Steve Bull's Blog, page 1165
March 13, 2018
The web is under threat. Join us and fight for it.
The web is under threat. Join us and fight for it.
Today, March 12, is the World Wide Web’s 29th birthday. Here’s a message from our founder and web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee on what we need to ensure that everyone has access to a web worth having.
Today, the World Wide Web turns 29. This year marks a milestone in the web’s history: for the first time, we will cross the tipping point when more than half of the world’s population will be online.
When I share this exciting news with people, I tend to get one of two concerned reactions:
How do we get the other half of the world connected?
Are we sure the rest of the world wants to connect to the web we have today?
The threats to the web today are real and many, including those that I described in my last letter — from misinformation and questionable political advertising to a loss of control over our personal data. But I remain committed to making sure the web is a free, open, creative space — for everyone.
That vision is only possible if we get everyone online, and make sure the web works for people. I founded the Web Foundation to fight for the web’s future. Here’s where we must focus our efforts:
Close the digital divide
The divide between people who have internet access and those who do not is deepening existing inequalities — inequalities that pose a serious global threat. Unsurprisingly, you’re more likely to be offline if you are female, poor, live in a rural area or a low-income country, or some combination of the above. To be offline today is to be excluded from opportunities to learn and earn, to access valuable services, and to participate in democratic debate. If we do not invest seriously in closing this gap, the last billion will not be connected until 2042. That’s an entire generation left behind.
In 2016, the UN declared internet access a human right, on par with clean water, electricity, shelter and food. But until we make internet access affordable for all, billions will continue to be denied this basic right. The target has been set — the UN recently adopted the Alliance for Affordable Internet’s threshold for affordability: 1 GB of mobile data for less than 2% of average monthly income. The reality, however, is that we’re still a long way off from reaching this target — in some countries, the cost of 1GB of mobile broadband remains over 20% of average monthly income.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
March 12, 2018
A Bull Market For The History Books — Bear Market To Follow Shortly
If you’re getting the sense that stocks always go up, that’s because they’ve been doing so for a really, really long time. From CNBC today:
On the bull market’s ninth birthday, here’s how it stacks up against history
• The Dow has quadrupled during the bull market, which turned 9 on Friday.
• This is the biggest and longest bull market for the Dow post-WWII, according to Leuthold Group.
The bullish run in the Dow Jones industrial average — which celebrates its ninth birthday Friday — is the longest ever and the greatest percentage gain since World War II, according to Leuthold Group.
The corresponding run by the S&P 500, notes LPL Financial, is that benchmark’s second-largest and second-longest bull market ever, with only the 1990s stock market run led by technology stocks in the way.
Despite a more than 10 percent correction in equities last month following a burst of bullish activity, Leuthold’s Doug Ramsey doesn’t think the bull is done yet.
“Assuming the Dow Jones industrial average can exceed its late-January high on March 9th or thereafter, this cyclical bull market will become the first one ever to last nine years,” said Ramsey, his firm’s chief investment officer. “Historically, cycle momentum highs are usually followed by a push to even higher price highs over the next several months.”
The Dow hit an all-time high of 26,616.71 on Jan. 26, the same day the S&P 500 clinched its own record of 2,872.87. The major indexes are off their record highs 6.4 percent and 4.6 percent respectively.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Yes, Exxon Is Accusing Local Governments of Misleading Investors on Climate Change
In January, ExxonMobil filed a legal petition seeking to depose more than a dozen city and county government officials in California, claiming that the municipal officials are defrauding investors by not fully disclosing the risks posed by climate change.
You read that right. Exxon is legally challenging cities and counties for not talking up the risks of climate change enough to the investors who purchase municipal bonds for those localities. Has Exxon had a change of heart and now become concerned about transparency and the impacts of climate change?
Let’s take a closer look.
Exxon is responding to the municipalities which have filed lawsuits seeking to hold Exxon and other oil companies accountable for the damages to their cities from sea level rise. Exxon’s legal petition is calling those lawsuits a “conspiracy” because — according to its petition — “A collection of special interests and opportunistic politicians are abusing law enforcement authority and legal process to impose their viewpoint on climate change.”
The oil giant goes on to say: “ExxonMobil finds itself directly in that conspiracy’s crosshairs. Even though it has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change …”
You have to give Exxon’s lawyers credit for the sheer audacity of this legal maneuver and the claims that Exxon “has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change.”
According to its legal filing, Exxon just wants to be able to talk about climate change but claims its First Amendment rights are being taken away by the lawsuits the various municipalities have filed:
“Through abusive law enforcement tactics and litigation in California, Respondents and others are attempting to stifle ExxonMobil’s exercise, in Texas, of its First Amendment right to participate in the national dialogue about climate change and climate policy.”
How the lawsuits have stifled Exxon’s free speech is not clear from the legal document, but law experts say it certainly looks like an attempt to intimidate anyone considering holding Exxon and the industry accountable for the impacts of climate change.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Selco: What We Ate and How We Got Food When the SHTF
Editor’s Note: If a disaster is bad enough and lasts long enough, it isn’t going to take long before there is no food to be had. In this interview with Selco, he shares his real-life experiences and explains how people kept from starving to death when there was no food in the stores. ~ Daisy
How do you get food when there are no stores?
At the beginning of everything, most of the people did not have any significant “stash” of food in their homes.
In other words, the majority of common folks had food a or couple of days in their pantry and that was it. There were exceptions to that because the process of collapse did not happen in a few hours (in terms of suddenly there is no food in the stores).
When the chaos started, people looted stores after a short period of everyone buying things in a panic. Still, the majority of folks did not manage to get a decent stash of food from stores. Some did not want to believe that they were gonna need a stash. Others did not want to go out and participate in looting because it was dangerous. But I think the most obvious reason was that all food from stores was taken very fast.
In beginning period of SHTF, events unfold at a very fast pace. Actually, events go one after another so fast that if you find yourself lost in one event at the end of several events, you ask yourself, “Why in the name of God I did not go out and buy a whole bunch of food while I still could do that?”
Was gardening an option? If so, how did people protect their gardens?
Yes, it was an option, but the percentage of food from a garden was low because of a few reasons.
It was a city, without enough land for significant food growing, and the second reason is that even people who had some land (small gardens near houses) needed time to grow food there.
People usually did not grow food there in normal times, flowers, tea, maybe some particular kind of tomato, salad greens, and similar.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Tom Cloud Precious Metals Update: Market Update March 2018
In the newest update, Tom Cloud discusses what is going on in the precious metals market in March. He explains that while the small retail investor has pulled back on gold and silver buying, his company have seen the biggest purchases by larger investors. This makes perfect sense because the smaller retail investor tends to purchase when the price is going higher while the larger investor acquires more during sell0ffs or lows.
Tom also includes information on his services. I have to say if an individual is interested in storing metals, you should give Tom Cloud a call. Tom Cloud offers the best rates for storing metals than the overwhelming majority of dealers. If you go to the LOWEST COST PRECIOUS METALS STORAGE PAGE, you will see that the text and images are blurred. I had to do that because his low rates caused such a stir in the industry, the storage services asked to remove that information. Basically, the storage service provides plans for many dealers in the industry, but because Tom has been around for 40+ years and has been an excellent client, he received the best rates.
Now, for those who don’t believe in storing metals in a third-party facility, please don’t leave comments explaining why people shouldn’t store metals… we all know the reasons. However, some people like to store their metals in several locations, which is probably a wise thing to do. Also, some wealthy investors don’t have a choice because it doesn’t make sense to store all their metal at their home.
One more important thing. The reason I sponsor Tom Cloud on my site is due to the fact that he is one of the most upfront, honest and lowest cost precious metals dealers in the industry. Also, Tom and his associate Dan, do not try to HARD SELL those who call them. They don’t mind answering questions, even if a person does not purchase. There are some dealers that won’t even spend much time with a would-be client if they only had a little money to spend. I find that sort of business practice totally unprofessional.
Humanity’s WIPEOUT Foreshadowed? World Health Chief: Global Pandemic Imminent
According to a World Health Organization doctor, a global pandemic is imminent, and no one will be prepared for it when it hits. Dr. Tedros Adhanom, director-general for WHO, has said that the next outbreak that will hit us will be a “terrible” one, causing a large death all over the world.
“Humanity is more vulnerable in the face of epidemics because we are much more connected and we travel around much more quickly than before,” said WHO specialist in infectious diseases Dr. Sylvie Brand. “We know that it is coming, but we have no way of stopping it,” said Brand. According to Dr. Tedros, the flu is extremely dangerous to everyone living on the planet. This fear was also promoted by experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month.
The claims came exactly 100 years after the 1918 Spanish flu that claimed 50 million lives and killed three times as many people as World War I. A mutated strain is the most likely contender to wipe out millions because it can join together with other strains to become deadlier.
“This is not some future nightmare scenario. A devastating epidemic could start in any country at any time and kill millions of people because we are still not prepared. The world remains vulnerable. We do not know where and when the next global pandemic will occur, but we know it will take a terrible toll both on human life and on the economy,” said Dr. Tedros.
“Hidden underneath this fear-mongering message of a global pandemic is a far more sinister W.H.O. agenda,” warns Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, publisher of Medicine.news. “The real agenda is a global push for blind, fear-based acceptance of unsafe, unproven vaccines that will be rolled out alongside the next global pandemic,” Adams warns. “Fear circumvents rational thinking, which is why the vaccine-pharma cartels routinely turn to irrational fear propaganda to demand absolute and unquestioning acceptance of risky medical interventions that should always be scrutinized for safety and efficacy.” –Natural News
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
James Howard Kunstler: The Coming Economy Of “Less”
perfectlab/Shutterstock
James Howard Kunstler: The Coming Economy Of “Less”
Society is approaching a breaking point.
Author and commentator James Howard Kunstler returns as our podcast guest this week for an update on where we are in The Long Emergency timeline.
In this wide-raging discussion ranging from the pervasiveness of propaganda in today’s media to the risk of nuclear war, Kunstler also re-news his warnings of a current secular economic slowdown.
After too many years of market interventions, magical thinking, racketeering, and bleeding the 99% dry, he warns that our culture and economic system will soon reach a snapping point:
The important story is what happens in the financial sector and how it effects the economy in the next twelve to eighteen months. As we know, the financial system is the most abstract and fragile of all the systems that we depend on because the other systems can’t run without it. The trucks won’t make the food deliveries to the supermarkets unless the finance system works. The gasoline won’t get to the pumps at the stations.
Nothing’s going to move if the financial system cracks up. People no longer trust each other to transact, to get paid. And so they stop transacting.
We’re talking about a falling standard of living and getting used to an economy of “less”. It sounds kind of Ebenezer Scrooge-ish to suggest that people may have to do with less rather than more, because more has always been the expectation in our lifetime. But that’s probably a fact. And as I’ve said more than once, reality has mandates of its own. Circumstances are going to inform us about how this economy is emerging and where we need to go with it. And we can either pay attention or just sit there with our fingers in our ears.
What we’re talking about here is the armature of our culture and economy that people hang their lives on. And that armature is crumbling. There are fewer things that people can hang a life on in a meaningful way, or a way that even ensures that they can have a little bit of security looking into even a short-term future.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
March 11, 2018
China Accuses US Of Fabricating Trade Data, Warns “Trade War Would Be A Disaster”
While Canada and Mexico and soon other US “allies” have so far been spared the brunt of the Trump import tariffs on aluminum and steel imports as a result of “indefinite” exemptions for the duration of Nafta negotiations, China – the country that is the target of Peter Navarro’s trade scorn – has not been so lucky, and the result has been an outpouring of increasingly hostile jawboning by Beijing, which while taking the Trump gambit in stride so far, is clearly concerned how far Trump could ratchet up protectionist measures.
As a result, on Sunday China said that it will not initiate a trade war with the United States, but vowed to defend its national interests in the face of growing American protectionism.
“There are no winners in a trade war, and it would bring disaster to our two countries as well as the rest of the world,” China’s Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan said at a briefing on the sidelines of the country’s annual parliamentary session according to AP.
“China does not wish to fight a trade war, nor will China initiate a trade war, but we can handle any challenge and will resolutely defend the interests of our country and our people,” he said.
Shan’s statement was Beijing’s latest official remark on “problems in Sino-U.S. economic trade and cooperation,” alluding to Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
To be sure, Chinese leaders have threatened in the past to retaliate against raised trade barriers, but have yet to take direct action following Trump’s announcement. Earlier in the week, China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, vowed a “justified and necessary response” to Washington’s initiative, but that too has yet to take any concrete shape.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The $233 Trillion Dollar Dark Cloud of Global Debt
Global debt has reached record heights without any signs of relief. While central bankers try to explain away the phenomenon of these out-of-control numbers, it’s not much of a mystery. Immediate consumption with the promise of repayment sometime in the future has consequences. Global debt is staggering to the point most of it will never be repaid. Certainly not in our generation. Perhaps by our grandchildren, but as global debt keeps mounting, the picture is doubtful.
The per capita global debt is $30,000. Who, exactly, will be making repayments?
Economists insist that the 2007 financial crisis could not have been predicted. Yet, all the signs of out-of-control credit where there. Today, economists are repeating the same mantra, despite the spiraling world debt. The question is not if the next bubble will strike. It’s a matter of when.
The math is fairly simple. The more a country increases its debt to simply stay afloat, the more like the increasing debt will cause a tightening of credit. The next step in the equation is a burst bubble and economic crisis. This is what happened in 1929, happened again in 2007, and it’s happening now. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.
Out-of-control credit will undoubtedly slow down the US’s current economic growth. It probably won’t cause an outright crisis. Other countries may not be as fortunate.
Countries such as China, Belgium, South Korea, Australia, and Canada are experiencing an unprecedented credit bubble, with few systems in place to control it. The resulted inflation or simply write-offs of debts could result in a global financial disaster we have not seen before. The current economic upswing is unlikely to continue.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
It’s Official: China Repeals Term Limits, Allowing Xi To Stay In Power Forever
As expected (and predicted, and propagandized), China’s National People’s Congress overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to eliminate presidential term limits, paving the way for President Xi Jinping to stay in power after his second term ends in 2023.
The vote was as follows, per the AFP’s Joanna Chiu: 2958 in favor, 2 against, 3 abstentions, 1 invalid vote.
As we noted previously, Sunday’s move will make Mr. Xi much more powerful than he already was, and will “dampen any remnants of resistance to his rule”, said Zhang Baohui, professor of international affairs at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
“Once people know he will serve for who knows how long, it will strengthen his power and motivate everybody to bandwagon with him,” said Mr. Zhang. “Any rival will think he will be almighty.”
In other words, “Dear Leader” has returned.
* * *
This historic shift was predicted by many since last fall, when Xi refused to appoint a successor as his power would begin to wane in a year or two as he entered what would’ve been a lame duck period for his presidency – the second half of his second term.
At the same party congress, Mr. Xi conspicuously broke with precedent by choosing not to name a pair of much younger officials to the Politburo’s ruling inner circle, the seven-member standing committee, to serve as his heirs-in-waiting. Instead, Mr. Xi chose men — no women — who were closer to his own age or older.
Mr. Xi’s strongman style has been compared to that of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. But even Mr. Putin, who has amassed considerable personal power, did not try to erase his country’s constitutional limit on serving more than two consecutive terms as president as he approached that limit in 2008.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
