NO STRINGS ATTACHED NEWS THAT MAINSTREAM JUST WON'T COVER.
Clown world is here
https://www.infowars.com/lefto-the-clown-discusses-what-its-like-to-hang-out-with-joe-biden/
Hong Kong Chaos: Shops Trashed, Banks Targeted, And Petrol Bombs Tossed At Police
After several weeks of peace in Hong Kong, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets over the weekend and participated in an illegal march that led to hundreds of stores trashed, Chinese banks targeted, and several metro stations firebombed, reported Reuters.
At the start of the weekend, Hong Kong Police denied pro-democracy protestors the right to march through an upscale shopping district.
Then by Sunday, thousands of black-clothed protesters clashed with police, exchanging tear gas and petrol bombs that sent the city into chaos once more.
Protests firebombed the Tsim Sha Tsui police station on the Kowloon peninsula.
#LIVE: Protesters hurl petrol bombs at Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station, with flames briefly burning on the entrance gate https://t.co/C1XgcSQwLk #HongKongProtests Video: SCMP/Kimmy Chung pic.twitter.com/B8MJSlMFv3
— SCMP News (@SCMPNews) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js#HongKong protesters throw Molotovs at police stationhttps://t.co/skJG3CMJLt pic.twitter.com/0CvQPPMuoV
— RT (@RT_com) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThere were several other reports that protestors used petrol bombs and targeted metro stations in the city.
Violent #hongkongprotestors continue damage across territory during #hongkongprotests, including fire on #hongkong power supply facilities...hope #hongkongpolice to get them asap! pic.twitter.com/iMzv1uKdXk
— HongKongRiot2019香港暴動實錄 (@HK2019Riot) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsVideo: #HongKong rioters set fire to Mong Kok MTR subway station in an illegal assembly on Sunday afternoon. #香港 pic.twitter.com/eoyDPECHxX
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsProtesters attack exits at Mongkok MTR stations, setting multiple fires #hongkongprotests #antielab #hongkong pic.twitter.com/z13ECnPQhs
— May-Ying Lam (@mayyin9) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsProtesters set fire at Nathan Road near Mong Kok Police Station. Police fired multiple shots of tear gas #HongKongProtests #HongKong #antiELAB pic.twitter.com/NSInGAN5qd
— Veta Chan (@veta_chan) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsProtesters rush away from a section of Nathan Road after the water cannon truck fires blue liquid. Some have hit reporters.#hongkong #hongkongprotests pic.twitter.com/R2kGnotpVt via HongKongFP
— Hong Kong Stream (@hkstream) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsProtestors targeted hundreds of shops and even damaged Chinese banks.
#HongKong protesters set a store on fire at Chong Hong Square just now #HongKongProtests pic.twitter.com/sOhEJiBygi
— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThis weekend's violence is due to pro-democracy leader Jimmy Sham, who was attacked earlier in the week, which left him in critical condition in the hospital.
Here's the moment when Hong Kong activist Jimmy Sham (#岑子杰) was taken to the hospital with bloody head injuries. The #HongKongProtests organizer was attacked by men wielding hammers on Wednesday night pic.twitter.com/vmRaK4rFcJ
— Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) October 18, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAs protestors continue to battle police into the overnight, road barriers have been set on fire, and stores are being trashed in several Kowloon districts, said police.
Reuters spoke with a protestor who said the government is now denying demonstration permits to prevent demonstrations from growing in size.
"The government pretends we just want to destroy the city. We'll be out for as long as it takes to let the world know it is them who are destroying it," a demonstrator named Ray told Reuters.
Violent protests began over the summer when Hong Kong proposed a new law that would allow Beijing to extradited criminals to mainland China.
Hongkongers take pride in their legal system and personal freedoms, which is dramatically different than communist China.
China has shown in recent years that it seeks greater control over Hong Kong.
The extradition bill was scrapped in early September, but that hasn't stopped violent demonstrations into fall.
Protesters view Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam as an agent of Beijing and will likely not stop protesting until she is removed from power.
And to make things more complicated in the days ahead, US lawmakers late last week sent a clear message to Beijing that it will support protestors via a new bill.
While Hong Kong burns this weekend, so is Santiago, Chile; so is Barcelona, Spain, and there are even climate change protests that are starting to get out of control throughout Europe.
The world is on fire.... protestas y violencia en Hong Kong, Barcelona, Chile, Culiacan, Ecuador, Syria, London, Honduras, Lebanon, and Palestine. Is this shit going viral yet?
— Catman Mao (@MiauTse) October 19, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThere's so much chaos in the world right now. Violent protests in Chile, Lebanon, hong kong and azerbaijan, buildings and tree on fire, the Kashmir curfew and probably many more things that we aren't even aware of. I don't even know what to say. It's just really sad.
— ɴᴏᴏr (@nxpapillon) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsPopulism is sweeping across the world, and a lot of this anger and frustration with young people is due to flawed monetary policy by central banks that have produced the widest wealth gap in the history of the world.
It's only a matter of time before US millennials figure this out, they too will be marching in the streets once they know the truth as to why they only have a shitty gig-economy job, no savings, and insurmountable student debt.
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 12:00What We've Lost
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
This is only a partial list of what we've lost to globalism, cheap credit and the Tyranny of Price which generates the Landfill Economy.
A documentary on the decline of small farms and the rural economy in France highlights what we've lost in the decades-long rush to globalize and financialize everything on the planet-- what we call Neoliberalism, the ideology of turning everything into a global market controlled by The Tyranny of Price and cheap credit issued to corporations and banks by central banks.
After Winter, Spring (2012) was made by an American who moved to a small village in the Dordogne region of France to recover something of her childhood on a small Pennsylvania farm.
The farmers--self-described as paysans, peasants in English, (a translation I don't consider entirely accurate, for reasons too complex to go into here)-- describe the financial difficulties of earning enough to survive without outside jobs.
One young farmer who is taking over the family dairy from his aging parents encapsulates the economic reality of small farms: in the 1960s, they had 3 or 4 cows, now they have 100, but their income is the same.
Corporate mega-farms can produce huge quantities of agricultural products of questionable quality because they have the scale, access to cheap credit and expertise to deal with the voluminous bureaucratic paperwork imposed by the EU and the French government. (One slip-up on a form and you're sunk if you're a one- or two-person operation.)
Artisanal producers can't compete, and will never be able to compete in a global marketplace where there is always a cheaper source. (Up to half a small farmer's income comes from EU subsidies, which the EU is trying to cut.)
Financial survival requires one spouse have an outside job, or the farmers must operate farm tours, an onsite auberge (restaurant) or equivalent higher-margin business, all of which increases the capital they must borrow to fund the expansion and the risk of bankruptcy should the venture fail to cover its costs.
The documentary echoes the themes of an earlier French documentary, Profils Paysans, a three-part series of which only the third film Modern Life (2008) has English Subtitles.
The financial uncertainties and endless hard work are running up against generational realities: relatively few young people have the necessary passion for farming and the appetite for risk and hard work. Across the developed world, from Japan to the U.S. to France, there are few (if any) successors in line to take over the small family farms.
The small family farm--and the knowledge of how to grow food and raise animals--is dying away with the passing of our elderly farmers. The average age of farmers in many nations is well above 60. Many of the paysans (male and female) profiled in these documentaries are in their 80s.
The land is sold for residential development (i.e. exurb sprawl, overwhelming infrastructure such as roads, water systems, etc. designed for much small populations) or abandoned.
These documentaries only partially capture the enormous distance between "modern life" and the human-Nature relationship required to make land sustainably productive.
It's important to preserve wilderness, but we don't eat what grows or roams in wilderness. Wildlife can't survive solely on isolated preserves, either; Corporate Big Ag monoculture fields offer little to no habitat for wildlife.
Corporate Big Ag doesn't maintain the polycultures needed to support insects, birds and other wildlife; small farms provide niches and habitats for all sorts of life that doesn't serve a direct financial interest of the owners.
The widening divide between the modern lifestyle--completely ignorant and dismissive of rural productive polyculture--and those who still hold knowledge of artisanal, small-scale, localized production of high quality food--is already unbridgeable.
One elderly farmer described how his non-French neighbor complained about the cowbells on his few cattle. This resident's dogs could bark freely, but the cowbells were an annoyance beyond tolerance?
This is a manifestation of the complete alienation of "modern life" from the production of food. The modern urban/exurb resident doesn't want to smell hay (hay fever!) or manure (oh my, all animal poop should vanish instantly or I can't bear it) or any other exposure to the realities of raising livestock, killing animals so we can eat them or any other reality of food. All of these processes should be done thousands of miles away, and the food shipped by air in nice plastic containers to our supermarkets.
Neoliberal economists insist nothing has been lost; the plastic food in the plastic containers is "market efficiency" (never mind the dependence on cheap credit and cheap jet fuel). As for all the intangible economic, social and cultural capital that's been lost--it has no value in globalized Neoliberal economies.
One almost hopes that Corporate Big Ag disappears due to mono-crop plagues and people start going hungry to the point that they begin to take an interest in relearning all that's been cavalierly tossed away in favor of plastic food in plastic packaging and endless hours slumped on sofas "consuming" videos and "engaging" social media.
We've lost so much in the conquest of localized, small-scale polycultural farming by Neoliberal globalism and the dominance of cheap-credit-fueled Corporate Big Ag, yet we're only dimly aware of what's been lost because it isn't measured or valued in Neoliberal economies.
We've lost the knowledge of even partial self-sufficiency; we've lost a diversified local economy that can feed itself; we've lost "food security," the resilience provided by food grown locally rather than being flown in from thousands of miles away; we've lost the cultural habits of helping neighbors bring in their harvest, of celebrating the shared work around a communal table; we've lost any Nature-based cultural identity; we've lost the cultural and economic capital of interwoven small farms; we've lost the habitats for wildlife that are unique to polyculture farming, and we've lost any meaningful connection to the land and Nature.
It's not just small farms that are being lost--it's the entire rural economy of villages and towns that are supported by farm income and products.
This is only a partial list of what we've lost to globalism, cheap credit and the Tyranny of Price which generates the Landfill Economy: always buy the cheapest corporate product-- price is all that matters, even if the quality is appalling. Just throw the low-quality items and food in the Landfill and buy new stuff on credit.)
These documentaries link directly to a 1,180 page two-volume work by historian Fernand Braudel, his last work:
The Identity of France: Volume One: History and Environment
The Identity of France: Volume Two: People and Production
I realize relatively few other readers would tackle a 1,200 page series with the same relish I have, or feel the same regret that I've finished the books, for my understanding of France, the history of agriculture, modern capitalism and prosperous rural economies is immeasurably richer.
What we've lost is a localized, resilient, diverse rural economy with a wealth of cultural and practical skills and wisdom. We only have a few years to save this immense wealth from complete and irretrievable loss.
What we've lost, whether we measure it or not is the subject my new book, Will You Be Richer or Poorer? Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World; (Read the first section for free (PDF). The book explores all the forms of wealth that we've lost or squandered. This applies not just to rural life and the rural, localized economy, but to our urban life, our society, our culture and our economy.
* * *
Will You Be Richer or Poorer? Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World (15% discount in October, Kindle $5.95, print $10.95) Read the first section for free (PDF). Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF). Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF). If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 11:30Major Blaze At Iran Oil Refinery Raises Suspicions Of Saudi Revenge Attack
A section of Iran’s sprawling Abadan oil refinery in the southwest of the country went up in flames Saturday, and state media sources reported the emergency was under control as of Sunday morning.
State media is describing it as "a fire in a canal carrying waste from Iran’s Abadan oil refinery," with Iranian official broadcaster IRIB saying, “The refinery’s fire department contained the fire and prevented it from spreading to other units.”
#BREAKING A fire in a canal carrying waste from #Iran’s #Abadan oil refinery was brought under control on Sunday: State Media pic.twitter.com/zTHwrVHMVc
— Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_EN) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsHowever, given the extent of the blaze captured in social media circulating videos, and especially given it comes after a tense summer of attacks on tanker and refineries — notably the Sept. 14 Saudi Aramco drone and missile attack — the newest Iran facility fire raises serious question.
Could the clearly massive Abadan blaze, which Iranian state sources appear ready to downplay, be the result of a Saudi revenge attack?
Though unverified and unconfirmed, Iranian opposition sources are pointing to a potential cyber attack as a possible cause for the fire.
#BREAKING: It is now confirmed that a Cyber attack resulted fire in #Abadan's Oil Refinery in Southwest of #Iran. Probably a Cyber attack in response to #IRGC's cruise missile attack at #Aramco's oil facilities in #Abqaiq & #Khurais, #SaudiArabia on 14 September 2019. pic.twitter.com/mkgs5LZXnq
— Babak Taghvaee (@BabakTaghvaee) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAgain, local authorities say it's the result of an accident, and though yes the occasional oil refinery blaze does happen, it's the fact that it comes after months of unprecedented Saudi-Iran (and allies) tit-for-tat targeting of tankers and energy resources that should raise some eyebrows.
The blaze is currently subject of intense speculation online after early reports cited an initial "explosion" at the facility.
ŞİMDİ İran’ın Abadan kentindeki petrol rafinerisinde patlama sesi duyuldu, yangın çıktı. • İran devlet ajansı Tasnim, yangının kontrol altına alındığını belirtiyor. pic.twitter.com/Em3UJLFT0Z
— Fatih (@fatihcagrii) October 20, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsInterestingly, the Abadan refinery has been subject of major foreign investment, with a Chinese firm Sinopec signing a $1.2 billion deal with Iran's oil ministry for a major modernization project at the facility in 2016.
And earlier this year it was announced that "China's Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corporation has invested €2 billion in development projects in the refinery since 2017," as initially cited by IRNA.
Abadan refinery in Iran's southwest region, file image.
However, with new US sanctions now targeting major Chinese shipping firms and entities caught importing Iranian oil, Beijing has begun pulling out of major oil and gas infrastructure projects inside Iran.
The fire is currently said to be under control, per state sources, but a definitive cause is as yet still unclear.
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 11:00 Tags PoliticsFor The Bulls, It's Now Or Never
Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
It’s Now Or Never For The BullsIn April of this year, I wrote an article discussing the 10-reasons the bull market had ended.
“The backdrop of the market currently is vastly different than it was during the ‘taper tantrum’ in 2015-2016, or during the corrections following the end of QE1 and QE2. In those previous cases, the Federal Reserve was directly injecting liquidity and managing expectations of long-term accommodative support. Valuations had been through a fairly significant reversion, and expectations had been extinguished. None of that support exists currently.”
It mostly fell on “deaf ears” as the market rallied back to highs. Since then, the market has continued to “cling” to a “wall of worries” as noted in Tuesday’s missive by Doug Kass:
The Fed Is Pushing On A String:
Untenable Debt Loads In The Private And Public Sectors.
An Unresolved Trade War With China.
The Global Manufacturing Recession Is Seeping Into The Services Sector.
The Market Structure Is Frightening.
We Are At An All-Time Low In Global Cooperation And Coordination.
We Are Already In An “Earnings Recession.”
Front Runner Status of Senator Warren (Market Unfriendly)
Valuations On Traditional Metrics (e.g., stock capitalizations to GDP) Are Sky High.
Few Expect That The Market Can Undergo A Meaningful Drawdown.
The Private Equity Market (For Unicorns) Crashes And Burns.
WeWork’s Problems Are Contagious
The reason I said “cling,” rather than “climb,” a “Wall of Worries” is that over the last 22-months the market really has not made much progress. With the market only marginally higher than it was in January of 2018, it has been mostly the ability for investors to withstand a heightened level of volatility.
The following is a WEEKLY chart of the S&P 500 as compared to its 4-year (200-week) moving average.
Here is the same chart on a MONTHLY basis as compared to its 5-year moving average.
Note the extremely long time frames of the underlying moving averages. We will revisit these in a moment.
For investors, it is important to understand the “bulls” maintain control of the market narrative for the moment, and, as noted last week, the “bullish wish list” was fulfilled over the last several weeks. To wit:
The ECB announced more QE and reduced capital constraints on foreign banks.
The Fed also reduced capital requirements on banks; and,
Initiated QE of $60 billion in monthly treasury purchases. (But it’s not QE)
The Fed is cutting rates as concerns over economic growth remain.
A “Brexit Deal” has been reached. (Just don’t read the subtext that says it likely won’t pass Parliament.)
Trump, as expected, caved into China and sets up an exit from the “trade deal” nightmare he got himself into.
Economic data is improving on a comparative basis in the short-term.
Stock buybacks are running on pace to be another record year. (As noted previously, stock buybacks have accounted for almost 100% of all net purchases over the last couple of years. See chart below.)
If you are a bull, what is there not to love?
This is a critical point. Given the fact we are now moving into the “seasonally strong” period of the year, the “bulls” clearly have the advantage, for now.
This is why we continue to maintain a long-equity bias in our portfolios currently. We also recently slightly reduced our hedges, along with some of our more defensive positioning. We are still maintaining slightly higher than normal levels of cash.
Note: If you want to track our portfolios “real time,” receive buy/sell alerts on holdings, and have access to all of our data and analysis tools, check out RIAPro.net today for a 30-day FREE Trial.
The Bearish Case Still Has Teeth“So, IF the “bulls” do indeed have control of the market, then why are allocations still somewhat hedged for risk?”
Great question.
The simple reason we still remain cautious is due to several reasons:
Despite the “bullish case” suggesting higher prices into the end of the year, there is still a not-insignificant possibility of failure.
Even with the “bullish backdrop,” the markets have, at least for now, been unable to make, and sustain, new highs. (see chart)
The chart below is the S&P 500 as compared to its 5-year MONTHLY, moving average. With the market currently pushing one of the highest deviations from the long-term average, investors would do well to remember that “reversions to the mean” occur with regularity.
As is always the case, historically speaking, the “bull case” ALWAYS appears to be “correct,” until it isn’t.
Unfortunately, for most investors, by the time they realize that something has going wrong, and they find out just how much “risk” they have layered into their portfolios, it is often too late to do much about it.
This is why “risk management” is always vastly more important than chasing returns.
What To Watch Out ForThe one thing about long-term trending bull markets is that they cover up investment mistakes. Overpaying for value, taking on too much risk, leverage, etc. are all things that investors inherently know will have negative outcomes. However, during a bull market, those mistakes are “forgiven” as prices inherently rise. The longer they rise, the more mistakes that investors tend to make as they become assured they are “smarter than the market.”
Eventually, a bear market reveals those mistakes in the most brutal of fashions.
It is often said the religion is found in “foxholes.” It is also found in bear markets where investors begin to “pray” for relief.
Many investors have dismissed the lessons they learned in 2008. There are many more who have never actually seen a “bear market,” and understandably believe the current bull cycle will last indefinitely.
I can assure you it won’t, and “experience” is always a brutal teacher.
As I wrote in “The Exit Problem” last December:
“My job is to participate in the markets while keeping a measured approach to capital preservation. Since it is considered ‘bearish’ to point out the potential ‘risks’ which could lead to rapid capital destruction; then I guess you can call me a ‘bear.’
Just make sure you understand I am still in ‘theater,’ I am just moving much closer to the ‘exit.’”
After having trimmed out some of our gains in our equity holdings throughout the year, and having been a steady buyer of bonds (despite consistent calls for higher rates), we are well positioned to take advantage of a rally to new highs if it occurs.
The cash we hold also protects us against a sudden sharp decline.
For the bulls, it’s now or never to make a final stand.
Just remember, getting back to even is not the same as growing wealth.
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 10:30 Tags Business FinanceChristine Lagarde Criticizes Trump's "Tweet Here, Or Tweet There" Fed Bashing
If the stock market is down or bad economic data prints, one can always assume President Trump will make time out of his day to bash the Federal Reserve on Twitter.
President Trump's Fed bashing, sometimes a daily occurrence, if not at least several times a week, has irritated incoming European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde, who says in an upcoming 60 Minutes interview, expected to air on Sunday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, that "Market stability should not be the subject of a tweet here or a tweet there. It requires consideration, thinking, quiet and measured, and rational decisions."
Lagarde told 60 Minutes correspondent John Dickerson that central banking is like "navigating a plane" with policymakers keeping a very close eye on the instrument panel, i.e., economic trends.
Dickerson asks Lagarde if it's okay if a leader [refering to President Trump] was actively criticizing a central bank head in public. Dickerson pulled a quote from President Trump's Sept. 11 tweet, where he called Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell a "bonehead" for not cutting "interest rates down to ZERO."
....The USA should always be paying the the lowest rate. No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing. A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of “Boneheads.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2019Lagarde responds by saying, "a central bank governor does best his job if he is independent."
According to CBS, the interview took place last month at Lagarde's home in Normandy and the IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Lagarde also criticized President Trump's Twitter practices as a whole and his trade war with China that has sent the global economy into one of its most vulnerable periods since the last financial crisis.
She said world leaders need to find a resolution to trade disputes: "My very, very strong message to all policymakers is please sit down like big men, many men in those rooms and put everything on the table, and try to deal bit by bit, piece by piece, so that we have certainty."
Lagarde will replace outgoing ECB Chief Mario Draghi on Nov. 01. She's entering the position as Europe's manufacturing complex is sliding into a technical recession along with the rest of the world.
Lagarde calling out President Trump in an upcoming 60-Minutes interview indicates that central bankers across the world are panicking to control an economic narrative that they have lost thanks to President Trump's tweeting.
60-Minutes has an average viewership of 8 million Americans, which means central banks, led by the upcoming Lagarde interview, want to convince as many people as possible that President Trump is wrong for criticizing Federal Reserve policy, but also want to persuade millions of people that the next recession should be blamed on the president -- not central banks.
For those who don't know, Lagarde was convicted for a massive bribery scheme as French finance minister, and her latest stunt in suggesting President Trump is interfering and influencing Powell to lower rates to zero is humorous.
Largard's absolutely disastrous tenure at the IMF, most recently the failed $57 billion bailout of Argentina through an IMF loan, has left the country of 45 million, essentially bankrupt, but more importantly, it shows that she will destroy the Eurozone as ECB head.
President Trump might get the last laugh.
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 09:55 Tags Business Finance
![[CB] Up To Their Old Tricks, NP Exposed On The Economy - Episode 1998a](https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Tj6wHSdNKng/hqdefault.jpg)
![[DS] Plan Fails, Strange Messages Sent, 17th Mentioned - Episode 1997b](https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/pWjtj9GplsI/hqdefault.jpg)
