Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

That is it for now. I will be back later today to catch up with some other developments in the World Markets.

Enjoy your weekend !!!

BenjaminIs , привет! Very informative branch, a lot of new interesting things learned by reading the stream. Keep a good deal, I think many will this information. And for USDJPY has defined the lower limit of the support? And to what extent steam rises?

http://www.gold-eagle.com/article/ra...erinvestment-3

Snippet:
Exactly a year ago, the FOMC staked its zero-interest-rate policy with its first rate hike in 9.5 years. Gold-futures speculators panicked, blasting it to a dismal 6.1-year secular low the next day. The dot plot the Fed released at that initial hike forecast four rate hikes in 2016. How many did we actually see? One! The FOMC is bold and hawkish when stock markets are high, but quickly capitulates when stocks sell off.

Since futures speculators were so terrified of Fed rate hikes a year ago, I researched the entire modern history of gold’s performances in the exact spans of Fed-rate-hike cycles. Gold actually thrives during rate-hike cycles. Before this current one there had been 11 since 1971. Gold’s average gain through all of them was 26.9%, nearly an order of magnitude greater than the S&P 500’s 2.8% average gain in all of them!

In the majority 6 of these 11 where gold actually rallied, its average gain was a staggering 61.0%! In the other 5 in which it lost ground, gold’s average loss was an asymmetrically-small 13.9%. Gold fared best when it entered Fed-rate-hike cycles low in secular terms and they were gradual. Today’s started with gold at major secular lows, and there’s never been a more-gradual rate-hike cycle at one hike per year.

So it’s dumbfounding that gold-futures speculators so fear Fed rate hikes. Have they no history books? You’d think they could at least look to the last cycle. Between June 2004 to June 2006, the FOMC more than quintupled the federal-funds rate to 5.25% through 17 consecutive rate hikes totaling 425 basis points. Did that slay gold? Not so you’d notice. This metal powered 49.6% higher over that exact span!

Even if the Fed does hike three times next year, historically Fed-rate-hike cycles have been very bullish for gold. But just like this year, the Fed won’t hike so aggressively. As these euphoric wildly-overvalued stock markets roll over into an inevitable major selloff, the Fed will again scale back its future federal-funds-rate forecasts so aggressively traders’ heads will spin. This pattern has been recurring for years now.

While the gold focus this week is the more-hawkish-than-expected Fed, the real issue is the stunning post-election stock-market rally. Gold was faring well right up to election night, surging as high as $1337 as Trump’s odds of winning mounted! But when stock traders’ sentiment turned on a dime and decided that Trump was bullish instead of bearish for stocks, gold selling snowballed as stocks surged higher.

Gold has always been the anti-stock trade, as it is a rare asset that moves counter to stock markets. Thus gold investment demand for prudent portfolio diversification surges when stock markets suffer material selloffs, and wanes when stock-market highs breed great complacency. This has led the two dominant groups of gold traders, gold-futures speculators and gold-ETF investors, to dump gold with a vengeance.

Last week I dug into the extreme gold-futures selling seen since the election, which is slowly exhausting itself despite this week’s hawkish-Fed flare-up. So this week I’m going to focus on the extreme selling in gold-ETF shares seen since the election. The world-leading and globally-dominant gold ETF remains the venerable American GLD SPDR Gold Shares. GLD capital flows are absolutely essential for gold’s outlook.

This first chart superimposes GLD’s physical gold-bullion holdings held in trust for its shareholders on the gold price. GLD reports its holdings daily, in extensive detail down to individual gold-bar weights and serial numbers. GLD acts as a direct conduit for the vast pools of stock-market capital to flow into and out of physical gold bullion. Nothing was more important for gold in 2016 than capital flowing through GLD!

http://www.gold-eagle.com/sites/defa...on121616-1.gif

Leading into last December’s first Fed rate hike in nearly a decade, stock investors liquidated their gold exposure via GLD shares as evidenced by falling holdings. GLD is a tracking ETF, designed to mirror the gold price. Since GLD-share supply and demand is totally independent from gold’s own, the only way GLD can accomplish its mission is if excess GLD-share supply or demand can be shunted into gold itself.

When stock investors are selling GLD shares faster than gold is being sold, this ETF’s price threatens to decouple to the downside. This happened in Q4’15 leading into that initial hike, and at a much-larger scale in Q4’16 on that stunning post-election stock-market surge. In order to keep GLD’s share price tracking gold in this differential-selling scenario, this ETF’s managers have to quickly absorb the excess supply.

So they buy back enough GLD shares to keep GLD’s price mirroring gold’s. The capital that’s necessary to fund these purchases is raised each day by liquidating some of GLD’s gold-bullion holdings. That is real physical gold that hits the global markets, pushing gold lower. So stock-market capital flowing out of gold as evidenced by GLD-holdings draws spews bullion into world markets, exacerbating gold selloffs.

As of this week’s Fed Day, gold has plunged 13.3% so far in Q4. That’s definitely among gold’s worst quarterly performances ever, though far short of Q2’13’s devastating all-time-record 22.8% plummet. This post-election drop is the result of a combination of extreme gold-futures selling and extreme GLD-share differential selling. GLD shares have been dumped so aggressively that it’s vomiting vast amounts of gold.

Quarter-to-date, the total GLD draws necessary to buy back all these excess shares are running way up at a staggering 98.5 metric tons! That’s an enormous amount of gold, far too much for markets to absorb in such a short span of time. Rather interestingly, this massive GLD draw is running 2.2x that seen a year ago in Q4’15. Gold’s quarter-to-date drop is running a roughly-proportional 2.7x greater than Q4’15’s.

For two years now, and especially in 2016, gold’s price has closely tracked GLD’s holdings. For nearly all of 2015, GLD suffered ongoing draws as stock investors forsook gold diversification to chase levitating stock markets. Gold’s major 6.1-year secular low the day after last December’s Fed rate hike happened on the very day GLD’s holdings finally bottomed at a 7.3-year secular low of their own. That’s no coincidence!

From those deep lows where gold was universally despised, just like today, this metal would soon rocket 29.9% higher in essentially the first half of 2016. Why? The stock markets finally started to roll over on the Fed’s hawkishness, leading investors to once again seek some prudent portfolio diversification with gold. But most of that stock-market selling after the Fed’s first rate hike was delayed until the new year.

When stock markets rally considerably in any given year, investors with big capital gains often delay any selling until January of the subsequent year. That pushes their capital-gains tax liabilities another full year into the future. And the incentives to hold until January are far greater this year than most, since 2017 may see lower tax rates thanks to Trump. So there’s a big risk of pent-up stock selling exploding next month.

Last January as stock markets fell into their worst correction since mid-2011, a 13.3% S&P 500 selloff, gold investment demand via GLD shares soared. In Q1’16, GLD’s holdings rocketed 176.9t higher. Later the World Gold Council, the definitive arbiter of global gold supply-and-demand fundamentals, declared total world gold demand grew by 219.4t year-over-year. GLD’s holdings build alone accounted for 80.6% of that!

So without American stock investors flooding into GLD shares to modestly diversify their portfolios as the stock markets sold off, gold’s young new bull this year never would’ve happened. Unbelievably GLD’s dominance grew even greater in Q2’16. GLD’s holdings jumped massively again, soaring by 130.8t that quarter. The WGC reported that total global gold demand grew 139.8t YoY, pegging GLD’s contribution at 93.6%!

The dominant reason gold’s bull stalled in Q3’16 is because the shocking new stock-market highs in the wake of late June’s Brexit-vote surprise killed gold investment demand from American stock investors. So GLD’s enormous holdings builds in the first half of 2016 withered to a trivial 2.1t draw. Without that key differential GLD-share buying that had overwhelmingly driven gold’s bull, this metal couldn’t keep climbing.

In Q1, Q2, and Q3 this year, gold’s performances ran +16.1%, +7.4%, and -0.4%. These are remarkably proportional to GLD’s quarterly builds of 176.9t, 130.8t, and -2.1t. Given that precedent, it shouldn’t be surprising that Q4’s massive 98.5t GLD draw so far has resulted in a 13.3% gold plunge. The pain that spawned for contrarian investors and speculators has been immense, fueling extreme gold bearishness.

Every indication before the election was that a surprise Trump win would trigger a major stock-market selloff and thus a major gold rally. So the resulting carnage has been brutal, hammering gold, silver, and their miners’ stocks down through stop losses. The psychological damage suffered by contrarians in one of gold’s worst quarters ever is huge. I’m not cavalier about it after drinking from this bitter cup too.

But speculation and investing aren’t about the past, which can’t be undone. The greatest mistake made by most traders is to extrapolate current trends out into the future indefinitely. This is especially true when markets trade at extremes, like the stock markets and gold today. If you’d been 100% in cash through all of Q4, and thus had no emotional attachment, would it make more sense today to buy stocks high or buy gold low?

The horrendous gold psychology this December feels exactly like it did a year ago. The euphoric stock traders had just shrugged off the first Fed rate hike in nearly a decade, while gold traders panicked on it. Yet from the very week of that rate hike, gold would surge nearly 30% higher in the next half-year while the S&P 500 merely climbed 4.3%. The leading gold-mining stocks would nearly triple over that same span!

The entire trader community is making the same foolish linear assumptions today that it made a year ago. Traders again expect stock markets to miraculously keep surging from wildly-overvalued levels without any material selloffs, and for gold to keep spiraling lower. This universal belief has led to radical gold underinvestment. With stock markets far riskier, this is even more bullish for gold today than a year ago.

This last chart looks at a proxy for gold investment by American stock investors, the guys responsible for the lion’s share of 2016’s gold bull. It compares the total value of GLD’s gold-bullion holdings with the collective market capitalization of all 500 elite S&P 500 stocks. Dividing these numbers and charting the results over time reveals when gold is really in favor or out of favor, great times to sell high or buy low respectively.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/sites/defa...on121616-2.gif

As of the end of November, the value of GLD’s holdings was just 0.166% the market capitalization of the S&P 500. We only calculate the latter number monthly, but can estimate where this GLD/SPX ratio sat as of Fed Day this week. It likely dropped near 0.152%! That conservatively implies that American stock investors have allocated well less than 0.2% of their portfolios to gold. That may as well be zero it’s so low.

The last normal years for gold and the stock markets before the Fed’s extreme QE3 campaign levitated stocks and thus killed gold investment demand ran between 2009 to 2012. This GLD/SPX-ratio proxy of gold portfolio exposure averaged 0.475% over that span, over 3.1x higher than today’s meager levels! That means stock investors have vast room to buy gold again when stock markets inevitably roll over from here.

For centuries the world’s smartest investors have recommended gold allocations in portfolios of at least 5% to 10% for every investor. As the anti-stock trade, gold is the ultimate diversifier that acts as a hedge and form of insurance against significant weakness in stocks and bonds. It’s hard to imagine anyone with some understanding of stock-market cycles and market history totally neglecting to maintain a gold allocation.

A massive new gold bull doesn’t require American investors’ collective gold allocation to soar way up to 5%. Returning to merely one-tenth of that, 0.5%, would likely drive gold higher for years as stock-market capital poured into gold. And just like a year ago, all it will take to get investors interested in gold again is a major stock-market selloff. One is certainly overdue again no matter what wonders Trump works next year.

Stock markets perpetually move in great valuation-driven cycles, with bull markets always followed by bears. Stock valuations get too stretched in bulls as traders bid up stock prices far faster than the critical underlying corporate profits are actually growing. That leads to euphoric toppings that soon give way to major bears, which force stock prices lower for long enough for profits to catch up with lofty stock prices.


At the end of November even before this month’s incredible stock-market surge, the simple average of the trailing-twelve-month price-to-earnings ratios of all 500 S&P 500 companies was already 28.1x. That is double historical fair value of 14x, and literally in bubble territory! A major bear at least cutting stock prices in half is long overdue, but even a major correction approaching 20% is all but certain in 2017.

Remember all it took to rekindle gold investment demand in early 2016 was a 13% S&P 500 correction, fairly small as far as corrections go. They range from 10% to 20%, with anything beyond that qualifying as a new bear market. Sooner or later all the euphoria about what Trump and the Republicans could do will give way to the hard realities of what they actually can and will do. It won’t be as extensive as traders hope.

Republican Congressional leaders are already blunting the tax-cut and infrastructure-spending hopes, declaring they need to be revenue-neutral so they don’t balloon the already-staggering federal debt. And it is unlikely any major tax cuts will come before 2018 at the earliest, leaving the bubble-valued stock prices heavily exposed to falling profits thanks to the Fed-goosed US dollar. Stock markets are in serious trouble.

And even if Trump comes through with gargantuan tax cuts and huge new spending, this vast deluge of new money will lead to rampant inflation. This week the Fed already hinted at inflation rising, but what’s been seen so far is trivial compared to what’s coming if even half of Trump’s campaign proposals make it to reality. Inflation is very damaging to stock markets, and thus very bullish for gold investment demand.

So it’s imperative smart investors and speculators fight the herd groupthink today. The stock markets will not keep rallying indefinitely as everyone expects, and gold isn’t doomed to spiral lower forever. Once these euphoric stock markets inevitably reverse decisively, investment capital is going to come roaring back into gold for portfolio diversification. Gold’s upside potential in 2017 is much greater than it was in early 2016.

Comments from Benjaminis: I have decided that when I include much of an article that to highlight the KEY POINTS and what is to be learned from the material will be summarized at the end with my BULLET POINTS !!!

What we learn is that when the Stock Market goes up usually the MONEY will FLOW into equities and because of the nature of the the power of GLD both ways it has a major effect on the Gold price. Here is the part of this article that highlights this very important point.

"Last January as stock markets fell into their worst correction since mid-2011, a 13.3% S&P 500 selloff, gold investment demand via GLD shares soared. In Q1’16, GLD’s holdings rocketed 176.9t higher. Later the World Gold Council, the definitive arbiter of global gold supply-and-demand fundamentals, declared total world gold demand grew by 219.4t year-over-year. GLD’s holdings build alone accounted for 80.6% of that!"

SO by KNOWING this then we know when to buy the currency pair XAU/USD and when to buy or sell US30.

This again shows us trends and explanations and it goes to Risk Off or Risk on which happens in the markets at the start of each trading day.

Please post any comments or questions here on our thread. Thank You.

IMPORTANT UPDATE !!!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ares-on-monday

Snippet:

Taking Orders for Shares on Monday
by
Sonia Sirletti
and
Ruth David

December 17, 2016, 1:37 PM EST

1. Stock sale to end Thursday, said people familiar with plans
2. Price, total shares said to be detemined by investor demand

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will begin taking orders for shares as soon as Monday as it aims to complete raising 5 billion euros ($5.2 billion) of capital before Christmas, people with the knowledge of the matter said.

Monte Paschi will attempt to sell stock through Thursday, said the people, who asked to not be named because the plan isn’t public yet. The price and total number of shares to be sold will be determined based on investor demand and on the outcome of the separate debt-to-equity swap, the people said.
A spokesman for Monte Paschi declined to comment on Saturday.

Chief Executive Officer Marco Morelli, who took over in September, is racing to find backers for his effort to clean up the bank’s balance sheet. The failure of the recapitalization would be a blow to Italy’s sputtering efforts to revive a banking industry that’s burdened with about 360 billion euros in troubled loans, dragging down the economy by limiting lending.

The lender earlier this week extended a debt-for-equity swap that is one of the three main interlocking pieces of the bank’s capital-raising plan. The bank also plans a cash infusion from anchor investors and a share sale.

The offer, involving the exchange of about 4.5 billion euros of Tier 1 and Tier 2 securities, is set to end at 2 p.m. on Dec. 21. Monte Paschi, facing a Dec. 31 deadline to complete the fundraising, also will promote an exchange on 1 billion euros of hybrid securities issued in 2008 known as FRESH at 23.2 percent of face value, the lender said in a filing on its website
.
Italy’s Monte Paschi Playbook Avoids EU Law’s Sick Bank Strategy
Should the share offering succeed, 28 billion euros of soured loans would be bundled into securities and sold to investors, removing them from Monte Paschi’s balance sheet. The capital being raised would be used to cover the bank for losses it would book in selling the troubled loans. If the sale fails, the conversions of debt-to-equity would be nullified.

If the private capital increase isn’t successful, the bank would have to seek aid from the Italian government. Under European banking rules, any losses must be imposed on bondholders if taxpayer money is used. The state is discussing a so-called precautionary recapitalization that would potentially limit bondholder losses, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...y-in-collages/

Heading for the Electoral College vote in US State capitals on Monday and the above is background as to major problems ahead whatever the actual final vote;

Just to confirm this have a look at this at Democratic Underground where I recently got booted from as a registered member for gently stating my point of view.

http://www.democraticunderground.com...14&pid=1641989

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016173004

Snippet:

What would constitute an Electoral College "December surprise "?'
http://solartopia.org/what-would-con...mber-surprise/

By Harvey Wasserman


...."Until we have a transparent system based on universal automatic voter registration, hand counted paper ballots, mandatory audited recounts, and more, we have nothing resembling a democracy.

What we DO have in 2016 is this: Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes but is apparently leading in the Electoral College with official victories in five states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida) where he lost in the exit polls. Those vote counts were not contested by Hillary Clinton, and green recount attempts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were stymied.

Those wanting someone other than Donald Trump to become president must now persuade some 37 electors from states officially won by Trump to not vote for him. They must either switch those votes to Hillary Clinton or produce at least one electoral vote for a third candidate who would then be selected in the House of Representatives by a majority of the state delegations.

Such a “December Surprise” has never happened in US history. It would appear to be a Constitutional possibility. But the only certainty at this point seems to be that the clock is ticking.

Stay tuned."

========================

I know, I know, I KNOW...but I cannot let go of a miracle happening. Not yet.

https://mishtalk.com/2016/12/17/five...ke-even-twice/

Snippet:
On December 14, right before the FOMC decision I took a snapshot of rate hike odd and posted them in Fed Hikes Today, Then What?
Today, we compare the before vs. the after, the latter is from Friday, December 16.

Following that comparison, I present my reasons why all the expected hikes are not coming.

Market Expectations Before and After Synopsis

1. March: The market did not expect a hike at the March meeting either before or after the FOMC Meeting. Nonetheless, the odds of March hike rose from 15.8% to 25.3%.
2. June: The odds of at least one hike by June rose from 54% to 75.3%. Odds of two or more hikes rose from 11.5% to 24.9%
3. September: The odds of at least one hike by September rose from 70.2% to 89.1%. Odds of two or more hikes rose from 28.5% to 55.5%. Odds of three or more hikes rose from 6.2% to 20.2%.

This is a much more aggressive assessment that before the FOMC meeting.

Mish Expectation
I have been betting against rate hike consensus opinion for years. The Fed managed to get in one hike in each of the last two years, both in December, vs. Fed assessments of 3-4 hikes each year.

For the third straight year, rate hike expectations for the coming year soared in December, only to quickly die at the beginning of the next year. Expect more of the same.

Five Reasons Fed Won’t Hike Twice in 2017

1. Housing looks weak, and mortgage rates have soared. See Housing Starts Dive 18.7 Percent: Mortgage Rates Soar.
2. The New York Fed assessment is 4th Quarter GDP will be 1.8%. If so, 2016 GDP will be on the order of 1.6%. Three hikes? Really? See Nowcast, GDPNow Diverge Widely Again: What Happened?
3. The strengthening US dollar is hurting exports. See Trade Deficit Widens, Exports Decline 1.8%, Imports Rise 1.3%: Two Piece Puzzle
4. Trump’s policies risk a major trade war. My baseline scenario is Global Trade War Baked in the Cake: Boeing Faces China’s Wrath. Also note China Tells Trump “Nothing to Discuss” If US Drops “One China” Policy.
5. Retail sales weakened, led by autos. Retail Sales Unexpectedly Dive: Spotlight on Cars and the “Amazon Effect”

http://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=YM&p=h1

Based on the chart and since raising rates is negative for equities then it will not take much bad news for a reversal back to 19,000 and I will keep my eye on this on Monday starting at 9:30 AM

If so will short US30...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ops+to+zero%29

Snippet:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...7_world1_0.jpg
h/t @Schuldensuehner
Having retraced back to pre-Trump levels before The Fed statement this week, the combination of China turmoil and Janet's un-dovishness sent global stocks and bonds down over $1 trillion on the week - the worst week globally since May 2016 (when the dollar surged amid China weakness and slowing EU growth forecasts)
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...17_world_0.jpg
In fact, while US bank stockholders are ebullient at The Trump presidency-to-be, the rest of the world has lost a combined $1.5 trillion in market value across its bonds and stocks (thanks in major part to Janet's help this week).

PREVIEW OF THE FUTURE !!!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ops+to+zero%29

Snippet:
As hyperinflating Venezuela's latest experiment in monetary lunacy continues with president Maduro announcing earlier this week he would remove 75% of the physical cash in circulation by eliminating the highest denomination 100 Bolivar bill, desperate and cashless Venezuelans, angry that the government hasn’t exchanged their voided bank notes as officials had pledged, on Friday rose up in protest and looted stores across parts of Venezuela.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%2824%29_0.jpg
Broken showcases are seen after a shoe shop was looted in Maracaibo, Venezuela
Waving the now-worthless 100-bolivar bills, pockets of demonstrators blocked roads, demanded that stores accept the cash, and cursed President Nicolas Maduro in a string of towns and cities around Venezuela, witnesses said.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%2827%29_0.jpg
A man holds a bone and a placard that reads 'Maduro: communist, unhappy,
damn. Resign, now', in front of a pole covered with 100-bolivar bills during a
protest in El Pinal, Venezuela, December 16, 2016.
Waving the now-worthless 100-bolivar bills, pockets of demonstrators blocked roads, demanded that stores accept the cash, and cursed President Nicolas Maduro in a string of towns and cities around Venezuela, witnesses said. Dozens of shops were looted in various places.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%2826%29_0.jpg
People take pictures next to a pole covered with 100-bolivar bills during a
protest in El Pinal.
An opposition legislator said there were three deaths amid violent scenes in the southern mining town of Calla.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%2825%29_0.jpg
A man burns a 100-bolivar bill during a protest in El Pinal.
The riots were quickly put down, however, when National Guard troops were deployed to put down the unrest that broke out as far west as the Colombian border as well as smaller towns in the east, the WSJ reports. While many have speculated that things couldn't possibly get worse in Venezuela, they did over the past few days as the collapsing, cash-based economy suddenly finds itself without cash, worthless as it may be (one US dollar is worth between 2,500 and 4,500 Bolivars in the black market), and now with only nine days to go before Christmas, Venezuelans grappling with a collapsing economy and hyperinflation are also left without money. Only the Central Bank now accepts the remaining bill, and it will only do so until Tuesday at which point the paper money will be worth less than toilet paper, which Venezuela infamous does not have.
“Maduro is making a mockery of the people, and he has destroyed Christmas for all Venezuelans,” said Desiré Chávez, a 33-year-old clothing vendor in Maracaibo who had accepted the 100-bolivar notes until Thursday. “Now I don’t know what I’ll do because that cash is useless and my kids are hungry.”
As the local population fumes, the central bank office didn’t open Friday to facilitate the exchange, as officials had promised. Troops turned away nearly 1,500 people who had lined up starting Thursday night to turn in their useless bills, prompting angry mobs to block traffic and riot. Dozens were arrested.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%2828%29_0.jpg
Venezuelan National Guard members control the crowd as people queue to deposit
their 100 bolivar notes, near Venezuela's Central Bank in Caracas.
Unlike India, where the local population was at least granted a two month onboarding period to convert their old cash into new bills - which has also led to mass confusion and a sharp economic slowdown - Maduro gave his countrymen only days to turn in the 100-bolivar notes, which until this week was the nation’s most widely used bank note.
“There have and will be difficulties while we overcome this situation,” Mr. Maduro said in a televised speech Friday. He called the measure necessary to combat alleged currency speculators in neighboring Colombia and elsewhere that he blames for his country’s economic troubles. “I appreciate the people of Venezuela’s understanding, awareness, all of its support.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%2829%29_0.jpg
Venezuelan National Guard members control the crowd as people queue to deposit
their 100 bolivar notes, outside Venezuela's Central Bank in Caracas
Making matters worse, the new 500-bolivar bills that the president said would circulate this week have yet to be distributed, causing panic as more than a third of Venezuela’s 30 million people lack a bank account. Those lucky enough to line up at the central bank headquarters in the capital, Caracas, were able to at least deposit their money. They were given IOUs and told they could pick up the new bills when they are ready.
It is unclear when that may be, meaning the vast majority of those Venezuelans with savings don't even have an official currency to show for it, but merely an unofficial promise of repayment from the government. More skeptical readers may view this as a clear overture for full-blown cash confiscation.
“I don’t have a bank account, and they need to tell me what I do with this money,” said Ana Garza, a 58-year-old cake vendor from a Caracas slum who had been waiting since 5:30 a.m. in a line that stretched 18 city blocks on Friday. She only had money for a bus ride because no one is accepting the 100-bolivar bills anymore.
The anger was palpable: “I don’t have words for this measure from Maduro,” griped bus driver Ricardo Salas, 54. “How do you get rid of these bills without the new ones arriving? Buying groceries is going to be horrible.” Assuming there are groceries: as a result of Venezuela's hyperinflation and economic collapse, most supply chains no longer operate, and those businesses which still function do so increasingly solely on a barter basis.
There was some good news: the WSJ reported that on Thursday, the central bank received at least one shipment of new 500-bolivar bills, but it would take weeks for enough 500-bolivar bills to be available to alleviate the scarcity of cash. Without money, residents in the southeastern state of Bolivar blocked the only major highway in the region that connects the country to Brazil. Nearly 40 businesses, mostly grocery stores, were ransacked around the state.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%2831%29_0.jpg
Stacks of 100 bolivar notes are seen in a plastic crate at a stall in a street market
near Venezuela's Central Bank in Caracas
Faced with daily violent protests, the government was just as unhappy as the general population: “this has gone from a riot over discontent and hunger to vandalism,” said Erick Leiva, head of a local business chamber.
Maduro this week also "temporarily" closed the Venezuela's border with neighboring Colombia and Brazil, supposedly to crack down on currency speculation along the border, which he blames for the free-falling value of the bolivar, in order to deflect attention from the real cause of Venezuela's economic collapse.
The desperation was palpable for people like Daniel Morales, 28, a street vendor in Maracaibo.
“I have an 11-day-old baby and I haven’t been able to buy diapers, nor milk,” he said. All of the bills that Mr. Morales had taken to the central bank branch to exchange added up to 20,000 bolivars, or less than $9. A pack of diapers costs more.
What is surprising, is that despite Venezuela's complete economic collapse, and now effective demonetization, the country remains technically solvent and continues to pay its foreign creditors; we also find it surprising that despite Venezuela's de facto military regime - as we reported previously Maduro is now just a front for the army's control of the country - the population has shown tremendous patience and has so far refused to revolt, despite having little left to lose.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ops+to+zero%29

Snippet:
The Dow traded at a new high yesterday yet a lot of issues actually hit new lows; similar signals in the past have boded poorly for stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) didn’t quite tag the 20,000 level yesterday, however, it did touch a new all-time high, intra-day. And while it wasn’t able to close at a new high, the temporary touch is not irrelevant. It is especially so when considering the circumstances surrounding the high. We’ve discussed on several occasions the strange dynamic of simultaneously large numbers of New Highs and New Lows. This includes our series on the “Junkie Market”, i.e., too many highs and lows as well as our simplified version of the Hindenburg Omen which we named the “Akron Omen”. We won’t get into the theory behind such circumstance (you can read those prior posts for more color), but for whatever reason, an abundance of New Highs and Lows have generally led to poor stock market performance – especially when occurring near 52-week highs.
In this instance, there were actually A) more than 100 New 52-Week Lows on the NYSE yesterday and, in fact, B) more New Lows than New Highs. This is exceedingly uncommon on a day that the DJIA touches a 52-week high. It is only the 12th such day in history (yes, we should measure the % of Highs and Lows rather than the absolute “100″ number, but that is what we are using for this study).
http://68.media.tumblr.com/02e569f8c...sq14jh_500.jpg

From a glance at the chart, it is easy to see that the 11 precedents occurred at quite inauspicious moments in the market. Here are the exact dates:

1. 7/21/1998
2. 8 dates between 12/3/1999-1/3/2000
3. 7/20/2007
4. 12/8/2014
5. 12/15/2016

Lumping the 1999-2000 events together, all 4 prior signals occurred essentially at cyclical, or major intermediate-term market tops (though, while there was little upside, the 2014 instance took several more months to top). From a statistical standpoint, the forward returns in the DJIA were predictably, and consistently, horrible:
http://68.media.tumblr.com/392254ab8...sq14jh_500.jpg

Will results be different this time? We don’t know. The internals do seem a bit stronger presently than at most of those prior junctures. Also, the abundance of bond-type funds on the NYSE has not helped the New Low situation as yields have spiked. Although, there has been a substantial number of such issues throughout the entire study period. Plus, yields were spiking in similar fashion in 1999-2000 and 2007.
So time will tell if this new high ends up being the top of the mountain like it has in previous instances.
* * *

BAN ON CASH IN INDIA on 500 Rupee and 1000 Rupee so here is what people do. It is very fascinating !!!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...cash-ban-chaos

Snippet:

Money-laundering networks promise to deliver clean cash by routing it through India’s hinterlands. One method relies on high-turnover businesses, such as trading houses or manufacturing operations, which report cash revenue to the government. With their sales disrupted by millions of Indians’ sudden inability to access cash, these businesses can make up the shortfalls by accepting old cash from money-laundering networks, calling it revenue, and then returning a portion -- typically 50 percent of the total -- in new notes.

Ashok from Mumbai, who didn’t want to disclose his full name due to the illegality of the transaction, said that a lawyer he contacted after the Nov. 8 cash ban put him in touch with a cash-reliant business in the state of Rajasthan, which has operations in both garment manufacturing and jewelry. He plans to give the business 200 million rupees ($2.9 million) worth of banned notes he obtained from selling property, he said, and expects to get just 100 million back in brand-new notes.

"All I want to do is save as much as I can of this money,” said Ashok, who didn’t pay taxes on the money and said he’s still deciding whether to declare his new notes. "This is money from a real estate transaction, which I have been holding onto for future investments."
A lawyer who is part of a money-laundering network in Mumbai confirmed on condition of not being identified that most people looking for help are willing to lose as much as 50 percent of the value of the currency. A proposed change to the tax law, which passed the lower house of Parliament on Nov. 29, would levy a 50 percent penalty on unexplained bank deposits.

Tribal Exemptions
Other laundering networks focus on bringing the money into the system through the bank accounts of people with tax exemptions, such as farmers or those who derive income from agricultural activities, the lawyer said. Certain tribal communities in India’s northeastern states, including Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura, are exempted from paying taxes on income from any sources.

Some of the operators are turning to the hawala system -- which is based on trust or family connections and operates using the mispricing of goods, financial loopholes and hidden accounting procedures to take in cash in one location and pick it up in another -- active in India for decades. By using the hawala networks, agents offer to replace old currency notes with new and offer services to pick up the money in remote locations, the lawyer said.
Individuals are transporting millions of rupees on trains or vehicles, and the big money-laundering networks have been chartering flights to transport crateloads of cash to India’s northeast from small airfields, the lawyer said.

AND NOW Australia !!!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ithin-10-years

Snippet:
AU News reports Government Floats $100 Note Removal.
SAY goodbye to the $100 note.

Australia looks set to follow in the footsteps of Venezuela and India by abolishing the countrys highest-denomination banknote in a bid to crack down on the black economy.

Speaking to ABC radio on Wednesday, Revenue and Financial Services Minister Kelly ODwyer flagged a review of the $100 note and cash payments over certain limits as the government looks to recoup billions in unpaid tax.

The whole point of this crackdown on the black economy is to make sure we close down any potential loopholes, she said. Despite the broad use of electronic forms of payment, Ms ODwyer warned there are three times as many $100 notes in circulation than $5 notes.

It does beg the question, Why? she said.

There are currently 300 million $100 notes in circulation, and 92 per cent of all currency by value is in $50 and $100 notes.

A report by UBS recommended Australia scrap the $100 note. According to UBS, benefits may include reduced crime (difficult to monetise), increased tax revenue (fewer cash transactions) and reduced welfare fraud (claiming welfare while earning or hoarding cash).

From the banks perspective there would likely be a spike in deposits if all the $100 notes were deposited into banks (ignoring hoarded $50 notes), household deposits would rise around four per cent, the report said.
Why?
Financial Services Minister Kelly ODwyer notes there are currently 300 million $100 notes in circulation, and 92 per cent of all currency by value is in $50 and $100 notes.
It does beg the question, Why? she asked.

It would behoove ODwyer to think. People can have 100 pennies in their pocket (each of which is nearly worthless) or they can hold a dollar.
Similarly, people can hold a stack of ten $10 notes in their wallet or they can hold a $100 note.
Mathematically it makes perfect sense that 92 per cent of all currency by value is in $50 and $100 notes.
What the hell does $1 buy these days? Is someone going to carry a wad of fifty $1 notes to go to a movie and buy popcorn?

No Cash Within 10 Years?
Rest assured this will not stop with $100 notes. There will no cash within ten years.
* * *

But as Bloomberg reports, try as everyone may, cash registers are still bursting with paper bills and metal coins. Cash is alive and well, according to a new study of the spending habits of more than 18,000 people in seven countries.
Many have predicted and espoused the view that cash is increasingly disappearing as a payment instrument, the authors write. However, to paraphrase Mark Twain, we would say that the reports of the death of cash have been greatly exaggerated.

The value of dollars and euros in circulation has doubled since 2005, to $1.48 trillion and 1.1 trillion, respectively. Some of that growth can be explained by demand for these currencies in foreign countries, but theres also plenty of evidence that Europeans and Americans are still carrying around wads of cash.

The new research crunches and compares data on payment choices in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S. The study shows notable differences among these countries: Germans and Austrians carry around and use the most cash; the Dutch love debit cards; paper checks are still relatively common in France and the U.S.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...61214_1001.jpg
The bottom line, however, is that consumers in all seven countries use cash more often than they use any other payment method. Cash is least popular in the U.S., where its used for 46 percent of all transactions, vs. 26 percent for debit cards and 19 percent for credit cards.


In the USA they have printed TRILLIONS so there is a lack of actual cash to give to people so they might do the same in the future. Look at the charts again.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...61214_1001.jpg

AND NOW FOR THE TRUTH !!!

https://mises.org/library/war-cash-why-now

Snippet:
Why They Hate Cash in Hand
The first reason: physical cash has the potential to evade both taxes as well as officially sanctioned theft via bail-ins and negative interest rates. In short, physical cash is extremely difficult for governments to steal.
Some of you may find the word theft harsh or even offensive. But we must differentiate between taxes which are levied to pay for the states programs that in principle benefit all citizens and bail-ins, i.e., the taking of depositors cash to bail out banks that became insolvent through the actions of the banks management, not the actions of depositors.

Bail-ins are theft, pure and simple. Since the government enforces the taking, it is officially sanctioned theft, but theft nonetheless.

Negative interest rates are another form of officially sanctioned theft. In a world without the financial repression of zero-interest rates (ZIRP central banks most beloved policy), lenders would charge borrowers enough interest to pay depositors for the use of their cash and earn the lender a profit.
If borrowers are paying interest, negative interest rates are theft, pure and simple.

Why are governments suddenly so keen to ban physical cash? The answer appears to be that the banks and government authorities are anticipating bail-ins, steeply negative interest rates and hefty fees on cash, and they want to close any opening regular depositors might have to escape these forms of officially sanctioned theft. The escape mechanism from bail-ins and fees on cash deposits is physical cash, and hence the sudden flurry of calls to eliminate cash as a relic of a bygone age that is, an age when commoners had some way to safeguard their money from bail-ins and bankers control.

Forcing Those With Cash To Spend or Gamble Their Cash
Negative interest rates (and fees on cash, which are equivalently punitive to savers) raise another question: why are governments suddenly obsessed with forcing owners of cash to either spend it or gamble it in the financial-market casinos?

The conventional answer voiced by Mr. Buiter is that recession and credit contraction result from households and enterprises hoarding cash instead of spending it. The solution to recession is thus to force all those stingy cash hoarders to spend their money.
There are three enormous flaws in this thinking.

One is that households and businesses have cash to hoard. The reality is the bottom 90 percent of households have less income now than they did fifteen years ago, which means their spending has declined not from hoarding but from declining income.
https://mises.org/sites/default/file...?itok=-a1xCS6L

While corporate America has basked in the glory of sharply rising profits, small business has not prospered in the same fashion. Indeed, by some measures, small business has been in a six-year recession.
https://mises.org/sites/default/file...?itok=uVklHuqP

The bottom 90 percent has less income and faces higher living expenses, so only the top slice of households has any substantial cash. This top slice may see few safe opportunities to invest their savings, so they choose to keep their savings in cash rather than gamble it in a rigged casino (i.e., the stock market).
The second flaw is that hoarding cash is the only rational, prudent response in an era of financial repression and economic insecurity. What central banks are demanding that we spend every penny of our earnings rather than save some for investments we control or emergencies is counter to our best interests.

A War on Cash Is a War on Capital
This leads to the third flaw: capital which begins its life as savings is the foundation of capitalism. If you attack savings as a scourge, you are attacking capitalism and upward mobility, for only those who save capital can invest it to build wealth. By attacking cash, the central banks and governments are attacking capital and upward mobility.

Those who already own the majority of productive assets are able to borrow essentially unlimited sums at near-zero interest rates, which they can use to buy more productive assets. Everyone else the bottom 99.5 percent is reduced to consumer-serfdom: you are not supposed to accumulate productive capital, you are supposed to spend every penny you earn on interest payments, goods, and services.

This inversion of capitalism dooms an economy to all the ills we are experiencing in abundance: rising income inequality, reduced opportunities for entrepreneurship, rising debt burdens, and a short-term perspective that voids the longer-term planning required to build sustainable productivity and wealth.



Physical Cash: Only $1.36 Trillion
According to the Federal Reserve, total outstanding physical cash amounts to $1.36 trillion.
Given that a substantial amount of this cash is held overseas, physical cash is a tiny part of the domestic economy and the nations total assets. For context: the US economy is $17.5 trillion, total financial assets of households and nonprofit organizations total $68 trillion, base money is around $4 trillion, and total money (currency in circulation and demand deposits) is over $10 trillion (source).
Given the relatively modest quantity of physical cash, claims that eliminating it will boost the economy ring hollow.
Following the principle of cui bono to whose benefit? lets ask: What are the benefits of eliminating physical cash to banks and the government?
Benefits To Banks and the Government of Eliminating Physical Cash
The benefits to banks and governments by eliminating cash are self-evident:

1. Every financial transaction can be taxed.
2. Every financial transaction can be charged a fee.
3. Bank runs are eliminated.

In fractional reserve systems such as ours, banks are only required to hold a fraction of their assets in cash. Thus a bank might only have 1 percent of its assets in cash. If customers fear the bank might be insolvent, they crowd the bank and demand their deposits in physical cash. The bank quickly runs out of physical cash and closes its doors, further fueling a panic.

The federal government began insuring deposits after the Great Depression triggered the collapse of hundreds of banks, and that guarantee limited bank runs, as depositors no longer needed to fear a bank closing would mean their money on deposit was lost.
But since people could conceivably sense a disturbance in the Financial Force and decide to turn digital cash into physical cash as a precaution, eliminating physical cash also eliminates the possibility of bank runs, as there will be no form of cash that isnt controlled by banks.


Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

Hello Fellow Traders !!!

I see on my screen that there are 48 traders reading my thread filled with information. It is lonely talking to myself so maybe a few of you will register so we can enter into a discussion and open up more areas of interest.

Thanks

Benjaminis

http://traderfeed.blogspot.ca/2016/1...ith-focus.html

Snippet:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q7aTPXnXS...cusRabbits.jpg
A topic that has arisen in recent conversations with traders is the importance of focusing on what has been making you money and sizing up those trades, rather than taking many kinds of trades throughout the day or week and watering down your edge. So often, the difference between profitability and unprofitability is eliminating marginal trades and trading more confidently with our core strengths. Perhaps most damaging in taking those marginal trades is that we don't accumulate those small wins that allow us to go after larger ones. It's difficult to build confidence when oscillating between winning on good trades and throwing money away on so-so ones.

A great way of focusing is writing down every component of your best trades. That comes from studying your winners over a representative period of time. How does the market or instrument set up for your best trades? How do you make your best entries? How do you optimally size positions? How do you know whether or not to get bigger or smaller in the trade as it unfolds? When, where, and why do you stop out or take profits?

When you write something down and read it and reread it daily, you cement it in your mind. As I stress in the recent book, you turn your best practices into robust processes. But they are *your* processes, derived from *your* success; not something handed down by a would-be guru. When your best practices become so automatic that they are a fundamental part of who you are and what you do, then you are ready to test out other trading with modest risk and find other rabbits worth chasing.

Many traders have the ability to win and indeed would be winners if they grounded themselves in their best practices. Instead, they lose focus--often out of frustration--and chase one rabbit after another, catching nothing in the end. A major turn in trading psychology is getting to the point where losing increases your focus, rather than erodes it.

Further Reading: Building Your Trading With a Solution Focus

http://traderfeed.blogspot.ca/2007/0...-solution.html

Snippet:
TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2007
Building Self-Efficacy With a Solution Focus
My last post identified self-efficacy as an important link between a person's goals and their ability to sustain action toward those goals. If we experience ourselves as efficacious--if we feel that we are in control of our destinies--we will be more likely to muster the motivation to do what we know is best for us.

In my co-authored book The Art and Science of Brief Psychotherapies, I wrote a chapter specific to solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT).The idea behind SFBT is that, instead of focusing on a person's problems, it is often helpful to identify strengths and build upon these. The psychologist using SFBT identifies what you're doing when you're not having problems; when you're acting in a manner more consistent with your goals. From those exceptions to problem patterns, it is possible to find solution patterns: positive modes of thought and behavior that can be duplicated in new situations.

Thus, if I'm working with a trader with discipline problems in a SFBT framework, I will review his recent trading with him and work with him to identify occasions when he *did* follow his plans and trade in control. We'll then figure out how he was able to do that and create a solution pattern from his own recent behavior. Perhaps, for instance, we'll learn that he was able to trade in a disciplined way when he traded a position reasonable for his portfolio size, took a break after losing trades, and clearly identified a market direction in his pre-opening preparations. We might then use a self-hypnosis technique to mentally rehearse these solution patterns again and again--until they become a more natural part of the trader's repertoire.

Research on SFBT suggests that the approach works because it directly improves the individual's self-efficacy. Here's what I had to say in my book chapter:

"Beyebach et al (1996) examined SFBT outcomes and found that the sole significant predictor of success was client internal locus of control, which reflects the degree to which individuals perceive that they are in control of their lives. The internal locus was positively correlated with favorable pretreatment reports of change and subsequent goal formation in counseling" (p. 96).

Pretreatment reports of change refer to partially successful efforts that the person made prior to getting professional help. By focusing individuals on what they are already doing to change and by helping them form clear, doable, positive goals, the solution-focused approach enables them to feel more efficacious, more in control of their own lives.

This, I have found, is the most effective means for helping people bridge the gap between their actions and their goals. If coaching or counseling focuses on problems and what people are doing wrong, it unwittingly reinforces the lack of efficacy. By identifying what you're already doing--even in a small way--to bring you closer to your goals and then gradually building on that, you increase your sense of control and eventually pave the way for larger goals and greater progress.

Positive focus, measurable and achievable goals: these are key to a trader's self-coaching and improved control over one's own actions.


RELATED POSTS:

A Solution-Focused Linkfest

The Most Important Question to Ask When You're in a Slump

Solution-Focused Trading

Hello Traders , of all the analysts that I have been following for the last 20 years or so, the one that has had the greatest effect on increasing my knowledge base is Jim Willie. He used the words NOT Politically Correct before anyone that I know of and his views are educated and he does not pull any punches. This article is from December 7, 2016 , 7 days before the FED rate hike with the projection of three more to come during 2017, which most likely will not happen.

When you have the pleasure of reading this article as I have you will understand why. I will insert my comments at the end of each section thinking about what major point that I want you to focus on and perhaps make it easier to understand. I would really appreciate feedback and comments or questions so I can know that we are making progress on sharing the information. This does relate to my knowledge of Money Flow and the risks associated with that.



http://www.gold-eagle.com/article/cracks-bond-market

Snippet:
Foreign USTreasury Bond dumping continues, and even accelerates. China and the Saudis are selling USTreasurys in a near panic. Foreign central banks liquidated a record $375 billion in USGovt debt in the last 12 months. An American disaster lies in the making from debt saturation, debt overload, and debt dumping. It is all denied by the Washington mouthpieces and the Wall Street handlers, as they lie. The USGovt debt default is within view, dead ahead.
One month ago in October tally, the USFed update of Treasurys held in custody revealed a frightening picture of foreign sales, big sales, even accelerated sales. The total amount of custodial paper had fallen to $2.805 trillion, the lowest since 2012. One month later, foreign central banks continued their relentless liquidation of US debt paper, as measured by the same custody account. Foreign central banks, sovereign wealth funds, reserve managers, and virtually every other official institution in possession of US debt paper, are liquidating their holdings at a frantic pace. They respond to domestic pressures with deficits to finance. They respond to the US fundamental situation, which resembles a Third World nation on a debt basis more so with each passing month. The next fiscal year for the USGovt is actually incredibly astonishingly on pace to surpass the $2.0 trillion mark in the deficit. Obama goes out with a bang, with accolades and applause from his fawning fascist fold. His dimwitted dowdy devoted followers even cheer the rising ObamaCare premiums, which they fail to comprehend as rising costs.

See the monthly Treasury Intl Capital (TIC) data for the month of September, the latest reported month. In October the latest 12 months (called LTM) had a massive $343.0 billion in USTreasury sales by foreign central banks. It recorded the period from July 2015 to August 2016. One month later, using the update for the September month, the LTM in USTreasury sales has increased to a shocking level. A robust frightening record setting $374.7 billion in offshore central bank sales was observed. It recorded the period from August 2015 to September 2016. Over one third of a $trillion in USTreasurys sold in the past 12 months, a continuing trend. Yet it is not in the financial news, not given importance, not given emphasis. This is hemorrhage. This is abandonment. This is near panic dumping. This is a glaring red signal! Among the biggest sellers of USGovt debt were China and the Saudis.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/sites/defa...ie120716-1.jpg
The great lie is that the bond buyers are from private demand, both foreign and domestic. The great lie is that the USFed is drawing down its balance sheet with selling to the private institutions. The great lie is that the recovery continues apace. All lies!! Bold lies!! The stark reality instead is that the many central banks are soaking up hundreds of $billions in official debt. The truth is that the US Federal Reserve, the Euro Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan are all increasing their USTBond holdings, soaking up the massive volumes of USTBonds dumped on the international market. The truth is that the USDept Treasury is ramping up the derivatives, engineering Interest Rate Swap machinery to create phony demand that soaks up the massive volumes of USTBonds dumped on the international market. The central banks are stressed, while the machinery is strained. The new Trump Admin will have a major challenge to finance the $1 trillion infra-structure projects. The USFed might have difficulty in monetizing the costs.

USTREASURY BOND YIELD ON FAST RISE
In a highly dangerous situation, the 10-year USTreasury Bond yield (TNX) is over 2.3% on a short-term steady basis. Control is being lost with interest rate swap derivatives, while the USFed balance sheet is taking on losses. A frightening yield target of 3.1% is presented for the TNX, with dire implications of bond market collapse. The USFed balance sheet is totally wrecked, with impact on shared profits back to the USDept Treasury and vacant funds for federal mortgage subsidies. Debt default is dead ahead, never mentioned, never considered.

Notice the scary prospect from the technical analysis, as a clear Cup & Handle reversal pattern for the TNX is presented. The top is at 2.3%, the current reading, but with a bob and weave above the breakout resistance level. The bottom impulse was roughly at the 1.5% level. The toxic target upon full reversal would take the TNX to 3.1%, with full wreckage of everything in sight. The elite supposedly sophisticated derivative machinery stands at risk of destruction. Momentum traders (aka the Mo-Mo crowd) notice the moving average crossover marked in the green circle. This marks a highly bullish signal for higher bond yields to come. It signals more gusto in the upward bond yield move, as though it has not already been with plenty of gusto. After some consolidation, lies on normalcy, and deception about return to stability, expect the TNX to resume its rise and gather global attention as the unprecedented abandonment continues.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/sites/defa...ie120716-2.png

Look out for the TNX to reach past 3.0% in the few couple months, which would be extremely disruptive and likely force an open crack in the USTreasury Bond complex. To the Jackass, it is inconceivable that continued bond yields upward could occur without open discussion and actual planning of USGovt debt default. The restructured debt, or better yet writedowns on the debt, would be coincident with the New Scheiss Dollar devaluation. In other words, the USTBonds would follow the new dollar down in value. In such a climate, dozens of big Western banks, and possible several Asian banks like in Japan, would go bust, and enter failure. Think bank failure contagion. The big US banks are buying USTBonds with abandon, the national icon institutions acting like a big animal eating its own legs, expecting to enter a sprint toward survival. The damage to USFed balance sheet holdings will be astounding. They hold over $4 trillion in USTBonds, and most were purchased at lower bond yields, thus higher price. They face huge losses, amplified with derivative leverage. All finances for the USGovt are in ruins. The USFed has been talking about moves toward normalcy. Not even remotely possible!

Comments from Benjaminis: This is not speculation as we all can see this happen in front of our eyes. It has even gotten worse in the last 10 days with the FED announcement on December 14, 2016. Very few people have the understanding to explain matters as Jim Willie does so just read and know the story behind the story and have your EDGE on understanding that many people do not have or even get the opportunity to read this comprehensive detailed breakdown of what has occurred and what most likely will continue to occur until it all blows up.

The Jackass adds that for the USFed to revert to normal rates, which would reflect the true fundamentals, the bond yield should be at least 8% to 10%, like Greece before the fire trucks arrived with Euro Central Bank markings. Maybe yields would rise to between 12% and 15% if not subject to intervention, as in with a free market. The annual federal deficit was $1.4 trillion in the completed fiscal year. Almost no true buyers exist outside Japan. The annual trade deficit is over $500 billion, another hemorrhage. This is game over, with debt default dead ahead. The introduction of the New Scheiss (domestic only) Dollar should shut the game down. Its devaluation due to the massive trade deficit would cause chaos, disruption, panic.

THE JAPANESE FACTOR
EuroRaj added some comments in a fresh unique perspective. So far in the after-glow of the Trump victory, no sign yet has been seen for the Japanese doing any large scale dumping of USGovt debt. In order to keep the Japanese interested in continued USTBond holdings, the cabal has to do two things. They must maintain a rate differential at the 10-year bond for the two countries at 2% or more. They must keep compensating the drop in USTreasury Bond prices with an increase in USD exchange rate versus the Japanese Yen. The Japanese are very important since they hold around $1 trillion in USTBonds.

The Tokyo creditor bunch hold more USTreasurys than the Beijing creditor bunch. Huge strains have been put on the USDept Treasury for its Exchange Stabilization Fund for to carry out the bond yield movement while engineering a USDollar continued rise. In fact, more accurately described, the USFed and their destructive economic fallout have wrecked most other foreign currencies. The USDollar is not strong, but rather the other FOREX currencies are dying.

Several problems arise because of such twin requirements. 1) The weaker JPY creates competitive advantage for Japan versus the EuroZone. Hence the EUR currency has to keep pace or else their growth suffers. 2) China will continue with its RMB devaluation which hits US companies. It cannot be labelled a currency manipulator when Japan and Europe do the same in self-defense standard policies. 3) Ford and GM will die and so will a lot of the industrial firms like Caterpillar. 4) A nasty backdrop is presented where consumer demand is in decline, despite all the financing tricks by the automakers and their networks of dealers.

Comments from Benjaminis: Now you can see why the USD/JPY getting weaker moving towards 120.00 must be reversed because of some of the factors pointed out in this detailed article.

GREATER LEVERAGE AND RISK
The leverage requirement has put the Wall Street banks at enormous risk. Big moves in the USTBond yield might put the entire USTreasury complex at risk of fractures, following the December monetary policy change a year ago. The human element in derivative room response could be at a breaking point. Any actual usfed rate hike could send the USTreasurys into a veritable breakdown. Beware of sabotage, with an official rate hike and forced launch of the new Scheiss Dollar (domestic only). Since the fake Fed Rate hike last December 2015, the big US banks have been more leveraged than ever. The are left vulnerable to precisely what we see now. The sudden rise in the 10-year USTBond yield from 1.5% handle in July to a 2.3% handle this week has placed tremendous risk on the entire Interest Rate Swap machinery, which maintains control in the bond market.

Comments from Benjaminis: This article was written before the Rate Hike and 3 projected hikes for 2017 which cannot happen without collapsing the financial structures around the world. The US 10 Year Bonds (Treasuries) are heading towards the RED LINE MELTDOWN level of 3% or over. It is happening on a daily basis as Money Flows out of Bonds and into Equities around the world before it ALL reverses as it MUST !!!


The next couple months could possibly break the USTreasury Bond market. An enormous amount of USTBonds have been dumped on the market. Such is the direct response by Asian nations in disgust for continuation of the bond and currency fraud, and refusal to enact the Global Currency RESET as agreed upon. The heavy bond volume in sales has put extreme pressure on the IRSwap derivative machinery. It cannot tolerate the unstable outsized movements.

The derivative control rooms are staffed by people, and they are dealing with uncharted territory, great volume, and an absence of legitimate buyers. The USTBills and Fed Funds futures contracts are indicating a rate hike at the next FOMC meeting, over a 95% chance. The USFed is rumored to be preparing the rate hike with language to indicate it is consistent with their plan, in reflection to the bond market reality, in the face of economic growth, in a return to normalcy. What total rubbish and utter deception! The economic recession is in its eighth consecutive year, and growing worse.

An official USFed rate hike might cause the bond market to fracture with gaping open cracks evident for even the most compromised bank analysts to perceive.

Worse, if a sabotage plan is being readied to sidetrack the Trump Administration, a rate hike would be a perfect one-two punch. The second punch would be a directive by the uber-bankers still in charge to abandon the global reserve status of the USDollar, which would force the USGovt to launch its own domestic-only USDollar. The Jackass has called this item the New Scheiss Dollar, since it would be devalued quickly and repeatedly. A new USDollar currency would render the USTreasury Bond as orphan, owned by foreigners. My firm belief is that a debt default restructure event would occur, with the US Federal Reserve at the epicenter of the bankruptcy event. Foreign bond holders of USGovt debt would receive 70 cents on the dollar, roughly what the first devaluation would be.

Comments from Benjaminis: Is this about to really happen ? I look forward to Jim Willie writing his new aanalysis now that the FED has surprised ALL the World and now it becomes clearer as to why ?

The only alternative is for the USGovt to lease 10,000 tons of gold bullion to create a new gold-backed dollar. So far the Washington NeoCon fascists have refused the Chinese gold lease offer, since control would be lost. The likelihood of the US Elite producing their stolen gold to aid the US nation is near zero.

They spent much of the gold on space fleets, underground cities, and simple investments like buying nations.

The derivative obelisk is like the Sears Tower, but made smaller at the base and much taller. It cannot handle the bond movements like strong gusting winds. A big derivative accident lies ahead, within view. Imagine the Sears Tower at 110 stories high with a fixed base. The USFed action last December rendered the base with smaller footprint (less area) and pushed the height another 40 stories higher. So now the New Sears Tower is over 150 stories high and with a 30% smaller footprint, thus tremendously less stable and more vulnerable. In the last several months the impact of the nasty Canadian Arctic winds from the lower oil price, then the nasty Chinese trade winds with significant bond dumping, have combined to put perhaps fatally dangerous pressures on the Sears Tower. The derivative supports do not care whether the winds are from the west or from the north. Any severe winds can wreck the structural supports for the bond tower. There are limits to the strength of pylons and buttresses, even to steel frames.

GOLD TRADE NOTE INTRODUCTION
The Gold Trade Notes for trade payment might be coming into view, initially with commodity transfers, later swap contracts, and finally gold-backed short-term notes which supplant the USTBill. One might think of used newspapers on the floor, or of the dodo bird. The trade might be made in exchange for either goods delivered or USTBills held. Detect a growing connection to finished goods being withheld from delivery. This is probably another sign of refusal of USTBills as payment. As footnote, be sure to know that the preliminary steps to the Global Currency RESET will not be laid out in full disclosure for public benefit. It represents a tremendous investment opportunity for the elite, which they never tend to share. In fact, the RESET might be well along before it is even recognized. End to EuroRaj main thoughts and open analysis, for which much gratitude is given. The Jackass believes a few critical elements to the RESET are in place. More details on DIP Financing feature is included in the September Hat Trick Letter report.

***A major hitch obstacle can be inferred. Payment in USD terms might be the clot in the artery. Demands might be for hard asset swaps, and the contract security from large scale commitment of commodities, facilities, and property. The swap trade is coming into view, a presage of the Gold Trade Note.***

The Jackass concludes the USD rejection could be lifting its head within a gathering storm, without clear identification. It is indeed difficult to identify all the elements when hidden deals at the highest level are underway, and friction is omnipresent. The Bobcat Corp rejection of USTBills at Pacific ports is a clear story. For every one story recounted, there are 10 to 20 not yet heard. My firm belief is that in Asian banking systems, they do not want the USTBills anymore.

The banks in Asia are trying to dump them in heavy volume, not accumulate more worthless toilet paper. Finally the sharp blowback from printing QE money has hit. The USFed monetary policy saves the big insolvent banks, but kills capital. The result has finally seen manifested in USD global rejection, or at least hints toward the same. Asian banks still hold vast sums of USTBonds. They are not going to announce the rejection, but instead fight behind the walls for better terms of payment, even as they pursue the Gold Trade Note for payment at ports. It is coming, like daybreak follows the long night.

NEW SCHEISS DOLLAR & GOLD TRADE STANDARD
In time, expect an eventual refusal by Eastern producing nations to accept USTreasury Bills in payment for trade. The IMF reversal decision assures this USTBill blockade in time, and might accelerate the timetable. The United States Govt cannot continue on five glaring fronts of gross negligence and major violations.

These violations have prompted the BRICS & Alliance nations to hasten their development of diverse non-USD platforms toward the goal of displacing the USDollar while at the same time take steps toward the return of the Gold Standard.

The New Scheiss Dollar will arrive in order to assure continued import supply to the USEconomy. It will be given a 30% devaluation out of the gate, then many more devaluations of similar variety. The New Dollar will fail all foreign and Eastern scrutiny. The USGovt will be forced to react to USTBill rejection at the ports. The US must accommodate with the New Scheiss Dollar in order to assure import supply, and to alleviate the many stalemates to come.

The United States finds itself on the slippery slope that leads to the Third World, a Jackass forecast that has been presented since Lehman fell (better described as killed by JPM and GSax). The only apparent alternative is for the United States Govt to lease a large amount of gold bullion (like 10,000 tons) from China in order to properly launch a gold-backed currency. Doing so would open the gates for a generation of commercial colonization, but actual progress in returning capitalism to the United States. The cost would be supply shortages to the USEconomy, a result of enormous export increases to China.


The colonization has already begun, with secret deals galore. It is very unclear what deals are being struck in order to arrange for the USGovt to have a proper gold reserve hoard, for backing a new legitimate USDollar. Meetings at very high level are in progress, with little if any popular representation, only elite members present. Failure to produce a legitimate bonafide gold-backed currency would mean the United States must proceed with the New Scheiss Dollar, an illegitimate fake phony farce of a currency. It would be subjected to a series of devaluations. The result would be heavy powerful painful price inflation from the import front. The effect would be to reverse a generation of exported inflation by the United States. The entire USEconomy would go into a downward spiral with higher prices, supply shortages, and social disorder. However, the rising prices would come from the currency crisis, and not so much from the hyper monetary inflation. That flood of $trillions has been effectively firewalled off.

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/12/17/aft...sheet-bullard/

Snippet:
Even a Fed dove! This could get interesting.

The Dow is titillating the entire world by verging for days within a hair of 20,000 without actually getting there. Hitting the Big One would be another reflection of what Trump had called during the campaign an “artificial stock market” in a “very false economy,” created by the Fed that had kept rates low “for political reasons.” The crowds ate it up.

He pointed out that “the only thing that’s strong is the artificial stock market,” which was “only strong because it’s free money because the rates are so low.” But there’d be a hitch: “At some point the rates are going to have to change,” he said.

“They’re keeping the rates down so that everything else doesn’t go down,” he told reporters when they asked him about a rate hike in September.
And the Fed listened. Now the Fed has raised the fed funds rate, after flip-flopping vociferously an entire year, and is playing with the idea of three more rate hikes next year. Even Fed doves are suddenly getting antsy, after luxuriating in eight years of ZIRP and six years of QE.

On Friday, it was St. Louis Fed President James Bullard’s turn. In an interview, he told the Wall Street Journal that the Fed should consider shrinking its $4.5 trillion balance sheet in 2017; it “possibly might be a good time to play that card,” he said.

During its five years of QE, the Fed has acquired $2.46 trillion in Treasury notes and bonds and $1.75 trillion in mortgage backed securities (MBS). As these securities mature, the Fed buys similar securities as a replacement to keep the balance sheet from shrinking. Thus, the Fed continues to be a powerful buyer in the markets.

This certainty that the Fed is buying assets infuses confidence into the markets and inflates prices. It lures investors into chasing yield in ever riskier assets with ever lower returns, resulting in low cost of capital for Corporate America. It has created what Trump called the “false economy” and the “artificial stock market” where financial engineering has taken precedence over investment in productive activities that would actually move the real economy forward.
That was the idea from the beginning. It’s the foundation under today’s dizzying asset prices.

Bullard would start by allowing maturing securities to roll off the balance sheet without replacing them with new asset purchases, he said. That would shrink the balance sheet. And it would make financial conditions more restrictive.



Shedding assets accumulated on the Fed’s balance sheet is the ultimate form of tightening. It would pull liquidity out of the markets and force them to stand on their own wobbly feet.

And he’s a dove! He sees only one rate hike next year. Until recently, he saw only one rate hike, period – the one we just got – and no additional hikes over the next few next years. But he’s ogling the balance sheet.

If shrinking the balance sheet is too radical for now, the Fed could replace longer term securities as they mature with short-dated securities, he said. This would make unwinding the balance sheet easier, once the decision is made. These short-dated securities could just be allowed to mature without replacement. It could go pretty quickly.

“My preference would be to allow some runoff in the balance sheet,” he said. But before markets could spiral into a paroxysm, he added that he didn’t think efforts to shrink the balance sheet were “imminent.”

He has been a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which makes the decisions on rates, QE, and balance sheet shrinkage. But next year, he’ll rotate into a non-voting slot. So he’s just setting some trial balloons adrift.

A few Fed heads have dared to suggest that they’d want to shrink the balance sheet eventually, possibly after everyone’s life expectancy expires. They’d want to raise rates first, and if the economy hasn’t fallen into a recession or worse by then, it might be time to think about letting the balance sheet contract.
But the economy might never get to where there are some sort of normal rates without a recession. And a recession would start the whole process of rate cutting and perhaps QE all over again, and the balance sheet might never be shrunk in this scenario.

Bullard doesn’t want to wait that long. For good reason. QE has caused enough distortions.
Shrinking the balance sheet by allowing bonds to roll off, while keeping the fed funds rate relatively low, for example at 1.5% by next year, would cause long term rates to rise sharply while keeping a lid on short-term rates. It would steepen the yield curve. In this scenario, the 10-year yield – at 1.38% in July and now at 2.6% – might go to 4% or beyond.

It would have an epic impact on Trump’s “artificial stock market.” It would cause all kinds of mayhem, because Trump was right: The epic bond market bubble and the stock market rally that has pushed all conventional metrics off the charts have been fueled by the Fed.

The effects of removing, to use Trump’s term, the “artificial” elements from the stock market could be interesting. We’d have to avert our eyes from the carnage in the bond market. And Housing Bubble 2, with 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 6%? That’s historically low and worked just fine ten years ago (it helped create Housing Bubble 1). But with the inflated home prices of today, it would mark a big reset.

Today’s equations won’t work at these interest rates. The fireworks could be astounding. But in the big picture, it would just unravel some of the excesses of the past few years, bring a hue of normalcy to the markets, and refocus attention on the real economy instead of wild financial speculations. Trump, as he was talking during the campaign, should appreciate that. Trump, as mega-investor, might get queasy. And Trump, as President, would be more than embarrassed to see financial markets sag under his watch.


The Fed already has plenty of reasons to move. Businesses expect their input prices to jump by 4.6% in 2017. Read… No Demand, No Problem: Inflation Pressures Surge

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ops+to+zero%29

Snippet:
Paul Craig Roberts Warns "A CIA-led Coup Against American Democracy Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes"
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../picture-5.jpg
by Tyler Durden
Dec 17, 2016 10:15 PM

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
This article by Moon of Alabama is not conspiracy theory:Read it carefully. Check out the links.


The below theses are thus far only a general outlay...

1. There is an "elite" coup attempt underway against the U.S. President-elect Trump.
2. The coup is orchestrated by the camp of Hillary Clinton in association with the CIA and neoconservative powers in Congress.
3. The plan is to use the CIA's "Russia made Trump the winner" nonsense to swing the electoral college against him. The case would then be bumped up to Congress. Major neocon and warmonger parts of the Republicans could then move the presidency to Clinton or, if that fails, put Trump's vice president-elect Mike Pence onto the throne. The regular bipartisan war business, which a Trump presidency threatens to interrupt, could continue.
4. Should the coup succeed violent insurrections in the United States are likely to ensue with unpredictable consequences.

No general plan has been published. The scheme though is pretty obvious by now. However, the following contains some speculation.

The priority aim is to deny Trump the presidency. He is too independent and a danger for several power centers within the ruling U.S. power circles. The selection of Tillerson as new Secretary of State only reinforces this (Prediction: Bolton will not get the Deputy position.) Tillerson is for profitable stability, not for regime change adventures.

The institutional Trump enemies are:

1. The CIA which has become the Central Assassination Agency under the Bush and Obama administrations. Huge parts of its budgets depend on a continuation of the war on Syria and the drone assassination campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Trump's more isolationist policies would likely end these campaigns and the related budget troughs.
2. The weapons industry which could lose its enormous sales to its major customers in the Persian Gulf should a President Trump reduce U.S. interference in the Middle East and elsewhere.
3. The neoconservatives and Likudniks who want the U.S. as Israel's weapon to strong arm the Middle East to the Zionists' benefit.
4. The general war hawks, military and "humanitarian interventionists" to whom any reduction of the U.S. role as primary power in the world is anathema to their believes.

Read more here...
The article is a documented and accurate description of a coup that is underway. The extraordinary lies that are being perpetrated by the media and by members of the US government have as their obvious purpose the prevention of a Donald Trump presidency. There is no other reason for the extraordinary blatant lies for which there is not a shred of evidence. Indeed, there is massive real evidence to the contrary. Yet the coup proceeds and gathers steam.
President Eisenhower warned us more than a half century ago of the danger that the military/security complex presents to US democracy.


In the decades since Eisenhower’s warning, the military/security complex has become more powerful than the American people and is demonstrating its power by overturning a presidential election.

Will the coup succeed?
In my opinion, former and present members of the US government and the media would not dare to so obviously and openly participate in a coup against democracy and an elected president unless they expect the coup to succeed.

It is an easy matter for the ruling interests to bribe electors to vote differently than their states. The cost of the bribes is miniscule compared to the wealth and income streams that a trillion dollar annual budget provides to the military/security complex. The fake news of a Putin/Trump election-stealing plot generated by unsupported allegations of present and former members of US intelligence, the lame-duck President Obama, and the presstitute media provide the cover for electors to break with precedent “in order to save America from a Russian stooge.”

The CIA-controlled European media, the politicians in Washington’s European vassal states, NATO officials, and the brainwashed European peoples will support the coup against Trump.

The only ones speaking against the coup are the voters who elected Trump—all of whom are alleged to have been deceived by Russian fake news— the Russian government, and the 200 websites falsely described by the Washington Post and the secret organization PropOrNot as Russian agents.
In other words, those objecting to the coup are the ones described by the coup leaders as those who made the coup necessary.
I do not know that the coup will succeed, but looking at the commitment so many high level people have made to the coup, I conclude that those bringing the coup expect it to succeed.

Therefore, we should take very seriously the expectation of success that those who control levers of power are demonstrating.?


Comments from Benjaminis: Is this possible ? We will know by end of day on December 19,2016 and if it is even possible WATCH OUT BELOW !!!

Folks in the last article click on the link that states it is a credible possibility. I know all the sources by experience of reading their articles for many years and I sincerely hope it is not true however now I have some doubts so Monday could be an historic day. We shall all see within 48 hours.

My day is now ending and so it goes as We live in interesting times.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46056.htm

The "Elite" Coup Of 2016
By Moon Of Alabama
December 16, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Moon Of Alabama" -

1. There is an "elite" coup attempt underway against the U.S. President-elect Trump.
2. The coup is orchestrated by the camp of Hillary Clinton in association with the CIA and neoconservative powers in Congress.
3. The plan is to use the CIA's "Russia made Trump the winner" nonsense to swing the electoral college against him. The case would then be bumped up to Congress. Major neocon and warmonger parts of the Republicans could then move the presidency to Clinton or, if that fails, put Trump's vice president-elect Mike Pence onto the throne. The regular bipartisan war business, which a Trump presidency threatens to interrupt, could continue.
4. Should the coup succeed violent insurrections in the United States are likely to ensue with unpredictable consequences.

The above theses are thus far only a general outlay. No general plan has been published. The scheme though is pretty obvious by now. However, the following contains some speculation.
The priority aim is to deny Trump the presidency. He is too independent and a danger for several power centers within the ruling U.S. power circles. The selection of Tillerson as new Secretary of State only reinforces this (Prediction: Bolton will not get the Deputy position.) Tillerson is for profitable stability, not for regime change adventures. The institutional Trump enemies are:

1. The CIA which has become the Central Assassination Agency under the Bush and Obama administrations. Huge parts of its budgets depend on a continuation of the war on Syria and the drone assassination campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Trump's more isolationist policies would likely end these campaigns and the related budget troughs.
2. The weapons industry which could lose its enormous sales to its major customers in the Persian Gulf should a President Trump reduce U.S. interference in the Middle East and elsewhere.
3. The neoconservatives and Likudniks who want the U.S. as Israel's weapon to strong arm the Middle East to the Zionists' benefit.
4. The general war hawks, military and "humanitarian interventionists" to whom any reduction of the U.S. role as primary power in the world is anathema to their believes.

The current CIA director Brennan, a leading figure of the CIA torture program and Obama consigliere, is in the Clinton/anti-Trump camp. The former CIA heads Hayden and Panetta are public Clinton supporters as is torturer king and former CIA deputy director Michael Morell.
It is thereby no wonder that the CIA is leading the anti-Russian campaign. Its task now is to implant the idea in the U.S. public that Russian intervention skewed the U.S. election towards Trump. The purpose is the delegitimization of the Trump victory in the eyes of the media and public but even more so in the eyes of the electors within the electoral college.
The CIA is heavily supported by the same mainstream media that pushed for Clinton during the election. (These are, not by chance, also the same media that pushed the CIA's earlier "Saddam's Weapon of Mass Destruction" campaign.)
The Democratic partisan and Harvard law Professor Lawrence Lessig is pushing the electors and offersthem free personal legal support. He says the electoral college vote is now close.
Could 37 Republican electors, put there by voters in their states to vote for Trump, be convinced to move from electing Trump to abstain or vote for someone else, Trump would miss the needed 270 votes. The whole election of the president would then by kicked up to the House of Representatives.
Should the electors vote for Trump there is still a possibility that members of the House and the Senate could officially question that vote and cause delays or Congressional probes and legal challenges.
Here are the detailed general proceedings and specifics for the electoral college as explained by the National Archives and Records Administration.
Though neoconservatives have no genuine support within the U.S. electorate they have a strong hold on significant parts of Congress and the relevant MSM commentariat. Many leading neoconservatives and war hawks like Robert Kagan, Max Boot and the Washington Post editorial board came out for Clinton during the campaign. Clinton even ran campaign advertisements with Republican Congress luminaries like Lindsay Graham, Sasse and Flake.
The House and the Senate majority may well be on the anti-Trump side if push comes to shove. But whatever the outcome there surely would be intense legal challenges and I expect the case to go up to the Supreme Court.
As an alternative to legal shenanigans Trump's inauguration could be delayed by Obama's order to the intelligence community to create a formal review of Russian intervention in the election by January 20. That is not by chance the official inauguration date! The selling point:
By ordering a “full review” of allegations of Russian into the 2016 election process, President Barack Obama is essentially asking the IC to make an analytical judgment about the validity of the election that will place Trump in the Oval Office.
A "compromise" in Congress could be to wait for the Intelligence Community's analysis and then discuss it before certifying Trump as president. That would end up with no result as National Intelligence Estimates are notoriously vague. Meanwhile the Vice President-elect would sit in as acting President:
If the President-elect fails to qualify before inauguration, Section 3 of the 20th Amendment states that the Vice President-elect will act as President until such a time as a President has qualified.
If the congressional or legal process around the Trump election gets delayed, that may be a state for a long time. The ruling Washington blob or borg could well live with an acting President Pence while Trump would have no official say in any government business. (Could Clinton then become acting VP or qualify as the new president?)
The media intervention on the anti-Trump side is heavy.
But first keep in mind that there is no public evidence, ZERO, that Russia indeed had anything to do with the DNC or Podesta or other leaks and the publication of emails by various outlets like Wikileaks.
Craig Murray assures us that he knows that these were not hacks but insider leaks and that he knows the leaker(s). Indeed he now tells us that the emails were handed over to him during a visits in Washington. Former intelligence officials including the technically very knowledgeable former NSA official William Binney concur that the hacking story is false.
All we have heard or seen so far are hearsay rumors and allegations of evidence. To me as experienced IT professional the case is technically laughable just as Murray explains here. If the claimed hacks occurred at all the alleged methods were so common that anybody could have done these. There is not even one claimed fact yet that is technically halfway acceptable as evidence that "Russia did it".
But still the NYT runs a big package of pieces telling us that "Russia did it" based on the non-factual CIA rumors and unprofessional IT assertions by Crowdstrike, the self-promoting IT security company the DNC hired and paid. Before that the Washington Post published major claims of Russian interference by anonymous officials. NBC News now tops that with "intelligence officials" saying Putin himself ran the hacking campaign. Authors of the story are the long time insider hacks Bill Arkin and Ken Dilanian knownfor clearing his stories with the CIA before publishing. The next story will tells us that Vladimir Valdimirovich himself was punching the keyboard.
Many news outlets and editorials follow these "leads".
Part of the scheme the Clinton campaign has worked out was explained by a former opposition research consultant to the Democratic National Council, the Ukrainian-American Alexandra (aka Andrea) Chalupa, in this thread:
Andrea Chalupa ‏@AndreaChalupa Dec 11
1.) Electoral College meets Dec. 19. If Electors ignore #StateOfEmergency we're in, & Trump gets elected, we can stop him Jan. 6 in Congress
2.) If any objections to Electoral College vote are made, they must be submitted in writing, signed by at least 1 House member & 1 Senator
3.) If objections are presented, House & Senate withdraw to their chambers to consider their merits under procedures set out in federal law.
...
Editorials and op-eds in the major papers are pushing the scheme along. Just for example from a long list A.J. Dionne in the Washington Post:
The CIA’s finding that Russia actively intervened in our election to make Trump president is an excellent reason for the electors to consider whether they should exercise their independent power. At the very least, they should be briefed on what the CIA knows, and in particular on whether there is any evidence that Trump or his lieutenants were engaged with Russia during the campaign.
The New York Times editorial laments about Trump ridiculing the CIA fairy tales it promotes.
Many people who have voted for Trump would be disgusted and outraged if or when Trump will be denied his office. Many of them are armed and would protest. Violence is ensured should the coup succeed.
Trump selected four former generals to joins his cabinet and staff. Should the troubles escalate we might be roughly in for a scenario as laid out in the 1992 military paper: The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 (pdf) by Charles J. Dunlap.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy.


Benjaminis

BenjaminIs, Greetings. A good analyst, congratulations! Is there any correlation between the dollar index and the price of gold?I'm not speak English, I'm sorry.