January 5, 2016

So what is the difference between IS terror and Saudi Arabian state terrorism?

from the Herald Scotland:



The future's bright for executioners in 2016. The year began with another video nasty from so-called Islamic State (IS) featuring a new “Jihadi John” murdering alleged “spies” in customary orange jump suits.

This arrived 24 hours after the news that 47 prisoners had been beheaded, shot and/or crucified by our principal ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. Among them was the Shi'ite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al Nimr, who had led a peaceful uprising against the Saudi monarchy.

The BBC's Nick Robinson put the question of the day to the former British ambassador, Sir John Jenkins yesterday: “What is the difference between Islamic State beheading its political opponents and Saudi Arabia beheading political opponents?” The former diplomat's reply made me choke on my porridge.

Saudi Arabia was “one of the community of nation states”, he said, and its actions were “disproportionate but understandable”. Understandable? Beheading, crucifying and shooting leaders of a rival Muslim faith is understandable, according to Sir John, because it is “within the law”, such as it applies in that oil-rich state.

.....(snip).....

We continue to regard Saudi Arabia, wrongly, as a force for peace in the Middle East. On the contrary: it is a force for war, and has aided the emergence of Sunni terror groups such as IS, al Qaeda and the al-Nusra Front. It did this by promoting the austere, sectarian Wahhabi form of Islam throughout the Middle East as part of its mediaeval conflict with the rival Shi'ite strand of Islam. ..............(more)

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14181394.So_what_is_the_difference_between_IS_terror_and_Saudi_Arabian_state_terrorism_/

January 5, 2016

Jon Schwarz: I Was Wrong: Big Banks Actually Were Exactly Like Counterfeiters

by Jon Schwarz


(The Intercept) In a recent post about the new movie The Big Short, I argued that it’s not actually necessary to decipher the abstruse jargon of the 2008 financial crisis — i.e., credit default swaps, mezzanine tranches, synthetic collateralized debt obligations, etc. — in order to understand what happened. What the big banks did during the housing bubble of the mid-2000s was in essence straightforward counterfeiting. The difference between what they did and regular counterfeiting was simply the kind of fake paper; regular counterfeiters print fake, valueless cash, while the banks were printing fake, valueless bonds.

However, I then made a very serious mistake — I claimed there was a “small difference” between regular counterfeiters and the ones on Wall Street:

Regular counterfeiters generally want to spend all their bad paper themselves, whereas Wall Street just took a percentage for running the presses. Then they often, though not always, passed their bad paper along to others.

If in 2005 a bank packaged worthless mortgages together into a bond with a face value of, say, $100 million, it would generally collect fees of about 1.5 percent, or $1.5 million. The $100 million face value wasn’t real, but the fees definitely were.

What I didn’t understand, and commenter Larry Headlund pointed out, is that counterfeiting cash actually does work the same way. That is, counterfeiters would not print up $100 million in cash and then spend it all themselves. Instead, they sell their fake cash to others for a percentage of the face value. ..................(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/02/i-was-wrong-big-banks-actually-were-exactly-like-counterfeiters/

January 5, 2016

After Executing Regime Critic, Saudi Arabia Fires Up American PR Machine

(The Intercept) Saudi Arabia’s well-funded public relations apparatus moved quickly after Saturday’s explosive execution of Shiite political dissident Nimr al-Nimr to shape how the news is covered in the United States.

The execution led protestors in Shiite-run Iran to set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, precipitating a major diplomatic crisis between the two major powers already fighting proxy wars across the Middle East.

The Saudi side of the story is getting a particularly effective boost in the American media through pundits who are quoted justifying the execution, in many cases without mention of their funding or close affiliation with the Saudi Arabian government.

Meanwhile, social media accounts affiliated with Saudi Arabia’s American lobbyists have pushed English-language infographics, tweets, and online videos to promote a narrative that reflects the interests of the Saudi regime.

A Politico article about the rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran by Nahal Toosi, for instance, quoted only three sources: the State Department, which provided a muted response to the executions; the Saudi government; and Fahad Nazer, identified as a “political analyst with JTG Inc.” Nazer defended the executions, saying that they served as a “message … aimed at Saudi Arabia’s own militants regardless of their sect.” ..................(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/04/saudi-pr-machine/

January 5, 2016

Professor Richard Wolff: Debunking the Magnitude of Markets: A Holiday Story

by Richard Wolff.
Published on December 24, 2015


This article originally appeared at Truthout.org

Like all human institutions, markets have strengths and weaknesses. Born in particular historical conditions, they alter over time as conditions change, and eventually die. Just as other institutions - monarchy, slavery, empire, feudalism, tribal society etc. - were sometimes hysterically exalted, depicted as sublimely perfect and eternal, so too were markets. Yet as history produces, develops and extinguishes institutions, it does the same to their exaltations. As institutions lose bigger-than-life pretensions, their weaknesses become visible (and vice versa).

Markets were and are just one mechanism for distributing resources and products among people and enterprises. In markets, prices allocate scarce commodities to the highest bidders for them, to those who can pay the most. Markets differ from manyother, non-market mechanisms that human beings, past and present, have used for those distributions. Religious authorities, community elders, local or regional state authorities, democratically composed collectives, kinship and gift-based organizations developed different, non-market, price mechanisms for distribution. Because recent history exalted markets hysterically, it is time to expose their mixed and often horrific results.

Markets distribute resources and products by means of more or less voluntary, quid-pro-quo exchanges among owners of those resources and products. I offer so many of what I have and you want in exchange for so many of what you have that I want. Capitalism did not invent markets; they coexisted with all the non-capitalist production systems we know of (feudal, slave, individual peasant and so on). Likewise, those different production systems also coexisted with non-market distribution systems.

When capitalists exalted markets, they usually demonized socialism as if it ended markets (something actually existing socialists almost never did). The pre-capitalist slave economic system in the US South grew and spread by means of the markets in slaves as well as slaves' products. In contrast, the early centuries of European feudalism saw a constriction of markets far beyond anything associated with modern socialism. Later European feudalism made more use of markets. The actual history of markets differs from the more ideology-driven renditions of that history.

Despite the pro-market ideology that suffuses capitalist cultures today, inside those cultures markets are sometimes reviled in revealing ways. A typical holiday scene illustrates the point. Some individuals are hosting a dinner; they have purchased, cooked and served the food to friends and relatives gathered at a festive table. All in attendance receive and enjoy their portions, conversation bubbles and solidarity glows. As the meal concludes, one young man is asked to clear the table. He proudly applies the market exaltation brought home from that semester's college economics course. "Sure," he says to all at the table, "that will be $4, please." .............................(more)

http://rdwolff.com/content/debunking-magnitude-markets-holiday-story

January 5, 2016

The Melting Arctic's Dramatic Impact on Global Weather Patterns

The Melting Arctic's Dramatic Impact on Global Weather Patterns

Monday, 04 January 2016 00:00
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report





Arctic sea ice is melting at a record pace - and every summer looks grimmer. This past summer saw the ice pack at its fourth-lowest level on record, and the overall trend in recent decades suggests this will only continue.

"Using satellites, scientists have found that the area of sea ice coverage each September has declined by more than 40 percent since the late 1970s, a trend that has accelerated since 2007," according to the recent report "Arctic Matters: The Global Connection to Changes in the Arctic" by the National Research Council of the National Academies.

The report added that by the end of each of the eight summers from 2007 to 2014, Arctic sea ice extent was over less area than at any time in the preceding three decades.

In addition to rapid melting of the sea and land ice in the Arctic, temperatures there are warming at least twice as fast as those of the rest of the planet - provoking other dramatic changes.

Massive wildfires on frozen ground, resulting from increasingly dry conditions caused by anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD), are becoming common; this phenomenon is unprecedented over at least the last 10,000 years. .............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34276-the-melting-arctic-s-dramatic-impact-on-global-weather-patterns

January 4, 2016

NYC: As Subway Ridership Soars, So Do Delays

(WNYC) By almost every standard the MTA uses to measure subway performance, the system is struggling to keep pace. Delays are up, on time performance is down, and older car models need to be repaired more often.

The overburdened Lexington Avenue line is especially feeling the pain. Just 66 percent of 5 and 6 trains meet agency headway standards — the scheduled interval between trains. The 4 is only slightly better, at 71 percent.

"The 4/5/6 is a very intense line," said MTA operations manager Peter Cafiero. "We're meeting weekly on [it]."

But all lines are feeling the crush. In October 2015, there were over 20,000 subway delays due to overcrowding. In October of 2014, that number was...13,805.

MTA board member Fernando Ferrer says waiting for a train during rush hour these days is not for the faint-hearted. ..........(more)

http://www.wnyc.org/story/subway-ridership-soars-so-do-delays/

January 4, 2016

DC Metro Orange, Silver Lines Return to 6-minute Rush-Hour Service

Metro General Manager/CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld on Dec. 30, announced the resumption of six-minute rush hour service on the Orange and Silver lines, 13 weeks after a catastrophic fire knocked offline an electrical substation outside Stadium-Armory Station.

"I am pleased to be able to announce the restoration of six-minute service on the Orange and Silver lines this week," said Wiedefeld. "I want to thank the Metro customers who stayed with us despite less frequent service and crowding, and we know there is more work ahead to rebuild rider confidence and make service reliable."

Orange and Silver line trains began consistently departing endpoint terminals at six-minute headways on Dec. 28, for the first time since the Sept. 21 substation fire. ...............(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12154116/orange-and-silver-line-return-to-6-minute-rush-hour-service

January 4, 2016

Nouriel Roubini: Europe’s disintegration could be biggest threat of 2016

NEW YORK (Project Syndicate) — At the cusp of the new year, we face a world in which geopolitical and geo-economic risks are multiplying. Most of the Middle East is ablaze, stoking speculation that a long Sunni-Shia war (like Europe’s Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants) could be at hand. China’s rise is fueling a wide range of territorial disputes in Asia and challenging America’s strategic leadership in the region. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has apparently become a semi-frozen conflict, but one that could reignite at any time.

There is also the chance of another epidemic, as outbreaks of SARS, MERS, Ebola, and other infectious diseases have shown in recent years. Cyber warfare is a looming threat as well, and nonstate actors and groups are creating conflict and chaos from the Middle East to North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Last, but certainly not least, climate change is already causing significant damage, with extreme weather events becoming more frequent and lethal.

Yet it is Europe that may turn out to be the ground zero of geopolitics in 2016.

For starters, a Greek exit from the eurozone may have been only postponed, not prevented, as pension and other structural reforms put the country on a collision course with its European creditors. “Grexit,” in turn, could be the beginning of the end of the euro EURUSD, -0.3131% and monetary union EURUSD, -0.3131% as investors would wonder which member — possibly even a core country (for example, Finland) — will be the next to leave.

If Grexit does occur, the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU may become more likely. Compared to a year ago, the probability of “Brexit” has increased, for several reasons. The recent terrorist attacks in Europe have made the U.K. even more isolationist, as has the migration crisis. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour is more Euroskeptic. And Prime Minister David Cameron has painted himself into a corner by demanding EU reforms that even the Germans — who are sympathetic to the U.K. — cannot accept. To many in Britain, the EU looks like a sinking ship. .....................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/europes-disintegration-could-be-biggest-threat-of-2016-2016-01-04?dist=lcountdown

January 4, 2016

The ‘stealth bear market’ is about to show its teeth

(MarketWatch) The new year is beginning with a mauling for many investors, as Chinese stocks fell so sharply Monday that they triggered a trading halt.

Following China’s lead, Dow futures have wallowed more than 300 points in the red. “Investors are not going to like the start of this year,” says Naeem Aslam, AvaTrade’s chief market strategist, in a note.

Today’s call of the day fits the bearish mood that’s dominating 2016’s first trading session in the early going.

The new year brings a “possibility that the ‘stealth bear market’ we have been in for 6-9 months is revealed as a true bear market,” says Jonathan Krinsky at MKM Partners in a note.

MKM’s chief market technician warns the median stock in the Russell 3000 RUA, -0.92% , which represents 98% of the U.S. stock market, is “now down over 20% from its 52-week high.” So his shop’s “base case for 2016 is that the weakness seen at the stock level finally makes its way to the cap-weighted index level,” meaning main benchmarks like the S&P 500 SPX, -2.10% and Nasdaq COMP, -2.43% ..................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/warning-the-stealth-bear-market-is-about-to-show-its-teeth-2016-01-04?link=MW_popular

January 4, 2016

It Starts: Tech Trouble Mucks up Silicon Valley Real Estate Party

It Starts: Tech Trouble Mucks up Silicon Valley Real Estate Party
by Wolf Richter • January 3, 2016


[font color="blue"]Yahoo tries to “quietly” dump its Holy Grail property.[/font]

Yahoo has enough problems already. Hardly anything has gone right since its last big successful move, the strategic partnership in 2005 with Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. Even as it blew billions of dollars on dozens of acquisitions over the last few years, its annual revenues shrank from $7.21 billion in 2008 to $4.62 billion in 2014, down 36% in six years, with not much hope in sight.

Management departures have been termed “Exodus” by re/code. Now that its efforts to spin off Alibaba have collapsed under the tax implications (didn’t they think about this before?), Yahoo said that it would try to spin off instead its core Internet business. Whatever.

“Activist investors” have sunk their teeth into Yahoo with their own proposals, without much success. Its shares, after languishing in the low teens following the 2008 crisis, began soaring in late 2012 in the hopes of an Alibaba IPO that would douse Yahoo in new riches. Its shares were also dragged along by the general stock market and tech euphoria. In late 2014, they broke the sound barrier of $50 a share – but then spent 2015 careening down 36%.

During the stock market bubble that peaked at about the time Yahoo’s stock peaked, all sins were forgiven. Fancy stories mattered. Newfangled metrics mattered. Realities didn’t. But something changed in 2015. The hot air started hissing out of these stories. The tech and startup bubble began wheezing. And IPOs stalled. It seems the party is over in tech land. Now there is talk of “pent-up supply” of IPOs – a gruesome term in a world with little demand for them. ..............(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/01/03/it-starts-tech-trouble-mucks-up-silicon-valley-real-estate-party/