Steve Bull's Blog, page 1238
December 6, 2017
Arizona Citizens Tracked In Facial Recognition Database In First Step For REAL ID Implementation
Arizona citizens are now in a government database that uses facial recognition technology to track them simply for getting a driver’s license. This allows federal and local law enforcement to use the “perpetual lineup” of suspects not accused of a crime to see if someone is wanted for a crime, Arizona Capitol Times reported.
The state says that the program is to prevent identity theft and fraud. Here’s how it works according to Arizona Capitol Times.
After someone at the Motor Vehicle Division takes your photo, your face is scanned by a system based on a proprietary algorithm that analyzes facial features. The system compares your face against the 19 million photos in the state’s driver’s license database to look for similarities. If an image is similar enough, the system will flag it for further review.
The program is an effort that is part of a nationwide initiative called the REAL ID Act that was created by Congress in 2005 as a response to the September 11th terror attacks. The system allows the state to comply with the federal act, which increased standards for identification documents. Although the REAL ID Act does not explicitly call for facial recognition, it does maintain that states need to take measures to reduce fraud.
The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) already has publicly boasted about the success with more than 100 cases it has taken to court for fraud using the technology, which has been in place since early 2015.
But the use of the system to prevent identity theft isn’t what people are worried about; the problem is the lack of oversight in government programs that allows anyone with access to look into the database. As such, state-run facial recognition databases are dangerous and can lead down a slippery slope to allow other operations the technology wasn’t intended for.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why The Globalists Need A War, And Soon
It is difficult to gauge and understand geopolitical and economic events without first comprehending the fact that much of what happens in the world is engineered to happen and with a specific encompassing goal in mind. If you subscribe to the theory that all is random “chaos” and outcomes are circumstantial or coincidental, then you will be lost in the dark on most things. If you think a globalist “conspiracy” would require “too much control” or foresight, I would point out that organized conspiracy by people in power is a matter of history, not of theory. If such cabals were prevalent in the past, it is rather foolish to dismiss the reality that they are prevalent today.
In my articles “The Economic End Game Explained” and “The Economic End Game Continues,” I outline considerable evidence supporting the following conclusion: International financiers and political puppets in Western AND Eastern countries share a deep rooted ideology called “globalism” or the “new world order.” This ideology demands total centralization of economy and government resulting in a single global fiscal authority, a single global monetary system and a one world ruling structure. Obviously, such a pursuit would take extensive time and planning. It is a long term project, with moments of accelerated change.
The globalists refer to the process of their intended change as the “global economic reset.” A reset of the world’s economic processes is not so far fetched as skeptics like to argue. When an organized group of ideologues maintains control over the currency production and interest rates of most nations on the planet, it would hardly be difficult to manipulate politicians, manipulate legislation or even scientifically conjure financial bubbles and collapses. By extension, it would also be simple to trigger international conflicts if needed.
But why would war be a necessary ingredient to globalization?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
December 5, 2017
Trump White House Weighing Plans For Private Spies to Counter “Deep State” Enemies
Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
TRUMP WHITE HOUSE WEIGHING PLANS FOR PRIVATE SPIES TO COUNTER “DEEP STATE” ENEMIES
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Trump’s presidency.
The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.
“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”
Oliver North, who appears frequently on Trump’s favorite TV network, Fox News, was enlisted to help sell the effort to the administration. He was the “ideological leader” brought in to lend credibility, said the former senior intelligence official.
Some of the individuals involved with the proposals secretly met with major Trump donors asking them to help finance operations before any official contracts were signed.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Rig For Stormy Weather
What storm? The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW) reached another all-time high. Interest rates in the U.S. are yielding multi-decade lows, some say multi-century lows. Trillions of dollars in global sovereign debt have negative yield and European junk bonds yield less than 10 year U.S. treasuries. “Official” unemployment is low. Borrowing is inexpensive. Things are good, so they say!
I Doubt It!
Do you believe the above is a fair and accurate representation of our economic world? If so, how do you explain the following?
Global debt exceeds $200 trillion and is rising rapidly. This massive debt will NOT be paid back in currencies with 2017 purchasing power. Debt MUST be rolled over in continually DEVALUING dollars, euros, yen and pounds.
The financial system rolls over maturing debt, adds more, and pretends repayment will not be problematic. Those who hope this will remain true ignore the lessons of history, including sky-high interest rates in the late 1970s, the Asian and Long Term Capital crises in the late 1990s, many defaults and hyperinflations in the last century and the credit-crunch-recession-market-crash of 2008.
Official inflation statistics show that consumer price inflation is low – supposedly in the two percent range. However, if you pay for health care, hospital bills, prescription drugs, Obamacare, beer, cigarettes, college tuition, fresh vegetables, processed food, auto insurance, and many other necessities, you know better. The Chapwood Index agrees with your experience. Their statistics show consumer price inflation is much higher than official numbers.
National debt – the official debt of the U.S. government exceeds $20.5 trillion – more than the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. The debt has increased exponentially (straight line on a log scale chart) for the past century.
Interest paid on the official national debt is approximately $500 billion per year and climbing. Congress is influenced by the financial elite and will not operate within a balanced budget. Therefore the U.S. will pay more interest each year.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The War on Gold Intensifies: It Betrays The Elitists’ Panic And Coming Defeat – Part 1
Dictatorship (noun): Definition #3: absolute power or authority (Websters);
Def. #2: absolute, imperious or overbearing power or control (Random House);
Def. #3: Absolute or despotic control or power (American Heritage);
Def. #3: Absolute or supreme power or authority (Collins English Dictionary);
Def. #1: A type of government where absolute sovereignty is allotted
to an individual or small clique (Wikipedia).
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War
In recent weeks, the War on Gold, which is a subset of the broader War on Human Freedom, has sharply intensified, with massive, multi-billion dollar naked short price raids now being launched on a weekly and even daily basis by the criminal, state-sponsored price manipulators. This escalation proves the supreme importance to the Deep State financial elite of the maintenance of their gold price dictatorship, which is a vital component of their long term, systemic campaign of financial plunder.
The elitists have no problems whatsoever with stratospheric stock and bond prices; 5,000 year low interest rates; $450 million Da Vinci’s; $250 million private homes; $50,000,000 annual salaries for circus masters, whose role in keeping the masses distracted and dumb is vital; $1.9 million Aston Martins; $100,000 Air Jordan sneakers, or any of the other prices that have now gone into outer space.
But there is one thing they will not accept: an honest, free market price for gold. Because while all debauchery under the sun is permitted and encouraged in the Castle of Fraud and Corruption they have constructed and in which they revel, one thing is strictly prohibited: the utterance of truth.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Russia-gate Rationalizes Censorship
Special Report: The Russia-gate hysteria has spread beyond simply a strategy for neutralizing Donald Trump or even removing him from office into an excuse for stifling U.S. dissent that challenges the New Cold War, reports Joe Lauria.
At the end of October, I wrote an article for Consortiumnews about the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign paying for unvetted opposition research that became the basis for much of the disputed story about Russia allegedly interfering in the 2016 presidential election on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, March 21, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
The piece showed that the Democrats’ two paid-for sources that have engendered belief in Russia-gate are at best shaky. First was former British spy Christopher Steele’s largely unverified dossier of second- and third-hand opposition research portraying Donald Trump as something of a Russian Manchurian candidate.
And the second was CrowdStrike, an anti-Putin private company, examining the DNC’s computer server to dubiously claim discovery of a Russian “hack.” In a similar examination of an alleged hack of a Ukrainian artillery app, CrowdStrike also blamed Russia but used faulty data for its report that it was later forced to rewrite. CrowdStrike was hired after the DNC refused to allow the FBI to look at the server.
My piece also described the dangerous consequences of partisan Democratic faith in Russia-gate: a sharp increase in geopolitical tensions between nuclear-armed Russia and the U.S., and a New McCarthyism that is spreading fear — especially in academia, journalism and civil rights organizations — about questioning the enforced orthodoxy of Russia’s alleged guilt.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
For Saving the Earth We Need to Tell the Whole Truth — an eco-socialist’s response to Richard Smith
In his article,1 Richard calls upon his readers to “change the conversation”. He asks, “What are your thoughts?” He says, if we don’t “come up with a viable alternative, our goose is cooked.” I fully agree. So I join the conversation, in order to improve it.
Let me first say I appreciate Richard’s article very much. It is very useful, indeed necessary, to also present one’s cause in a short article – for those who are interested but, for whatever reason, cannot read a whole book. Richard has ably presented the eco-socialist case against both capitalism and “green” capitalism.
But the alternative Richard has come up with is deficient in one very important respect, namely in respect of viability. Allow me to present here my comradely criticisms. It will be short.
Is only Capitalism the Problem?
(1) Richard writes, “Capitalism, not population is the main driver of planetary ecological collapse … .”. It sounds like an echo of statements from old-Marxist-socialism. It is not serious. Is Richard telling us that, while we are fighting a long-drawn-out battle against capitalism in order to overcome it, we can allow population to continuously grow without risking any further destruction of the environment? Should we then think that a world population of ten billion by 2050 would not be any problem?
I would agree if Richard would say that capitalism is, because of its growth compulsion, one of the main drivers of ecological collapse. But anybody who has learnt even a little about ecology knows that in any particular eco-region, exponential growth of any one species leads to collapse of its ecological balance.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
When boom is bust: the shale oil bonanza as a symptom of economic crisis
When boom is bust: the shale oil bonanza as a symptom of economic crisis
The gradual climb in oil prices in recent weeks has revived hopes that US shale oil producers will return to profitability, while also renewing fevered dreams of the US becoming a fossil fuel superpower once again.
Thus a few days ago my daily newspaper ran a Bloomberg article by Grant Smith which lead with this sweeping claim:
“The U.S. shale revolution is on course to be the greatest oil and gas boom in history, turning a nation once at the mercy of foreign imports into a global player. That seismic shift shattered the dominance of Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel, forcing them into an alliance with long-time rival Russia to keep a grip on world markets.”
I might have simply chuckled and turned the page, had I not just finished reading Oil and the Western Economic Crisis, by Cambridge University economist Helen Thompson. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
Thompson looks at the same shale oil revolution and draws strikingly different conclusions, both about the future of the oil economy and about the effects on US relations with OPEC, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
Before diving into Thompson’s analysis, let’s first look at the idea that the shale revolution may be “the greatest oil and gas boom in history”. As backing for this claim, Grant Smith cites a report earlier in November by the International Energy Agency, predicting that US shale oil output will soar to about 8 million barrels/day by 2025.
Accordingly, “ ‘The United States will be the undisputed leader of global oil and gas markets for decades to come,’ IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said … in an interview with Bloomberg television.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Cost Basis of our Economy is Spiraling Out of Control
What will it take to radically reduce the cost basis of our economy?
If we had to choose one “big picture” reason why the vast majority of households are losing ground, it would either be the stagnation of income or the spiraling out of control cost basis of our economy, that is, the essential foundational expenses of households, government and enterprise.
Clearly, both rising costs and stagnating income cause households to lose ground, i.e. their income buys fewer goods and services every year.
I’ve often covered the dynamics of stagnating income for the bottom 95%, and real-world inflation, i.e. a decline in purchasing power.
But neither of these dynamics fully describes the relentless upward spiral of the cost basis of our economy, that is, the cost of essentials and the foundations of the economy: education, healthcare, energy and labor.
These expenses are pushing the costs of virtually every good and service, public and private, higher in a self-reinforcing spiral. The costs of education are spiraling out of control, stripping households of income as an entire generation is transformed into debt-serfs by student loan debt. The soaring costs of healthcare are a core driver of higher costs in the education complex (and goverment in general), and to cover these higher costs, counties raise property taxes, which add additional cost burdens to households and enterprises as rents rise.
Rising rents push the cost structure of almost every enterprise and agency higher.
Then there’s the asset inflation created by central bank ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) which has inflated a second echo-bubble in housing that has pushed home ownership out of reach of many, adding demand for rental housing that has pushed rents into the stratosphere in Left and Right Coast cities.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
December 4, 2017
This Time IS Different, It Just Ends The Same
This past weekend, I was in Florida with Chris Martenson and Nomi Prins discussing the current backdrop of the markets, economic cycles, and future outcomes. A bulk of the conversations centered around the current “everything bubble” that currently exists globally. Elevated valuations in stock prices, extremely low yields between in “junk bonds,” or intense speculation around “cryptocurrencies” all suggest we have entered once again into “bubble” territory.”
Let me state this:
“Market bubbles have NOTHING to do with valuations or fundamentals.”
Hold on…don’t start screaming “heretic” and building gallows just yet. Let me explain.
Stock market bubbles are driven by speculation, greed, and emotional biases – therefore valuations and fundamentals are simply a reflection of those emotions.
In other words, bubbles can exist even at times when valuations and fundamentals might argue otherwise. Let me show you a very basic example of what I mean. The chart below is the long-term valuation of the S&P 500 going back to 1871.
First, it is important to notice that with the exception of only 1929, 2000 and 2007, every other major market crash occurred with valuations at levels LOWER than they are currently. Secondly, all of these crashes have been the result of things unrelated to valuation levels such as liquidity issues, government actions, monetary policy mistakes, recessions or inflationary spikes. However, those events were only a catalyst, or trigger, that started the “panic for the exits” by investors.
Market crashes are an “emotionally” driven imbalance in supply and demand. You will commonly hear that “for every buyer, there must be a seller.” This is absolutely true. The issue becomes at “what price.” What moves prices up and down, in a normal market environment, is the price level at which a buyer and seller complete a transaction.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
