It Begins And Ends

Donald Trump is hardly a savior because there are none except the one you view in the mirror every morning if you bother.

Trump is merely an ingredient--a necessary one in this case--like the main one you need in a recipe. We are surrounded by deception and lies, Gilbert and Sullivan's things not being what they seem, skim milk masquerading as whip cream. The two main parties and, yes, so too the third and fourth and so on. These are not parities of and by and for the people. These are elitists, control mongers, even mobsters not much different from the kind one can see on television and in the movies.

Questioning their territory is one thing, threatening it another. And that's what the anti-globalization movement is about. Not Trump. He's just a symbol, a dangerous one they in their arrogance and conceit vastly underestimated. It's not Trump; it's those deplorables, another convenient epithet.

Populism is as racists a term as the elitists and MSM have in their lexicon of what constitutes racism. It is no different from calling a person or group a name based on the color of their skin or their sex. Labeling an individual or group a name, or epithet, for exercising what is suppose to be their right to freedom of choice, speech and assembly in the phony democracies that populate the globe is the height of racism.

The real racists are those who created the meme zero tolerance. The climate change freaks who dissemble and threaten anyone and all who question their hardly exact science. In a real democracy tolerance is one of the most basic planks. A never ending one centered on diversity, not the PC packaged kind that's being forced on societies today. It begins and ends with individuals not regulations and laws. It begins and ends with respect. And if there are any spiritual people still around today willing to risk making their beliefs public, they know it begins and ends with love.
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Must Read of the Day – ‘I Listened to a Trump Supporter

I talked at length with a Trump supporter I grew up around. I wanted to understand. I respected her growing up. I wanted to know why a person as kind and compassionate as I remember her is voting for someone like Donald Trump.

She was a family friend, a good person. In rural Ohio, everything was tight. Money, jobs. If you really needed quick cash, she’d put you to work doing landscaping. She’d pay fairly and reliably for the area.

She’s voting for Donald Trump. I disagree with her choice, but I understand why she rejects Clinton so fiercely, and why she’s been swept up in Donald Trump’s particular brand of right-wing populism. I feel that on the left, it’s increasingly easy to ignore these people, to disregard them, to write them off as racists, bigots, or uneducated. I think that’s a loss for everyone involved, and that sometimes listening can help you to at least understand why a person is making the choices they make, so you can work on the root causes. For her, the root cause isn’t racism. In fact, I remember her as one of the only people in the area who proudly hired black workers, in a place where that was a huge issue. She fought over that choice.

But that’s enough background. Let me relay a bit of what she told me.

She’s a person who built her business from the ground up. She wasn’t rich, but was very comfortable for the area. She had a nice house, a nice car, and was stable. She achieved the American dream of not having to struggle. Things changed during the housing crisis. A landscaping business requires customers who need landscaping, and people who don’t own homes just don’t need landscaping. In some of these neighborhoods, one in five people lost their homes. That almost immediately turns a successful landscaping business into a struggling one.

Then there was a domino effect. She couldn’t pay for her lawn-care equipment leases and loans. That hurt her work efficiency. Then, she lost her car. But that didn’t stop the payments. Then, she lost her house. She slowly had to let go all of her employees, until it was just her, hand-mowing lawns for cash the way you might expect a high school student in the summertime.

She told me that every week, it seemed there was another default letter, another foreclosure, another bank demanding more blood from her dry veins. To her, that pile of default notices and demands for payment looked suspiciously similar to Hillary Clinton’s top donor list.

She lost everything she worked so hard for. Obama swore he was going to help. The Wall Street bailout did seem to help Wall Street. But it did absolutely nothing for her. She turns on the news and sees how the Dow Jones is doing better than ever. But that didn’t bring her house and livelihood back. Liberals insist that Obama’s made her life better. But, now she’s driving a car that falls apart randomly while having to pay those same banks for a car she doesn’t own and never will. It’s difficult to convince someone whose life is objectively worse that their life is better. And it’s disingenuous to try. You can break down the specifics, sure. But when someone’s hungry, and you’re busy silencing their complaints by telling them how well world hunger is improving, you’re just going to upset them.

This is not a person who is stupid or racist. She knows Bush caused the economy collapse with his irresponsible tax policies and wars. But she saw liberals as fighting for the banks’ recovery, to hell with her needs. She sees in Hillary someone who celebrates that approach. Who measures US success by the success of multinational mega corporations — corporations who undercut and destroy local businesses. This is a person who grew up in a town with a friendly neighborhood general store, a locally-owned hardware store, farmers’ markets, florists, and auto shops. All of these businesses closed when Walmart moved into town. All their owners now work at that Walmart for a fraction of their previous wages, no benefits, and no hope for something better, something of their own. And now, she sees a free trade supporting former Walmart executive about to come in to office, and it feels like salt in her community’s wounds.

This is a wounded person. Insulting her or continuing to hurt her isn’t going to help. She’s swept up in Trump’s message because she feels someone’s finally listening. Right-wing populism is an awful thing. But desperate people with their backs against the wall will grasp on to whatever they feel will bring a change. Neoliberal capitalism is not sustainable for these people.

Over the past few years, she tried getting back in her business. But a corporation moved in and is operating far cheaper, using undocumented immigrant labor. I should note: She specifically said she doesn’t hold it against the migrant workers. As she said, “They’ve got to take whatever jobs they can get. Just like we do. It’s not their fault. They didn’t choose to make prices so low that legal businesses couldn’t compete.” She was literally a “job creator”. And she wasbeing priced out by the very people Donald Trump insists are pricing her out. That hurts everyone, and it adds an air of authenticity to what he says.

I asked her if she supports Trump’s Mexico wall. She told me, “It doesn’t matter if I do. Hillary wants a wall, too. That wall’s gonna happen.” She wasn’t simply making this up. She’s heard this from many sources, Clinton being one of them. So to her, the idea of a border wall is a non-issue. I pressed her on the issue, and she said she thinks, “It’s a waste of money. If someone wants to cross the border, they’re gonna cross the border.”…

A few times, she seemed ashamed of things Trump’s said or done. I’d ask her to unpack her feelings. She said he sometimes upsets her, but “If you wait and wait for a flawless candidate, you’ll never find one.” She said she’d be much prouder to vote for Trump if he’d tone down his rhetoric.

This fits into my strongly held belief that people are looking for an excuse to vote for Trump. All he has to do to win is tone down some of his more heinous and idiotic tendencies.

I talked to her a bit about Bernie Sanders, to see what she thought of him. She told me, “He seemed like a nice enough guy. But I didn’t pay him much mind because there was no way he was gonna beat Clinton.” I talked with her about his platform, his policy proposals. She lit up. She told me, “It’s a real shame he didn’t make it.” She told me that if she knew him, his record, and his proposals, she’d have voted for him. I said that since the primary concluded, Hillary’s shifted some to adopt policies similar to his, and I asked if that changed her mind. She told me, “It doesn’t matter what she says. It matters what she’s done.”

No amount of insulting her from an ivory tower is going to change her mind. No amount of guffawing about her lack of education, her self-deception, her racism, or her internalized misogyny is going to change her mind. The only thing she’ll listen to is a promise of real change to the system that’s hurt her. If the Democratic Party can’t offer her a viable alternative, we’re going to see another neck-and-neck election in 2020, and in 2024, and in 2028.

These people need a populist answer. They need someone willing to listen to their very real concerns, and offer solutions that don’t look like Band-Aids on bullet wounds. If they had that on the left, we wouldn’t even be discussing Ohio as a “swing state”.

Right now, this is the discourse we’re seeing about Trump supporters. This only emboldens those attitudes. To people like her, this feels like the left is laughing at her for her unwillingness to get in line and support the things that have left her broke and broken.

The above excerpts are not the entire piece. You should read the whole thing: I Listened to a Trump Supporter.

The more deeply I think about this election, the more I agree that the above sentiments motivate Trump voters far more than feelings of racism or hate. As I noted in a piece published a few weeks ago, The Status Quo vs. Donald Trump:

This isn’t about me. This is about the American voter, and the more time passes, the more I understand the motivations of the vast majority of Trump supporters. It isn’t xenophobia or racism, it’s a vote against the status quo and the way they’ve strip mined and destroyed this country. It’s a FU vote and a major gamble, but it’s not as irrational or hateful as you might think.

This doesn’t mean that Trump won’t betray his supporters and prove to be the Republican version of Barack Obama, but it does mean that the dominant media narrative characterizing Trump supporters as a bunch of racist, uneducated brutes is pretty much just dishonest, elitist propaganda.

libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/05/must-read-of-the-day-i-listened-to-a-trump-supporter/

Well, George, We're There

People know about George Orwell's 1984, but in 1946 he penned an essay, “Politics and the English Language,"about the dangers of  debasing the language. You debase the currency first, then the language. See 1913 the year of inception for the IRS and this Federal Reserve Bank.

Once upon a time in the English language we had the comparative case: slow, slower and slowest; dumb, dumber and dumbest; fat, fatter and fattest. Two of them--and quite possibly all three--have been outlawed already. The diversity gap. That's one of those premeditated PC misnomers. It's hardly subtle. But it's malicious. At a time when universities are allowing so-called safe zones where only certain races or people of a certain persuasion are allowed, this academic is supposedly concerned about widening the diversity gap.

Well, George, we're there.

Student leaders of this year’s freshman orientation at James Madison University were given a list of 35 things they should avoid saying, including phrases such as “you have such a pretty face,” “love the sinner, hate the sin,” “we’re all part of the human race,” “I treat all people the same,” “it was only a joke,” “I never owned slaves,” and “people just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps,” among other expressions.

Those phrases and others on the list “widen the diversity gap” and do not “create a safe and inclusive environment,” according to the seven-page handout, a copy of which was provided to The College Fix by a campus spokesman.

Adapted from Dr. Maura Cullen’s book “35 Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say: Surprising Things We Say that Widen the Diversity Gap,” the list also classifies some compliments and encouraging words, such as calling someone “cute” or saying “I know exactly how you feel,” as a no-no.

Many of the “dumb” statements also pertained to race. “I don’t see color,” “I’m colorblind” and “I don’t see difference. We’re all part of the same race, the human race” were all advised against. “If you are going to live in this country, learn to speak the language” also made the list.

After each phrase, an explanation as to why it should be avoided was given. Expressions on race allegedly make people of color feel invisible and diminish their life experiences, the handout states. Statements of empathy supposedly “shuts the other person down,” it adds. Saying to LBGTQ people “what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom is your business” is “hurtful and annoying” because it does not acknowledge the quality and depth of their relationship outside the bedroom, the handout states.The last item on the list warns against labeling something as political correct, calling it “an attempt to shut the other person up.”

James Madison University’s director of communications Bill Wyatt told The College Fix via email that “this was just an exercise, prior to orientation, to get our volunteers to understand how language affects others. The list was not distributed to our first-year students nor were the volunteers instructed not to use the phrases.”

Yet page one of the handout, written by JMU, reads that orientation leaders should “use this handout as a resource” to help accomplish the goal of creating a “safe and inclusive environment for your first year students.”They were also called upon by the handout to “take some time to reflect on your prejudices and biases, and how that might affect your interactions with students.”

They've been working on the currency for years and it was only a matter of time before they got around to the language. The only thing dumb is this lady's book. It's hurtful and annoying. For those of you with pre-college children still at home, you might want to consider if this is the kind of university or college you want your children to attend. It's called using your purchasing power.

The number is 35 today. By the time your children get there it could be 35,000 and  have it's own academic department.

pjmedia.com/trending/2016/10/05/james-madison-u-tells-students-35-things-they-should-never-say

The Kaine Way

If Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine had his way, Virginia residents would today be paying billions in higher taxes. As governor, Kaine sought to impose nearly $4 billion in higher taxes, including an income tax hike on families earning as little as $17,000 a year. He also pushed for higher taxes on distilled spirits and cigarettes.

Income Tax Hike on Working Families: Kaine tried to Increase the bottom tax rate from 5.75% to 6.75%, directly affecting low income families earning as little as $17,000 annually. As noted by Politifact Virginia: “Not everyone at that level would have paid more under Kaine’s plan, but it’s a safe bet that large number of them would have seen their overall tax bill rise.”
Alcohol Tax: Kaine pushed a 2% markup on distilled spirits sold in Virginia’s fully monopolized state-owned retail stores.

By law, Virginia residents and businesses must purchase distilled spirits from the monopoly Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) stores. Residents can’t even escape the regime by buying their beverages elsewhere, because Virginia only allows residents to bring home one gallon from another state. Rather than reform the system, Kaine tried to squeeze more money out of hard working Virginians. He called for a two percent across the board markup, which would have raised the retail price for people shopping in ABC stores as well as those enjoying a beverage in a restaurant. Virginians would have had no choice but to pay the Kaine-imposed markup. Kaine’s attempted $8 million beverage tax hike was part of his final budget proposal, released Dec. 18, 2009.

Cigarette Tax: Kaine pushed a 60-cents per pack cigarette tax increase on smokers, whose median income was about $40,000 per year. Kaine’s record in support of tax hikes made him an attractive running mate Hillary, who has proposed a series of tax increases totaling at least $1 trillion over ten years.

Read more: atr.org/taxin-tim-kaine-tried-raise-income-taxes-poorest-among-us

Overnight

For the fourth straight session Japanese shares climbed as the Nikkei 220 benefited from a weaker yen and the upswing in the U.S. market, gaining 0.8% to 16,949.51 on the back of financials and exporters. Many investors will be waiting to see Friday's U.S. jobless claims figures.

The dollar helped out trading at 103.34 near it four week high of 103.57 hit Wednesday. Higher oil prices didn't hurt Asians shares either as as prices after the U.S. Energy Information Administration
announced stockpiles fell by 3 million barrels last week, the fifth unexpected weekly drawdown. Oil was initially up 2%, but later gave back some of those gains with Brent futures falling 0.62% from its highs to $51.54 a barrel. U.S.futures followed a similar pattern, dropping 0.66%, at $49.50 a barrel.

The Hang Send index edged slightly higher, 0.48%, at 23902.60; the ASX 200, up 0.56%, at 5483.70; the Shanghai Composite at 3005.51,ahead 0.23% and the Korean Kospi up 0.44% at 2062.02. Again, positive U.S. news released Wednesday helped with the September ISM non-manufacturing coming in stronger than expected at 57.1, compared with a Reuters poll estimate of 53. Factory orders also increased slightly in August, while the trade deficit in the U.S. widened more than expected in August, and mortgage applications increased 2.9 percent last week. In all it was an up day for Wall Street's three main markets with the Dow up 0.62% at 18,281.62, the S&P 500 gaining 0.43% to 2,159.73 and the Nasdaq higher by 0.5% to finished at 5,316.02. Gold held its ground at 1272.50 an ounce.

Hillary Cheats Again

There is no end to what Hillary will do to deceive.

With only one questioner getting to read their question from a script, a 15 year old threw Hillary a softball that it turns out, as one might suspect, was too soft at this town hall meeting yesterday in the Keystone State. This goes way beyond arrogance. It's in-your-face contempt for the electoral process that itself is under suspicion for its lack of integrity and any decent voters from either party. But, then again, it's typical of the Clinton regime and their 20 year-plus saga in public life.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-05/clinton-caught-using-child-actor-ask-planted-question-pennsylvania-townhall

If Bloomberg Says It It Must Be True

In the VP debate last night, Senator Tim Kaine boasted about 15 million jobs this administration has created since the economic downturn.

Apparently, the good Senator doesn't read the works of another big Hillary supporter, Bloomberg.

What's happening? Middle-income jobs have all but disappeared over the years in the South Florida city, sending residents to either the low end or the high end of the spectrum.

“Miami-Dade now has more jobs than it had in 2007,” said Kevin Greiner, senior fellow at the Florida International University Metropolitan Center. “The problem is that the quality, and the wages, and the income of those jobs created have been significantly lower than they were in the past."




bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-05/miami-is-the-newly-crowned-most-unequal-city-in-the-u-s

This was  supposed to play as an attack on the income gap between the wealthy and the poor. Note the time used mostly runs from 2007-20015. nearly all of those years under the current administration and the current Fed. So most of those jobs Kaine smugly boasted abut were, even if they exist, of the bartender and burger flipper variety. And last we looked Florida was listed as a swing state.

What's more the Fed devastated the people at the lower ends of this economic totem pole. And this last quote pushes the important point after eight years of the status quo: What economic recovery?

Miami, like most other major cities, wants to nurture higher-skill technology jobs. But what would actually help narrow the inequality gap is a solid recovery in retail, lodging and recreation, according to Nathaniel Karp, chief U.S. economist at BBVA Compass.

In Your Face PC

If you don't get it, here's what you're facing with the globalists and their push for one world government and apparently for one world voice, theirs.

Anyone who differs with climate change theology is an idiot. Anyone who calls something by what it is is a bigot. Anyone who still believes in common sense is a threat. Anyone who questions PC is a hater. Anyone who wants to just live out their life in their own way without impeding in any way on the lives of others, endangers their control. More "rigorous training" is code for further indoctrination to our point of view. In other words, in your face PC.

A report from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) found there was an increase in hate speech and racist violence in the UK from 2009 to March 2016. 

–– ADVERTISEMENT ––

Blaming the press, ECRI Chair Christian Ahlund, said: “It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians.” 

The report makes a whopping 23 recommendations to Theresa May’s Government for changes to criminal law, the freedom of the press, crime reporting and equality law. 
And despite the report not analysing coverage of the historic Brexit vote, Mr Ahlund saw fit to comment on the UK's decision to leave the EU.

The Brexit referendum seems to have led to a further rise in ‘anti-foreigner’ sentiment, making it even more important that the British authorities take the steps outlined in our report as a matter of priority

ECRI Chair Christian Ahlund

In a sweeping statement, he said: “The Brexit referendum seems to have led to a further rise in ‘anti-foreigner’ sentiment, making it even more important that the British authorities take the steps outlined in our report as a matter of priority.”
The report lays into the British press and urges the government to “give more rigorous training” to reporters.

In the 83-page report, the Commission said: “ECRI considers that, in light of the fact that Muslims are increasingly under the spotlight as a result of recent ISIS-related terrorist acts around the world, fuelling prejudice against Muslims shows a reckless disregard, not only for the dignity of the great majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom, but also for their safety.

Here's a description of Mr. Ahlund from his organization's website.

Christian Ahlund is the Executive Director of International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), an umbrella organisation for a number of international associations of judges, prosecutors and lawyers, with the objective of resurrecting judicial systems …

 

One wonders what judicial system Mr. Ahlund wants to resurrect.

express.co.uk/news/uk/717627/free-speech-crackdown-EU-report-British-press-hate-crime-violence-terror 

Ascanning We Will Go And Do

Given what is already known about the listed companies below, does this denial surprise anyone? Perhaps an even better question is does any one believe them?

Big technology companies, including Google, Microsoft Corp. , Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. denied scanning incoming user emails on behalf of the U.S. government, following a report that Yahoo Inc. had built such a system.

Reuters reported Tuesday that Yahoo had built a software system last year to scan all incoming email for specific information provided by intelligence officials, in compliance with a classified U.S. government directive.

The system was built without the knowledge of Yahoo’s security team, and its discovery prompted the departure of Yahoo’s then-Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos, Reuters reported. Mr. Stamos declined to comment.
More:
wsj.com/articles/after-report-on-yahoo-tech-firms-deny-scanning-emails-for-u-s-government

Capital Flight

Here's a chart from mishtalk.com/2016/10/04/capital-flight-in-italy-spain-intensifies-italy-target2-balance-hits-record-negative-spain-close-behind.

Lots of bureaucrats and central bankers are worrying about capital flight these days and the trend looks as if it's growing.
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The ECB statistical data warehouse released Target2 Balance figures today.
The numbers are reflective of intensifying capital flight in Italy and Spain.


The above charts shows most of the major countries, not all of them.
Italy’s target2 hit a record low -€326.9 billion in July. This is a 6th consecutive monthly record for Italy, minimum, possibly dating back to 2nd quarter of 2015.
Spain’s target2 deficit hit -€313.6 billion. In 2012 Spain hit -€337.3 billion.

Target2 Discussion
No discussion of eurozone problems would be complete without a discussion of Target2, an abomination created by the eurozone founders and one of the fundamental flaws of the euro.
Target2 stands for Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement System. It is a reflection of capital flight from the “Club-Med” countries in Southern Europe (Greece, Spain, and Italy) to banks in Northern Europe.

Pater Tenebrarum at the Acting Man blog provides this easy to understand example: “Spain imports German goods, but no Spanish goods or capital have been acquired by any private party in Germany in return. The only thing that has been ‘acquired’ is an IOU issued by the Spanish commercial bank to the Bank of Spain in return for funding the payment.”
This is not the same as an auto loan from a dealer or a bank. In the case of Target2, central banks are guaranteeing the IOU.

Target2 also encompasses people yanking deposits from a bank in their county and parking them in a bank in another country. Greece is a nice example, and the result was capital controls.
If Italy or Greece (any county) were to leave the Eurozone and default on the target2 balance, the rest of the countries would have to make up the default according to their percentage weight in the Eurozone

Mike “Mish” Shedlock

This Is Washington

Things are different now. And the Fed for all it's incompetence knows it.

When this whole mess started in 2008 the printing hadn't begun. Now the printing is pretty much ending and the globe remains in a so-called new normal state. A twilight zone half awake half yet slumbering. This in part at least explains the new, sudden Fed interest to prime the market for rate hikes. Not just one but several. At this level a 2008 debacle with a bare monetary policy cupboard is more than scary. This is heads-rolling territory for the Lords of Eccles.

The Fed for all it's dot-plot data collecting is a lagging indicator. As someone noted in a piece we read about Deustche Bank's troubles, they have had the wind at their back--record low rates, low energy prices, weak currency--for some time and Germany still can't grow. The largest economy in the EU, so what does that say for Europe? Japan is another case in point.

Growth in the U.S. depending on whom one tends to believe is still more imaginary than real. If jobs recovery were an item on a menu they'd be under appetizers. So to see real growth Magic Mario's "Whatever it takes" becomes:What the hell will it take? One sure answer is not more of the same monetary madness. And that's what the current leader of this band of central banking cretins just tossed into the possibility circle--purchasing equities. And why not, we've seen its promise in Japan and Switzerland.

Today's Financial Times offers a pathetic defense of the Yellen-led Fed, "Trump's mudslinging puts the Fed in danger," for claiming the Fed is politically driven. The first tip off is the writer's praise for Yellen's predecessor, Ben Bernanke, the former Princeton professor who is now drawing, par for the course of ex-government officials, his seven-figure paycheck somewhere else.

"Moreover," the Times  notes, "his policies have been continued more or less seamlessly by Ms Yellen, the Democrat who took over from Mr Bernanke. For lawmakers to criticise the Fed's approach is one thing: as long as they do not seek to impinge on its independence, that is entirely legitimate. To fling around accusations of political bias, however, is something else altogether."

There's an old saying about leave sleeping dogs alone, not so much because of the inherent danger but to not disturb their pleasant dreaming. These are hardly empty accusations being carelessly flung around with this administration and its record the last eight years. See the IRS, the BLS and the FBI when you leave the safe chrysalis of your twilight zone, to name just a few. Even much of the Fed's own research fed to MSM often has proved tainted, to use a kinder, gentler term.

The Times take a convenient out, labeling anyone who differs with their view a Republican or a Trump supporter. But riddle us this: Given what we've seen from this Washington crowd why would the Fed be an oasis of purity in an ocean of corruption?  Apparently, the Financial Times editorial board believes contagion is a term that applies only to financial markets. This is Washington. And unfortunately, there's a place called Brussels,too.