The German public broadcast agency ARD is proposing structural changes. Due to the low-interest rates, the ECB has placed the agency in hard times with its pensions. Karola Wille, the director, has called for struct
ural reform to reduce costs. The proposal centers on technological change to increase efficiency in the performance of its mandate. They are also looking at developing cross-media applications to modernize the agency. The ARD is non-profit so the German government has to fund it. As the low-interest rates have undermined pensions throughout Europe, the governments will have to step up and bail them out. This is going to put tremendous pressure on the entire EU budget and austerity policy embedded within the single currency.
We are looking at the same story being painted throughout Europe. The low-interest rate policy for nearly 10 years has not merely destroyed the bond market in Europe, it has undermined the pension system both privately and publicly. Indeed, adding to this crisis is the mandate that all pension funds hold some or the majority of their investments into government debt. The combination of these policies clashes with the ECB and the nightmare on the horizon and why Draghi can’t leave fast enough to avoid personal blame.
This crisis all stems from the structural design of the EU. They tried to be half pregnant with only a single currency and dictatorial control over member state budgets. The refusal to consolidate the debt emphasized the problem of the great disparities in cultures and the prevailing prejudices that exist through Europe between member states as well as within member states such as Bavaria v northern Germany or Spain v Catalonia, Scotland v Britain, Italy v Sicily, etc.. This prevailing prejudice is also why the bail-in policy was adopted. If Italian banks failed, then a centralized source of funds would amount to transfer payments between one member state to another. This was the very reason the EU rejected debt consolidation, to begin with. True, Greece was offered “loans” but its feet were held to the fire to pay it back. That was again rejecting any idea of a single Europe implied by transfer payments v loans.
Furthermore, as this pension crisis matures, we will have the same problem of transfer payments. This is how and why the EU will break apart because there is no actual resolution to consolidate the debts. The talk of Eurobonds is merely a way for the EU to borrow, but it will still not result in debt consolidation. What they are proposing is the same structure as the mortgage-backed CDO crisis of 2007. Bundling member state debt into a single Eurobond but each member still is responsible for its own debt. The structural failure of the EU has been all about how they could have their cake and eat it too. This is also why none of the leaders in Brussels ever stand for election. They are embedded in a deliberate denial of any democratic process.
QUESTION: Hello Mr. Martin Armstrong. Why is it that if EURUSD goes down 20 – 30 pips other pairs with the EUR – such as the EURAUD or EURNZD go down 50 – 150 pips? Why such difference and volatility with these pairs?
JMF
ANSWER: The reason for this is simply that the US dollar is in a broader bull market. This is how the world monetary system collapses. A lower dollar devalues debt and everyone is fat and happy. You determine a trend by monitoring the performance of any market and observing it from a host of different perspectives. Each market is reflecting the differences in trends that are influenced by both domestic political trends and the local business cycle, as well as by the external influences from capital flows moving in or out of a country. Keep in mind that we have some countries that are PUNISHING foreign investors for daring to invest in their country. They are deliberating trying to prevent a rise in real estate and that sets in motion an economic decline domestically since it tends to reverse the capital flows altogether.
QUESTION: Hi Martin
Was curious if you could address what Socrates has popped up on the last report….of a “Knee Jerk Low” this quarter. Is this a possibility that we should be on guard for?
A very thankful follower of your work!!
C
ANSWER: The terminology I have developed is unique and it comes from actually studying market behavior. I have explained that a “reaction” is limited to the time period of three or less be it a day, week, month, quarter, or year. Move beyond 3 years and you are changing trend. Keep in mind that when we are dealing with the higher level such as yearly, the percentage movement can be dramatic. But also the more dramatic the higher the probability that it will remain as a reaction. For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Index peaked in September 1929 at 386.10 and crashed going into July 1932 bottom at 40.56. That still qualified as a “reaction” being 3 years compared to the Nikkei which crashed but progressively moved lower into a bear market trend that bottomed in 19 years falling from 38957.44 to 6994.90.
The Knee-Jerk events can be highs or lows but are confined to one unit of time. They refect choppy markets. Here is Singapore share index. Note that there were three back-to-back Knee-Jerk events. This is what the Global Market Watch is forecasting. Not necessarily a change in trend, just a choppy move normally in the opposite direction.
Guatemala’s Fuego volcano erupted with the most violent volcanic eruption in more than a century. People have been buried alive in the ash like Pompey. The eruption so far took place on Sunday and lasted for 16 and a half hours. The eruption reached 14,763 feet of ash thrown into the air. This is one of the more spectacular photos taken with lightning posted by Gloria Garces. You can see a brief video of the eruption captured by satellites at the NOAA.
So far, we have three volcanoes now all erupting here in 2018 around the Pacific Rim of Fire. As previously warned, the more volcanos that erupt now contribute to the decline in temperature and this will help set the stage for the commodity rally coming in the years ahead. Nature is incredibly linked to cyclical behavior.
As previously discussed, FBI Director of Counterintelligence E.W. “Bill” Priestap, FBI Head of National Security Division, Michael Steinbach, and the former head of the FBI National Security Division, John Giacalone, are all scheduled to testify to congress this month.
The three FBI officials will be testifying to a joint congressional committee of the Judiciary and House Oversight members. The joint committee was formed by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy. The first testimony is tomorrow; and FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap will go first. This will be Priestap’s first congressional testimony. Unfortunately, the testimony will be behind closed doors.
FBI Asst. Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, is central to all of the activity that was happening in both the Clinton investigation and the Trump investigation. Bill Priestap was FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s immediate boss. However, as noted in the text messages Strzok often worked around Priestap at the behest of the person giving him political instructions – FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
The timing of the testimony also speaks to the timing of the upcoming Inspector General report regarding the politicization of the DOJ and FBI surrounding the Clinton investigative outcomes. Some of the most significant releases have come while President Trump is outside of Washington DC; and with the G7 on June 8th – 9th in Canada; it would seem likely the IG report is to be made public anytime over the next 72 hours.
Again, a note of caution. Eight months ago -in advance of the sunlight now upon the FBI and DOJ- Trey Gowdy created the joint committee between Oversight and Judiciary. There is increased reason to believe Trey Gowdy is compromised and working on a self-driven-agenda to defend the institutions currently under review.
Remember, Gowdy opened a ridiculous investigation on the White House doctor, but refused to participate in an investigation of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Priorities. Recently Gowdy has been very public with his defense of Mueller, the corrupt FBI apparatus and the DOJ where he was a former U.S. prosecutor. Ergo, given his structured positioning – these closed door hearings might not generate the type of inquisitive and hard-lined questioning that many are hoping for. Again, just a precaution on expectations.
Earlier today Lou Dobbs and John Solomon discussed tomorrow’s hearing. [Prompted, just hit play]
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Prior CTH article on Joint Committee Hearing.
Prior The Hill article on Joint Committee Hearing.
On January 27th, 2017, after over a year of covert surveillance on Trump campaign officials [via FISA searches, FISA(702) Title-1 surveilance, SIGNIT and HUMIT), the FBI first sat down to interview low level campaign aide George Papadopoulos. (likely FBI Special Agent Jennifer Zelski Edwards, and/or FBI Agent Peter Strzok, participated)
Six months later, July 27th, 2017 the FBI arrested George Papadopoulos at the airport and charged him with giving false information to FBI investigators during that interview. The very next day, July 28th, 2017, the DOJ filed a motion to seal with the DC federal court to hide the arrest. (FBI Agent Jennifer Zelski Edwards)
From evidence that surfaced AFTER the motion to seal was removed (October 5, 2017) we discover the charges, motions, pleadings, and case information (ASSEMBLED DOCKET HERE). This is now the reference point for a historic review, including the TRANSCRIPT of the October 30th guilty plea hearing. All needed references are within the DOCKET.
From the motion to seal, we discover Robert Mueller leveraged the July 27th, 2017, charges against George Papadopoulos to make him a cooperating witness for the special counsel. The July 28th, 2017, motion to seal was transparently intended to disguise the arrest of Papapdopoulos and his subsequent role as a “proactive cooperator”:
(Motion to Seal – Page 2, Point #3)
What is a “Proactive Cooperator”? Let’s turn to another legal case where the terminology is clearly defined:
(DOJ-Eastern district of PA: U.S. -v- Jose Garcia)
What this means is that after his arrest July 27th, 2017, and before the arrest was unsealed in October 2017, George Papadopoulos was working on behalf of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team to gain information against the targets of the DOJ investigation, Donald Trump officials.
For approximately two-plus months, August/September 2017, George Papadopoulos would have been targeting contact with former and current Trump campaign officials. The purpose of that targeting would have included an effort by the Mueller Special Counsel to build a “conspiracy” charge against anyone associated with President Trump. The agent running Papadopoulos appears to have been FBI Special Agent Jennifer Zelski Edward.
Remember, despite the media use of the term “collusion” is not a crime; “conspiracy” is. It seems obvious Mueller’s targeting of President Trump is centered around building a political impeachment case. [Not a criminal indictment case – which is unlikely] The path to the impeachment would come from creating the appearance of a conspiracy.
It seems almost certain the objective of Mueller’s final investigative report will be to present a political case for impeachment to congress. Democrats are looking for a reason, and many Republicans are looking for an excuse. The aggregate UniParty goal is removal of the existential threat represented by President Trump. Mueller’s anticipated report can predictably be forecast as a means to that end.
It does not look like Papadopoulos was able to generate any valuable information while he was working as an informant for the Special Counsel. Apparently there was no forward value on using Papadopoulos any longer, and on May 23rd, 2018, Robert Mueller informed the court he was done with Papadopoulos, prepare to sentence him according to the earlier plea-deal and guidelines of his cooperation. [Read plea transcript here]
And now, about two-weeks after Mueller informed the court Papadopoulos exhausted his usefulness; and with the back-story of Papadopoulos’ activity in 2016 now gaining much more attention; the wife-not-wife/spy-not-spy of Papadopoulos, Ms. Simona Mangiante, begins a media tour to rehabilitate the image of her husband-not-husband/spy-not-spy.
I doubt anyone actually truly knows if they are married or not; or whether there’s some form of mutual benefit in the appearance therein etc. And similarly I doubt anyone can ever be sure if they are spies or not. Remember the single-most-consistent professional trait about professional liars – they lie; often, quite well.
Spies for corrupt U.S. DOJ, CIA and FBI intelligence officials in 2015 and 2016? Spies for U.S. CIA and FBI agents (like Stefan Halper) on foreign assignment in 2016? Spies for special counsel in 2017 and 2018?…. Who knows?…..
Sketchy. All of it.
The only thing certain is that Papadopoulos was: interviewed by the FBI January 27th, 2017; arrested July 27th 2017; hidden July 28th 2017; a cooperating informant thereafter; and recently in May 2018 scheduled for sentencing.
You can decide the rest.
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 today in support of a Christian Colorado baker who declined to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. (full pdf below) The majority of the justices’ decision revolved around the severity of anti-religious bias displayed by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it originally ruled against the baker Jack Phillips. According to the ruling the commission violated Mr. Phillips’ rights under the First Amendment.
The court did not rule upon whether Mr. Phillips held a first amendment right to refuse to bake the cake; the court ruled Mr. Phillips first amendment rights, religious liberty, was actually violated by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission itself. Much irony here.
Due to the severity of discrimination, exhibited by the Colorado Commission, against the first amendment right of the baker to hold and express Christianity as a foundational moral value, the Supreme court ruled against Colorado to support the rights of the Mr. Phillips.
(Via AP) […] Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that the larger issue “must await further elaboration” in the courts. Appeals in similar cases are pending, including one at the Supreme Court from a florist who didn’t want to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding.
The disputes, Kennedy wrote, “must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.” (read more from AP)
As Amy Howe summarized for SCOTUS Blog: […] “the critical question of when and how Phillips’ right to exercise his religion can be limited had to be determined, Kennedy emphasized, in a proceeding that was not tainted by hostility to religion. Here, Kennedy observed, the “neutral and respectful consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised” by comments by members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. At one hearing, Kennedy stressed, commissioners repeatedly “endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, implying that religious beliefs and persons are less than fully welcome in Colorado’s business community.” And at a later meeting, Kennedy pointed out, one commissioner “even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust.” “This sentiment,” Kennedy admonished, “is inappropriate for a Commission charged with the solemn responsibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law—a law that protects discrimination on the basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.” Moreover, Kennedy added, the commission’s treatment of Phillips’ religious objections was at odds with its rulings in the cases of bakers who refused to create cakes “with images that conveyed disapproval of same-sex marriage.”
Here, Kennedy wrote, Phillips “was entitled to a neutral decisionmaker who would give full and fair consideration to his religious objection as he sought to assert it in all of the circumstances in which this case was presented, considered, and decided.” Because he did not have such a proceeding, the court concluded, the commission’s order – which, among other things, required Phillips to sell same-sex couples wedding cakes or anything else that he would sell to opposite-sex couples and mandated remedial training and compliance reports – “must be set aside.” (read more)
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By weight, human beings are insignificant.
If everyone on the planet were to step on one side of a giant balance scale, and all the bacteria on Earth were to be placed on the other side, we’d shoot violently upward. That’s because all the bacteria on Earth combined are about 1,166 times more massive than all the humans.
Comparisons to other categories of life similarly demonstrate how very, very small we are. As a sweeping new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds, in a census sorting all the life on Earth by weight (measured in gigatons of carbon, the signature element of life on Earth), we make up less than 1 percent of life.
There are an estimated 550 gigatons of carbon of life in the world. A gigaton is equal to a billion metric tons. A metric ton is 1,000 kilograms, or about 2,200 pounds.
We’re talking in huge, huge, mind-boggling terms here.
So, using the new data in PNAS, we tried to visualize the weight of all life on Earth to get a sense of the scale of it all.
What you’ll see below is a kind of tower of life. Each large block of this tower represents a gigaton of life, and the blocks are grouped into broad kingdoms. There are the protists (think microscopic life like amoebae), archaea (single-celled organisms somewhat similar to bacteria), fungi (mushrooms and other types of fungus), bacteria (you’re familiar with these, right?), plants, and animals.
As you can see, plants dominate our world. If the tower of life were an office building, plants would be the main tenants, taking up dozens of floors. Comparatively, all the animals in the world — seen in gray in the tower — are like a single retail shop (a trendy one, to be sure) on the ground floor.
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And if we zoom in on all animal life, we again see how insignificant humans are compared to everyone else in the kingdom. Arthropods (insects) outweigh us by a factor of 17. Even the mollusks (think clams) weigh more.
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Yet despite our small biomass among animals, we’ve had an overwhelmingly huge impact on the planet. The chart above represents a massive amount of life. But it doesn’t show what’s gone missing since the human population took off.
The authors of the PNAS article estimate that the mass of wild land mammals is seven times lower than it was before humans arrived (keep in mind it’s difficult to estimate the exact history of the number of animals on Earth). Similarly, marine mammals, including whales, are a fifth of the weight they used to be because we’ve hunted so many to near extinction.
And though plants are still the dominant form of life on Earth, the scientists suspect there used to be approximately twice as many of them — before humanity started clearing forests to make way for agriculture and our civilization.
The census in the PNAS paper isn’t perfect. Though remote sensing, satellites, and huge efforts to study the distribution of life in the ocean make it easier than ever to come up with estimates, the authors admit there’s still a lot of uncertainty. But we do need a baseline understanding of the distribution of life on Earth. Millions of acres of forests are still lost every year. Animals are going extinct 1,000 to 10,000 faster than you’d expect if no humans lived on Earth. Sixty percent of primate species, our closest relatives on the tree of life, are threatened with extinction.
We have to know how much more we stand to lose.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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