Steve Bull's Blog, page 1177
March 1, 2018
State Department Committs $40 Million For “Information Wars”
The Pentagon will allocate $40 million into an inter-agency unit housed at the State Department to counter online propaganda and disinformation campaigns conducted by foreign nations, in an effort to respond “aggressively” to attacks.
The program was announced by the State Department this week in conjunction with the US Department of Defense, which will allocate the funds to the Global Engagement Center (GEC) – created in spring 2016 to replace the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC).
Department of State
@StateDeptThe @StateDept is pleased to announce a new partnership with the @DeptofDefense for initiatives to counter propaganda & disinformation from foreign nations. @UnderSecPD said the transfer of funds announced today reiterates the U.S. commitment to the fight. https://go.usa.gov/xnepU
10:53 AM – Feb 26, 2018
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State-Defense Cooperation on Global Engagement Center Programs and Creation of the Information…
state.gov
“One of those initiatives is the creation of an Information Access Fund to support public and private partners working to expose and counter propaganda and disinformation from foreign nations.“
This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation and that we can leverage deeper partnerships with our allies, Silicon Valley, and other partners in this fight, said Under Secretary Goldstein. It is not merely a defensive posture that we should take, we also need to be on the offensive.
Last year Secretary of State Rex Tillerson requested that $40 million be transferred from the Department of Defense, with an overall allocation of up to $60 million from the US Defense budget. The funding was authorized in a December 2016 defense bill signed by President Obama – which widened the scope of the center’s activities.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Central Banks Stoke Stock Prices
Reading through Security Analysis, the roadmap for investing first published in 1934 by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd, I learned something quite interesting: The basis of stock valuation had changed quite drastically in the period between 1927 and 1929. The stock buying public “departed more and more from the factual approach and technique of security analysis and concerned itself increasingly with the elements of potentiality and prophecy”, write Graham and Dodd.1
What they mean is that in the pre WWI world, stocks were typically valued on the basis of a three-part concept: (i) a decent track record of firms’ dividend returns, (ii) a stable and satisfactory earnings record, and (iii) a strong balance sheet, with sufficient backing by tangible assets. The “New-Era” theory of stock valuation reads, summarized in one sentence, as follows: “The value of a common stock depends entirely upon what it will earn in the future.”
Current dividends should only have a slight impact upon a stock’s valuation, and as firms’ asset values did not have an apparent relationship with their earning power, asset values were said to be devoid of importance when it comes to calculating a stock’s “fair price.” A firm’s earnings record was only relevant to the extent that it might indicate what changes in a firm’s future earnings were likely to be expected. In other words, the New-Era theory of stock valuation was quite a break compared to the valuation technique employed in the past.
A Sea Change in Pricing Stocks
According to Graham and Dodd, there were two significant causes why such a change in the approach to stock valuation occurred. First, accounting data of a firm’s past proved to be increasingly unreliable as a guide for making wise investment decisions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
February 28, 2018
How Societies Collapse: Or, The Eerie Parallels Between Rome, Nazi Germany, and America
A little reflection occurs to me every time I write about American collapse.
Societies collapse in much the same way — there is something like a universal way of collapse. Yet the whole problem begins with the fact that human beings, having needy egos, find their own downfall difficult to accept.
Perhaps you yourself will object — you are a mighty citizen of a proud society. Ah. Do you think the Incas, Mayas, Romans, or Nazis ever thought they obeyed the laws of history? Of course not. Becoming a powerful society makes us vulnerable to collapse because it leaves us puffed up with hubris. “We shall never fall!”, we cry, “our thousand-year reign has barely begun!”
To think one is above history is precisely where collapse begins — people who don’t understand how societies fall can’t do a whole lot to stop it. We begin the story of how a society falls thus: there is an almost hysterical atmosphere of denial that it ever could.
Step one. The economy stagnates. Life becomes harder and meaner. An atmosphere of cruelty permeates. But elites must deny stagnation— otherwise, they have admitted that they have failed: in this way, a social contract never gets repaired.
Step two. Neighbour turns on neighbour for a constant share of a dwindling pie. They must compete more and more viciously to maintain the living standards of their parents and grandparents. Social bonds blow apart. Norms begin to disintegrate.
Step three. Growing ever more anxious and desperate, seeking a truce in what has become an unwinnable battle for survival, people turn to strongmen, glorified thugs, revelling in indecency, thus flaunting their power over broken norms and failed social contract.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Total U.S. Debt and Gold
After rising together through 2012, the past five years have seen a massive divergence between the total amount of accumulated U.S. government debt and the price of COMEX gold. When, if ever, will we see this correlation reappear?
After falling together through the late 1990s, the price of COMEX god and the total accumulated U.S. debt began to rise together since 2002. With the help of Nick Laird at GoldChartsRUs, we’ve been able to plot this relationship on the chart below:
As you’ll recall, and as you can see in the chart above, massive U.S. military efforts and the economic collapse during The Great Financial Crisis led to a surge in the total US debt from $6T to $15T in the ten years between 2003-2012. And what happened to the price of COMEX gold over the same time period? It moved up from $400 to $1,800 per ounce.
However, a (not so) funny thing happened in late 2012. The price of COMEX gold began to consistently fall, this despite the over $1T QE3 program that The Fed ran from late 2012 to early 2014 AND a continuing surge in total U.S. debt from $15T to $20T.
Of course, we can debate WHY and HOW this occurred, but that’s a topic for another day. For now, let’s just take another good, long look at that chart of total debt and gold.
It could be said that, beginning with The Great Financial Crisis, gold got ahead of itself. Price had consistently risen with the accumulated debt through 2009 but, by 2011, it was considerably above the established trend. In the correction that followed and ended in 2015, you might note that price fell to roughly the same distance below the established trend. Perhaps this visual aid will help?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Living the Good Life: Core Values, System Design and Functional Resilience
Credit: Good Life Permaculture
Hannah Moloney, co-founder and co-director of Good Life Permaculture, was in the pursuit of a duck on the run when I arrived at her property on a fine summer evening. The duck had wandered into the chicken enclosure, and Hannah’s intention was to manoeuvre the duck away from the chickens. I promptly joined in from the other end of the enclosure and managed to guide the duck into the safe hands of Hannah waiting at the other side. Minding ducks (and chickens), as I later learned in my discussion with Hannah and her life and business partner Anton Vikstrom, was not a distraction, but indeed part of their work profile for their social business, Good Life Permaculture, and accorded them much satisfaction. The salience of this comment was not lost given the nature of their integrated work space, which is made up of a thriving food garden bursting with life, green spaces, their highly functional home, and home-office, all with an uninterrupted view over much of Hobart (Figure 1), the capital city of Tasmania, Australia’s southern island state.
Credit: Author
Figure 1. Premises of Good Life Permaculture
What prompted Hannah and Anton to create (and sustain) this small piece of paradise in an urban block? Why Good Life Permaculture? What is a ‘good life’? And how does Good Life Permaculture interpret and respond to this ageless question, one that is as pertinent today as it was when put forth by Socrates in the Western tradition and Thiruvalluvar in the Eastern tradition?
Good Life Permaculture – Origins, Values & Objectives
Good Life Permaculture (henceforth referred to as ‘Good Life’) was born in early 2013 after about four years of conception and design by Hannah and Anton.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Something Unexpected Just Happened In LNG Markets
In the increasingly topsy-turvy world of liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets, the world’s largest LNG importer could soon be exporting the super-cooled fuel to the world’s second largest LNG exporter – a situation unimaginable, even laughable just a few years ago.
On Monday, news broke that a Japanese consortium, made up of JERA, the world’s largest private LNG buyer, and Marubeni Corp., were planning to export gas to industrial users on Australia’s eastern coast. There is even a possibility that the Japanese consortium will construct an LNG import terminal in New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state.
A report three days ago in The Australian Financial Review said that the proposed terminal’s imports could represent up to 75 percent of NSW’s gas demand, while plans to increase the number of gas-fired power stations will increase that demand pull.
How could Japan, for all practicable purposes a hydrocarbon anemic country with scant oil and gas resources, import gas to oil and notably gas rich Australia?
The answer is straight forward: In an effort lock in lucrative prices for LNG in the Asia-Pacific region amid limited supply around the start of the decade, Australia went on an LNG export project development feeding-frenzy. Since the country doesn’t have an energy master plan there was no coordination on these massive CAPEX export projects. Adding insult to injury, budget blowouts and cost overruns since then have been the norm, casting further doubt on the wisdom of Australia having as many as ten major LNG export projects.
As a result, Australia will soon overtake Qatar as the world’s largest LNG exporter, with more than 80 million tons per annum (mtpa) of liquefaction capacity. Qatar, however, and likely for geopolitical reasons as much economic, has vowed to increase its production capacity from 77 mtpa to over 100 mpta in the next five years.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
OPEC Looks To Dial Back Production Cuts
Last week’s surprise drawdown in crude inventories may be the last for a while, as analysts are expecting a reversal in stocks this week.
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– China became the second largest LNG importer in 2017, surpassing South Korea.
– China’s LNG imports of 5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) was second only to Japan’s 11 Bcf/d.
– The surge in LNG imports is helping China fuel its rapid switchover from coal to gas. China has run into gas shortages amid its aggressive push to clean up air pollution by shutting down coal.
Market Movers
• Sanchez Energy (NYSE: SN) saw its stock jump more than 3 percent after it announced it would pay dividends on series A and B convertible perpetual preferred shares in cash rather than stock.
• The share price of Carrizo Oil & Gas (NASDAQ: CRZO) fell by more than 6 percent after hours after reporting that its 2018 production could dip 10 percent, while also predicting that oilfield services costs would see a “double-digit increase” this year.
• Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) and Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHGE) were upgraded by Bank of America to a Buy rating, while Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) was downgraded to Neutral.
Oil prices gained a bit over the past few trading days, after a surprise drawdown in crude stocks last week. But analysts see that to be a one-off, with expectations that inventories will resume climbing this week.
IEA: U.S. to become world’s largest oil producer by next year. The IEA’s executive director said that the U.S. will surpass Russia to become the world’s largest oil producer “definitely next year,” if not in 2018. “U.S. shale growth is very strong, the pace is very strong … The United States will become the No.1 oil producer sometime very soon,” Fatih Birol told Reuters.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Authoritarians Who Silence Syria Questions
Photo by watchsmart | CC BY 2.0
I am loath to draw more attention to the kind of idiocy that passes for informed comment nowadays from academics and mainstream journalists. Recently I lambasted Prof Richard Carver for his arguments against BDS that should have gained him an F for logic in any high school exam.
Now we have to endure Brian Whitaker, the Guardian’s former Middle East editor, using every ploy in the misdirection and circular logic playbook to discredit those who commit thought crimes on Syria, by raising questions both about what is really happening there and about whether we can trust the corporate media consensus banging the regime-change drum.
Whitaker’s arguments and assumptions may be preposterous but sadly, like Carver’s, they are to be found everywhere in the mainstream – they have become so commonplace through repetition that they have gained a kind of implicit credibility. So let’s unpack what Whitaker and his ilk are claiming.
Whitaker’s latest outburst is directed against the impudence of a handful of British academics, including experts in the study of propaganda, in setting up a panel – the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media – to “provide a source of reliable, informed and timely analysis for journalists, publics and policymakers” on Syria. The researchers include Tim Hayward of Edinburgh University and Piers Robinson of Sheffield University.
So what are Whitaker’s objections to this working group? Let’s run through them, with my interjections.
Whitaker: They dispute almost all mainstream narratives of the Syrian conflict, especially regarding the use of chemical weapons and the role of the White Helmets search-and-rescue organisation. They are critical of western governments, western media and various humanitarian groups but show little interest in applying critical judgment to Russia’s role in the conflict or to the controversial writings of several journalists who happen to share their views.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Indian Banks Face Crippling Credit Crunch As PNB Scandal Worsens
The biggest financial fraud in India’s history just got bigger.
On Monday, Punjab National Bank disclosed that a fraud previously believed to be $1.7 billion had swollen to $2 billion as the true extent of the fraud is still coming into focus.
But the impact that this now-$2 billion fraud has had on the shares of PNB and other state-run Indian banks is having a wide-ranging impact across the country’s financial system, according to Bloomberg.
Foreign banks, worried about the systemic lapses that the scandal has exposed, have become unwilling to lend money to smaller Indian firms – causing massive disruptions in trade finance. All of this pressure has hammered the Indian rupee, which is on track for its first monthly drop since September. This is largely because India’s economy, like the US, runs a trade deficit, and depends on capital inflows to function.
Foreign capital comes through foreign funds’ purchases of Indian stocks and bonds, local exporters’ sale of foreign-currency earnings and dollar loans from foreign banks. India is one of the world’s biggest users of trade funding worldwide, according to the ICC Global Survey 2017.
The fraud was purportedly masterminded by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, both of whom are on the run.
The two men worked with a PNB employee named Gokulnath Shetty, who recently retired. Shetty would issue fraudulent letters of undertaking to help companies create by Choksi and Modi apply for loans through the foreign branches of other Indian banks. The fraud continued as, when it came time to repay the loans, Shetty would issue still more LoU’s to cover the balance.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why One War When We Can Have Two!
`We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists, but great-power competition – not terrorism – is now the primary focus of US national security.’ Henceforth Russia and China will be America’s main enemies, with Iran and North Korea thrown in for good measure.
So declared US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, last week in a statement of profound importance for the world.
For the past seventeen years, the US military has been laying waste to the Muslim world in the faux `war on terrorism.’ Afghanistan, Iraq, much of Syria, Somalia, Pakistan – all have been heavily bombed. US B-52’s and B-1 heavy bombers have tried to pound those resisting American ‘guidance’ into submission.
In Afghanistan, America’s longest war, President Donald Trump ordered a doubling of bombing against Taliban forces battling US occupation. Now, the US is running very low on bombs, guided munitions and even air-to-air missiles for some reason. Stores of munitions are being rushed from the US Pacific command to the Mideast.
At the same time, the US is fast running out of Muslim targets to bomb, now that the bogeyman ISIS has vanished into thin air and US air attacks in Syria are being minimized for fear of clashing with Russia. Iran still remains on the US potential hit list.
Which brings us back to General ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis. He is quite right that so-called terrorists (that’s anyone who actively opposes the Lex Americana) pose no real life or death threat to the US mainland.
But if so, how then to maintain the $1 trillion US military budget? Well, of course, trot out those good old ‘Reds Under Our Beds.’ Actually, the Pentagon has been planning a new war with China for the past three years, a mainly air and naval conflict to dominate China’s coasts and seas.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
