary pressures in the medium term. Stiglitz specifically favors globalization and free trade if the U.S. government sets clear limits on product market liberalization.

President Trump imposes punitive tariffs on $60 billion Chinese imports in a brand-new trade war. President Trump imposes punitive tariffs on $60 billion Chinese imports in a brand-new trade war as China hits back with retaliatory tariffs on $3 billion U.S. exports. This strategic move hits China for its unfair trade practices with at least 3 major jabs. First, the Trump tariffs take the form of 25% duties on $60 billion Chinese exports to America. This first jab is only a fraction of the economic damage that China has done to America by forcibly extracting the intellectual properties of U.S. corporations. Second, the Trump administration can introduce foreign investment restrictions on Chinese companies. This prevention can stop Chinese companies from swooping into U.S. competitive advantages. Third, the Trump administration considers litigation at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Since the inception of its WTO membership, China has indeed failed to transform into an open democratic society that respects both economic freedom and the rule of law. Overall, the Trump tariffs signal the dawn of an inevitable Sino-American trade war. Trump uses the sequential tariff tactics and economic sanctions on China, Iran, and Russia and even some western allies such as Canada, Europe, and Mexico. These tactical solutions may help dramatically reduce U.S. trade and budget deficits.

Personal finance and investment author Thomas Corley studies and shares the rich habits of self-made millionaires. Thomas Corley studies and shares the rich habits of numerous self-made millionaires. Corley has spent 5 years studying the daily habits and routines of self-made millionaires, and then he chronicles these results in his books *Rich Habits* and *Change You Habits, Change Your Life*. Rich people share common habits, and others can learn from these habits that help enrich their lives. First, self-made millionaires maintain long-term vision with short-term focus. They often set bold and lofty life goals, value propositions, and mission statements. At the same time, the rich focus on both the important and urgent matters that can often lead to positive results. For instance, these millionaires attend to money matters like value investors who focus on small profitable cash cows with low relative market valuation that invest conservatively in both capital investment and balance sheet expansion. Second, self-made millionaires cherish and emphasize the importance of self-improvement. They read books, articles, blogs, and newsletters etc about personal finance, management, and other self-help issues. This practice allows self-made millionaires to turn unproductive routines into better ones. Third, self-made millionaires enhance their social integration. These millionaires like to network with successful people in personal finance, sport, family, or other social events, and their active social engagement extends beyond their inner circle. In Corley's 5-year study, what self-made millionaires choose not to accomplish is as important as what they choose to accomplish over several years.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell increases the neutral interest rate to a range of 1.5% to 1.75% in his debut press conference. Fed Chair Jerome Powell raises the neutral interest rate to a range of 1.5% to 1.75% in his debut post-FOMC press conference. The Federal Reserve raises the interest rate for the sixth time since the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) near-zero rate lift-off in December 2015. In fact, the Fed Chair transition from Yellen to Powell indicates a moderate monetary policy stance from dovish to hawkish in accordance with the recent FOMC minutes. The Federal Reserve now targets a core PCE inflation rate above 2.1% as the U.S. unemployment rate gradually declines to the lowest level of 3.8% to 4.1% in 17 years. Most dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) New Keynesian macro models suggest that Powell needs to trade off near-full employment with inflationary momentum. As inflation rises over time, Powell must gradually raise the neutral interest rate to tame upward price gyrations when the U.S. economy operates near full employment. Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen might prefer to keep the lower interest rate for a longer period of time, whereas, Powell departs from this lower-for-longer dovish and accommodative monetary policy stance in response to FOMC hawks who express deep concerns about high inflation or price instability.

Uber's autonomous car causes the first known pedestrian fatality from a driverless vehicle. Uber's autonomous car causes the first known pedestrian fatality from a driverless vehicle and thus sets off the alarm bell for artificial intelligence. An Arizona woman dies in a car accident in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe that involves one of Uber's driverless cars. As a result, Uber suspends its autonomous car operations in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Toronto. This fatality makes cities less likely to trust Uber and so undermines the generic claim that Uber serves as an autonomous car platform rather than a transportation service provider. Also, this incidence forces Uber to improve the safety of its autonomous and human-driven vehicles. Even if Uber can perfect its self-driving technology by mid-2019 (when the company hopes to launch autonomous car services), city governments might not trust the Uber enough to work with autonomous cars. Stock analysts now downgrade the approximate $70 billion valuation of Uber by BlackRock and Morgan Stanley. Because Uber delays the launch of autonomous car services after mid-2019, the artificial-intelligence-driven company may postpone its grand plan to go public in the next 18 months.

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users. Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users. In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg outlines the next steps that the company would take to enhance the artificial-intelligence-driven user data and privacy protection. Zuckerberg reiterates that he is sorry for Facebook's involvement in the Cambridge Analytica data breach of trust. Zuckerberg further concedes that Facebook would be open to government regulation. Prior precedence suggests some plausible regulatory actions against Facebook. First, Facebook would be viewed as a social media publisher that should be subject to telecommunication rules for online content circulation. Second, Facebook might have to break up its core franchises such as social media posts, digital advertisements, games, data solutions, and user connections etc. In recent times, both American and European regulators demand Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his delegate(s) to testify before Congress. These unforeseen events might adversely affect Facebook's key performance metrics from active member usage to average revenue per unit (ARPU). Facebook ads would become less effective with higher average costs, and many small-to-medium business enterprises may suffer as a result. Due to this fundamental recalibration, Facebook's share performance may exhibit negative volatile fluctuations in the next few months.

The Trump $1.5 trillion hefty tax cuts and $1 trillion infrastructure expenditures may speed up the Federal Reserve interest rate hike. The Trump administration's $1.5 trillion massive tax cuts and $1 trillion infrastructure expenditures may speed up the Federal Reserve interest rate hike due to robust labor market growth. The U.S. economy adds 313,000 jobs in early-2018. This labor market growth is stronger than most macro projections, and the U.S. unemployment rate stays at 4.1% or the lowest level in 17 years. Also, wages grow at 2.6% and remain a few notches below the prior pace. Productive progress in U.S. employment and economic output continues without higher inflation near the 2% target. In accordance with most macro expectations, the Federal Reserve expects to raise interest rate 4 times in 2018 and maybe 3-4 times in 2019. The current neutral interest rate hike helps attain the congressional dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell unveils the new budget deal. This deal can be sustainable with $15 trillion national debt and $80-$95 billion budget deficit projections over the next 2 years. A key issue concerns how long Congress should raise the national debt limit, which the U.S. economy may hit as soon as April 2018. Republicans and Democrats still need to negotiate the exact parameters to reach bipartisan agreement.

From crony capitalism to state capitalism, what economic policy lessons can we learn from Putin's reign in Russia? From crony capitalism to state capitalism, what economic policy lessons can we learn from President Putin's current reign in Russia? In the 15 years of President Vladimir Putin's rule, Russia has increased its state control over economic growth that exceeds the average economic growth rate in the immediate post-communist era. With 1.5% meager economic growth, 15% inflation, and 6% unemployment, the Russian government concentrates both political and economic power in Putin's hands. This power concentration leads to a highly assertive foreign policy. Putin uses energy as a diplomatic instrument, and abundant revenue streams from extractive oil industries obfuscate the need for structural economic reforms in Russia. In recent years, U.S.-driven western countries impose economic sanctions on Russia and have brought about economic stagnation there. As a result, the Russian economy continues to struggle with few visible traces of economic growth. As Europe struggles with its own economic projections due to its own macro model deficiencies, Russia shows no signs of diverting from state capitalism without substantive evidence of a more sustainable economic model. In reality, only greater political competition can induce the Putin administration to change economic course. However, the current communist political landscape cannot allow for this political competition to flourish in practice.

Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing announces his retirement in March 2018 with an incredible rags-to-riches life story. At 89 years old, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing announces his retirement in March 2018. With a personal net worth of $35 billion, Li has an incredible rags-to-riches life story of growing his business conglomerate HK Hutchinson. His 53-year-old son Victor Li will take over the conglomerate with 323,000 employees across 50 countries worldwide. The Li business empire ranges from energy to real estate property and technology. Li is the epitome of hard work and persistence. From his age 35 to present, Li commits to working 16 hours per day and 7 days per week. At the same time, however, Li engages healthy exercises daily to stay fit. Throughout his rags-to-riches life story, Li successfully transitions from dropping out of school as a child to support his family to becoming the first person of Chinese origin to buy one of the British-built Hong Kong companies since the colonial era. Li pledges to devote the rest of his life to charitable causes. The Li Ka Shing Foundation continues to invest in education, poverty prevention, and disease eradication etc.

David Solomon succeeds Lloyd Blankfein as the new CEO of Goldman Sachs. David Solomon succeeds Lloyd Blankfein as the new CEO of Goldman Sachs. Unlike his predecessors Lloyd Blankfein and Gary Cohn, Solomon has been an investment specialist throughout his professional career. As an investment banker, Solomon serves as a financial product specialist who underwrites and sells investment-grade corporate debt securities. Solomon understands financial market development and the key importance of marking-to-market the actual market values of stocks and bonds on the firm's balance sheet (instead of fair values). Also, Solomon appreciates the intrinsic value of sound and efficient financial risk management. He can be a safe pair of hands to lead the Goldman franchise in late-2018. At Goldman Sachs, Solomon advocates for a comprehensive reformation of corporate culture. He expresses an active interest in keeping the maximum number of work hours between 70-75 hours per week. Under Solomon's leadership, the bank increases compensation for programmers, modernizes computer systems, institutes video interviews, and maintains smart-casual dress codes. Apart from his professional commitment, Solomon performs electronic music at nightclubs and music festivals in New York, Miami, and Bahamas. Spotify releases Solomon's debut single title in early-2018. As the CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon will be an all-round investment head who understands the importance of work-life balance.

President Trump tweets his key decision to oust State Secretary Rex Tillerson due to intense disagreement over diplomatic affairs. President Trump tweets his decision to oust State Secretary Rex Tillerson after several months of intense disagreement over diplomatic affairs. Trump sometimes uses tweets to disparage the former Exxon-Mobil CEO's efforts at international diplomacy. Also, Trump nominates CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace Tillerson, and then Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel succeeds Pompeo as the first woman to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In fact, this strategic Rexit move arises as President Trump is about to embark on historic and high-level direct dialogues with North Korean commander-in-chief Kim Jong Un. Pompeo may initiate bilateral secret talks with the North Korean dictator to facilitate a smooth and peaceful transition to denuclearization. Pompeo has yet to demystify when and where the potential Trump-Kim summit may take place. Moreover, Rexit signals that President Trump often plays hardball on foreign affairs in the midst of substantial geopolitical tension and uncertainty. Tillerson indeed disagrees with President Trump on several fronts. First, President Trump insists on withdrawing from the Paris climate change accord, whereas Tillerson suggests that American should commit to staying in this accord. Second, Tillerson seems soft on President Trump's preference for supporting the current embargo against Qatar in opposition to Saudi Arabia. This latter geopolitical issue can affect global oil price fluctuations in the medium term. Third, President Trump and Tillerson further differ in their stances on whether America should pursue diplomatic solutions to denuclearization in North Korea and Iran. Trump prefers to extend the duration of economic sanctions on these countries in order to reach peaceful resolution, but Tillerson dismisses such brute force. All of these geopolitical issues affect international stock market development, economic policy uncertainty, and energy-driven inflation.

The Trump team blocks Broadcom's bid for Qualcomm due to national security concerns and 5G telecom network issues. The Trump administration blocks Broadcom's bid for Qualcomm due to national security concerns and 5G telecom network issues. Broadcom makes microchips for broadband communication networks such as wireless broadband telecoms, modems, routers, and switches. The White House takes an extraordinary action to block this major corporate deal that might inadvertently give China more influence in global technology. In an executive order, President Trump blocks Broadcom's $117 billion bid for Qualcomm due to national security concerns. There is credible evidence that Broadcom and its affiliates (such as China's HuaWei and ZTE) might threaten to impair U.S. 5G telecom network dominance and digital supremacy. For this reason, both Broadcom and Qualcomm must immediately and permanently abandon the takeover proposal. The Trump administration releases a recent investigation that China's theft of intellectual properties such as U.S. patents, trademarks, and copyrights etc has cost American companies around $1 trillion. In response, the Trump administration may introduce punitive tariffs on Chinese imports to dramatically reduce bilateral trade deficits. This deficit reduction can contribute to a better balance in the U.S. congressional budget for better mid-term election results that favor the Trump administration.

Peter Thiel shares his money views of President Trump, Facebook, Bitcoin, global finance, and trade. Peter Thiel shares his money views of President Trump, Facebook, Bitcoin, global finance and trade etc. As an early technology adopter, Thiel invests in Facebook and Bitcoin. The former connects people with better social integration around the world, and the latter provides a new crypto medium of exchange for online payments. Network effects breed positive feedback loops, whereas, there is a critical inflection point where these network effects fall over into the madness of crowds. As one of the co-founders for PayPal and Palantir, Thiel thinks it is important to ensure third-party payment security for safer cross-border finance and trade. Thiel supports President Trump because his economic policy reform helps avoid fake culture wars between different civilizations. Trump tax cuts and infrastructure expenditures help boost American household consumption, firm production, and financial intermediation. In light of antitrust investigations into Google and some other Silicon Valley tech firms, Thiel considers these firms in trouble as government regulation looms as a major business risk. As a serial entrepreneur, Thiel emphasizes the importance of ambition that transcends just making money for a company. Disruptive innovation not only replaces prior technology, but also significantly improves and enriches the economic lives of others.

President Xi seeks Chinese congressional approval for abolishing his term limits of strongman rule with better trade deals and economic ties. President Xi seeks Chinese congressional approval and constitutional amendment for abolishing his term limits of strongman rule with more favorable trade deals and economic ties. Foreign investors now activate their keen interest in Chinese tech titans such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT). Baidu specializes in Chinese online search; Alibaba focuses on international e-commerce and fintech solutions; and Tencent derives most revenue from Chinese instant messengers such as WeChat and Tencent QQ, online games, and other entertainment and lifestyle software solutions. BATs operate as oligopolies with competitive moats that manifest in the form of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual properties. Their high product market concentration serves as a primary explanation for worse income and wealth inequality in China. President Xi's strongman rule can further entrench these Chinese tech titans with product market dominance. This new Sino political economy defeats the western purpose of admitting China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) after the post-war collapse of the Soviet Union. China resists both regional trade integration and global economic order and thus often fails to comply with WTO trade rules on fair trade and intellectual property protection. Few mainland residents embrace democracy, economic freedom, and the rule of law in China.

White House economic advisor Gary Cohn resigns due to his opposition to President Trump's protectionist tariff stance. White House top economic advisor Gary Cohn resigns due to his opposition to President Trump's recent protectionist decision on steel and aluminum tariffs. These steel and aluminum tariffs target Canada, Europe, Mexico, and China. Some western allies may receive interim exemptions on a case-by-case basis. Through this abrupt tariff tactic, President Trump seeks to dramatically reduce U.S. trade and budget deficits for better mid-term election results. The former Goldman Sachs president had strongly opposed trade barriers such as tariffs, quotas, and even embargoes. Cohn serves as a steady man in the White House and attempts to push President Trump away from some of his most aggressive instincts on trade. In fact, Cohn would prefer the U.S. to keep the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As a proponent of international free trade, Cohn would support the U.S. to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In effect, these global free trade movements reflect the collective wisdom and combination of cross-border interests and efforts for fewer trade frictions. CNBC economic media commentator Larry Kudlow is likely to succeed Cohn as the Director of the National Economic Council. Kudlow may defend the Trump administration's gradual tariff tactics against China, Canada, Europe, and Mexico.

Trump imposes tariffs on steel and aluminum in a trade war with some exemptions for Canada and Mexico. Trump imposes high tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) in a new trade war with subsequent exemptions for Canada and Mexico. The Trump administration's Trade Act Section 232 investigation suggests that the main sources of U.S. steel-and-aluminum trade deficits are Canada, Europe, Mexico, and China. In light of both Section 301 and Section 232 investigations, the steel and aluminum tariffs seem to target China and the European Union. There are a pair of pertinent problems with imposing tariffs on foreign imports of this nature. First, this tariff tactic is a massive diplomatic gambit. In effect, this tactic may create the imminent risk of retaliation from multiple countries. Second, this strategic move inevitably leads to higher consumer prices from food cans to cars and airplanes insofar as these products involve the use of steel or aluminum. In fact, these price increases can feed back to fuel higher inflation in America. Also, American households and firms may experience higher costs and so lower disposable income. The resultant decrease in aggregate demand can be detrimental to U.S. economic output, employment, and capital investment. When push comes to shove, the law of inadvertent consequences counsels caution.

Fed's new chairman Jerome Powell testifies before Congress for the first time. Fed's new chairman Jerome Powell testifies before Congress for the first time. He vows to prevent price instability for U.S. consumers, firms, and financial intermediaries by gradually raising interest rates to contain inflation. Several stock market observers and commentators warn of the Yellen-Powell regime switch from dovish to hawkish monetary policy decisions. However, Powell seeks to balance the need to guard against excessive inflation with the real benefits of allowing the U.S. economy to enjoy the tailwinds of Trump fiscal stimulus, economic output expansion, full employment, and robust wage growth. The Federal Reserve now explores whether the U.S. unemployment rate can fall to the lowest range of 3.8% to 4.1% in 17 years before inflation starts to accelerate. In accordance with Powell's congressional testimony, the Federal Reserve's current monetary policy instruments include its gradual upward interest rate adjustment, balance sheet shrinkage, and 2% symmetric core CPI inflation target. Powell confines his testimony to the dual mandate of both price stability and maximum employment with minimal discussions of distributional economic inequality issues in America. With respect to financial deregulation, Powell expects to roll back at least some of the more stringent Dodd-Frank rules and stress tests on large banks and other financial institutions.

Buffett discusses Berkshire's cash ambition, its reinsurance business, and his succession plan. Warren Buffett releases his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders as of February 2018. Buffett discusses Berkshire Hathaway's cash ambition, its reinsurance business, the recent increase in corporate net worth, and his succession plan First, Buffett highlights the importance of *float* for insurance companies like Berkshire Hathaway, i.e. the company collects insurance premiums that have not be paid out as claims. Buffett and Munger can invest the float as these premiums absorb losses gradually throughout the life of each insurance policy. Because this reinsurance counterbalances long-tail losses, Berkshire can grow its float to extraordinary levels over time. Second, corporate cash stockpiles surge to $116 billion, so Buffett prefers to maintain this cash position for near-term mergers and acquisitions (instead of dividend payout and share buyback). However, Buffett considers most recent takeover targets with no sensible purchase prices at the current stage of the real business cycle. Also, Buffett emphasizes the fact that debt-free investors can better take advantage of short-term stock market crashes such as Black Monday in 1987, the Asian financial crisis in 1997, and the global economic recession in 2008. Berkshire experiences a one-time hefty increase in net worth by $65 billion or 23% primarily due to the Trump tax cuts. These tax credits not only strengthen Berkshire's current fortress balance sheet, but also allow Buffett and Munger to cast a wider net of potential M&A deals. Third, Buffett announces that Berkshire's next CEO will oversee company operations while the other half of this job will be given to stock-pickers who specialize in dynamic asset management. On the latter investment front, the likely successors are Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. These high-skill money managers both have successfully grown their assets under management (AUM) to $25 billion in early-2018. Under this succession plan, Combs and Weschler will thus continue the value investment philosophy in the post-Buffett reinsurance business structure.

Snap cannot keep up with the Kardashians because its stock loses $1 billion market value after Kylie Jenner tweets about her decision to leave Snapchat. Snap cannot keep up with the Kardashians because its common stock loses market value 7% or $1 billion right after Kylie Jenner tweets about her decision to leave Snapchat. The root cause of this rare incidence may be Snap's recent redesign, or Jenner's newfound motherhood. The former can be a real concern that her 25 million Twitter followers share in numerous replies. These empathetic users aggravate this deep concern about Snap's recent redesign adn thus echoes ambivalent Wall Street investor sentiments. Several Wall Street stock analysts point out that it can be more difficult for Snap to monetize the Snapchat business model in contrast to ad-income-driven Facebook, Google, and Twitter. In recent times, Snap initiates some smart strategic moves to draw a clear line between social interactions and media posts and video streams. In fact, Snap needs to manage this interim transition well as celebrity influencers such as Kylie Jenner are an essential source of high-quality content in the Snap recipe for success. With 25 million Twitter followers, Jenner carries a great deal of social influence over millennials. In terms of demographic attributes, the typical Snapchat user is between 18 and 24 years old and tends to have much shorter attention span.

Fed minutes reflect gradual interest rate normalization in response to high inflation risk. Fed minutes suggest gradual interest rate normalization in response to higher inflation risk. FOMC members revise up the economic projections made at the previous December 2017 committee forum. Many financial economists and market watchers expect gradual further hawkish adjustments in U.S. monetary policy. These hawkish adjustments inevitably entail interest rate hikes that help constrain money supply growth near full employment. In effect, these gradual hawkish adjustments help better balance the inexorable and mysterious trade-off between inflation and unemployment. As Treasury bond yields rise in response to this hawkish monetary policy stance, most major U.S. stock market indices such as Dow Jones, S&P 500, and NASDAQ decline as a result.

Several FOMC members remain cautious about high asset valuation and leverage within Corporate America. Numerous public corporations make productive use of debt and cash stockpiles with generous cash dividends and share repurchases. Also, excessive cash accumulation, high asset valuation, and incessant corporate debt usage breed financial contagion with little impact on real macro variates such as economic output, employment, and capital investment. This recent trend may or may not sustain in the long run. The resultant concern thus signals bouts of potential financial instability outside the financial system.

Andy Yeh Alpha (AYA) AYA Analytica financial health memo (FHM)

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We should not conform to this world, but we should allow the renewal of our minds to transform us, so that we can prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Romans 12: 2

[caseinpoints]

Massachusetts Senate passes bill that would eliminate caps on net metering, increase RPS

Leaders of the Alliance for Clean Energy Solutions, a coalition of business groups, clean energy companies, environmental organizations and health and consumer representatives dedicated to advancing clean energy for Massachusetts, issued the following statements regarding the passage of “An Act to Promote a Clean Energy Future” by the Massachusetts Senate and the recent advancement of clean energy bills in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

“Both the House and Senate have shown great leadership in moving bills to advance markets for clean energy resources through policy mechanisms like an increase to the state’s RPS, lifting or raising the solar net metering caps and various mechanisms to drive energy storage,” said NECEC executive vice president Janet Gail Besser, co-leader of ACES. “It is imperative that legislative leaders come together in the coming weeks to enact energy legislation this session. Together, these policies will keep Massachusetts in the lead as a clean energy economy, ensuring that a diverse energy portfolio provides reliable and cost-effective energy products and services for Massachusetts residents and businesses.”

“The Senate has acted decisively today to advance a bold vision for clean energy progress, including market-based climate policies and long-term GHG reduction requirements,” said Mark LeBel, staff attorney for Acadia Center and co-leader of ACES. “Higher levels of renewables and ambitious commitments to offshore wind and energy storage are key policies to address the energy needs of Massachusetts and all of New England. The House is also making significant progress advancing bills to promote renewables, energy storage, and electric vehicles. The ACES coalition looks forward to working with the legislature and all stakeholders to achieve a result that the entire Commonwealth can be proud of.”

ACES’s top priority is an increase to the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). The need for this increase is highlighted in “An Analysis of the Massachusetts Renewable Portfolio Standard,” a May 2017 report developed by NECEC, in partnership with Mass Energy. The report found that an increase, such as the one called for by ACES, could create thousands of jobs across the region and lower wholesale electricity prices in Massachusetts while putting the Commonwealth on track to fulfill its obligations under the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) to reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

Other ACES policy priorities, such as removing the net metering caps and advancing storage provide significant economic opportunity for the Commonwealth. Massachusetts lost one-fifth of its solar workforce in 2017 as a result of hitting net metering caps across much of the Commonwealth, a significant decline that could be reversed if net metering caps are increased. Additionally, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources’ “The State of Charge” report found that energy storage could deliver $3.4 billion in benefits to Massachusetts. Energy storage can also affect a 10% reduction in Massachusetts peak system demand and more than a million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions reductions over a ten-year period.

“By strengthening the already successful Renewable Portfolio Standard, Massachusetts has the potential to help businesses of all sizes, contribute to emission reduction goals, and put MA on the map as a competitive state to do business” says Bev Armstrong, CEO of Brazo Fuerte Artisanal Beer, and secretary of The Alliance for Business Leadership.

“Companies and investors across the Commonwealth have embraced renewable energy to help cut costs, reduce exposure to the volatility of fossil fuel prices, and stay competitive,” said Alli Gold Roberts, senior manager of state policy at Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit organization that works with the most influential investors and companies to build leadership and drive solutions throughout the economy. “A stronger Renewable Portfolio Standard will drive additional economic growth. That is why major Massachusetts companies support increasing the standard to achieve 50 percent renewable energy by 2030.”

“This bill fixes policies that have caused one of Massachusetts’ strongest industries to shed jobs and stifle businesses and consumers who want to go solar,” said Sean Gallagher, vice president of state affairs for SEIA. “We commend the state Senate for advancing this legislation, and we urge the House to do its part. By taking up key parts of this bill, the House can help bring thousands of solar jobs back to the Bay State, unlock millions of dollars of investment currently in limbo, and prevent consumers from being charged discriminatory fees when they embrace solar and other renewables.”

“The Senate today passed a bill that would leap Massachusetts back into contention as a national leader on clean energy,” said Sean Garren, Northeast senior director for Vote Solar. “By setting a higher bar for renewable energy and removing barriers to citizens’ right to choose solar, the bill will put thousands to work delivering cleaner air, a safer climate and stronger local economies. Vote Solar applauds the Senate’s leadership on climate and clean energy and urges to House to swiftly act on this critical legislation. The Senate, with particular support from its Ways and Means Committee and Senators Pacheco and Barrett, has shown the type of bold leadership needed to ensure Massachusetts continues to put citizens to work in the clean energy sector reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The bill builds significantly on the strength of legislation approved last month by the Joint Telecommunications Utilities and Energy Committee. We are now hopeful that a majority of both branches can reach agreement on provisions vital to maintaining the Commonwealth’s nation-leading position on solar energy and get this legislation to Governor Baker’s desk.”

News item from ACES 

The post Massachusetts Senate passes bill that would eliminate caps on net metering, increase RPS appeared first on Solar Power World.

[silviajburke]

Donald Trump’s Very Own Big, Fat, Ugly Bubble

This post Donald Trump’s Very Own Big, Fat, Ugly Bubble appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[Urgent Note: David Stockman warns that the nation’s future and a massive debt ceiling hangs in the balance as Wall Street’s peak bull stocks carry on. The economist is on a mission to send his new book TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… and How to Bring It Back out to every American who responds, absolutely free. Click here for more details.]

The overwhelming source of what ails America economically is found in the Eccles Building. During the past three decades the Federal Reserve has fostered destructive financial mutations on Wall Street and Main Street.

Bubble Finance policies have fueled an egregious financial engineering by the C-suites of corporate America. This bubble has skyrocketed to the tune of $15 trillion of stock buybacks, debt-fueled mergers deals and buyouts of the last decade.

The Fed fostered a borrowing binge in the household sector after the 1980s. It eventually resulted in Peak Debt and $15 trillion in debilitating debts on the homes, cars, incomes and futures of what used to be middle class America.

It also led politicians down the path of free lunch fiscal policy. By monetizing $4.2 trillion of Treasury and GSE debt during the last three decades, the Fed numbed the US economy from effects of crowding out and rising interest rates that would have come from soaring government deficits. This left the public sector impaled on Peak Debt.

Ever since Alan Greenspan launched Bubble Finance in the fall of 1987, public debt outstanding has increased by nearly 9 times. Measured against national output, the Federal debt ratio has risen from 47% to 106% of GDP.

These actions have stripped-mined balance sheets and cash flow from main street businesses. The Fed has stifled economic growth while delivering multi-trillion windfalls into the hands of a few thousand speculators on Wall Street.

These rippling waves of financial mutation are why the US economy is visibly failing and why vast numbers of citizens in Flyover America voted for Donald Trump for president.

Ironically, even as he stumbled to his victory on November 8, Trump barely recognized that the force behind all the economic failure that he railed against was the nation’s rogue central bank.

Only when it occurred to him that Janet Yellen was doing everything possible to insure Clinton’s victory did he let loose an attack on the Fed. In his famous warning, he leveled that America was threatened by a big, fat, ugly bubble.

Unfortunately, there was never even a hint of policy content behind this campaign statement. It said nothing of a coherent plan to liberate the American economy from the nation’s central bank.

When Wall Street launched a phony Trump Reflation trade during the wee hours of election night, the Donald forgot all about the great bubble. In fact, he quickly embraced it as a sign that investors were enthusiastically embracing Trump-O-Nomics.

No new arrival in the Oval Office was ever more mistaken. The gambling halls of Wall Street were a clear and present danger to his presidency, but Trump had only a small window of time for a counter-strategy.

He needed to quickly puncture the bubble, not embrace it; and his first, second and third actions on the economic policy front should have been to clean house at the Fed. He should have named names and insured that the current Fed incumbents get the blame when the inflated stock and bond markets finally implode.

All the tools were there. The Fed had three vacancies out of seven seats on the Board, and he could have cleared more by demanding the resignation of Janet Yellen and Stanley Fischer from day one.

Instead, the Donald got off-track from the get-go with aiming his efforts against immigrants and refugees; nonsense about the Mexican border; and the hideously bloated Pentagon budget.

While all of that was bad, the Donald’s fatal error was delegating economic policy to Wall Street errand boys. Trump handed economic power to Steve Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross and Goldman Sachs’ next-in-line gatekeeper to Washington, Gary Cohn.

These characters are a slap-in-the-face to the populations in the rust belts which elected him.

At the end of the day, the lines of demarcation are crystal clear. The Fed is Wall Street’s angel and main street’s enemy.

The Donald has ended up handing the keys to economic policy to a cabal of Wall Street operators, who have wasted six months doing nothing on the central banking file.

Mnuchin has even toyed publicly with the idea that Yellen might be reappointed because she has done a “good job”.

You cannot talk about reappointing Janet Yellen and making the American economy great again in the same sentence.

To do so is to voluntarily take ownership of the very big, fat ugly bubble that has brought so much hardship to Flyover America.

Yesterday’s announcement of an appointment to one of the Fed vacancies leaves nothing to the imagination.

After finally announcing a candidate for a job which will determine whether American capitalism can even survive, the Trump White House picked the absolute worst candidate available. Trump named Randall Quarles, a veritable creature of the Wall Street/Washington establishment, as his nominee for vice chairman for supervision at the Federal Reserve.

Randy Quarles is the former Under Secretary of the Treasury in the George W. Bush Administration. Before founding Cynosure, Mr. Quarles was a longtime partner of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms.

In addition to his record as a successful investor, he has long experience at the highest levels of the international financial architecture, having represented the U.S. for many years in the G7, G20, and Financial Stability Forum, and having served the U.S. as Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund, Executive Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Quarles spent many years working as a partner at the Wall Street law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he was the co-head of the firm’s Financial Institutions Group and advised on transactions that included a number of the largest financial sector mergers ever completed.

Do not take comfort from the fact that Quarles mimics the Hoover Institution’s version of economics. The notion that it’s fine to intrude deeply into the mainspring of capitalism in the financial markets and distort all financial asset prices, but it should be done based on formulaic rules rather than “data-dependent” policy discretion.

Quarles has professed an affinity for the Taylor Rule, a Rube Goldberg policy contraption invented by one of Milton Friedman’s disciples, and named for himself.

It should be clear to anybody not drinking the Fed’s kool-aid, that it is impossible to accurately measure the Fed’s goals for unemployment and inflation on which the massive $4.4 trillion balance sheet is premised.

How else do you account for the rampant gains in the cost of living plaguing Flyover America that the BLS neglects to even measure? This measure has caused those members of the Fed working in the Eccles Building to pursue even higher levels of inflation.

During the first 14 years of this decade the Fed claimed price levels rose by only 31.7% when everything households in Flyover America were buying to survive had inflated by multiples – in some case 100-300%.

How can there be “full-employment” at 4.4% unemployment claimed by the BLS and the Fed’s monetary central planners, when there are 103 million adults without jobs?

What Randal Quarles brings to the table is a vision of anti-market monetary central planning that is far worse than what has already brought American capitalism to its knees.

The Donald now owns the Bubble and has left his Presidency and the American economy squarely in harms’ way.

There is no doubt that they bubble blind and have no understanding of the rampant speculation and driven risk-taking their policies have unleashed in the casino. Even Barron’s last cover story made it clear that robo-machines, ETF’s and other forms of passive “investing,” have set the markets up for a thundering crash.

Needless to say, the Fed is only now beginning to apprehend the train-wreck that lies dead ahead. Thus, the June FOMC minutes were grasping for something dimly worrisome:

According to the minutes, some FOMC members acknowledged that “equity prices were high when judged against standard valuation measures.”  Some are even “concerned that subdued market volatility, coupled with a low equity premium, could lead to a buildup of risks to financial stability.”

Do ya think?

Does the Donald have a clue?

Regards,

David Stockman for The Daily Reckoning

P.S. A massive bubble has been brewing in this one corner of the market…

And I have excellent reason to believe it could start to pop as early as this August 1.

That’s just weeks from now.

This is URGENT, time-sensitive material, so I strongly urge you to watch this immediately. This peak bull event could have a devastating effect on your finances.

Click here now and see what’s coming.

The post Donald Trump’s Very Own Big, Fat, Ugly Bubble appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[edgysocial]

New Post has been published on http://edgysocial.com/donald-trumps-silence-on-the-fed-interest-rate-hike-speaks-volumes/

Donald Trump's Silence On The Fed Interest Rate Hike Speaks Volumes

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WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump loved to rail against the Federal Reserve board’s chair, Janet Yellen, during the final months of his presidential campaign.

He claimed that Yellen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, was refusing to raise the Fed’s benchmark interest rate to bolster Obama politically with an artificially inflated economy. By extension, Trump implied, the Fed was working on behalf of his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, who would presumably benefit as a member of the incumbent party.

“We have a Fed that’s doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed. The Fed is doing political ― by keeping the interest rates at this level,” Trump said during the first presidential debate in September.

“And believe me: The day Obama goes off, and he leaves and goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you’re going to see some very bad things happen, because the Fed is not doing their job,” he said.

Lo and behold, the Fed raised its influential federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point in December, and did it again on Wednesday by the same amount.

Only instead of calling out the Fed for putting the brakes on job growth just as he takes office, Trump has stayed silent. Trump did not mention the Fed during a speech on Wednesday promoting jobs in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The central bank did not even merit a measly tweet from Trump’s Twitter account.

“As has been practice for the White House in the past, we’re not going to comment on the Fed’s decisions,” White House spokeswoman Natalie Strom said in response to an e-mail inquiry.

Of course, if Trump’s silence is an apparent contradiction of his campaign-trail invective against Yellen, it is entirely consistent with his approach to disparaging independent government actors and institutions: He does it when it suits him politically. 

Prior to Trump’s inauguration, he routinely doubted the veracity of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs reports, claiming the employment situation was much worse than the official data suggested. But last Friday, after the first report on job growth that occurred solely under his presidency came out, Trump touted the numbers and clarified that he now accepts their accuracy.

Conversely, prior to taking office, Trump loved to cite the findings of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Once CBO panned House Republicans’ Obamacare replacement bill, however, senior members of the Trump administration were quick to question the institution’s analysis.

So too with the Federal Reserve.

Trump never offered any evidence to support the allegations against Yellen. That’s because the evidence is virtually nonexistent. Even Yellen’s critics consider her a highly qualified, independent central banker.  

But that wasn’t the point. When Trump was running against Clinton, it made sense to disparage Yellen. It fed into the web of conspiracy theories he was promoting among his supporters, many of whom were eager to believe they were fighting a system stacked against them.

Like Trump’s claims that the voting system itself was rigged, his bloviating against Yellen was also designed to undermine the legitimacy of the election results if he lost.

Now that Trump has won, it’s not a fight worth picking.

If anything, the fact that the post-election stock market boom continued uninterrupted after the rate hike means the Fed’s decision could be framed as a political boon to him.

“Maybe if markets reacted more negatively he would have had something to say about the Fed’s rate hike,” suggested Stephanie Kelton, an economist at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. 

Trump’s views on the Federal Reserve, like many topics, underwent many iterations over the course of his campaign. In May, he told CNBC that he agreed with Yellen’s decision to keep rates low, observing that higher rates could increase the value of the dollar and hurt manufacturing exports.

On other occasions, Trump voiced support for restoring the gold standard, which would likely dramatically curtail the Fed’s ability to respond to business cycles. In fact, he has surrounded himself with gold bugs and other proponents of hard-money policies, according to a lengthy new report in Politico Magazine.

All of those factors raise questions about just how Trump will choose to shape the Federal Reserve, which is also charged with regulating major financial institutions. The resignation of Daniel Tarrullo, the Fed’s enforcement chief, means that Trump will have the opportunity to fill three board governor positions this year alone. 

“If he calls me up, I’ll tell him he should appoint people prepared to let the economy get to full employment and risk a little bit of inflation,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Baker even argues that it would be perfectly appropriate for Trump to weigh in on the overall direction of the Fed without trying to dictate its every move. 

The challenge is getting Trump to adopt a coherent vision of monetary policy ― let alone one that is progressive, according to Baker.

“At this point, I won’t place bets on that. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

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Janet Mock: Sex Workers' Rights Must Be Part Of The Women's March

Janet Mock wrote a poignant essay explaining why it’s integral that sex workers’ rights be included in the values that anchor the Women’s March on Washington. 

According to a Tumblr post Mock published on Tuesday, the author and transgender activist helped create the march’s beautifully intersectional policy platform. That platform includes the guiding principles of the march and what it will represent. The four-page agenda, which has reportedly been edited since it was published last week, originally included the line: “Undocumented and migrant workers must be included in our labor protections, and we stand in solidarity with sex workers’ rights movements.” 

In her Tumblr post, Mock explains that she authored that line which has since been changed to read: “We stand in solidarity with the sex workers’ rights movement. We recognize that exploitation for sex and labor in all forms is a violation of human rights.” According to writer Melissa Gira Grant the line was edited multiples times in the span of 24 hours. At one point the line was edited to only include: “We recognize that exploitation for sex and labor in all forms is a violation of human rights.”  

I know sex work to be work. It’s not something I need to tiptoe around. It’s not a radical statement. It’s a fact.

Although the present draft of the agenda includes Mock’s original line, the writer, TV host and activist wrote a piece on Tumblr explaining why that line is so essential.

“It is not a statement that is controversial to me because as a trans woman of color who grew up in low-income communities and who advocates, resists, dreams and writes alongside these communities, I know that underground economies are essential parts of the lived realities of women and folk,” Mock wrote. “I know sex work to be work. It’s not something I need to tiptoe around. It’s not a radical statement. It’s a fact.” 

Mock explained that her feminism rejects the notion that sex workers “need to be saved” or that they are “colluding with the patriarchy by ‘selling their bodies.’” 

She also addressed the edits made to the march’s policy platform: 

I cannot speak to the internal conflicts at the Women’s March that have led to the erasure of the line I wrote for our collective vision but I have been assured that the line will remain in OUR document. The conflicts that may have led to its temporary editing will not leave until we, as feminists, respect THE rights of every woman and person to do what they want with their body and their lives.

Mock ended her essay on a powerful note, writing: “There are no throwaway people, and I hope every sex worker who has felt shamed by this momentary erasure shows up to their local March and holds the collective accountable to our vast, diverse, complicated realities.”

Head over to Tumblr to read Mock’s full essay. 

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