Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

MY LAST POST FOR TONIGHT AND A GREAT ARTICLE TO PUT THE ICING ON THE CAKE...

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...g/#more-145503

Revolutions Are Bloody, But So Is Doing Nothing


Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts


Graeme MacQueen, a university professor in Canada, calls attention to the American left’s inability to exercise immagination with regard to the reports of the Warren Commission and the 9/11 Commission. A collection of individuals and publications, somehow regarded as leftwing, has proven to be active agents for the conspiratorial state against true dissent.


Here is the link to Graeme MacQueen’s article: https://truthandshadows.wordpress.co...eft/#more-4073

The United States no longer has a leftwing, and neither does Europe, Greece least of all, a country whose “leftwing” government has agreed that Greece’s creditors can loot and plunder the Greek people and the public assets of Greece in behalf of the One Percent. The British Labour Party is as rightwing as the Conservatives, and the French socialist party is more rightwing and much more acceptant of American overlordship than General Charles DeGaul.




In Germany the electorate has put in place as Chancellor of Germany a US puppet who represents Washington, not the German people. And she will continue to represent Washington, even if it means war with Russia.


The leftwing, once a force that attempted to hold governments accountable, has merged with the American Empire. The American “left” has now joined with the military/security complex to deep-six the prospect of detente with Russia. See, for example, http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/...st-reset-ever/


The American leftwing has joined with the neocons, the presstitute media, and the military/security complex in a common agreement that anyone who favors better relations with Russia is a Russian agent or a dupe of Vladimir Putin. And if you know enough to doubt the Warren Commission and 9/11 Commission reports, you are a conspiracy kook and are put on Harvard’s list of purveyors of “fake news.” Everyone who does not agree with the Establishment’s line is “fake news.” And this is in a “democracy with free speech.” What a joke America has become!


In other words, the “left” has accepted the neoconservative line that those who advocate peace with Russia, other than on US imposed terms, are traitors to America, including the President of the United States. Harvard University now has a PropOrNot type of list of suspect websites. All who favor normal relations with Russia are on the list.


We have reached the point that even for Harvard University,no dissent from hating Russia is possible. This leaves war as the only option.


Are you ready to die for the military/security complex’s enormous budget?



That is all you will be dying for.

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS:

RISE UP AND FIGHT BACK BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.... EDUCATE YOURSELF....

Just before I go to bed I want to share a post from a Forex Trader that reminds me of why I think the way that I do as you can see from many of my posts on this thread.

Read what this Gentleman has to say because he is very aware of what he does. I thank him for sharing on his thread on March 14, 2017.

 

1. https://cdn-assets.forexfactory.net/...ar398451_2.gif Sis.yphus
2. Joined Jan 2015 | Status: Measuring an Immeasurable Market. | 421 Posts

Quoting aaven
{quote} Thanks Sis.yphus for the insights. I am grateful for the unique of interpreting the markets. One thing: Your posts have great value and your interpretation of the markets is unambiguous. In a recent post you mentioned the kind of technical analysis you are partial to. It's really out of the box thinking, I am not talking about finding the ideal settings for an indicator or exploiting some kind of repeatable pattern like trading during a particular session or a twist to price action setups... You are altogether in a different league that...
This post is going to get a bit far out there and likely turn into a bit of a jumbled rant as its 1:30 AM where I am at, but you asked for it...

There is no innate talent or required level of IQ in my opinion. The only thing that separates winners and losers is persistence and a willingness to learn and accept the fact that there is always a lot to learn.

As Steve Jobs said, "Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry"

I am still learning every day. And I mean learn about all sorts of things, not just the market, but psychology, how the brain works, why we do what we do, spirituality, physics, quantum physics, politics, propaganda, why governments exist, history, why currency exists in the first place, morality, cycles that occur in nature etc. You need to study all sorts of things because everything is related in someone and there is always something that can be taken from this and applied to that.

I try and read 1-2 books a week and I learn alot from doing that. Most people don't read a book a year.

Learn about proper goal setting and how to measure goals. One huge mistake is people set goals like, I want $1000.00. Then they measure their progress of the goal based on how much money they have. They see they don't have $1000.00 and think I am not meeting my goal and I am failing. This is deeply flawed logic that doesn't make sense. If you want $1000.00, you should measure your progress of obtaining that goal by the understanding you have on what it takes to make $1000.00 and how you can make $1000.00 and what steps are needed to make $1000.00. And since you can never lose your understanding of something, you will always be progressing towards your goal, never taking any steps back. And by doing this, you will inevitably reach your goal. Once you start measuring your goals and the progress made towards them based on understanding instead of things like dollar amounts or arbitrary milestones, things will change.

Another thing, learn to become extremely self-aware.

And if there is one core belief you need to hold in your life it is this. Everything you do should be done with the goal of making sense out of reality. And if you need to be able to recognize when you are experience cognitive dissonance, as this will cause you to rationalize things that don't make sense. I will upload a short book that talks about this that personally changed my life. I will also upload a few videos that go into our brains and how they handle beliefs and why we do and think the things we think.

When I first started trading 7 years ago, I knew nothing of even the simplest forms of math. I didn't know how to program or anything. I didn't know about macroeconomics or even microeconomics. I didn't even know Central Banks set interest rates.

What I did know though, was that I would do anything I could to figure this shit out, and I didn't care how long it would take. I literally told myself, even if it takes 30 years to figure out, the amount of money you can make in 10, will be more than what I would likely make working 40 years at some regular job and I would be given the one thing that is most important to me, freedom.

I also know our brains experience what is known as neuroplasticity which is "the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury."

You can literally rewire the neurons in your brain by what you feed it, strengthening the neurons necessary to succeed in whatever it is you are doing.

I also knew that what I was doing and how I was approaching the market didn't make sense. It didn't make sense to try and technically analyze the market when I had no programming ability and couldn't even explain how technical indicators actually worked or what was going on under the hood. So I taught myself how to program over a period of 6 months working at it 4-5 hours a day (I have no life). Once I had some basic programming down I didn't stop there because I now knew how most technical indicators worked, and it didn't make any sense that these would be able to make one profitable over the long term. I then started to learn how to truly perform real statistical analysis on things, not just the market. I haven't stopped there either. I am currently studying machine learning and working on creating my own algorithms that I hope to implement into my trading someday.

I also didn't understand how the market was truly structured, what it is based on. How it really works, and what it is in the market I am trying to overcome, and it's not all the other traders participating. That is a load of crap. So I researched and learned about why markets are created in the first place and things like that.

I also realized I knew nothing about what is really driving currency prices. So I sat down and study micro and macroeconomics to figure out how economies really work, and why some work better than others.

I guarantee you 99.99% of traders on here will never take the time to learn how to program an indicator or even a simple hello world javascript code that prints a line text in your Google Chrome console, yet they will lose thousands of dollars trading them thinking they know how the damn thing works. If you can type a sentence, you can type code. 90% of the traders on here won't even read this thread because you actually have to freaking read it and think and make sense out of the information in it. You can't just look at a chart and make money. And ask yourself does that even make sense? Seriously, does it makes sense that someone should be able to make a living by just looking at a chart with lines on it?

So again, what has attributed to me being in the "cream layer" as you put it is my persistent to never stop learning and my belief that everything needs to make sense, and if it doesn't, it's wrong.

My god this post is all over the place, but I hope it helps. I will upload a few vids and pdf's that explain a lot of this stuff better and add a new psychology section to the first post of the thread.

I also highly encourage you to go check out a thread i started a while back going into our brains and the tricks it plays on us. You can find it here .

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a...nancial-crisis

12 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve May Have Just Made The Biggest Economic Mistake Since The Last Financial Crisis
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/w...icons/user.gif By Michael Snyder, on March 15th, 2017



http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/w...in-460x325.jpgHas the Federal Reserve gone completely insane? On Wednesday, the Fed raised interest rates for the second time in three months, and it signaled that more rate hikes are coming in the months ahead. When the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, it becomes less expensive to borrow money and that tends to stimulate more economic activity. But when the Federal Reserve raises rates , that makes it more expensive to borrow money and that tends to slow down economic activity. So why in the world is the Fed raising rates when the U.S. economy is already showing signs of slowing down dramatically? The following are 12 reasons why the Federal Reserve may have just made the biggest economic mistake since the last financial crisis

#1 Just hours before the Fed announced this rate hike, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlantas projection for U.S. GDP growth in the first quarter fell to just 0.9 percent. If that projection turns out to be accurate, this will be the weakest quarter of economic growth during which rates were hiked in 37 years.

#2 The flow of credit is more critical to our economy than ever before, and higher rates will mean higher interest payments on adjustable rate mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt. Needless to say, this is going to slow the economy down substantially

The Federal Reserve decision Wednesday to lift its benchmark short-term interest rate by a quarter percentage point is likely to have a domino effect across the economy as it gradually pushes up rates for everything from mortgages and credit card rates to small business loans.
Consumers with credit card debt, adjustable-rate mortgages and home equity lines of credit are the most likely to be affected by a rate hike, says Greg McBride, chief analyst at Bankrate.com. He says its the cumulative effect thats important, especially since the Fed already raised rates in December 2015 and December 2016.

#3 Speaking of auto loans, the number of people that are defaulting on them had already been rising even before this rate hike by the Fed
The number of Americans who have stopped paying their car loans appears to be increasing a development that has the potential to send ripple effects through the US economy.

Losses on subprime auto loans have spiked in the last few months, according to Steven Ricchiuto, Mizuhos chief US economist. They jumped to 9.1% in January, up from 7.9% in January 2016.

Recoveries on subprime auto loans also fell to just 34.8%, the worst performance in over seven years, he said in a note.

#4 Higher rates will likely accelerate the ongoing retail apocalypse, and we just recently learned that department store sales are crashing by the most on record.

#5 We also recently learned that the number of distressed retailers in the United States is now at the highest level that we have seen since the last recession.

#6 We have just been through the worst financial recovery in 65 years, and now the Feds actions threaten to plunge us into a brand new crisis.

#7 U.S. consumers certainly arent thriving, and so an economic slowdown will hit many of them extremely hard. In fact, about half of all Americans could not even write a $500 check for an unexpected emergency expense if they had to do so right now.

#8 The bond market is already crashing. Most casual observers only watch stocks, but the truth is that a bond crash almost always comes before a stock market crash. Bonds have been falling like a rock since Donald Trumps election victory, and we are not too far away from a full-blown crisis. If you follow my work on a regular basis you know this is a hot button issue for me, and if bonds continue to plummet I will be writing quite a bit about this in the weeks ahead.

#9 On top of everything else, we could soon be facing a new debt ceiling crisis. The suspension of the debt ceiling has ended, and Donald Trump could have a very hard time finding the votes that he needs to raise it. The following comes from Bloomberg

In particular, the markets seem to be ignoring two vital numbers, which together could have profound consequences for global markets: 218 and $189 billion. In order to raise or suspend the debt ceiling (which will technically be reinstated on March 16), 218 votes are needed in the House of Representatives. The Treasurys cash balance will need to last until this happens, or the U.S. will default.

The opening cash balance this month was $189 billion, and Treasury is burning an average of $2 billion per day with the ability to issue new debt. Net redemptions of existing debt not held by the government are running north of $100 billion a month. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has acknowledged the coming deadline, encouraging Congress last week to raise the limit immediately.

If something is not done soon, the federal government could be out of cash around the beginning of the summer, and this could create a political crisis of unprecedented proportions.

#10 And even if the debt ceiling is raised, that does not mean that everything is okay. It is being reported that U.S. government revenues just experienced their largest decline since the last financial crisis.

#11 What do corporate insiders know that the rest of us do not? Stock purchases by corporate insiders are at the lowest level that we have seen in three decades

Its usually a good sign when the CEO of a major company is buying shares; s/he is an insider and knows whats going on, so their confidence is a positive sign.

Well, according to public data filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, insider buying is at its LOWEST level in THREE DECADES.
In other words, the people at the top of the corporate food chain who have privileged information about their businesses are NOT buying.

#12 A survey that was just released found that corporate executives are extremely concerned that Donald Trumps policies could trigger a trade war
As business leaders are nearly split over the effectiveness of Washingtons new leadership, they are in unison when it comes to fears over trade and immigration. Nearly all CFOs surveyed are concerned that the Trump administrations policies could trigger a trade war between the United States and China.
A decline in global trade could deepen the economic downturns that are already going on all over the planet. For example, Brazil is already experiencing its longest and deepest recession in recorded history, and right next door people are literally starving in Venezuela.

After everything that you just read, would you say that the economy is doing well?

Of course not.

But after raising rates on Wednesday, that is precisely what Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told the press

The simple message is the economy is doing well. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said at a news conference. The unemployment rate has moved way down and many more people are feeling more optimistic about their labor prospects.

However, after she was challenged with some hard economic data by a reporter, Yellen seemed to change her tune somewhat

Well, look, our policy is not set in stone. It is data- dependent and were were not locked into any particular policy path. Our you know, as you said, the data have not notably strengthened. I theres noise always in the data from quarter to quarter. But we havent changed our view of the outlook. We think were on the same path, not we havent boosted the outlook, projected faster growth. We think were moving along the same course weve been on, but it is one that involves gradual tightening in the labor market.

Just like in 2008, the Federal Reserve really doesnt understand the economic environment. At that time, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke assured everyone that there was not going to be a recession, but when he made that statement a recession was actually already underway.

And as I have said before, I wouldnt be surprised in the least if it is ultimately announced that GDP growth for the first quarter of 2017 was negative.
Whether it happens now or a bit later, the truth is that the U.S. economy is heading for a new recession, and the Federal Reserve has just given us a major shove in that direction.

Is the Fed really so clueless about the true state of the economy, or could it be possible that they are raising rates just to hurt Donald Trump?

I dont know the answer to that question, but clearly something very strange is going on

https://www.forexfactory.com//dsms0m...ing-caring.png


March 15th, 2017 | Tags: Borrow, Borrow Money, Debt, Debts, High Interest Rates, Higher Interest Rates, Housing Crisis, Interest Rate, Interest Rate Hike, Interest Rates, Interest Rates Go Up, Interest Rates Going Up, Interest Rates Increasing, Interest Rates Rise, Mortgage, Mortgage Payments, Mortgage Rates, Mortgages, Recession, Recession 2017, Stock Market Crash, Stock Market Crash 2017, The Fed, The Federal Reserve | Category: Commentary, Federal Reserve, The Economy, The Next Great Depression

Morning Thoughts - Daily

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...reason-for-qe/

Wall Street Vs. Main Street – Settling The Debate Over The Real Reason For QE
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../picture-5.jpg
by Tyler Durden
Mar 16, 2017 4:15 AM


It’s settled…
For politicians, the chart sums up the frustrations that have helped propel the populism that Brexiteers and Donald Trump rode to victory.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...70315_QE_0.jpg
While wages would never show swings on par with the likes of high-yield bonds, Bloomberg notes that the chart above illustrates how well financial markets recovered from the 2007 to 2009 meltdowns. By contrast, consumer price inflation, incomes and other such gauges of the “real” economy have put in muted performances.

“We don’t know how effective QE has been because we don’t know what would have happened without it,” said Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist at Goldman in London.

Falling interest rates supported most financial assets, while for the economy “QE has been effective to prevent downside risk,” he said.

Economic growth and wage increases have disappointed in recent years, depressed by poor productivity gains and historically low labor-force participation — dynamics that lie outside the purview of central banks. Now that monetary policy makers are leaving the onus on governments to address growth, and contemplating the easing off of stimulus, the big question for investors is how resilient markets will be. For now, optimism prevails – everything from corporate-bond premiums to emerging-market bonds are flashing confidence.

But, as BofAML notes, perhaps it’s time for that to reverse…Economic Nationalism is back
Long Main Street, Short Wall Street
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...3charts3_0.jpg
Electorates are voting for trade & immigration policies to boost wages on Main Street, not for central banks to support stock & bond prices on Wall Street.

Now, “the withdrawal of QE is sending a signal of confidence that central banks have in growth,” Goldman’s Oppenheimer said. “But undoubtedly we’ll get to a stage where rising inflation will push up bond yields to a level that will act as a damper on asset prices” across financial markets, he said.

And after yesterday’s rate-hike decision – in the face of declining real wages, weak retail sales, and collapsing GDP expectations – is there really doubt exactly who The Fed is working for…
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...en1111_1_0.jpg

Because there is really only one cohort benefitting from this…
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...refed4_1_0.jpg

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: Good Morning , Ladies and Gentleman

I am going to make it very simple to understand the last three pages that I have posted research material on. I have put in the extra effort for two reasons. One was to make sure that I had a very clear picture of the REALITY that we all face at this moment in our lives. Once I had achieved that which I now have then I can make it very simple and right to the point.

You can see as clear as anything else that has been shared here what is really going on. When President Barak )bama was elected during 2008 the main reason that he was elected was because he gave the population one important thing , HOPE. It was as simple as that. I was a strong supporter of President Obama and I bought into the HOPE as most people did around the World.

I am over 70 years of age so I have seen many things in my lifetime. I will of course never forget where I was around 1 PM on November 22, 1963. I was 19 years old at the time. I was doing an audit for a prominent Pawn Broker in Montreal and I heard on the radio that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in Dallas , Texas. I drove home and spend the entire weekend from Friday to Sunday in front of my TV. I was single at that time and I watched Walter Cronkite of CBS News report all the events including the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald and his assassination on live TV by Jack Ruby.

In my educated opinion JFK was killed because his executive order would have effectively put the FEDERAL RESERVE OUT OF BUSINESS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11110

SNIPPET:
Executive Order 11110 was issued by U.S. President John F. Kennedy on June 4, 1963.

This executive order amended Executive Order 10289 (dated September 17, 1951)[1] by delegating to the Secretary of the Treasury the president's authority to issue silver certificates under the Thomas Amendment of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as amended by the Gold Reserve Act. The order allowed the Secretary to issue silver certificates, if any were needed, during the transition period under President Kennedy's plan to eliminate Silver Certificates and use Federal Reserve Notes.

 

1. 1Background
2. 2Public Law 88-36
3. 3Text of Executive Order
4. 4Revocation
5. 5JFK Assassination Theory
6. 6See also
7. 7References
8. 8External links

Background
On November 28, 1961, President Kennedy halted sales of silver by the Treasury Department. Increasing demand for silver as an industrial metal had led to an increase in the market price of silver above the United States government's fixed price. This led to a decline in the government's excess silver reserves by over 80% during 1961. Kennedy also called upon Congress to phase out silver certificates in favor of Federal Reserve notes which, according to the Associated Press at that time, were still backed by gold.[2][3]


Kennedy repeated his calls for Congress to act on several occasions, including his 1963 Economic Report, where he wrote:[4]
I again urge a revision in our silver policy to reflect the status of silver as a metal for which there is an expanding industrial demand. Except for its use in coins, silver serves no useful monetary function.

In 1961, at my direction, sales of silver were suspended by the Secretary of the Treasury. As further steps, I recommend repeal of those Acts that oblige the Treasury to support the price of silver; and repeal of the special 50-percent tax on transfers of interest in silver and authorization for the Federal Reserve System to issue notes in denominations of $1, so as to make possible the gradual withdrawal of silver certificates from circulation and the use of the silver thus released for coinage purposes. I urge the Congress to take prompt action on these recommended changes.

Public Law 88-36
The House of Representatives took up the president's request early in 1963,[5] and passed HR 5389 on April 10, 1963, by a vote of 251 to 122.[6][7] The Senate passed the bill on May 23, by a vote of 68 to 10.[8][9]

Kennedy signed the bill into law on June 4, 1963 and, on the same day, signed an executive order (11110) authorizing the Treasury Secretary to continue printing silver certificates during the transition period.[10][11] The act, which became Public Law 88-36 (77 Stat. 54), repealed the Silver Purchase Act of 1934 and related laws, repealed a tax on silver transfers, and authorized the Federal Reserve to issue one- and two-dollar bills, in addition to the notes they were already issuing.[12] The Silver Purchase Act had authorized and required the Secretary of the Treasury to buy silver and issue silver certificates. With its repeal, the President needed to delegate to the Treasury Secretary the President's own authority under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.[13]
Text of Executive Order.


President Kennedy's Executive Order (E.O.) 11110 modified the pre-existing Executive Order 10289 issued by U.S. President Harry S. Truman on September 17, 1951, and stated the following:[14]

The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby designated and empowered to perform the following-described functions of the President without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President...

The order then lists tasks (a) through (h) which the Secretary may now do without instruction from the President. None of the powers assigned to the Treasury in E.O. 10289 relate to money or to monetary policy. Kennedy's E.O. 11110 then instructs that:
SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 9, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):
'(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821(b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of an outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption,' and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof.

SECTION 2. The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

John F. Kennedy,
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 4, 1963.


Revocation
The text that had been added to E.O. 10289 by E.O. 11110 remained on the books until President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12608 on September 9, 1987 as part of a general clean-up of executive orders. Executive Order 12608 revoked subparagraph (j) of paragraph 1 of Executive Order 10289, as amended by Executive Order 11110.[15]Thus, E.O. 12608 specifically revoked the relevant portion of E.O. 10289 that had been added by E.O. 11110. This action effectively revoked E.O. 11110. By this time, however, the remaining legislative authority behind E.O. 11110 had been repealed by Congress when Pub.L. 97–258 was passed in 1982.


In March 1964, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon halted redemption of silver certificates for silver dollars. In the 1970s, large numbers of the remaining silver dollars in the mint vaults were sold to the collecting public for collector value. All redemption in silver ceased on June 24, 1968.


JFK Assassination Theory
See also: John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories § Federal Reserve conspiracy
Jim Marrs, in his book Crossfire, presented the theory that Kennedy was trying to rein in the power of the Federal Reserve, and that forces opposed to such action might have played at least some part in the assassination.[16][17][18] Marrs alleges that the issuance of Executive Order 11110 was an effort by Kennedy to transfer power from the Federal Reserve to the United States Department of the Treasury by replacing Federal Reserve Notes with silver certificates.[17] Actor and author Richard Belzer named the responsible parties in this theory as American "billionaires, power brokers, and bankers ... working in tandem with the CIA and other sympathetic agents of the government."[19]


A 2010 article in Research magazine discussing various controversies surrounding the Federal Reserve stated that "the wildest accusation against the Fed is that it was involved in Kennedy's assassination."[17] Critics of the theory note that Kennedy called for and signed legislation phasing out Silver Certificates in favor of Federal Reserve Notes, thereby enhancing the power of the Federal Reserve; and that Executive Order 11110 was a technicality that only delegated existing presidential powers to the Secretary of the Treasury for administrative convenience during a period of transition.[17][18]
See also

1. Bimetallism
2. Executive Order 6102
3. History of the United States dollar
4. Silver standard
5. United States Note

References

1. Jump up^ Executive Order 10289
2. Jump up^ "New Kennedy Silver Policy". Southeast Missourian. AP. November 28, 1961. p. 8.
3. Jump up^ "Silver Sale by Treasury Ended; President Seeks Support Repeal". New York Times. November 29, 1961. p. 1.
4. Jump up^ Economic Report of the President, p. XXIII. January 21, 1963. House document No. 28, 88th Congress, 1st Session. U.S. Govt. Printing Office.
5. Jump up^ Silver Legislation, April 3, 1963, House of Representatives Report No. 183, 88th Congress, 1st Session.
6. Jump up^ "Silver Act Repeal Plan Wins House Approval". New York Times. April 11, 1963.
7. Jump up^ "House Passes Silver Bill By 251-122". St. Petersburg Times. AP. April 11, 1963. p. 2A.
8. Jump up^ "Senate Votes End to Silver Backing". New York Times. May 24, 1963.
9. Jump up^ "Senate Okays Replacement of Silver Notes". Deseret News and Telegram. UPI. May 23, 1963. p. 2A.
10. Jump up^ "Kennedy Signs Silver Bill". Spokane Daily Chronicle. AP. June 6, 1963. p. 62.
11. Jump up^ "Bill to Release Silver Is Signed by President". New York Times. June 6, 1963.
12. Jump up^ Public Law 88-36, 77 Stat. 54, United States Statutes at Large, Vol. 77 (1963), p. 54, U.S. Govt. Printing Office.
13. Jump up^ Flaherty, Edward (September 4, 2000). "Myth #9: President Kennedy was assassinated because he tried to usurp the Federal Reserve's power. Executive Order 11110 proves it.". Debunking the Federal Reserve Conspiracy Theories. Political Research Associates. Retrieved December 7, 2009.
14. Jump up^ Text of Executive Order 11110 at The American Presidency Project
15. Jump up^ Text of Executive Order 12608
16. Jump up^ Marrs, Jim (1989). Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. p. 275. ISBN 978-0-88184-648-5.
17. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Silber, Kenneth (February 1, 2010). "The Fed and Its Enemies; The central bank is at the center of controversy. It has been there before.". Research. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
18. ^ Jump up to:a b Woodward, G. Thomas (1996). Money and the Federal Reserve System: Myth and Reality - CRS Report for Congress, No. 96-672 E. Congressional Research Service.; reprinted with footnotes in George B. Grey, ed. (2002). Federal Reserve System: background, analyses and bibliography. Nova Science. pp. 73–102. ISBN 978-1-59033-053-1.
19. Jump up^ Belzer, Richard (1999). "The Usual Suspectschapter". UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Believe. The Ballantine Publishing Group. ISBN 9780345429186. Retrieved January 9, 2013.

External links

1. John F. Kennedy: Executive Order 11110
2. Executive Orders Disposition Tables, John F. Kennedy - 1963
3. Codification of EO 10289 at the National Archives

Categories:

1. 1963 in American politics
2. Executive orders of John F. Kennedy
3. 1963 in American law

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: Before President Donald John Trump was elected the 45TH President of the USA on November 8, 2016 , I would classify myself politically as left wing with very liberal views. During the election campaign I was a supporter of Bernie Sanders and I always enjoyed watching MSNBC , especially Rachel Maddow.

I always thought that Donald John Trump would win and of course he did as we all know. He was declared President on January 20, 2017 which was 55 days ago today. My world has changed 100% in the last 55 days. The reason for my STRONG DECLARATION is what we have all witnessed on a daily basis. The public has woken up around the world especially because of the INTERNET where information can be obtained freely and you can decide for yourself the difference between RIGHT and WRONG.

The most Evil Group of Men and Women have belonged to the FEDERAL RESERVE since December 23, 1913. Of course I am not saying that Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernake and Janet Yellen are themselves EVIL however since their G-D is MONEY they have little or no integrity like so many others who either are in public office or in positions of GREAT POWER.

We now are seeing HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF IN FRONT OF OUR EYES and the next 3 years will not be pleasant for many people especially those who do not start preparing now. I would very much appreciate it to hear from anyone that reads this post. This is NOT ABOUT CURRENCY TRADING.

This is about our World and our lives. United we Stand and Divided we Fall. The World is more divided today than anytime in the History of the World and we are all connected whether we like it or not. One Man or One Woman can CHANGE the World.

The MAN in Tunisia who set himself on FIRE changed the WORLD with ONE ACT OF DEFIANCE.

We HONOR HIM by reading this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicid...hamed_Bouazizi

Suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Mohamed Bouazizi)
Mohamed Bouazizi
محمد البوعزيزي
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...d_Bouazizi.jpg
BornTarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi[1]
29 March 1984
Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia


Died4 January 2011 (aged 26)
Ben Arous, Tunisia
Cause of deathBurns caused by self-immolation

Resting place Garaat Bennour cemetery
Other names Basboosa
Occupation Street vendor


Known forSelf-immolation
Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi (Arabic: محمد البوعزيزي‎‎; 29 March 1984 – 4 January 2011) was a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, in response to the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that he said was inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides. This act became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution[2] and the wider Arab Spring, inciting demonstrations and riots throughout Tunisia in protest of social and political issues in the country.

Simmering public anger and sporadic violence intensified following Bouazizi's death, leading then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power.


The success of the Tunisian protests inspired protests in several other Arab countries, plus several non-Arab countries. The protests included several men who emulated Bouazizi's act of self-immolation, in an attempt to bring an end to their own autocratic governments. Those men and Bouazizi were hailed by Arab commentators as "heroic martyrs of a new Middle Eastern revolution".[3]

In 2011, Bouazizi was posthumously awarded the Sakharov Prize jointly along with four others for his and their contributions to "historic changes in the Arab world".[4] The Tunisian government honored him with a postage stamp.[5] The Times of the United Kingdom named Bouazizi as "Person of 2011".[6][7]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._tombstone.jpg
Mohamed Bouazizi's grave (front right)

 

1. 1Early life and employment struggles
2. 2Confiscation of wares and self-immolation
3. 3Death and funeral
   1. 3.1Investigation
   2. 3.2Protests

4. 4Aftermath and legacy
   1. 4.1Perception
   2. 4.2Copycat incidents

5. 5See also
6. 6References
7. 7External links

Early life and employment struggles
Mohamed Bouazizi, who was known locally as "Basboosa",[8] was born in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, on 29 March 1984.[9] His father, a construction worker in Libya, died of a heart attack when Bouazizi was three, and his mother married Bouazizi's uncle some time later.[2]Along with his six siblings,[10] Bouazizi was educated in a one-room country school in Sidi Salah, a small village 19 kilometres (12 mi) from Sidi Bouzid.[11] Although several media outlets reported that Bouazizi had a university degree,[10][12][13] his sister, Samia Bouazizi, stated that he had never graduated from high school,[14] but that it was something he had wanted for both himself and his sisters.[11] With his uncle in poor health and unable to work regularly,[15] Bouazizi had worked various jobs since he was ten,[2] and in his late teens he quit school in order to work full-time.[15]


Bouazizi lived in a modest stucco home, a 20-minute walk from the center of Sidi Bouzid,[16][17] a rural town in Tunisia burdened by corruption[18] and suffering an unemployment rate estimated at 30%.[2] According to his mother, he applied to join the army, but was refused, and several subsequent job applications also resulted in rejection.[15] He supported his mother, uncle, and younger siblings, including paying for one of his sisters to attend university, by earning approximately US$140 per month selling produce on the street in Sidi Bouzid.[11][15] He was also working toward the goal of buying or renting a pickup truck for his work.[19] A close friend of Bouazizi said he "was a very well-known and popular man [who] would give free fruit and vegetables to very poor families".[15]


Confiscation of wares and self-immolation
According to friends and family, local police officers had allegedly targeted and mistreated Bouazizi for years, including during his childhood, regularly confiscating his small wheelbarrow of produce;[15] but Bouazizi had no other way to make a living, so he continued to work as a street vendor. Around 10 p.m. on 16 December 2010, he had contracted approximately US$200 in debt to buy the produce he was to sell the following day. On the morning of 17 December, he started his workday at 8 a.m.[11] Just after 10:30 a.m., the police began harassing him again, ostensibly because he did not have a vendor's permit.[19]

However, while some sources state that street vending is illegal in Tunisia,[20] and others that Bouazizi lacked a required permit to sell his wares,[11][19] according to the head of Sidi Bouzid's state office for employment and independent work, no permit is needed to sell from a cart.[18]

Unfortunately, Bouazizi did not have the funds to bribe police officials to allow his street vending to continue.[11][21] Similarly, two of Bouazizi's siblings accused authorities of attempting to extort money from their brother,[18] and during an interview with Reuters, one of his sisters stated, "What kind of repression do you imagine it takes for a young man to do this? A man who has to feed his family by buying goods on credit when they fine him...and take his goods. In Sidi Bouzid, those with no connections and no money for bribes are humiliated and insulted and not allowed to live."[17]


Bouazizi's family claims he was publicly humiliated, that a 45-year-old female municipal official, Faida Hamdi,[2][10][15] slapped him in the face, spat at him, confiscated his electronic weighing scales, and tossed aside his produce cart.[19] It was also stated that she made a slur against his deceased father.[17][19] Bouazizi's family says her sex made his humiliation worse.[10][22]


Faida Hamdi[2][10][15] and her brother claimed in interviews that she did not slap Bouazizi or otherwise mistreat him. An eyewitness referred to by Asharq Al-Awsat claimed not to have seen Hamdi slap Bouazizi.[23][24]


Both Bouazizi's mother and the eyewitness who spoke with Asharq Al-Awsat stated that Hamdi's aides had kicked and beaten him after confiscating his fruit cart.[23] Faida Hamdi states it might have happened[24] and Asharq Al-Awsat denies it did.


Bouazizi, angered by the confrontation,[25] went to the governor's office to complain[19] and to ask for his scales back.[26] The governor refused to see or listen to him, even after Bouazizi was quoted as saying, "If you don't see me, I'll burn myself."[19] Bouazizi then acquired a can of gasoline from a nearby gas station and returned to the governor's office. While standing in the middle of traffic, he shouted, "How do you expect me to make a living?"[26] He then doused himself with the gasoline and set himself alight with a match at 11:30 a.m. local time, less than an hour after the altercation.[19]

Death and funeral
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...raumatisme.JPG
Ben Arous Burn and Trauma Centre where Bouazizi died

According to Bouazizi's sister, whose information was based on details relayed from her uncle who was present at the scene, people immediately panicked when he caught fire, and one of them tried to douse him with water, which only worsened his condition.[27] Bouazizi had suffered burns on over 90% of his body before locals managed to stop the flames. He was taken by ambulance to a medical facility in Sidi Bouzid. When they were unable to treat his severe burns, he was taken to a larger hospital in Sfax, more than 110 kilometres (68 mi) away.[11] Later, as the government's interest in his case grew, he was transferred to a Burn and Trauma Centre in Ben Arous, where he was placed in an intensive care unit.[28] On 31 December 2010, doctors at the Ben Arous Burn and Trauma Centre reported that Bouazizi was in stable condition, and that he was showing a positive possibility of recovery.[27] Despite the optimistic prognosis, however, Bouazizi remained comatose until his death.[29]


Bouazizi was visited in the hospital by then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.[30] According to Bouazizi's mother, Ben Ali promised to send him to France for medical treatment,[15] but no such transfer was ever arranged. Bouazizi died at the Ben Arous Burn and Trauma Centre 18 days after the immolation, on 4 January 2011, at 5:30 p.m. local time.[31][32]


It is estimated that more than 5,000 people participated in the funeral procession that began in Sidi Bouzid and continued through to Bouazizi's native village, though police did not allow the procession to pass near the spot at which Bouazizi had burned himself.[33] From the crowd, many were heard chanting "Farewell, Mohamed, we will avenge you. We weep for you today. We will make those who caused your death weep."[34] He was buried at Garaat Bennour cemetery, 15 kilometres (10 mi) from Sidi Bouzid.[35] His grave was described by Al-Jazeera as "simple" and surrounded by cacti, olive, and almond trees.[15] In addition, a Tunisian flag flies next to the site.[36] Tom Chesshyre also describes his tomb after visiting it: small, white, by a row of cacti, and with a simple inscription: "Martyr Mohamed Bouazizi. Peace for his life. And in the next life, have peace as well".[37]


Investigation
An investigation was launched following Bouazizi's self-immolation to find the details leading up to his actions. On 20 December 2010, it was reported that Faida Hamdi, the female officer who allegedly accosted Bouazizi the day of his immolation, was suspended along with the secretary-general (governor) of Sidi Bouzid,[38] but this was subsequently denied by the latter.[39] Some time later, Hamdi was arrested on orders from President Ben Ali and held in an unspecified town.[2][23] A brother of Hamdi later stated that she had been arrested and detained twice, the first time following Ben Ali's visit to Bouazizi in the hospital and subsequent meeting with his mother and sister at his presidential palace. He says his sister and her aides were released following a short detention and the closing of the investigation which "confirmed her innocence."[23] He said her second arrest was "in response to the demands of the Tunisian protesters," and that the Tunisian security authorities informed him that she was being held only for her own protection and would be released once the protesting ended.[23]


According to Bouazizi's mother, Bouazizi chose to take this action because he had been humiliated, not because of the family's poverty.[19] "It got to him deep inside, it hurt his pride," she said, referring to the police harassment.[15] One of Bouazizi's sisters stated during an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that their family intends to take legal action against all involved, "whether this is the municipal officers that slapped and insulted him, or the mayor [who] refused to meet him."[23]

On 19 April, the case against Hamdi was dropped after Bouazizi's mother withdrew the family's complaint against her. She stated "It was a difficult but well-thought-out decision to avoid hatred and... [to] help reconcile the residents of Sidi Bouzid." Hamdi had maintained her innocence, telling the court she did not slap Bouazizi, while her lawyer said the matter was "purely a political affair." Bouazizi's brother Salem supported the decision, saying "All the money in the world can't replace the loss of Mohamed who sacrificed himself for freedom and for dignity." Large crowds of people outside the courtroom also appeared to have been satisfied by the Bouazizi family's decision with some claiming Hamdi was being used as a scapegoat.[40][41]

Protests
Main article: Tunisian revolution § Protests
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...A9ration_4.jpg
Tunisian street protests
Outraged by the events that led to Bouazizi's self-immolation, protests began in Sidi Bouzid within hours,[18] building for more than two weeks, with attempts by police to quiet the unrest serving only to fuel what was quickly becoming a violent and deadly movement.[42] After Bouazizi's death, the protests became widespread, moving into the more affluent areas and eventually into the capital. The anger and violence became so intense that President Ben Ali fled Tunisia with his family on 14 January 2011,[19] trying first to go to Paris, but was refused refuge by the French government. They were eventually welcomed into Saudi Arabia under "a long list of conditions" (such as being barred from participation in the media and politics), ending his 23-year rule and sparking "angry condemnation" among Saudis.[42] In Tunisia, unrest persisted as a new regime took over, leaving many citizens of Tunisia feeling as though their needs were still being ignored.[43]

Aftermath and legacy
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...t_Bouazizi.jpg
A French protest in support of "the Hero of Tunisia", on 15 January 2011
Many Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa regard Bouazizi as a hero and inspiration.[44][45] He is credited with galvanising the frustrations of the region's youth against their governments into the mass demonstrations, revolts, and revolutions that have become known as the Arab Spring.[46] One year on, Tunisian writer and academic Larbi Sadiki asserted that Bouazizi's self-immolation "changed the course of Arab political history," achieving the "breakthrough in the fight against autocracy." However, he also wrote it would take years before the act and the subsequent chain of events that followed were "profoundly grasped by historians and social scientists."[47]

Bouazizi is considered a martyr by the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) of Tunisia.[15] Tunisian film director, Mohamed Zran, plans on making a feature film about Bouazizi, describing him as "a symbol for eternity."[46] Tarak Ben Ammar, also a Tunisian film director, intends to make a film on Bouazizi as well, stating he is "a hero for us as Tunisians and the Arab world as a whole."[44]

Since suicide is forbidden in Islam, Bouazizi's self-immolation created controversy among scholarly Muslim circles. While Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious religious institution in the Sunni Muslim world, issued a fatwa ("directive") stating "suicide violates Islam even when it is carried out as a social or political protest," influential Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi spoke sympathetically of Bouazizi.[3]

On 4 February 2011, Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, announced that, as a tribute to honour Bouazizi, a square in Paris will be named after him;[48] the Place Mohamed-Bouazizi (fr) was unveiled four days later. On 17 February, the main square in Tunis that was previously called "November 7", after the date of Ben Ali's take-over in 1987, was renamed "January 14," though some had suggested it should honor Bouazizi (though a major roadway leading to the city's airport was renamed for him).[49] Bouazizi was posthumously awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize as one of "five representatives of the Arab people, in recognition and support of their drive for freedom and human rights".[50] On 17 December, a cart statue was unveiled in Sidi Bouzid in honor of Bouazizi. Tunisia's first elected president Moncef Marzouki attended the ceremony, stating "Thank you to this land, which has been marginalised for centuries, for bringing dignity to the entire Tunisian people."[51] Also, in Sidi Bouzid, as well as in the capital city of Tunis, both cities' respective main streets were renamed, "Boulevard Mohamed Bouazizi".[52] The United Kingdom's The Times newspaper named Bouazizi person of the year for 2011.[53]

"By Fire," a story by Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun inspired by[54] this incident, was published in The New Yorker edition of 16 September 2013.[55] A fictional treatment, some details in the story differ from the factual account. An interview with the author about his story[56] was posted to The New Yorker's "This Week in Fiction" on 9 September 2013.

On 17 December 2015, the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, the Nobel Peace Prize laureates of that year, as well as other civil society organizations, celebrated Mohamed Bouazizi and the start of the Arab spring five years after his death in a ceremony in Sidi Bouzid.[57]


Perception
There are many perceptions on who Mohamed Bouazizi was. After his self-immolation, Bouazizi’s image flooded social media which lead to worldwide discourse. This complicated how Bouazizi was seen, "Mohamed Bouazizi is not our hero. He's your hero," said local Tunisian Arabic Nader Ncibi.[58] There are accusations that social media diluted what Bouazizi stood for. Naafil Harshani, an activist that grew up with Bouazizi, said, "what was important to Mohamed was putting food on the table and football. He had nothing to do with politics and wanted nothing to do with politics."[59] Mohamed Bouazizi did not plan to start a revolution, but it is undeniable that it preceded his anger towards not being able to sell his fruit. "There are many stories on who Mohamed was and who Mohamed wasn't," said Zahra Shwabli, a Hay Al Noor primary school teacher, "It is important for us on this day to remember what Mohamed Bouazizi stood for: the dignity of all Tunisians. And that is something that not even time can take away from us." [59]

Copycat incidents
Bouazizi's actions triggered the Werther effect, causing a number of self-immolations in protests emulating Bouazizi's in several other countries in the Greater Middle East and Europe. In Algeria in particular, protests against rising food prices and spreading unemployment[60] have resulted in many self-immolations. The first reported case following Bouazizi's death was that of Mohsen Bouterfif, a 37-year-old father of two, who set himself on fire when the mayor of Boukhadra (in Tébessa Province) refused to meet with him and others regarding employment and housing requests on 13 January 2011. According to a report in El-Watan, the mayor challenged him, saying if he had courage he would immolate himself by fire as Bouazizi had done.[61] He died on 24 January. In nearby El Oued Province, Maamir Lotfi, a 36-year-old unemployed father of six, also denied a meeting with the governor, burned himself in front of the town hall of El Oued on 17 January, dying on 12 February.[62] Abdelhafid Boudechicha, a 29-year-old day laborer who lived with his parents and five siblings, burned himself in Medjana on 28 January over employment and housing issues. He died the following day.[63]


In the six months immediately after Mohamed Bouazizi's death on 4 January 2011, at least 107 Tunisians tried to kill themselves by setting themselves on fire.[64] The men who self-immolated were mostly young unmarried men from poor, rural areas, and had only basic education.[64] Amenallah Messaadi, who collated the figures and is head of the Burns Centre, said that people shouldn't glorify the act of self-immolation and "should stop adding fuel to the fire".[64]
In Israel, Moshe Silman set himself on fire during social justice protests and died on 20 July 2012. In Egypt, Abdou Abdel-Moneim Jaafar, a 49-year-old restaurant owner, set himself alight in front of the Egyptian Parliament.[65] His act of protest helped instigate weeks of protest and, later, the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011. In Saudi Arabia, an unidentified 65-year-old man died on 21 January 2011, after setting himself on fire in the town of Samtah, Jizan. This was apparently the kingdom's first known case of self-immolation.[66][67]


Although these cases, with the exception of Egypt, did not provoke the same kind of popular reaction that Bouazizi's case did in Tunisia, the Algerian, Yemeni, and Jordanian governments have experienced significant protests and made major concessions in response to them.[19] As such, these men and Bouazizi were hailed by some as "heroic martyrs of a new Middle Eastern revolution."[3]


The wave of copycat incidents reached Europe on 11 February 2011, in a case very similar to Bouazizi's. Noureddine Adnane, a 27-year-old Moroccan street vendor, set himself on fire in Palermo, Sicily, in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the harassment that was allegedly inflicted on him by municipal officials.[68] He died five days later.[69] In Amsterdam, Kambiz Roustay, a 36-year-old asylum seeker from Iran, set himself on fire on Dam Square in protest of being rejected asylum. Roustay had fled the country for publishing works undermining the regime, and feared being tortured by the Iranian regime upon his return.[70]


See also

1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...unisia.svg.pngTunisia portal
2. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-P_vip.svg.pngBiography portal
3. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tsLogo.svg.pngHuman rights portal

1. 2011 Algerian self-immolations
2. List of political self-immolations
3. Thích Quảng Đức
4. Romas Kalanta
5. Jan Palach
6. Ryszard Siwiec

References[edit]

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32. Jump up^ "Tunisian protester dies of burns". Al Jazeera English. 5 January 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
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34. Jump up^ Falk, Richard (25 January 2011). "Ben Ali Tunisia was model US client". Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
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38. Jump up^ "Tunisia suspends four over attempted suicide". Radio Netherlands Worldwide. 28 December 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2011.
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41. Jump up^ Day, Elizabeth (23 April 2011). "Tunisia (News), Arab and Middle East unrest (News), Middle East (News), Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali (News), World news, Africa (News)". The Guardian. London.
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45. Jump up^ Jansen, Michael (18 January 2011). "Egyptian injured in self-immolation protest". The Irish Times. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
46. ^ Jump up to:a b Watson, Ivan (22 March 2011). "The Tunisian fruit seller who kickstarted Arab uprising". Cable News Network. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
47. Jump up^ Sadiki, Larbi (29 December 2011). "The Bouazizi 'big bang'". Al Jazeera English. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...s-logo.svg.pngWikimedia Commons has media related to Suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi.

1. Bouazizi's funeral procession (Video). nos.nl, 6 January 2011.
2. Davies, Wyre. "Doubt over Tunisian 'martyr' who triggered revolution." BBC. 16 June 2011.
3. Hernando de Soto The Real Mohamed Bouazizi 16 December 2011

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: There you have it !!!

Good day

Hope everyone is doing well.

Here are the charts & news results

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...ops+to+zero%29

Now That Everyone's Been Pushed Into Risky Assets...
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../picture-5.jpg
by Tyler Durden
Mar 16, 2017 9:27 AM

Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
A funny thing happened on the way to a low-risk environment: loans in default (non-performing loans) didn't suddenly become performing loans.

If we had to summarize what's happened in eight years of "recovery," we could start with this: everyone's been pushed into risky assets while being told risk has been transformed from something to avoid (by buying risk-off assets) to something you chase to score essentially guaranteed gains (by buying risk-on assets).


The successful strategy for eight years has been buy the dips because risk-on assets always recover and hit new highs: housing, stocks, bonds, bat guano futures--you name it.
Those who bought the dip in hot housing markets have seen spectacular gains since 2011. Those who bought every dip in the stock market have been richly rewarded, and those buying bonds expecting declining yields have until recently logged reliable gains.


The only asset class that's lower than it was in 2011 is the classic risk-off asset: precious metals.
Investors who avoided risk-on assets--stocks, bonds, REITs (real estate investment trusts) and housing in hot markets--have been clubbed, while those who piled on the leverage to buy every dip have been richly rewarded.

Those who bet volatility--once a fairly reliable reflection of risk--would finally rise have been wiped out. By historical measures, risk has fallen to levels not seen since... well, just before the last Global Financial Meltdown.

Globally, financially assets have soared from a 2008 low around $222 trillion to over $300 trillion. Even in today's financially jaded world, $80 trillion is an impressive number: over 4 times America's GDP of $18 trillion annually, and roughly equal to global GDP.
http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2017...assets1-17.jpg
This benign confidence that risk has been sidelined is the result of central bank policy: by flooding the financial markets with liquidity and credit, and by buying trillions of dollars of bonds and other risk-on assets, central banks have sent a simple message: we will never let risk-on assets decline for long, so buy the dips.

This has worked brilliantly, as private-sector investors buy every dip, relieving the central banks of doing more than simply maintaining their existing policy of buying $200 billion every month:
http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2017/CB-buying2-17.jpg
There are a few flies in the ointment of this wonderful risk-on era. Interest rates are starting to click higher here and there, potentially signaling the end of a 30-year bond Bull market.


Corporate profits have slumped or stagnated, removing the bullish prop of higher earnings.
http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2017...rofits2-17.png
Full-time jobs, the backbone of household income and income security, have finally edged above their 2008 level--but the gains are exceedingly modest, and far below historic trends.
http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2017...loyed12-16.png
What's actually happened over the past eight years is this: risk has not been vanquished-- it's just been shoved out of sight. To unwary observers, the absence of risk supports the rosy view that risk has been eliminated by central bank policies.


But what if risk has not been disappeared, and is piling up out of sight? A funny thing happened on the way to a low-risk environment: loans in default (non-performing loans) didn't suddenly become performing loans. Over-leveraged players didn't suddenly become deleveraged. Nearly empty shopping malls did not become more valuable as their revenues and profits plummeted.

All these real-world financial factors are like dead wood piling up on the forest floor. A random lightning strike will ignite this dead wood at some point, and central banks may find they have nothing in hand to extinguish the conflagration but a leaking canister of gasoline.

Now that everyone's been pushed into risk-on assets, it might be a good time to look at the dead wood that's been piling higher for eight long years.

Comments from BENJAMINIS: Now we wait until Monday , March 20, 2017 and the end of the G20 meetings and the start of the Hearings on Wire Taps and Leaks and the Deep State because the one and only lesson for today. When everything else is clear and everything else is uncertain then we just wait with patience and understanding since only the markets can decide anything.

https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/fundam...tm_campaign=em

PBOC Hikes Borrowing Costs, HK Authority Increases Base Rate
Thursday, Mar 16, 2017 2:50 pm -04:00 Thu Mar 16 18:50:00 GMT 2017

by Renee Mu, Currency Analyst
Fundamental analysis, polices, China



- The PBOC continued to increase borrowing costs through reverse repos and Medium-term Lending Facility.
- Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced to hike its base rate following Feds move.
- Would you like to know more about trading? DailyFX webinars are a great place to start.

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The PBOC raised the rates for reverse repos and Medium-term Lending Facility (MLF) on March 16th, a couple of hours after the Fed increased its benchmark interest rate. The Chinese 7-day, 14-day and 28-day reverse repos rates rose 10 basis points respectively to 2.45%, 2.60% and 2.75%; the 6-month and 12-month MLF rates increased 10 basis points as well, to 3.05% and 3.2% respectively.


Chinas Central Bank responded in an official statement that these moves are not equivalent to interest rate hikes - that would need rises in benchmark interest rates; adjustments in rates of reverse repos and MLF were driven by both domestic and international market factors. The PBOC also told that changes in open market operation (OMO) rates do not mean a revision in monetary policy.

The timing of these adjustments shows that Chinese financial markets are exposed to elevated external risks and Chinas Central Bank acknowledges such exposures. At the same time, the Chinese regulator has its own agenda to bring monetary policy back to neutral from slightly loose, in the effort to fight against price bubbles and high leverage in borrowing.

Last August, the PBOC restarted 14-day reverse repos, after a six-month suspension. In September, the regulator re-introduced 28-day reverse repos. After the 2017 New Year, the PBOC began to delicately manage the amount of liquidity injections through open market operations.

On January 24th, the PBOC raised MLF rates. On February 3rd, it lifted reverse repos rates and Standing Lending Facility (SLF) rates.
https://media.dailyfx.com/illustrati...dy_Chart_6.png


Data downloaded from Bloomberg; chart prepared by Renee Mu.

On March 16th, reverse repos and MLF rates were lifted again. Feds interest rate hike might be a trigger to today's moves but it is not the fundamental cause.

The PBOC has been tightening liquidity over the past few months, by pushing lending rates higher and lending term longer.
USD/CNH 5-mins


https://media.dailyfx.com/illustrati...5-mins_316.png
Prepared by Renee Mu.

As Feds March rate hike was priced in and future rate glide path remains unchanged from last December, the U.S. Dollar fell against its counterparts including the Yuan. The USD/CNH dipped 6.8437, a swing low in February (a high for the Yuan). Following the move, the PBOC strengthened the Yuan by +253 pips or +0.37% against the Dollar.

The guided level was weaker than the offshore Yuan; in the immediate response to the Yuan fix, the USD/CNH rose slightly. Increased OMO and MLF rates were released half an hour after the Yuan fix. The offshore Yuan advanced against the Dollar initially but the gains faded quickly, likely because that these hikes were not driven by a fundamental change in Chinas monetary policy.


On the same day, Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced to increase its base rate by 25 basis points to 1.25%, which is a direct response to Feds interest rate hike. Hong Kongs base rate is linked to the U.S. federal funds rate. Also, the Hong Kong Dollar is pegged against the U.S. Dollar. Therefore, lifting its base rate is crucial for Hong Kong to avoid a surge in capital outflows and prevent massive selling in the Hong Kong Dollar.

USD/HKD 5-mins
https://media.dailyfx.com/illustrati...5-mins_316.png


Prepared by Renee Mu.
The U.S. Dollar fell against the Hong Kong Dollar following Feds rate hike decision, though the drops were less significant than in other U.S. Dollar pairs as the HKD is pegged to the USD. Following the HKMAs rate decision, Hong Kong Dollar lost against the U.S. Dollar. As of 2:30 pm EDT, the HKD rebounded and traded around 7.7620.


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DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.

http://gainspainscapital.com/2017/03...-stock-bubble/

The Fed is Now Officially Screwed (the $555 Trillion Debt Bomb)

The Fed has completely backed itself into a corner.
The truth that no one wants to admit, is that the Fed should have raised rates in 2012. Instead Bernanke gifted QE 3 to the Obama admin to help its re-election bid. The Fed finally got around the hiking rates for the first time in seven years at the end of 2015.
Fast-forward to today and the Fed is now facing stag-flation: a situation in which inflation is developing while the economy is weak.
To whit: ALL four of the Feds inflation measures are at or above their targets. And the economy is rolling over hard with the Feds own GDP now clocking in sub-1% growth (down from a forecast 3.5% a mere 40 days ago).
https://d1yoaun8syyxxt.cloudfront.ne...b51c93824ec-v2
Janet Yellen knows the Fed is screwed which is why when a reporter cornered her yesterday as to why the Fed is hiking rates during a GDP collapse she claimed GDP is a noisy indicator.
Let that sink in for a moment. The head of the Fed claims that the single most important measure of economic activity that it tracks is noisy or unclear.
This is what happens when you put political posturing above sound economic sense: you end up making a complete fool of yourself and possibly blowing up the system.
On that note, its worth noting that over $555 trillion in derivatives trade based on interest rates. And with the junk bond market already showing signs of serious duress. Weve broken out of a bearish rising wedge pattern. If HYG does not reclaim that lower line NOW, then Yellen has a REAL problem on her hands.
https://d1yoaun8syyxxt.cloudfront.ne...322be54a35e-v2
And this time it won't be "noise."

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...-to-civil-war/

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...osi-Summer.jpg
QUESTION: Marty; It seems that the left is winning in preventing Trump from really reforming anything and the Republicans themselves are divided over Obamacare. Do you see this change?

Thank you for what you do. It is striking how on point you have been.


ANSWER: The Democrats led by Summer and Pelosi are fighting tooth & nail to save socialism. They always preach that they stand for the poor, but they take money from the rich. Hillary’s comment that you have to have a public and private agenda is no joke. This is standard operational procedure for ALL politicians in Washington. This was not just Hillary’s scheme – they all do this. The Democrats are tearing the country apart and in their quest to stop Trump at all costs. That cost will be the United States as we have known it. They are going way too far this time.

Obamacare has hopelessly screwed the country. It is the exploitation of the youth to fund health care costs for the older generations after the Clintons screwed them and made their student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy after getting a degree that is proving valueless. This is like in law. I ask you when was the last time you beat your wife. Now, you are on the defensive side to prove you did not beat your wife. You call your wife to the stand and she testifies you never beat her. I turn to the jury and say, she only said that because she feared you would beat her again. A false charge dominates everything and you spend all of your time trying to prove you never beat your wife. This is Obamacare.

The Republicans are hopelessly lost. They cannot fix the system. The only way to do this is to the scrap the entire mess. Anyone who could not obtain insurance should simply be put on Medicare. Nancy Pelosi is just a worthless politician hell bent of maintaining a corrupt system that is doomed. She said: “The Republican bill is one of the largest transfers of wealth from working families to the richest people in our country — Robin Hood in reverse.”


This is the greatest transfer of wealth from the younger generation into the pockets of insurance companies who lobby and give her money. Insurance company PACs always donate directly to Pelosi. Here is a list of the Insurance companies donating to the Democrats to keep Obamacare rolling and Starr Insurance is at the top. There is no money going to the “rich”; it goes to insurance companies. My personal insurance doubled as did my deductible and then I have coverage for young children I do not have but it’s there by law and I have to pay for it. The joke has become that you can just walk into a bar and tell the girls to line up, no worries, you are covered for unlimited maternity leave and children and there is no marriage requirement or age limit. That may be the only way to your money’s worth out of Obamacare.


If I were Trump, I would mandate all insurance policies must be reinstated pre-Obamacare. I would NATIONALIZE health insurance and make them function the same as Utilities. Yes, it would be an anti-free market, but the political system is such that the “free market” means they can bribe people like Pelosi to keep the money rolling in. Impose term limits, and then this measure would not be needed. But I do not see how this can be accomplished without a revolution.

Insurance companies must be compelled to apply for any rate increase whatsoever. They should not be allowed to cancel your insurance either. That is like going to a casino to play poker and they remove all the aces from the deck to make sure you cannot have 4 aces.

I would also impose Tort reform and provide a specific table of what you get for what type of injury. In law, it is cheaper to kill someone than it is to injure someone because you will have to pay all sorts of legal fees and an award that can be greatly exaggerated. Kill someone in an accident and it’s a flat award far less than injury in most cases.
https://armstrongmedia.s3.amazonaws....rn-300x220.jpgThen you have the Democrats and the left, allegedly funded now by Soros, deliberately creating civil unrest to keep the socialist system intact. However, we have crossed that point of no return. The silent majority who voted for Trump have been pushed as far as they can go. Remove Trump, and we will descend into civil war. There will be no other democratic process to save the future left for these people who see things always getting worse and a future that holds nothing but declining living standards.

We have crossed that point of no return and this is really a battle for the very freedom of civilization. The left is never satisfied with allowing people to make their own decisions. I have been in discussions and the undertone is always the same. They hate anyone who makes more than they do and they covet whatever anyone else has and feel wronged that they are being cheated out of the same thing, but never wish to work for the same goals. The bottom line has always been that whatever society earns, belongs to the state and the state decides how much they are allowed to keep.

So no, I am not optimistic about the future. This will be the next great confrontation with not much difference from the Communist Revolutions of 1917-1918. What the Democrats did with Obamacare will only lower the living standards and the will premiums escalate out of control, consuming a larger part of personal disposable income. That lowers the economic growth consuming money people would be spending on other things. This is the GREED of insurance companies who are perhaps far worse than the bankers ever were. They own the Democrats and the press pretends this is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich when it is the exploitation of the youth and no money goes to the “rich”. It is going to the Insurance companies who have paid the Democrats to impose Obamacare on the nation.

While people like Whoopi Goldberg have now come out and denied that she said she would leave the country if Trump were elected, many people claimed they would leave but are still here. The Rev. Al Sharpton said: “If Donald Trump is the nominee … I’m also reserving my ticket to get out of here if he wins. Only because he’d probably have me deported anyhow.”

Because the Democrats under Obama have set in motion the greatest hunt for taxes in human history, it is becoming impossible to do business. We have three accounts at one bank. I walked in to open a fourth for the Florida operation. I was told since it was a Delaware corporation, I had to send myself a letter to Delaware, prove I received it, and then they would open the account. When I said I had three accounts with their bank, they responded: that does not matter. With every new account, we have to start from scratch. I walked out without opening the business account. If the Democrats force Trump out or tie the government in knots so nothing gets done, I may have no choice but to leave, just to do business. This is how insane everything has become. The same thing happened with our payroll company. I was told to set up another payroll account in Florida. They too had to proceed as if they did not know me when it was the same person I have spoken to for the last 5 years. The whole thing is just getting completely nuts – Papers Please!


Categories: Corruption, Politics
« Degeneration of Politics

Comments From Benjaminis: This excellent article by Martin Armstrong not only makes things crystal clear for all to see and understand it lets you on the right side of knowledge. Knowledge is POWER if used to your advantage. We here have an EDGE because there is a good understanding of the reality that faces us so we have an advantage of seeing further into the future than most other Forex traders.

Have a nice day and a pleasant weekend.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a...sidency-begins

The Debt Ceiling Deadline Has Passed, And Now The Biggest Test Of Donald Trump’s Presidency Begins…

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/w...icons/user.gif By Michael Snyder, on March 16th, 2017



http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/w...in-460x460.jpgOn Wednesday, the temporary suspension of the debt ceiling ended, and so now the federal government is not going to be able to go into any more debt until the debt ceiling is raised. For the moment, the Trump administration can implement “emergency measures” to stay under the debt limit, but it won’t be too long before we get to a major crisis point because the federal government is quickly running out of cash. Already, the U.S. Treasury has less cash on hand than Apple or Google, and that cash balance is going to keep on dropping until the debt ceiling is finally lifted.


You may remember that the debt ceiling became a major issue a couple of times during the Obama years. Last time around, Barack Obama and the Republicans in Congress agreed to a horrendous deal which suspended the debt ceiling until several months after the 2016 election…

Since President Barack Obama signed the “Bipartisan Budget Act” on Nov. 2, 2015 there had been no legal limit on the amount of money the federal government could borrow until now. That law included a section entitled “Temporary Extension of Public Debt Limit.” It said that the law imposing a limit on the federal debt “shall not apply for the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending on March 15, 2017.”


During the 16 and a half months between the signing of that deal and today, the U.S. national debt rose by a whopping $1,414,397,000,000.

But now the U.S. national debt will not be allowed to rise by another penny until the debt ceiling is raised or suspended once again.

The Trump administration is pushing hard to get the debt ceiling raised, and this is a complete reversal from how Donald Trump felt about the debt ceiling back in 2013. The following comes from the L.A. Times…

Trump sided with hard-liners in 2013, publicly opposing an increase. “I cannot believe the Republicans are extending the debt ceiling — I am a Republican & I am embarrassed!” he tweeted then.

Trump was actually right about the debt ceiling in 2013, and he is wrong now.

We simply cannot afford to keep adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. What we are doing to future generations of Americans is beyond criminal, because we are literally destroying their future just so that we can enjoy an inflated standard of living that we do not deserve today.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has already begun to implement “extraordinary measures” to keep us under the debt ceiling. The first step that was taken was the suspension of the sale of SLGS securities…

“Today,” Mnuchin wrote, “Treasury is announcing that it will suspend the sale of State and Local Government Series (SLGS) securities. SLGS are special-purpose Treasury securities issued to states and municipalities to assist them in conforming to certain tax rules. These securities count against the debt limit. The suspension of SLGS sales will commence on March 15, 2017, and continue until the debt limit is either raised or suspended. As in the past, it is likely Treasury will utilize additional extraordinary measures.”


The federal government will be able to keep going for a little while by implementing such “extraordinary measures”, but the Treasury cash balance is going to continue to dwindle and at some point a major squeeze is going to happen.


As things get tighter and tighter, the Trump administration will become increasingly desperate to get the debt ceiling raised. As I wrote about yesterday, the key for Trump is going to be finding 218 votes in the House of Representatives that will be willing to go along with him.

You would think that since Republicans control the House that this should be easy, but the truth is that there are a lot of conservative Republicans that are not inclined to agree to a debt ceiling increase without substantial accompanying budget cuts.

The proposed budget that Trump released this week is getting a lot of criticism from the left for cuts to social programs, but the truth is that it actually doesn’t reduce the deficit at all…


President Trump’s “skinny” budget blueprint for 2018 features a proposed $54 billion increase in defense spending and an equal number of spending cuts from the smallest part of the federal budget.

That means his changes won’t add to next year’s projected $487 billion deficit. But they won’t reduce it, either.

And remember, that “$487 billion” figure is just for show. During the Obama years the U.S. national debt increased by an average of well over a trillion dollars a year, and that is almost certainly going to continue for years to come as long as the debt ceiling is raised.

Republicans are supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility.

So now is their big test.

If they raise the debt ceiling and continue adding more than a trillion dollars a year to the national debt, they will lose all credibility with conservative voters on fiscal issues.

But if they try to force the federal government to start living within its means that is going to severely harm the economy in the short-term.

Donald Trump is going to have to try to figure out a way to navigate this crisis. He has already promised that he will not touch Social Security and Medicare, and those are the two biggest drivers of our budget deficits. In fact, it is being projected that entitlement spending and interest on the debt will eat up every single penny that the federal government takes in within 20 years.


So if Trump won’t touch the big entitlement programs, where will he possibly find enough cuts to satisfy the fiscal conservatives in Congress?

Without them, Trump does not have enough votes to raise the debt ceiling.

In addition, many of the conservatives in Congress absolutely hate the new Republican health care plan, and they hope to use this debt ceiling crisis as leverage to change the bill.


If Trump can’t work out something with conservatives, perhaps he could turn to the Democrats. But most Democrats are extremely resistant to work with him on anything after all that has been said and done, and so for Trump to get a deal with them he would have to make extreme concessions.


This represents the biggest political test for the Trump presidency so far, and if we get down the road a couple of months and nothing gets done, this debt ceiling crisis could spark the kind of financial crisis that I describe in my novel entitled “The Beginning Of The End“.


Barack Obama pushed things right to the brink a couple of times, but he was savvy enough politically to never let things go over the edge.

Now it is Trump’s turn, and somehow he has got to find a way to get the debt ceiling raised without making extremely deep compromises that would gut the rest of his agenda.

And he had better get to work on this quickly, because time is running out and the clock is ticking…

Comments from Benjaminis: We will over the next 90 days find out the TRUTH about the Trump Presidency. There is no solution possible so even if they do the WRONG thing and do not address these most serious problems ignored for the last 10 years the FINANCIAL REPRESSION will END and the World Economy will collapse and there will be a DEPRESSION unlike any other. Where we end up not one human on Earth can say with certainty. Start today to prepare yourselves as before 2018 starts our World will have changed and NOT FOR THE BETTER until new structures are in place and the POWER STRUCTURE changes in our Global World.

http://economicprism.com/

← Off the Beaten Path in Mesoamerica

The Long Run Economics of Debt Based Stimulus

Posted on March 17, 2017 by MN Gordon

http://economicprism.com/wp-content/...rnmentDebt.jpgSomething both unwanted and unexpected has tormented western economies in the 21st century. Gross domestic product (GDP) has moderated onward while government debt has spiked upward. Orthodox economists continue to be flummoxed by what has transpired.


Here is the United States, since the turn of the new millennium (starting January 1, 2001) real GDP has increased from roughly $10.5 trillion to $18.6 trillion, or 77 percent. Over this same time government debt has spiked nearly 250 percent from about $5.7 trillion to $19.9 trillion. Obviously, some sort of reckoning’s in order to bring the books back into balance.


Throughout this extended episode of economic and financial discontinuity, the government’s solution to jumpstarting the economy has been to borrow money and spend it. Thus far, these efforts have succeeded in digging a massive hole that the economy will somehow have to climb out of. We’re doubtful such a feat will ever be attained.


In short, additions of government debt over this time have been at a diminishing return. Specifically, at the start of the new millennium the debt to GDP ratio was about 54 percent. Today, it’s well over 100 percent.

The idea that the government could spend borrowed money to grow the economy out of debt has become patently ridiculous. Nonetheless, government economists continue to advocate these policies because, academically, they have no other alternatives. At the same time, politics may now conspire to push the U.S. government into debt default.


Arrested Development
This week the Obama administration’s debt ceiling suspension expired, and a debt ceiling of $20.1 trillion was triggered. This reestablished debt ceiling is just a horse’s hair above the U.S. government’s current debt level. Furthermore, getting the debt ceiling lifted will likely require an epic Congressional battle, including elaborate displays of Kabuki theatre.


There’s a possibility a new debt ceiling agreement won’t be reached before the Treasury’s money runs out sometime in late-summer or early-fall. This would put the U.S. government in a position of not being able to pay its debts. At a minimum, even if some Congressional deal’s worked out at the 11th hour, the full faith and credit of the U.S. government will be tarnished.


Best case, a timely debt ceiling resolution will cut into President Trump’s plans to boost the economy by borrowing money and spending it on infrastructure and defense. This will also cut into his plans to reduce taxes. A stumble in either of these areas could prompt a long overdue stock market panic.


The fact is, perpetual economic growth is required to sustain life as we know it in today’s debt-driven economic social order. Any slight blip, such as 2008, massively disrupts the lives of hundreds of millions of people. What’s more, economic growth must be at a level where the plebs believe they’re adequately reaping the fruits of their labors.


What that rate of economic growth happens to be is uncertain. But so far the U.S. economy of the 21st century has failed to attain it. What is known is that an economy that expands at 3 percent annually, will double the average living standard every 24 years. In contrast, an economy that expands at an annual rate of 2 percent, will take 36 years to double the average living standard.


The average annual rate of real GDP growth of the U.S. economy in the 21st century has been at a 1.78 percent state of arrested development. The average annual rate of real GDP growth of the U.S. economy for the 16 preceding years was 3.43 percent – nearly double. Alas, it has been 12 years since the U.S. economy’s eked out a single year of 3 percent GDP growth.


The Long Run Economics of Debt Based Stimulus
“In the long run, we are all dead,” said 20th Century economist, John Maynard Keynes. This, in a nut shell, was Keynes’ rationale for why governments should borrow from the future to fund economic growth today. Why wait for recessions to do the work of equilibrating the economy when a little countercyclical stimulus can push growth onward and upward?


Of course, attempting to spend a nation to prosperity using borrowed money is not without consequences. In the short run, an illusion of wealth can be erected. In the long run, that illusion slips into decay and disrepair.


Over the past week we’ve been roaming the streets of Mexico City, visiting family and conducting field research on your behalf. In particular, we’ve been investigating the chronic effects of what happens when a government spends too much borrowed money, and then attempts to lighten its debt burden by inflating its currency. What follows a brief summation of our findings.

On surface, what happens is what you’d expect. The currency gets utterly destroyed. This has the effect of blowing the price of just about everything – especially imports – through the roof.

But it’s what happens after which is less obvious. For the ill-effects of a debased currency express themselves in asymmetric ways.

On a Saturday afternoon walk through the historic city center along Avenida Francisco I. Madero between El Zócalo and the Palacio de Bellas Artes we were greeted with the appearance of consumer prosperity. Bustling crowds of shoppers made their way through the chic fashion stores that are interspersed between historic 17th and 18th century colonial mansions and buildings. Modern skyscrapers were in the distance.


Similarly, during a Friday night visit to El Moro, the famous churro and chocolate restaurant that has been in operation since 1935, we encountered a line extending out the door and down the street. Customers were dressed to impress. There was hardly a hint of economic hardship about the place.

But venture outside the most inner streets of the city’s center and the conditions quickly deteriorate. An endless sea of multilevel residential dwellings mixed with commercial and industrial properties in varying degrees of decay extend for miles and miles across the high altitude Valley of Mexico. It appears that, perhaps 50 or 60 years ago, these structures were clean and well-kept. However, that was before crumbled concrete and exposed rebar became the norm for these vast residential dwellings.


Contrary to what Keynes posited, countercyclical debt based stimulus didn’t produce the nirvana of rising long run living standards. Rather it produced the disparity of stagnating GDP and rapidly rising government debt. Later it produced the hell of declining living standards over the long run.


The truth is, in the long run we’re not all dead. Actually, some of us are still here, living with the consequences of shortsighted economic policies.

Residents of Mexico know this all too well. In the United States, the scope and magnitude of debt has been able to support an illusion of prosperity. Still, as far as we can tell, many residents are experiencing the transformation of small pockets of slums into vast expansive ghettos.


Storing up a small hoard of gold and silver bullion may’ve never been more critical than the present, in the off chance the inevitable dollar debasement comes sooner rather than later. So, too, one would be well advised to develop a side hustle now. From our observation, everyone in Mexico City was working…though many didn’t have jobs.


On Monday we traveled north of the city limits to the ruins of the ancient pre-Aztec city of Teotihuacán. There we climbed up the Pyramid of the Sun and into the open areas of the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent. We walked the Avenue of the Dead toward the Pyramid of the Moon.


At its peak, around 450 AD, Teotihuacán was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas, with a population estimated at 150,000. Yet by the 6th century the population began to decline and the city ceased to exist sometime in the 7th or 8th century. No one quite knows what happened.


One theory is that the city’s decline coincided with an extended drought. Another is that there was an internal uprising. Maybe a 99 percent situation developed.

We kicked a few rocks. We put our ears to the ground. We looked. We listened.
The spirits didn’t answer. They didn’t have to. We’d already seen and heard enough.


Sincerely,
MN Gordon
for Economic Prism

Return from The Long Run Economics of Debt Based Stimulus to Economic Prism

This entry was posted in Inflation, MN Gordon

Comments from Benjaminis: This is a NEW Resource that I just located and we can see by this article that we again have confirmation from other information source as to the realities that WE all face wherever we live.

Another GREAT Technical post on the EUR/USD Thread from Teek that I now share here.

 

1. Post 1,097,378
2. Cleanup
3. Quote
4. Mar 17, 6:33am (5 min ago)

1. https://cdn-assets.forexfactory.net/...ar557148_1.gif Teek
2. Joined Feb 2017 | Status: Member | 240 Posts | Online Now

Quoting tstivers
Is it just me or are support/resistance levels some completely hocus pocus voodoo bullshit? The more I use these fucking lines the more losing trades I take...
Trade the CANDLES, not the lines!
The lines paint the framework but the candles tell the story.
If the candles confirm the lines (I prefer S/R zones), -> trade
If the candles tell a different story and don't fit into the framework > don't take the trade
Mistakes are made on entry, not so much on exits. (on my strategy). My targets are 87% precice to the pip on the H1, but entries can only be made when the candles line up with the overall framework.
If you want to trade priceaction (the candles) and lines (S/R/Zones/Trendlines, whatever) you need a solid strategy, a plan which you can stick to.
Keep your charts as clean as possible, keep using S/R, but put your focus on the candles and the correct entry.
Keep going and don't get nervous on losing trades! Todays markets are very difficult and daily results don't matter. What matters is the end of the year, not the daily swings. Just keep going, you will get a feel for it.
Oh and, stay cool. Always
Truth is like poetry. Most people hate poetry.

Thanks Teek

Hope to see you post on our thread if you care to.


Benjaminis

Hello and thank you for sharing my posts from the EUR/USD.
On the current market conditions I think my time will be well spend on reading through this entire thread, instead of trying to trade untradable markets:
It's even a bad setup for a Scalper and we can usualy trade everything....
Just wanted to pop in and say "Hi"
Stay green

http://www.caseyresearch.com/article...d-nobody-cares

Published March 17, 2017
A Corporate Debt Crisis Is Underway… And Nobody Cares


Investors no longer give a damn.


That might sound harsh, but when things are this backwards, you have to tell it like it is.

You see, I read something recently that disturbed me. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

It was an article I recently stumbled upon in Bloomberg. In it, the author explained how U.S. companies are issuing debt at breakneck speed. You see, U.S. companies have already issued more than $360 billion worth of investment-grade bonds just this year.

Corporate America is now on pace to issue the most investment-grade debt in the first quarter since 1999. I don’t have to remind you how that ended…

But here’s the really crazy part… Investors are lining up around the block to buy these bonds.

If you read yesterday’s Dispatch, you know where I’m going with this.

In short, the bond market is unraveling. This isn’t some conspiracy theory. It’s a fact.


And yet, investors are buying bonds by the fistful.


These people don’t understand how much danger they’re in. Hell, they don’t even know what they’re buying anymore.

I’ll explain why in a second. But first, let’s be clear about what “investment-grade” means.

• Investment-grade bonds are bonds issued by companies with good credit…
They’re the best corporate bonds money can buy.
Investors like them because they’re supposedly “safe.” Conventional wisdom says you can own them and sleep well at night.


At least, that’s how things used to be. These days, “investment-grade” doesn’t necessarily mean “safe.” This is because so many blue-chip companies are now leveraged to the gills.

Take a close look at the chart below.

It shows the gross leverage ratio for U.S. companies with investment-grade credit ratings. This ratio measures a company’s ability to pay its lenders.
When this ratio is climbing, it means companies are taking on more debt.
http://d1w116sruyx1mf.cloudfront.net...is-soaring.png
You can see that this key ratio has jumped 41% since 2011. It’s now at the highest level since 2002.


That’s a major red flag. But I’m not surprised one bit.

• After all, the Federal Reserve has been holding interest rates near zero for nearly a decade…


This has made it incredibly cheap to borrow money.

When companies can borrow money for next to nothing, they leverage up…just like we’ve seen.

Since 2009, U.S. corporations have borrowed more than $9.5 trillion in the bond market. That’s 62% more than they borrowed in the eight years leading up to the 2008–2009 financial crisis.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with borrowing money. Debt can help companies develop new projects, hire more workers, and build more factories.

In other words, debt can be good…but only if companies can pay their lenders.

We’re not so sure many companies will be able to do that in the near future.

Recommended Links

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• Corporate America is light on cash…
But I’m not talking about total cash holdings. That’s sitting at more than $1.5 trillion right now.

I’m talking about corporate cash holdings relative to debt.

You can see what I’m talking about below. This chart shows the cash-to-debt ratio for U.S. investment-grade companies.

This ratio been falling since 2010. That means companies are borrowing money faster than they’re generating cash.
http://d1w116sruyx1mf.cloudfront.net...ash-levels.png
This key ratio is now at the lowest level since 2009.


Think about that.

The U.S. economy was in shambles eight years ago. People weren’t spending money. Corporate sales were pitiful.

Today, it’s supposedly a different story. According to the government, the economy is doing just fine.

Yet, you’d think we were in a recession by looking at corporate balance sheets. That’s because Corporate America is drowning in debt and light on cash.

You don’t have to work on Wall Street to know that this is a recipe for disaster.

If the U.S. economy runs into trouble, many companies won’t have enough cash to ride out the storm. We could soon see a huge spike in corporate defaults and bankruptcies.


• No one is taking this seriously…
Take a look at the chart below.
It shows the “spread” between investment-grade corporate bonds and U.S. Treasurys. A spread is the difference between two bond yields.
In this case, corporate bonds should yield more than Treasurys. That’s because they’re riskier.


Unlike the government, companies can’t print money whenever they feel like it.

Now, this spread is still positive. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the spread hasn’t been this low since 2014.
http://d1w116sruyx1mf.cloudfront.net...ing-enough.png
This tells us that corporate bonds aren’t paying as much as they should. That’s another reason to avoid them.

If you haven’t already, lighten up on corporate bonds.

They’re risky and they’re not yielding nearly enough.

That’s a “lose-lose” bet.

If you’re looking for income, consider high-quality, dividend-paying stocks instead.

• You can start by looking at Dividend Aristocrat stocks...
These are stocks that have increased their annual dividends every year for 25 consecutive years.

In other words, they kept raising dividends even after the dot-com bubble popped and through the housing crisis. That’s a sign of great management.

Here are three Dividend Aristocrat stocks that we like right now:
Kimberly Clark Corp. (KMB)—This company sells toilet paper, paper towels, and diapers. It currently pays an annual dividend yield of 2.7%. For comparison, the S&P 500 yields just 1.9%.
The Clorox Company (CLX)—This company sells bleach, charcoal, and cat litter. Its dividend currently yields 2.3%.
Procter & Gamble (PG)—This company sells laundry detergent, toothpaste, and shampoo. Its dividend currently yields 2.9%.


Notice anything?

These companies all sell stuff that people buy no matter what’s going on with the economy. They’re the type of “basics” stocks that we’ve been pounding the table on lately.

Plus, each company has debt-to-equity ratios of less than 1.00. They have strong balance sheets. They’ll have no problem surviving the next financial crisis.
Regards,
http://d1w116sruyx1mf.cloudfront.net...ittler-sig.jpg
Justin Spittler
Delray Beach, Florida

March 17, 2017

We want to hear from you.
If you have a question or comment, please send it to [email protected]. We read every email that comes in, and we'll publish comments, questions, and answers that we think other readers will find useful.

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: We continually have our attention on REALITY VS PERCEPTION because we know the TRUTH thanks to all the excellent research shared on this thread.

Thanks for your reply Teek. You are more than welcome to post here and you are invited to share with us your technical and other Forex knowledge and experience. When you understand the Money Flow EDGE and the CORRELATIONS than I would sincerely hope that your own results will improve substantially.

It is a pleasure to see you post here and enjoy your weekend. Keep in mind that today and Saturday the G20 are meeting in Germany and they will be ramifications no matter what spin they put on the Press Release.


Benjaminis

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/m...rch-17th-2017/

Blog/Market Talk

Posted Mar 17, 2017 by Martin Armstrong
https://armstrongmedia.s3.amazonaws....17-300x200.jpg

Given the mixed to small lower session seen in the US, the reaction it had on Asia was understandably a marginally weaker theme. Eventually, we saw losses in the Nikkei (-0.35%) and Shanghai (-0.95%) but gains for ASX (+0.25%) and Hang Seng (+0.1%). The geopolitical concerns are still present between China and Japan over the South China Seas and this was one reason provided for the ongoing strength in the Japanese Yen as we see it rally again to the mid 112’s. There was more talk surrounding a weaker CNH as traders look for the crucial 6.900 level under pressure as we head towards month and quarter end. In late US trading, the Nikkei (futures) are slowing ground and are now around -0.5% lower on the day.

European trading was also quiet after an eventful week while it remains nervous ahead of G20 and April’s French elections. One interesting meeting was between Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Schaeuble blamed the Euro and the Euro area for the German trade surplus as it is not their central bank or currency individually, but part of the group. This is something we have been stating for a long time and clarifies that a one size does not fit all. However, a long way to go yet as southern Europe continues to feel the pain while the FED hikes and ECB does what it can. The meeting between Trump and Merkel appeared an opportunity for President Trump to reiterate that he is not an isolationist but remained true to his word that others should pay their own fair share of the comfort he feels the US provides. NATO was mentioned and the two were far from the position Trump received when he met Theresa May the UK Prime Minister after she said they were 100% behind NATO.

It was a deceiving market as far as the US equity session went, despite extremely thin moves, the volumes were around 20% higher. This was due to the amount of option expiries this evening given many contracts have rolled and we approach quarter end. Gold has had a solid bounce the past couple of days but then oil/energy also saw a welcome bounce. It will be interesting to see the Q1 numbers on energy, metals and rates as they jockey for position.


US 2’s closed 1.32% (-1bp), 10’s at 2.50 (-3bp) a 2bp flatter curve. Bunds closed 0.43% (-2bp) closing the US/Germany spread at +207bp. France closed 1.10% (+2bp), Italy 2.35% (+0), Greece 7.2`% (+7bp), Turkey 10.70% (-10bp), Portugal 4.23% (+0bp) and UK Gilts 1.24% (-1bp).
Categories: Market Talk

« Market Talk- March 16th, 2017

https://mishtalk.com/2017/03/17/us-p...f-over-greece/


US Pressures IMF to Walk Away From Greece: Dj Vu, All Over Again

FridayPosted by Mish | March 17, 2017 1:57:05 | Economics

≈ 19 Comments

Greece is in reverse. Greek Unemployment Rose to 23.1%, GDP contracted 1.2% last quarter, and now the US is pressuring the IMF to back away from continued bailouts.
4th “Bailout” Needed
https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...ng?w=529&h=339

Greece’s labor market seems immune to the broader improvements in jobs growth seen elsewhere in Europe where average unemployment has now fallen to a four-year low of 9.8 percent.

The economy, which has the highest debt burden in the bloc at 180 per cent, also suffered a sharp growth setback in the last three months of the year, contracting by 1.2 per cent.
It was the worst GDP performance since the height of its debt crisis in the summer of 2015 and reflects renewed uncertainty in its bailout talks. Average eurozone GDP rose 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016.

“Bailout” History

https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...ng?w=529&h=348
US Pressures IMF to Walk Away From Greece
Now, conservatives in US Congress say Europeans should solve the crisis on their own. This puts the IMF Under Pressure Over the Greek Bailout.

In what was labeled an “America First” budget revealed on Thursday, the president proposed a $650m cut in US funding over the next three years for multilateral development banks including the World Bank. He also this week nominated two conservative economists with a history of criticizing the IMF and the Bank for the two top international posts at the US Treasury.

But conservative Republicans in Congress are eager for him to go a step further. They want him to assert US power over such bodies by taking a hard line and opposing further IMF involvement in Greece, which is sliding towards another crisis this summer unless its European creditors agree to cover billions more in debt payments.

A bill introduced on Thursday by Bill Huizenga, a Michigan conservative who was first elected to Congress with Tea party backing in 2011, calls for the Trump administration to oppose any further IMF participation in a Greek bailout. Should the US fail to achieve that aim, the bill would also require the US to oppose any broader IMF quota reforms until Greece had repaid all of its debts to the IMF.
“The IMF is supposed to be a lender of last resort, not a fig leaf of first resort for eurozone members,” Mr. Huizenga said.
“The IMF isn’t a fund to rescue political parties in creditor nations, nor should it be a junior partner to outside organizations that lack the commitment to do their work,” he said. “For seven years now, the IMF has been used to shield eurozone officials from their voters, which has tarnished the fund’s reputation, prolonged Greece’s misery, and put off hard choices about Europe’s future that must be made regardless.”

Grexit Dj Vu

https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/...ng?w=529&h=344
The Council on Foreign Relations writer Robert Kahn reports Greece on the Brink: Dj Vu, All Over Again.

Greece appears to have neither the will nor the resources to make its payments, so avoiding default will require European creditors to disburse from their existing loan programs.

Bottom Line: Greece and its creditors are again locked in a showdown over reforms, cash, and debt relief. Another cliff-hanger ahead of heavy July debt payments looks likely. Extend-and-pretend is a dead end for Greece and an increasingly populist Europe, and a more ambitious agreement seems ruled out by bailout fatigue in creditor countries. Markets are once again underestimating the risks of “Grexit.”

Conclusion: All of this suggests that, for economic and political reasons, the window may be closing on a comprehensive resolution of Greece’s crisis. I would not bet against a deal to buy time, though probably without the involvement of the IMF. With each showdown, the risk increases that the Greek government will decide that its economic future is better outside the eurozone.

Key Differences This Time

In regards to bailouts, Kahn notes two key differences between now and past last minute deals.

1. The IMF has taken a much firmer stance against the current program, and its fire has been aimed at both the creditors and the debtor.
2. The second new element is the rising populist backlash against continued bailouts in the European Union (EU). Notably, it is extraordinarily difficult for a Dutch or German policymaker, pressured by anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiments at home during an election period, to make precedent-setting concessions to Greece on debt.

Greece is Hopeless
Clearly, Greece is hopeless.
But nothing has changed. Greece is no more hopeless today than it was in 2009, three “bailouts” ago.

Of course, those bailouts were never designed to help Greece. They were designed to help Greece’s creditors and to calm down Eurozone fissures.
With new and more important fissures to worry about, Germany and the rest of the Eurozone countries are increasingly prepared to throw Greece under the bus. On its part, Greece was never willing to implement much-needed reforms.

So here we are, Grexit has been staved off so many times now, most think it can never happen.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock




Showdown! In Leaked Letter IMF Tells Germany "Debt Relief for Greece or IMF Drops Out"In "Economics"
White Knight Irony: IMF Threatens to Walk Away From Bailout Deal Citing Unsustainable Debt
Greece Talks on Hold; IMF Admits Haircuts Needed as Surplus Turns to Deficits





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About Mish


Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific

Capital Management.
View all posts by Mish


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US Pressures IMF to Walk Away From Greece: Dj Vu, All Over Again

http://wolfstreet.com/2017/03/17/eu-...on-angel-dust/

If the ECB scales back stimulus, banks face even greater risk of collapse. But now there’s a new solution.


By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at WOLF STREET.


Events are moving so fast in Europe these days, it’s almost impossible to keep up. While much of the attention is being hogged by political developments, including the election in the Netherlands, Reuters published a report warning that the European banking sector may face even higher bad loan risks if the ECB begins to scale back its monetary stimulus programs, something it has already begun, albeit extremely tentatively.


The total stock of non-performing loans (NPL) in the EU is estimated at over €1 trillion, or 5.4% of total loans, a ratio three times higher than in other major regions of the world.

On a country-by-country basis, things take look even scarier. Currently 10 (out of 28) EU countries have an NPL ratio above 10% (orders of magnitude higher than what is generally considered safe). And among Eurozone countries, where the ECB’s monetary policies have direct impact, there are these NPL stalwarts:

1. Ireland: 15.8%
2. Italy: 16.6%
3. Portugal: 19.2%
4. Slovenia: 19.7%
5. Greece: 46.6%
6. Cyprus: 49%

That bears repeating: in Greece and Cyprus, two of the Eurozone’s most bailed out economies, virtually half of all the bank loans are toxic.


Then there’s Italy, whose €350 billion of NPLs account for roughly a third of Europe’s entire bad debt stock. Italy’s government and financial sector have spent the last year and a half failing spectacularly to come up with a solution to the problem. The two “bad bank” funds they created to help clean up the banks’ toxic balance sheets, Atlante I and Atlante II, are the financial equivalent of bringing a butter knife to a machete fight. So underfunded are they, they even strugggled to hold aloft smaller, regional Italian banks like Veneto Banca and Popolare di Vicenza, which are now pleading for a bailout from Rome, which in turn is pleading for clemency from Brussels.



What little funds Atlante I and Atlante II have left are hemorrhaging value as the “assets” they’ve been used to buy up, invariably at prices that were way too high (often at over 40 cents on the euro), continue to deteriorate. The recent decision of Italy’s two biggest banks, Unicredit and Intesa Sao Paolo, to significantly write down their investment in Atlante is almost certain to discourage the private sector from pumping fresh funds into bailing out weaker banks.
Which means someone else must step in, and soon. And that someone is almost certain to be the European taxpayer.


In February ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio called for the creation of a whole new class of government-backed “bad banks” to help buy some of the €1 trillion of bad loans putrefying on bank balance sheets. Constancio’s idea bore a striking resemblance to a formal proposal put forward by the European Banking Authority (EBA) for the creation of a massive EU-wide bad bank that, in the words of EBA president Andrea Enria, would “make it much easier to achieve critical mass and to create a well functioning market for (impaired) assets.”

Here’s how it would work, according to Enria’s words (emphasis added):
The banks would sell their non-performing loans to the asset management company at a price reflecting the real economic value of the loans, which is likely to be below the book value, but above the market price currently prevailing in illiquid markets. So the banks will likely have to take additional losses.

The asset manager would then have three years to sell those assets to private investors. There would be a guarantee from the member state of each bank transferring assets to the asset management company, underpinned by warrants on each bank’s equity. This would protect the asset management company from future losses if the final sale price is below the initial transfer price.

One of the biggest advantages of launching an EU-wide bad bank is that it would avoid the sort of public “resistance” that would occur if it was done at a national level, says Enria. Italian lenders would presumably be able to continuing pricing bad loans at or around 40 cents on the euro on average, even though their real value — i.e. the current value priced by the market — is often much lower. The difference between the market price, if any, and the price the banks end up receiving for their bad debt will be covered by Europe’s taxpayers.

If given the green light, the scheme would pave the way to the biggest one-off bail out of European banks in history. It would be Euro-TARP on angel dust, with even fewer checks and balances and much less likelihood of ever recovering taxpayer funds. According to a banker source cited by Reuters, while Germany has not yet endorsed the EBA plan, the EU documents describe the development of a secondary market for NPLs as a priority. According to Enria, the EBA hopes to finalize matters “at the European level” in the Spring.

The documents also include proposals for a wider “restructuring of banking sectors” as states address the NPLs problem. This “could lead to mergers among EU banks after they offload their bad loans,” a banking industry official said.

In other words, EU taxpayers would have to spend potentially hundreds of billions of euros saving yet more banks from the consequences of their own acts and bail out their bondholders and potentially their stockholders too, with funds desperately needed in other areas. Those banks, once saved and their balance sheets cleansed, would then be handed on a platter to much bigger banks. In return, taxpayers would end up with an even more concentrated, consolidated, interconnected financial system that is even more prone to abuse, corruption, and excess. By Don Quijones.


The ECB’s policy isn’t about creating inflation but about keeping a financial system and a currency union from collapsing upon each other. Read… ECB Trapped in its Own “Doom Loop” as Inflation Surges

Comments From Benjaminis: Let Us Keep Our Eye On Europe and this banking matter and let us see what might come out with regard to the G20 meerings today and Saturday. Enjoy your weekend and that is it for posts today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...Bnation&wpmk=1

Business
New rifts emerge as Trump administration rejects free trade statement at G-20 meeting
https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/im...EeehX6WNSpiEdA
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, left, shakes hands with Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s minister for national development. (Uwe Anspach/AP)
By Damian Paletta March 18 at 12:53 PM


BADEN-BADEN, Germany — The Trump administration on Saturday rejected a statement from other leading economies that warned against the perils of trade protectionism, the latest sign of how the administration’s more combative approach to diplomacy could create rifts with U.S. allies and leave traditional partners in the dark about the direction of U.S. policy.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, appearing at a gathering of economic ministers and central bankers from the 20 largest economies, rebuffed multiple entreaties from German officials to include in the meeting’s joint statement language stressing the importance of free trade and that it should be conducted in a “rules based” manner, following existing standards and agreements.

By rejecting language that would have said the United States is opposed to protectionism, the White House sent a clear signal that it would not accept existing trade norms and could pursue a more antagonistic approach with trading partners around the world. Such language has been considered ordinary and uncontroversial in recent meetings of the Group of 20.

“I understand what the president’s desire is and his policies and I negotiated them from here, and we couldn’t be happier with the outcome,” Mnuchin said at a news conference Saturday.

Trump made opposition to free trade a cornerstone of his presidential campaign and pulled the United States out of a sweeping Asia trade deal shortly after taking office, but has not yet followed up with other concrete steps to revamp the terms of America’s economic relationship with the world. He has threatened tariffs and other measures to correct what he says are other countries’ unfair advantages in their trade relationships with the United States, mostly taking aim at China and Mexico.

President Trump: 'I am not an isolationist'

Play Video1:06

U.S. President Donald Trump says he is not an isolationist and believes in fair trade, but that the United States has been treated unfairly by other countries. (Reuters)

For many years, the United States has been the country rallying other nations to the cause of free trade and common language in the communiques that follow meetings of economic ministers and central banks. Several European officials and one former U.S. official who had attended past G-20 meetings said it was the first time the United States had blocked such an effort.

The move follows new strains in the U.S. relationship with Britain and Germany, traditionally two of America’s most steadfast allies.
The White House on Friday cited an uncorroborated Fox News report to accuse a British spy agency of surveilling him at the behest of the Obama administration — an accusation the agency said was baseless.

Then Trump launched a pair of tweets Saturday morning accusing Germany of failing to fulfill its obligations after several negative headlines about his meeting Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington.

“Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” Trump said on Twitter. “Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”
(Germany does not owe vast sums of money to NATO, the defense alliance. Member nations are expected to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense spending, but Germany only spends 1.2 percent. It’s unclear what Trump is referring to when he says the United States must be paid more for its defense of Germany, which hosts a major U.S. Air Force base.)

German economic officials spoke Saturday in Baden-Baden about the same time Trump sent the accusatory tweets.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the United States was at an “impasse” with others about what they should say on trade protectionism, so they decided to say nothing at all. He also accused the Trump administration of not having a firm view on what it was seeking in terms of a trade policy.
“Obviously he had no mandate to talk about any definitions or interpretations of what the U.S. administration means by ‘fair trade,’ and that is something we have to accept for the time being,” Schäuble said.

Schäuble said that the finance ministers struggled to reach a consensus on how to approach trade.

“We have agreed on some wording and language on trade policy which may be helpful or not,” he said at a news conference.
He added that “sometimes at such meetings you cannot reach all the results that you may want to achieve because you cannot force partners to go along with wording they are not [okay] with.”

The Germans had tried to get Mnuchin on board. Sensing opposition to the initial language from the Trump administration, German officials had watered it down several times but Mnuchin resisted.

Finally, about 1 p.m. Saturday, Germany’s top central banker, Jens Weidmann, told his colleagues that the efforts to reach an agreement on the trade talks had failed.

Mnuchin then spoke up and asked whether they could agree on more generic language that said the countries wanted to “strengthen the contribution of trade.” Several other finance ministers balked, saying such watery language was meaningless.

Still, a version of Mnuchin’s proposal ended up in the final agreement, which contained just a brief generic reference: “We are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies.”

The new language was markedly different from last year’s, when the finance ministers issued a joint statement that said, “We will resist all forms of protectionism.”

“We believe in free trade. We are one of the largest markets in the world. We are one of the largest trading partners in the world. Trade has been good for us and good for other people,” Mnuchin said at the news conference. “Having said that, we want to reexamine certain agreements. . . . To the extent that agreements are old agreements and need to be renegotiated, we will consider that as well.”

The G-20 first met during the George W. Bush administration, and its purpose is to try to get global agreement on common issues that face each of the countries, such as trade, taxes, financial regulation and national security.

Trump was elected in part because he vociferously rejected existing trade agreements, and the message Mnuchin delivered on behalf of the White House was that it planned to follow through on his campaign-trail promises.

Gary Schmitt, co-director of the Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said Trump could be sending a signal to other leaders that this is a negotiation, and the actions by Mnuchin at the meeting are an opening bid.

“You make people come to you by laying out a strident position,” Schmitt said, summing up the approach Trump has used for years in real estate and business. “But over the long term, it’s much harder to hold to that. These are people who lead countries and have other trade agreements. The U.S. is going to learn it's not as in-the-driver-seat as they think.”

Joint statements issued after G-20 meetings are difficult to finalize and are only as meaningful as the countries want them to be. They aren’t formal treaties, but they do signal whether where there is consensus. Many world leaders are trying to determine how Trump’s “America First” mantra will affect existing and future trade agreements, which dictate how goods and services are imported and exported around the world. The U.S. economy is the world’s largest, and changes the way it buys and sells goods will have global ramifications.

The White House has said it thinks existing U.S. trade deals are unfair to American workers because it allows countries to lure away American jobs and send their goods to the United States at unfairly low prices. In addition to scrapping the Asian trade deal, Trump has also said he will renegotiate — or scrap — the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Critics of this approach have said it could isolate the U.S. economy, make goods more expensive for Americans, and hurt American companies that rely on exporting their goods around the world.

The angst about Trump’s approach quickly became the backdrop at the Baden-Baden meeting, and many foreign officials came seeking more clarity from Mnuchin, whom most had never met. Mnuchin had spent his career in part at Goldman Sachs, starting a hedge fund and working as a Hollywood producer. They wanted to know whether he would veer from Trump on some of the economic nationalism they had heard coming from the White House.
He wouldn’t, they quickly learned.

During a closed-door meeting Friday with other finance ministers and central bankers, Mnuchin delivered the same message that Trump had made for months, just slightly softer, according to attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions: The United States would unapologetically work to redraft trade practices in a way that helps American workers. He said trade agreements need to be “free and fair” and balanced. He also said an overhaul of the U.S. tax code was overdue and that the United States would rethink regulations put in place after the Great Recession.

Mnuchin made clear again and again that what’s good for America’s economy is good for global growth.

“My primary focus is on economic growth in the United States,” Mnuchin said after meeting with Schäuble in Berlin. “I think that economic growth in the United States is good for us and good for the other major economies in the world.”

The message was not unexpected, but for many of the officials it was the first time they had heard it in person from a member of Trump’s Cabinet.

Mnuchin quickly became the “center of attention,” Canadian Finance Minister William Morneau said in an interview. Many sought one-on-one meetings with Mnuchin to explain their position and hear his views. The trade language in the joint statement served as a test to see how dug in Mnuchin — and ultimately Trump — was willing to be on trade.


Still, Mnuchin agreed to numerous meetings as he said he wanted to develop more relationships with his foreign counterparts. He met with top officials from France, South Korea, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, the European Central Bank, Britain, Germany and Argentina, among others. His first international trip was a blizzard of bilateral discussions, with everyone trying to size up the new treasury secretary.


Despite the reservations about a variety of Trump’s positions, numerous officials said they were impressed with Mnuchin’s presentation and command of issues. So far, he is one of the only members of Trump’s Cabinet who has sought to develop relationships with other foreign leaders. They still don’t know whether they will be able to influence his thinking, but they feel he has a willingness to listen, several G-20 attendees said.


“To a person, they have said they have been pleased with the way he is coming at issues,” Morneau said. “He is very constructive and talking about good relationships with all of his international counterparts.”

Two European officials described Mnuchin as friendly but “tough.” They also said the U.S. delegation at the G-20 was routinely checking back with its counterparts in Washington on certain issues, leading some Europeans to wonder with whom they were negotiating, Mnuchin or Trump. But one of the European officials said this was not uncommon for a new administration, which was still formalizing its viewpoint on an array of complicated matters.


The G-20 finance ministers’ meeting is the precursor to a gathering of the G-20 heads of state this summer in Hamburg. Many expect the discussions on trade will only intensify by then, but now they know where the United States stands.


COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: Well based on the above information WE now have RISK ON when the Markets open in Asia , then Europe and finally North America.

http://michael-hudson.com/2017/03/wh...nking-profits/

Economist Michael Hudson takes on the mythology surrounding government budgets and explains how the term ‘stability’ has been used as a cover for financial fraud.

SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. I am speaking with Michael Hudson in our studio in Baltimore about his new book, “J Is For Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in the Age of Deception”.


Thank you again for joining me.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Good to be here.

SHARMINI PERIES: So, Michael, one of the concepts that you deal with is about balancing the budget, the whole mythology surrounding that. That is your myth number 17, where you say, “Government budget deficits are bad. Balanced budgets are good. And budget surpluses are even better.” What’s wrong with this?


MICHAEL HUDSON: The popular press acts as if governments should act like a family. And just as families have to balance the budgets, governments have to.

But this is a false analogy, because if you personally spend more than you earn, you can’t just write an I.O.U., which everybody else can spend as if it’s real money. You have to pay the I.O.U. at some point, usually with interest, to the bank. But that’s not the case with sovereign governments. When a government runs a budget deficit, it can do so in the way that Abraham Lincoln funded the Civil War: You print the money. You print it into the economy by spending it.


Almost every year until the 1990s, the United States, like every other country in the world, increased its debt by running a budget deficit, by spending money into the economy for infrastructure, schooling, and roads. This is what enables economies to grow. That stopped during the Clinton administration in the 1990s. At the end of the administration he fell for neoliberal theory that you should balance the budget, and he actually ran a budget surplus. So the government stopped spending money into the economy.


The result was the economy had to depend on banks to create the money to expand. If the government doesn’t create it, who will create the spending power? The answer was the banks.

Clinton did what he was told to do by the Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin. In effect, his policy was: “Let the banks create all the money and charge interest instead of the government creating money by spending it like the greenbacks were spent.”


The advantage of governments creating money is you they don’t have to pay interest, because the spending is self-financing. Bank lobbyists cry about how large the government debt is, but this is debt that is not expected to be repaid. Adam Smith wrote that no government has ever paid its debt.


I think it’s easiest for most Americans to understand this by looking at Europe. Under the Eurozone’s rules, central banks are not allowed to create much money. As a result the economies of Europe are shrinking into austerity. Greece is the most notorious example. Here you have unemployment among youth up to 50% as the economy for the last five years is suffering from the worst depression since the 1930s. Yet the government is not able to spend the money needed to rebuild the economy. The banks won’t let them do it. The aim of neoliberals is to prevent governments from spending money to revive growth by running deficits. Their argument is: “If a government can’t run a deficit, then it can’t spend money on roads, schools and other infrastructure. They’ll have to privatize these assets – and banks can create their own credit to let investors buy these assets and run them as rent-extracting monopolies.”


The bank strategy continues: “If we can privatize the economy, we can turn the whole public sector into a monopoly. We can treat what used to be the government sector as a financial monopoly. Instead of providing free or subsidized schooling, we can make people pay $50,000 to get a college education, or $50,000 just to get a grade school education if families choose to if you go to New York private schools. We can turn the roads into toll roads. We can charge people for water, and we can charge for what used to be given for free under the old style of Roosevelt capitalism and social democracy.”


This idea that governments should not create money implies that they shouldn’t act like governments. Instead, the de facto government should be Wall Street.

Instead of governments allocating resources to help the economy grow, Wall Street should be the allocator of resources – and should starve the government to “save taxpayers” (or at least the wealthy). Tea Party promoters want to starve the government to a point where it can be “drowned in the bathtub.”


But if you don’t have a government that can fund itself, then who is going to govern, and on whose terms? The obvious answer is, the class with the money: Wall Street and the corporate sector. They clamor for a balanced budget, saying, “We don’t want the government to fund public infrastructure. We want it to be privatized in a way that will generate profits for the new owners, along with interest for the bondholders and the banks that fund it; and also, management fees. Most of all, the privatized enterprises should generate capital gains for the stockholders as they jack up prices for hitherto public services.”


The reason why the European countries, the United States and other countries ran budget deficits for so many years is because they want to keep this infrastructure in the public domain, not privatized. The things that government spends money on – roads, railroads, schools, water and other basic needs – are the kind of things that people absolutely must obtain. So they’re the last things you want to privatize. If they’re privatized instead of being publicly funded, they can be monopolized. Most public spending programs are for such natural monopolies.


The guiding idea of a well-run economy is to keep natural monopolies out of private hands. This was not done in Russia after 1991. Its disaster under the neoliberals is a classic example. It led to huge immigration rates, shortening life spans, rising disease rates and drug use. You can see how to demoralize a country if you can stop the government from spending money into the economy. That will cause austerity, lower living standards and really put the class war in business. So what Trump is suggesting is to put the class war in business, financially, with an exclamation point.


SHARMINI PERIES: You talked about the implications of cutting government spending and, in fact, your myth number 18 deals with this. You describe this myth as saying that cutbacks in public spending will bring the government budget into balance, restoring stability. And you just demonstrated through the Russian example that this is quite misleading and in fact has the opposite effect and destabilizes the population. So this policy Trump seems to endorse – the cutback in public spending – give us some examples of how this could affect society.


MICHAEL HUDSON: You used the word “stability” and this is often a slogan to prevent thought. George Orwell didn’t use the term “junk economics,” but he defined what doublethink is. The function is to prevent thought. “Stability” is akin to the “Great Moderation.” Remember how economists running up to the 2008 crisis said, “This is a Great Moderation.”


We now know that it was the most unstable decade in a century. It was a decade of financial fraud, it was a decade where economic inequality between wealth and the rest of the economy widened. So what made it moderate? Alan Greenspan went before the Senate Committee and gave a long talk on what was so “stable”? He said that what’s stable is that workers haven’t gone on strike. They are so deeply in debt, they owe so much money that they’re one paycheck away from missing an electric utility payment. So they’re afraid to strike. They’re afraid even to protest against working conditions. They’re afraid to ask that their wages be increased to reflect their productivity.

What’s stable is the wealthy people, Greenspan’s constituency, the five percent or the one percent get all of the income and the people get nothing. That is stability according to Alan Greenspan.


Words like “stability” or similar euphemisms are used to make people think that somehow the economy is stable and normal. The reality is that it is being slowly squeezed. That’s basically what happened in the Great Moderation. The government was cutting back spending on social programs, dismantling the New Deal array of consumer protection agencies, which Trump also wants to get rid of. The first thing he wanted to get rid of, he said, is Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

The problem for Republicans serving their bank lobbyists is that it’s trying to prevent fraud – and that limits consumer choice. Just like we let people go to MacDonald’s and buy junk food and junk sodas to get obese, we have to let them have the free choice to put their pension funds in Wall Street companies that are going to cheat them.


These are the Wall Street firms that have paid tens of billions of dollars for the financial fraud they’ve committed. The Republicans want to dismantle all of the penalties against financial fraud, against cheating consumers. That would reduce the amount of money that sector can extract, and these people are what’s driving the economy. But they’re driving the economy largely by debt leveraging bordering on fraud. That’s the kicker in all this.


By dismantling government spending on the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the public news agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts, you’re stripping the economy away and making the American economy like what Margaret Thatcher did in England. You make it less dynamic, a less lively place, and above all a poorer economy. That is the aim of these “reforms,” which mean undoing what reforms used to mean for the last century.


These words and the vocabulary used in the press dovetail into each other to paint a picture of a fictitious economy. The aim is to make people think that they’re living in a parallel universe, unable to use a vocabulary and economic concepts to explain just why life is so unfair and why they’re being squeezed so badly.

Above all, the aim is to dissuade them from thinking about how it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no natural law that says that they should be squeezed by debt, monopolies and fraud. But that kind of thinking requires an alternative program – and an alternative program requires recapturing the language to explain what it is that you’re trying to create as an alternative.


SHARMINI PERIES: Perfect. This is a good place to stop and continue into our segment five with Michael Hudson. We’re talking about J Is For Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in the Age of Deception. Thanks for joining us.

COMMENTS FROM BENJAMINIS: The above article explains matters however what it says and what it means are two different things. Before any reasonable solutions can be pot in place the ENTIRE FINANCIAL SYSTEM MUST COLLAPSE AND IT WILL. Then and only then is there a possibility that our World can be restructured.

The world has been destabilized by 46 years of terrible decisions based on politics and self interest. The democracies have become CORRUPT and those without democracy such as Turkey now and some other Countries have become destabilized such as the USA. All we can do is get involved as much as possible and prepare ourselves of THE CHANGING OF THE GUARDS !!!