Be Prepared

Now that Sir Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chair, has come out with his pessimistic view, "the worst he's seen in public life," it most likely a decent bet to take the other side of that trade. Greenspan mentions the 1987 debacle as if everyone's memory is as short as apparently his is.

That downturn came as the Fed was hiking rates all summer as Greenspan assumed office that August. He was just as much a part of the October meltdown as he was on his way to Dallas that fateful day to deliver a speech.

We warned you, they'll pump out more negatives about this than an honest investigation into Hiliary's background would turn up in 10 minutes. Be prepared.

During a CNBC inteview today, when discussing the historic Brexit vote outcome, Alan Greenspan unleashed a fiery sermon that could have been prepared just by reading a random selection of posts from this website, the former Fed chairman told his shocked hosts that the current period, far from the raging "Obama recovery" spun every day by adaministration propaganda appratchicks and one that prompted the Fed to unleash a ridiculous rate hike cycle in December just as the US is sliding into a recession, and is instead the "worst period" he has seen, surpassing even the infamous Black Monday in severity.

"This is the worst period, I recall since I've been in public service. There's nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away. I'd love to find something positive to say."

zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-24/greenspan-worst-period-i-recall-theres-nothing-it

Overnight

 What do you know? Though far and few, wonders never cease.

They tried everything, the elitists of  the globe, the NWO thugs, rolled out their big guns, the big scaremongers, the hate crowd who masquerade as friends of the people, it's even conceivable they went farther than that, and it's looks as if the good people of England took their country back. Congratulation to those who voted to leave. You are a stout, brave lot.

They pulled out every dirty trick, even announcing earlier before a single vote had been counted that one high ranking leave official was tossing in the towel, admitting defeat, an obvious attempt to keep voters from going to the polls.These are indeed some evil, dangerous people. Be prepared now for all the horror stories about what will happen next. MSM is not to be trusted. How much you're going to suffer. We read one EU bureaucrat a few weeks ago who, in all his arrogance, said if the leave vote wins, "Leave means now!" Are you listening Mr. Cameron? You will suffer all right, suffer the pleasure of your own liberty, the choice to decide your own future, good or bad.

You should be proud of yourselves. You have just struck a mighty tocsin for liberty around the globe.There can be no greater feeling of accomplishment than that. Sleep well. You earned it.

Here;s what the WSJ had to say: Stocks in Japan suffered their worst day in five years, leading broad losses in markets across Asia while gold surged as results from the U.K.’s referendum on its European Union membership showed the country had voted to leave the trading bloc.
The Nikkei Stock Average on Friday plunged 8.2%, led down by shares in exporting companies as the Japanese yen surged. The Japanese currency reached 99 yen to the U.S. dollar, the currency’s strongest level since November 2013. The move prompted Japan’s top currency official, Masatsugu Asakawa, to say that the authorities there would consider responses as needed.
Some Japanese companies seen as highly exposed to the U.K. economy are fell particularly hard. Industrial conglomerate Hitachi was down 10%, while advertising agency Dentsu dropped 8.9% and auto maker Nissan Motor fell 8.5%.
In Hong Kong, shares dropped 4.7%, as names with exposure to the U.K. such as major banks Standard Chartered PLC and HSBC Holdings PLC took heavy hits. Each dropped close to 9%, as investors fretted about the business and economic consequences of a vote for a British exit from the EU.
A tumble in oil prices, meanwhile, knocked down energy shares across the region. That sector was off 4.1% in Australia, compared with a 2.9% fall in the broader S&P ASX 200. A rush to haven assets helped gold rise 5.9%. 

Reuters reported it this way: Britain has voted to leave the European Union, results from Thursday's landmark referendum showed, an outcome that sets the country on an uncertain path and deals the largest setback to European efforts to forge greater unity since World War Two.

World financial markets dived as nearly complete results showed a 51.8/48.2 percent split for leaving. Sterling suffered its biggest one-day fall of more than 10 percent against the dollar, hitting a 31-year low on market fears the decision will hit investment in the world's 5th largest economy.

The vote will initiate at least two years of messy divorce proceedings with the EU, raise questions over London's role as a global financial capital and put huge pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to resign, though he pledged during the campaign to stay on whatever the result.

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The euro slumped more than 3 percent against the dollar on concerns a Brexit vote will do wider economic and political damage to what will become a 27-member union. Investors poured into safe-haven assets including gold, and the yen surged. European shares were on course to open 6 to 7.5 percent lower.
There was no immediate comment from the Bank of England. Global policymakers prepared for action to stabilize markets, with Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso promising to "respond as needed" in the currency market.
Yet there was euphoria among Britain's eurosceptic forces, claiming a victory they styled as a protest against British political leaders, big business and foreign leaders including Barack Obama who had urged Britain to stay in the bloc.
"Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom," said Nigel Farage, leader of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party.
"If the predictions are right, this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people ... Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day."
He called the EU a "doomed project".
By 5.41 a.m. (0441 GMT), 93 percent of the vote had been counted, making Leave's lead impossible to reverse.
Asked if Cameron, who called the referendum in 2013 and campaigned to stay in the bloc, should resign if Britain voted for Brexit, Farage said: "Immediately."
An aide working in Cameron's office told reporters: "We're in uncharted territory... Everyone's just really tired. They haven't slept."
The United Kingdom itself now faces a threat to its survival, as Scotland voted 62 percent in favor of staying in the EU and is likely to press for a new referendum on whether to become independent after its 2014 vote to stay in the UK.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Thursday's vote "makes clear that the people of Scotland see their future as part of the European Union."
Northern Ireland's largest Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, said the result intensified the case for a vote on whether to quit the United Kingdom.

Related Coverage

• › Bank of England in 'close contact' with banks after vote for Brexit
• › Fact box: What Brexit could mean for the UK economy
• › From trade to migration: how Brexit may hit the EU economy

European politicians reacted with shock. "Please tell me I'm still sleeping and this is all just a bad nightmare!" former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb tweeted.
Quitting the EU could cost Britain access to the EU's trade barrier-free single market and mean it must seek new trade accords with countries around the world. President Barack Obama says it would be at the "back of a queue" for a U.S. pact.
The EU for its part will emerge economically and politically weakened, facing the departure not only of its most free-market proponent but also a member country that wields a U.N. Security Council veto and runs a powerful army. In one go, the bloc will lose around a sixth of its total economic output.
Cameron is expected to formally report the result to his European counterparts within days and prepare negotiations for the first exit by a member state from the EU -- an exit he has said would be irreversible.
The British leader called the referendum in 2013 in a bid to head off pressure from local eurosceptics, including within his own party. Initially billed as an easy ride, the vote has now put his political future on the line. Party ally Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who became the most recognizable face of the "leave" camp, is now widely tipped to seek his job.
Opinion polls had see-sawed throughout an acrimonious four-month campaign, but the Remain camp edged ahead last week after a pro-EU member of parliament, Jo Cox, was shot and stabbed to death by a man shouting "Britain first". The attack shocked Britons and raised questions about whether the tone of the debate was fuelling intolerance and hatred.
In the end though, the pro-EU camp was powerless to stop a tide of anti-establishment feeling and disenchantment with a Europe that many Britons see as remote, bureaucratic and mired in permanent crises.
TORN APART
Britain, which joined the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, has always been an ambivalent member. A  firm supporter of  free trade, tearing down internal economic barriers and expanding the EU to take in ex-communist eastern states, it opted out of joining the euro single currency or the Schengen border-free zone.
Cameron’s ruling Conservatives in particular have risked being torn apart by a slow by steady rise in euroscepticism ever since differences over Europe triggered the ousting of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
World leaders including Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, NATO and Commonwealth governments had all urged a "Remain” vote, saying Britain would be stronger and more influential in the EU than outside.
Yet the four-month campaign has been among the divisive ever waged in Britain, with accusations of lying and scare-mongering on both sides and rows on immigration which critics said at times unleashed overt racism.
It also revealed deeper splits in British society, with the pro-Brexit side drawing support from millions of voters who felt left behind by globalization and believed they saw no benefits from Britain's ethnic diversity and free-market economy.
Concerns over uncontrolled immigration, loss of sovereignty, remote rule from Brussels and a protest vote from working class northern voters appear to have trumped almost unanimous warnings of the economic perils of going it alone.

Related Coverage

• › Fact box: Five questions for Britain and Europe after Brexit vote
• › Sturgeon says vote makes clear Scotland sees future as part of EU
• › Sterling hits lowest in three decades, yen surges as Brexit stuns markets

"People are concerned about how they have been treated with austerity and how their wages have been frozen for about seven years," said John McDonnell, finance spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, which had favored a Remain vote.
"A lots of people's grievances have come out and we have got to start listening to them."
Surveys on public attitudes across the EU have for years shown growing disenchantment with European integration, a project that began in the 1950s as a common market for steel and coal but which over the years offered members the chance to join up to a single currency and do away with old national borders.
Yet while it has become a feature of everyday life seen in everything from EU-sponsored student exchanges to rules on mobile telephone roaming charges, the EU lost public support over its handling of the 2009 sovereign debt crisis that inflicted painful austerity on much of the south of the continent and left many citizens in northern countries resentful at having to fund bailouts.
Right-wing British eurosceptics seized on the euro zone crisis to argue that Britain was “shackled to a corpse”.
Aside from Denmark-ruled Greenland, which left the EEC in 1985 after a row over fishing rights, Britain is the first country to leave the EU, and even EU officials say it takes the continent into uncharted territory.
EU affairs ministers and ambassadors from member states gather in Luxembourg by 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) for routine talks that will provide the first chance for many to react. A regular EU summit has been pushed back to next Tuesday and Wednesday, when Cameron may trigger Article 50 of the EU's treaty, the legal basis for a country to leave, setting in motion two years of divorce negotiations.
Even less clear at this stage is what sort of relationship Britain will seek to negotiate with the EU once it has left.
To retain access to the single market, vital for its giant financial services sector, London would have to adopt all EU regulation without having a say in its shaping, and pay a substantial contribution to Brussels coffers for market access, as Norway and Switzerland do. EU officials have said UK-based banks and financial companies would lose automatic “passport” access to sell services across Europe if Britain ceased to apply the EU principles of free movement of goods, capital, services and people.
Aside from trade, huge questions now face the millions of British expatriates who live freely elsewhere in the bloc and enjoy equal access to health and other benefits, as well as some 2 million EU citizens who live and work in Britain.
Core founding members of the EU such as France and Germany will be wary of making life too easy for Britain for fear of encouraging eurosceptics across the continent to call for referendums in their countries.
French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said last weekend that "when you're out, you're out", insisting Britain could expect no preferential treatment. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has issued similar warnings.
Both countries, whose painful post-war reconciliation formed the basis for the future union of Europe, must now deal with buoyant anti-EU parties at home, with the Alternative fuer Deutschland  in Germany and the Front National in France.

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Overnight

Why would anyone expect anything different than it is overnight  given the expected close vote by nearly all who've been watching the Brexit drama unfold. Trading in Asia on Thursday opened mixed as investors play things close to their vests. The U.S market traded off, no surprise there.

The Nikkei was up slightly. 0.24%, while the Korean Kospt was down by 0.39%. In China the two Composites split the difference with the Shenghai market off 0.26% and the Shenzhen flat. materials helped edged the Australian ASX 200 up ever so slightly at 0.02%. The Dow shed nearly 50 points, closing at 17,780.83. Similar moves prevailed in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq in what could in part be called the Brexit hangover.

Oil fell overnight while the UK pound moved higher to 1.48 up from 1.40 just last week, another sign that investors think Brexit stay will prevail as people shun at the last second the uncertain for the known however uncomfortable it might be. Gold fell to $1,260.36 after recently breaching the 1,300 level.

Only You Can Stop It

It's hard to get more secretive than this. This is a nefarious story about a nefarious organization, one where on another questionable matter higher-ups at the organization were allowed to slide under their 5th Amendment rights and no one was ever really punished.

It's a matter of public record and many Americans have found out the hard way about government corruption. What's happening here is not much different from what's happening in China for those who pay attention. Dissenters or those who question are guilty until proven otherwise.

This is a clearly retributive, nefarious organization that needs more than the usual fake house cleaning offered up so that business can go on as before.

The IRS has seized entire bank accounts with no notice or due process, alleging the owners sought to avoid federal bank reporting requirements. The aforementioned pattern of banking is described as "intentionally structuring cash transactions," and they call it a crime.

This nefarious provision of the Bank Secrecy Act is purportedly targeted at drug traffickers, money launderers and terrorists, but it has swept up hundreds of innocent people—including small business owners who lost everything because they deal wholly or partly in cash.
Carole Hinders, owner of a Mexican restaurant in Iowa that only accepted cash, had her entire bank account of $33,000 seized even though she did nothing wrong. The IRS seized $63,000 from Randy Sowers, a dairy farmer in Maryland, because he was depositing under $10,000 into his bank account.
Ken Quran, the owner of a convenience store in North Carolina, had his entire bank account of $150,000 seized after working nonstop for years to build it up. His crime? Withdrawing cash from his bank account in amounts under $10,000.

But the truly shocking thing is what happened next. A group of government agents—both from the IRS and local police—came to Ken's store with an agreement already written up, under which Ken would agree to forever forfeit the money to the federal government. The agents searched his store with dogs, barred the entrance to keep out customers, and then demanded that he sign the paper. Ken initially refused, explaining that he did not read English well and did not want to sign an agreement he could not understand. Then, under compulsion—after one of the local police yelled and demanded that he sign, and after one of the IRS agents made clear that, otherwise, their next stop would be to talk to Ken's wife to pressure her—Ken agreed to sign.

Between 2007 and 2013, the IRS seized $43 million in over 600 cases where only "structuring" violations were committed, according to the Institute for Justice (IJ). The IRS abandoned this policy in 2014 after IJ put heavy pressure on the agency through lawsuits and media exposure.

But the noble public interest law firm was not done. IJ pioneered a legal mechanism, called petitions for remission, to fight for the return of seized assets from closed cases involving only structural violations.
And, amazingly, it worked. IJ filed a petition to the IRS on behalf of Ken Quran, and the agency actually gave Quran all of his money back.
This is a startling admission of wrongdoing by the feared federal agency, and a rare win for liberty.

This will continue until Americans unite to insist that it stop for once and forever.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-22/irs-admits-illegally-seizing-bank-accounts-agrees-give-money-back

Wax And Tax

One man's epithets are another's stand-up comic material. The one thing you can count on is the nannycrats never bore of giving one lots of material. Here's a case in point. It's proof positives of that old saying about the only two certainties in  life--death and taxes.

The EU is studying a proposal that would count robots as people for tax purposes.
Although the proposal is deemed “too early” to implement just yet, rest assured once nannycrats get a bad idea in their heads, it never leaves. This provides yet another reason to vote in favor of Brexit.

 Please consider Europe’s Robots to Become ‘Electronic Persons’ Under Draft Plan.
Europe’s growing army of robot workers could be classed as “electronic persons” and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution. Robots are being deployed in ever-greater numbers in factories and also taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, 

 Fanny told Nanny:  "Don't you give that robot a chance. He might not look it, but he knows how to dance."mishtalk.com/2016/06/22/robots-to-pay-social-security-under-eu-tax-proposal/

To The Undeclared

 
We said in a previous post in difficult times like these it hard to tell who your friends are. With the recent slaughter in Orlando, the Brexit vote here and the upcoming election this November, it's most likely more important than ever to know who your friends are.

That may take some time and thought. And even worse for many some research and thinking. In the MSM world there is only the right and the left. We sometimes hear about the great undeclared, but it's usually a form of editorial page tokenism that comes with a condition: "We're interested in their view especially since it looks like their leaning our way."

Of course, realizing who your friends are can change with the subject. In this case American foreign policy. Here's quote from an article everyone who is still undecided about November should read before Election Day, putting aside if possible on whose site and where it ran.

Greider’s article is brief, and I recommend reading every precious word of it.  Here is but one quote: “Trump has, in his usual unvarnished manner, kicked open the door to an important and fundamental foreign-policy debate.”  And here is a passage from Trump’s interview with the Washington Post that Greider chooses to quote:

“’I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they’d be blown up,’ Trump told the editors.  ‘And we’d build another one and it would get blown up. And we would rebuild it three times. And yet we can’t build a school in Brooklyn.… at what point do you say hey, we have to take care of ourselves. So, you know, I know the outer world exists and I’ll be very cognizant of that but at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially in the inner cities.’”

There's much more. Here's another quote, different author.

Next, Glen Ford, the eloquent radical Left executive editor of Black Agenda Report, a superb and widely read outlet, penned an article in March 2016, with the following title: “Trump Way to the Left of Clinton on Foreign Policy – In Fact, He’s Damn Near Anti-Empire.” Ford’s piece is well worth reading in its entirety; here are just a few quotes :

“Trump has rejected the whole gamut of U.S. imperial war rationales, from FDR straight through to the present.”

“If Trump’s tens of millions of white, so-called ‘Middle American’ followers stick by him, it will utterly shatter the prevailing assumption that the American public favors maintenance of U.S. empire by military means.”

“Trump shows no interest in ‘spreading democracy,’ like George W. Bush, or assuming a responsibility to ‘protect’ other peoples from their own governments, like Barack Obama and his political twin, Hillary Clinton.”

“It is sad beyond measure that the near-extinction of independent Black politics has placed African Americans in the most untenable position imaginable at this critical moment: in the Hillary Clinton camp."

One more quote of note and you can read the rest for yourself. 

Trump has also been noticed by the Left in Europe, notably by the sharp minded Jean Bricmont, physicist and author of Humanitarian Imperialism who writes here:

(Trump) “is the first major political figure to call for ‘America First’ meaning non-interventionism.  He not only denounces the trillions of dollars spent in wars, deplores the dead and wounded American soldiers, but also speaks of the Iraqi victims of a war launched by a Republican President. He does so to a Republican public and manages to win its support. He denounces the empire of US military bases, claiming to prefer to build schools here in the United States. He wants good relations with Russia. He observes that the militarist policies pursued for decades have caused the United States to be hated throughout the world. He calls Sarkozy a criminal who should be judged for his role in Libya. Another advantage of Trump: he is detested by the neoconservatives, who are the main architects of the present disaster.”

If you don't understand what these people are saying here even though they might clearly not be of  your total political persuasion, you're missing a basic truth: America has been going down the wrong foreign policy path for quite a while, led by the powers that be on the left and the right.

davidstockmanscontracorner.com/trumps-anti-interventionism-the-neocons-hate-it-but-the-anti-war-left-has-taken-note

Ditto Senior Think Tankers

As we were strolling through some posts in Business Insider we came across this gem from the Fiscal Times. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Before we got to the bottom or without seeing the story's byline we had a clue who wrote it. A guy named Rob Garver. Sure enough our intuition, what can we say, it just never fails when it comes to these entrenched Washington hacks. Garver is all upset about the proposal of Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King. Now nobody as far as we know ever accused King of being a mental giant. But as far as we know nobody ever accused Washington  D.C. and its inhabitants as a land of mental giants either.

King wants to do what Garver thinks is the unthinkable which means it's highly thinkable and most likely extremely necessary, put the reins once and for all on government waste. That's another way of saying make these lazy do-nothing elected officials in both parties finally make some difficult decisions. When you have a $13 trillion or so economy, to assume that there's no waste--and lots of it--you probably fall to sleep every night hoping once she retires Nancy Pelosi will become a lobbyist for the cosmetic surgery industry.

So what is this dastardly deed that King wants. Here in Garver's words it is:

In the space of just 36 words, King proposes a restriction on the Treasury Department that would not just hogtie the U.S. government's ability to manage its existing debt, but would at the same time create a global financial crisis.

The amendment, meant to be tacked on to the end of the "Financial Services and General Government" appropriations bill, is short and clear. It reads, "None of the funds made available by this Act can be used to issue bonds, or any other form of debt, on the credit of the United States Government or to in any way borrow money." If anything King should receive kudos for something extremely rare in Washington, brevity.

Garver then does what these people do, rolls out the requisite so-called expert, a senior think tanker, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Now we don't know Bernstein and we're glad of it. We would suggest, however, that he needs to reacquaint himself with the definition of stiffing.

Here's Garver quoting Bernstein:

"This is up there with Trump's idea to default on the debt," Bernstein wrote in an email exchange. "Though it's way crazier (and would also be a default, as we couldn't borrow to pay holders of existing Treasury debt).

"Before we even think about how disruptive this would be to global debt markets, consider that because you can't even roll over existing debt under this amendment, it would mean stiffing veterans, Social Security and Medicare recipients, defense, and probably every other spending category in the budget."

That's interesting,  Mr.Bernstein. But here's the truth. With their ZIRP and NIRP they've been stiffing the veterans, the COLA crowd, Medicare and Social Security recipients for nearly a decade. If they get any stiffer you won't have worry about embalming them. Maybe that's their plan, one of the ways they'll cut government waste, save on embalming fluids. Maybe Hilary or Bernie can wheedle that into the party platform? And don't miss the neocon reference in there, defense.

As we said earlier, no one ever accused Washington D.C. as the land of mental giants. Ditto senior think tankers.

Overnight

When you see or hear words like edged or nervous related to investors you know caution can't be far behind and it wasn't in overnight trading in Asia. And that's how Reuters described Wednesday's session there for the most part.

Asian stocks edged up on Wednesday as nervous investors counted down to Britain's make-or-break European Union referendum, while Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's cautious tone on future rate hikes added to a subdued mood in markets.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2 percent. Japan's Nikkei extended losses to shed 1 percent.

China's CSI 300 index and the Shanghai Composite both advanced about 0.3 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.1 percent.

In the U.S. the market also edged up with the S&P 500 still below its 11-month high after rising 0.27% hit in early June.The Yellen-led Fed is still searching for better job numbers and any whiff of inflation. Hedge fund managers aren't the only ones who hedge. As one Street wag put it, a while back she was "cautiously optimistic, now she's just cautious looking for some optimism." 

As the days dwindle down, to quote an old song, to a precious few, it remains to be seen if Yellen will find the courage to pull the trigger on rate hikes even before the start of next year. The UK vote Thursday should it come out leave will solidify that. Her philosophy appears to be wait and see until all the facts are known that way if anything goes wrong it wasn't her fault.

From CNBC we get this report: 
Asia markets traded mixed on Wednesday, after U.S. stocks eked out gains Tuesday amid a drop in oil prices, and as investors counted down to the upcoming British vote to decide whether to remain in the European Union. Australia's ASX 200 was up 0.2 percent in morning trade, with the energy and financials sub-index leading gains. In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was down 0.93 percent, while across the Korean Strait, the Kospi was up 0.46 percent. 

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index was down 0.4 percent. Chinese mainland markets traded flat, with the Shanghai composite at 2,879.28 and the Shenzhen composite at 1,890.61.
Oil prices closed down overnight, likely due to profit taking following a two-day rally. Global benchmark Brent was down 3 cents at $50.62 a barrel, while the July front-month U.S. crude futures ended down 1 percent at $48.85 before expiring. 

During Asian hours Wednesday, Brent traded up 0.1 percent at $50.67 a barrel, while the new August front-month U.S. crude futures contract traded up 0.3 percent at $50 a barrel.
Yellen's more circumspect view on the future path of U.S. rates comes as many investors remain on the sidelines ahead of Thursday's British referendum on its European Union membership.

Polls in recent days showing rising momentum for the "Remain" camp helped boost risk appetite in global markets and have weighed on safe-haven assets such as German bonds and the Japanese yen since Friday.

But many investors are shunning trading as the vote remains too close to call, with an opinion poll published on Tuesday showing the "Remain" campaign's lead had shrunk.

"We still have three polls on the U.K. referendum before the vote, and another shift back to Brexit will see risk appetite disappear in a jiffy," Bernard Aw, market strategist at IG in Singapore, wrote in a note. The British pound edged back to $1.4678 after climbing to as high as $1.4788 on Tuesday, its loftiest level since January 4.

The implied volatilities of the pound have also pushed up from lows on Tuesday, reflecting investor anxiety over a sharp fall in the currency in the event of Brexit.
For the latest Reuters news on the referendum including full multimedia coverage, click
The euro also slid to $1.12585 from this week's high of $1.1383 hit on Monday, turning negative on the week.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Tuesday that Britain's referendum was adding uncertainty to markets, and that the ECB was ready to act with all instruments if necessary.The yen gained 0.3 percent to 104.45 yen to the dollar following a dip on Tuesday, but remained not far from its 22-month high of 103.555 hit last week. The ebbing risk appetite didn't help gold, though. Spot gold held steady at $1,268.77 an ounce, after touching a 1 1/2 week low of $1,264.10 on Tuesday.

On the other hand, oil prices extended their recovery after news of a larger-than-expected draw in U.S. crude stockpiles. Crude inventories fell by 5.2 million barrels for the week ended June 17, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said. The trade group's figures were triple the draw of 1.7 million barrels forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll. <API/S>
Brent crude futures advanced 0.3 percent to $50.77 per barrel, after rising high as $51.10 on Tuesday, its highest level since June 10. U.S. crude futures' new benchmark August contract rose 0.4 percent to $50.05.

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The Smelly Part

When it comes to articles, like many things in life, some are just smelly. Others smellier and the rest smelliest.

For those who don't know or can't recall that is what once was known in the English language as the comparative case. You know, slow, slower and slowest; fat, fatter and fattest; dumb, dumber and dumbest. In today's WSJ--and the Journal is noted for doing what it accuses others of frequently, running fairly smelly articles without digging deeper before publishing them--we get another one. In this case a front page one, "Study Says Gifts Affect Physicians' Drug Choices."

We're most likely the penultimate person on the planet to come to the aid of the medical profession or big daddy pharma. With that disclaimer out of the way, we can now get to the smell test. The crux of the article is clear, drug representatives, also known in even bigger circles as lobbyists, bring free lunches and other such goodies when they call on doctors and those free meals cause these doctors to prescribe more expensive drugs than non-generic alternative medicines.

Critics say drugmakers’ payments and gifts to doctors can improperly influence medical decisions and inflate drug costs by steering doctors to pricey brand-name drugs. In the face of such criticism, drugmakers have tried to rein in some of the more lavish perks, like free golf trips and tickets to hot sporting events. In 2002, PhRMA adopted a voluntary code governing dealings with doctors. It states, for instance, that companies shouldn’t provide tickets to the theater or sporting events, or vacation trips, to any health-care professional who isn’t a salaried employee of the company.

But the code allows for providing modest meals to doctors. Drug-sales representatives routinely bring free food and beverages to doctors’ offices in an effort to get face time to promote their medicines. They also invite doctors to free dinners at restaurants to hear other doctors speak about certain drugs. The industry says the practice helps to educate doctors about the appropriate use of new medicines.

The author, Peter Loftus, pens this smelly sentence: "Prior studies have shown that large payments can sway physicians’ prescribing habits."  Wow! That's an earful, a real revelation. Since physicians are still, at least as far as we know, members of the human species, a group noted for succumbing from time to time to fear and greed, here's a question.

Can those large payments sway--and have they ever before--elected officials from the lowest to the highest offices when making decisions that affect many, many people?  And at what cost and to whom? Our money says it's commonplace. Anyone want to cover that bet? Or do those officials ever receive free meals on or below the table? Some might call it a stretch of imagination--others pure lunacy--that every time one of our elected representatives in Washington goes out to lunch or dinner with a lobbyist, he or she picks up the tab for his or her own meal.

Now the Journal rolls out the prerequisite so-called expert, in this instances a pulmonologist with the requisite pedigree of degrees, MD, MBA from the requisite schools. Now after we're all finished rolling over on our backs with all four paws upright or jumping up and down three straight times hollering: Whoopee! Whoopee! Whoopee! there are some other questions that need to be answered in the name of that term all interventionists love, transparency.

The new study shows that even relatively small payments or gifts are associated with increased prescribing of the promoted brands, said the lead study author, R. Adams Dudley, a professor of medicine and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco. That revelation implies that people can be influenced on the cheap. Wonder if all those Washington-based lobbyists realize this. They could probably be saving lots of money.

Since the good doctor is trying to affect public policy which means many, many lives again, he can no longer hide behind the veil of being a private citizen. He could, a cynic might argue, be a lobbyist.
In the interest of public disclosure he needs to publish on the Internet certain information like whom did he vote for in the last presidential election and whom is he supporting, if anyone, in this one. He needs to reveal several years of his tax returns to see if he has ever been on the payroll---a kinder term in the profession is honorarium--of politically-driven or agenda-driven organizations.

Was he an advocate for the Affordable Care Act and, if so, is he still an advocate?  Given his expertise and his position of influence these are all reasonable bits of information the public has a right to know.  As do those accused physicians. No suggested crime here, just more of what he and his study claims he wants, full disclosure.

We will be waiting, Dr. Dudley.

Overnight

Asian shares traded higher Tuesday as fear about Brexit subsided somewhat and oil prices rallied led by the Japanese yen which traded at a session high of 103.57 against the dollar before turning back down slightly.

The Nikkei 225 was up in early trading 0.5% after falling earlier as the yen gained strength.The Hang Send was up 0.47%. the Australian ASX 220 edged a bit higher, 0.11%, the Shanghai Composite gained 0.26% and the Korean Kospi was down 0.14%. Japaneses exporters were mixed with Nissan shares down 0.45%, Sony up 1.26% and Toyota stayed flat.

After a big rise overnight of 3% oil backed off a bit with global Brent down nearly 0.5% at $50.42 at mid-day. Part of the rally in prices was owing to a draw down at Cushng, Oklahoma, some were saying. Fed Chair Janet Yellen is set Tuesday to give her two-day appearance before Congress, but ahead of Brexit it's highly unlikely she will reveal much in the way interest rates are going and just when.

In the eyes of many the shooting of the UK MP this close to the election still has an odor. According to several reports, other female MPs had warned earlier, in some cases weeks earlier, about the possible threat to female members of parliament. Given the harshness of the debate about going versus staying and the fact that the victim was an ardent supporter of staying in the EU, some are wondering how someone with a weapon was able to pull the shooting off, not to mention the level
of security around the victim.

As you might expect, with the rally in stocks and the easing of tension over the possible Brexit vote, gold softened overnight to trade down 0.22 percent at $1,286.90 an ounce while government bond yields rose as the risk-on again trades seemed to gather momentum.