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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had a busy day today: shortly after warning once again that a US debt ceiling deal has to be done by late September or else the country would run out of cash and suffer a technical default, roughly around the Read more.....

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had a busy day today: shortly after warning once again that a US debt ceiling deal has to be done by late September or else the country would run out of cash and suffer a technical default, roughly around the time he hinted that Trump may keep carried interest tax breaks for some firms that create jobs (while eliminating it for hedge fund managers), the former hedge fund manager and Hollywood producer paid a rare official visit to Fort Knox to check out the nation’s gold stash on Monday, while - as Bloomberg put it - keeping an open mind for future film projects.

“I assume the gold is still there,” Mnuchin told an audience in Louisville, Kentucky some 40 miles north of the biggest U.S. Bullion Depository (except of course for the foreign gold stash at the NY Fed). “It would really be quite a movie if we walked in and there was no gold.” It's unclear if Mnuchin was envisioning a comedy or a drama.

After the visit, Mnuchin who was the first US Treasury Secretary to visit Fort Knox in nearly 70 years, "playfully" reassured Americans the treasure was still secure.

“Glad gold is safe!” he wrote in a post on Twitter.

Thanks to @usmint staff for hosting at #FortKnox #USBD. First @USTreasury Secretary to visit since John Snyder in 1948. Glad gold is safe!

— Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) August 21, 2017

Mnuchin, whose action-film credits include ‘‘Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Lego Batman Movie” and “Suicide Squad,” according to Bloomberg, said that he would be only the third secretary of the Treasury to go inside the vault since it was created in 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“We have approximately $200 billion of gold at Fort Knox,” said Mnuchin. “The last time anybody went in to see the gold, other than the Fort Knox people, was in 1974 when there was a congressional visit. And the last time it was counted was actually in 1953.”

Which is why the American public is so lucky it can take the word of a former Goldman partner without any trace of doubt... 

Roughly around the time Trump started his Afghanistan speech, Ron Paul tweeted out a cautiously optimistic note: "Hoping for the best in tonight's @realDonaldTrump speech but fearful that foreign intervention is only going to get worse.  #Afghanistan." Alas it was not meant to be, and over 20 tweets later in what proved to be the angriest tweetstorm of the night, Ron Paul had come to a conclusion: Trump is now nothing mo Read more.....

Roughly around the time Trump started his Afghanistan speech, Ron Paul tweeted out a cautiously optimistic note: "Hoping for the best in tonight's @realDonaldTrump speech but fearful that foreign intervention is only going to get worse.  #Afghanistan." Alas it was not meant to be, and over 20 tweets later in what proved to be the angriest tweetstorm of the night, Ron Paul had come to a conclusion: Trump is now nothing more than the latest neocon, one whom even Lindsey Graham applauded.

Below is a chronological rundown of Ron Paul's progressively angier tweets, as he was live commenting on Trump's speech:

• Hoping for the best in tonight's @realDonaldTrump speech but fearful that foreign intervention is only going to get worse.  #Afghanistan
• Steve Bannon brakes removed. Neocons feeling their oats.
• The military personnel are the victims of bad foreign policy.
• Sad that these wars the politicians argue for are unconstitutional yet we are told we are over there defending the Constitution.
• Mr. President it's too bad you do not follow your instincts.
• Planned in Afghanistan? What about Saudi Arabia??
• What's wrong with rapid exit? We just marched in we can just march out.
• So far very discouraging. Sounds like pure neocon foreign policy.
• The promoters of war win. The American people lose. #Afghanistan
• Remember: there was no al-Qaeda until our foolish invasion of Iraq based on neocon lies.
• The American people deserve to know when we are going to war and MUST give you permission through their representatives in Congress!
• Emphasis on Pakistan just means the war going to be expanded!
• Emphasis on military alliance with India may well lead to more vicious war between nuclear states Pakistan and India. Smart?
• Terrorism is one thing, but what about massive collateral damage? Killing civilians creates more terrorism. Round and round we go.
• Shorter Trump: "Afghanistan: give us your minerals!"
• Nothing new. More of the same. Obama was wrong. This is NOT the good war. Sooner we get out the better.
• More killing is not the road to peace.
• The emphasis on the "grave danger" of terrorism is greatly exaggerated. But more intervention surely creates more terrorism.
• How many Americans are really sitting around worrying about an Afghan terrorist coming over and killing them?
• So many of our problems are self-inflicted by a deeply flawed foreign policy. US troops - and the family members - suffer the consequences.
• Big issue of the night: US expanding the war into Pakistan. Could precipitate more conflict between nuclear India and Pakistan.
• If Americans are tired of 16 year war, how will they feel about another decade or two? When will they wake up?
• Our ultimately "hasty" departure from Vietnam finally ended a lot of grief. Even if it came way too late.
• Beware! @LindseyGrahamSC loves Trump's speech! Why are arch-neocons celebrating so much? Very telling!
• There's nothing hasty about ending America's longest war. @POTUS bowed to military-industrial establishment; doubled down on perpetual war.

Based on Trump's speech, Ron Paul's concerns are well founded. Then again, as we await Breitbart's response to Trump's adress one thing is certain: Steve Bannon will not be happy with what "neocon" Trump said tonight, even if the WaPo and NYT are now on "mute" mode when it comes to NSA-sourced, anti-Trump scoops.

And while there is a distinct possibility that tomorrow night, when addressing his increasingly shaky core support base, Trump will change his mind, with two generals whispering in his ear constantly to determine US foreign policy even as two ex-Goldmanites now write domestic US policy, it is quite likely that the Trump who was unveiled tonight, is the Trump that will stay with the US population for the indefinite future. And if for some reason the "new and improved" Trump slips and fades away again... well there's always the Mueller "Russia collusion" probe in the background keeping the president on his toes.

Update: Here's Breitbart's take, as expected.

"Help us Barack Obama, you’re our only hope," is the call from The Left.

As Democrats’ struggle to find a new champion to lead them in next year’s battle to wrestle back control of the Senate and possibly the House - otherwise known as the 2018 midterms - party insiders are quietly hoping that the former president will step up and play a leading role in stumping for embattled Democratic candidates across the country, Read more.....

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

The Morning Joe staff have been energetically suggesting the Trump presidency would mark an end to the Republican Party as we know it.

Just before the recent elections, which demonstrated widespread support for the GOP, former republican, Joe Scarborough predicted widespread losses for the party of Lincoln.

Read more.....

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

The Morning Joe staff have been energetically suggesting the Trump presidency would mark an end to the Republican Party as we know it.

Just before the recent elections, which demonstrated widespread support for the GOP, former republican, Joe Scarborough predicted widespread losses for the party of Lincoln.

After the exact opposite occurred, Joe took to the teevee in shock -- hemming and hawing about how America could still vote for the party of Lincoln, in spite of Trump.

Today, July fundraising data showed the RNC absolutely crushed the beleaguered DNC, prompting Joe to find religion as to why this is happening. He concluded that 'identity politics' was hurting the DNC, which drew the ire of Share Blue, the DNC backed propaganda arm responsible for spamming conservative websites with pro DNC messages.

Watch the Morning Joe panel lament over the utter and complete failure of the DNC to capitalize on Trump's White House discord -- pointing to the fact that recent polling shows republican candidates pulling ahead of democrats, out-raising them by 3 to 1.

Joe just doesn't understand how the DNC keeps losing.

Morning Joe panel tries to explain how the RNC outraised the DNC by 2-1 in July. pic.twitter.com/nykUxXtRGY

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) August 22, 2017

"Maybe they (DNC) can retake the house in 2018 with a completely inept message."

And here was Joe's twitter screed, lecturing the democrats on how to beat his former party.

Actually just shocked at how bad the Democratic Party is at finding a unifying message after getting hammered in elections for 7 years. https://t.co/LQJcjRTRsC

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 21, 2017

They continue to wallow in identity politics instead of finding a unifying message for working class Americans. They can't help themselves. https://t.co/GgubO2mmYY

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 21, 2017

How do you fail to find a unifying message when Donald Trump and the Republican Congress are your opponents? Unbelievable. https://t.co/Arm3UN4C9u

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 21, 2017

Dear @JoeNBC –

Civil rights are under attack by Trump.
And those non-white, non-male, non-straight "identity" folks?
They WORK too. https://t.co/P7GYlnfqeW

— Shareblue Media (@Shareblue) August 21, 2017

Dear Shareblue,
You just proved my point. You racebaiting me on Twitter won't win a single Democratic seat. That should be your concern. https://t.co/JmQ487fvhC

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 21, 2017

When you Balkanize voters and then suggest I think "non-white, non-male, non-straight" people don't work, that's a problem. https://t.co/nMs1aNRErj

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 21, 2017

I'm suggesting the Democratic Party needs a unifying message for ALL working class voters. You somehow tried to make that negative. #Unite https://t.co/cgLAywbw2f

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 21, 2017

Independents and concerned Republicans also need to build a message that unites ALL Americans together as one. #Unite #EPluribusUnum https://t.co/DH6xKpzLzh

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 21, 2017

Explain how this is happening, democrats?

Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

Leave fools’ paradise to the fools.

Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,

Leave fools’ paradise to the fools.

If you are offered a choice between having your tuition and expenses paid at a top of the line business school, or buying with your own money Mario Puzo’s The Godfather (the book and the movies, Parts One and Two) choose the latter. You’ll find them far more useful than the MBA.

Americans are frequently condemned for obliviousness to the lies and depredations of the people who rule them. Much of the condemnation is merited, but the obliviousness is also a vestige of a better time. The best gauge of a society is truth: its prevalence and how it’s treated.

You go to a store and buy a product. Your transaction rests on implicit assumptions that everyone in the supply chain is telling the truth and acting honorably. The product was manufactured to the manufacturer’s advertised standard. It was delivered by a transportation company in good order, and marketed by the store in good faith. Every step of the way you could have been ripped off and not known it. The product could be a counterfeit. The delivery truck could have been hijacked and the product resold to the vendor at a cut-rate price. The product might be defective, but the manufacturer and vendor continue to sell it. A paranoid could drive himself crazy imagining all the possibilities, most of which cannot be dismissed out of hand.

When exchange is voluntary, a producer’s reputation for integrity is an invaluable asset and an consumer’s trust is both rational and productive. A producer’s reputation rests on millions or billions of transactions in which consumers receive the value they expect, with any problems quickly addressed and remedied to the consumer’s satisfaction. One reason John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil did as well as it did was because its refining and distribution processes delivered oil that was of a uniformly high standard. Many of the company’s competitors did not. One batch might be acceptable, but other batches had impurities or varying chemical compositions. Those who think it’s easy to manufacturer millions of items or refine millions of barrels of oil to a uniform standard over a span of years or decades only betray their ignorance of manufacturing and refining.

The companies that reach the top of the heap in a voluntary exchange system save their customers immeasurable time and effort. Imagine if you had to inspect and test every item you bought before you used it. That would be a dump truck full of sand in the gears of your life; you’d get nothing else done.

Voluntary exchange rewards both integrity and trust. That was once the American milieu, and is still a significant part of it. We trust Apple to deliver great phones, ExxonMobil to deliver top grade gasoline, Whole Foods to deliver quality food, and so on. Unfortunately, another class of interactions has overshadowed the realm of voluntary exchange, interactions based on fear, force, fraud and theft. Nefarious means to nefarious ends are the province of governments.

Expanding government power and domination are the deadly enemies of integrity and trust. As a government uses violence to subjugate, the subjugated quickly learn that honesty and honorable behavior are persecuted; to survive they must resort to deception and covert resistance. The subjugators invariably regard the subjugated as an inferior class and disparage their tactics as dishonorable.

History is replete with such instances. Sicily has been ruled by a long line of outside powers. Starting in the late 1800s, the Mafia became the embodiment of the inverted morality that takes hold among tyrannized and brutalized peoples. That morality does nothing to advance the general welfare; it doesn’t promote prosperity or progress. It only allows the subjugated to survive.

In this antique garden, Michael Corleone learned about the roots from which his father grew. That the word “mafia” had originally meant place of refuge. Then it became the name for the secret organization that sprang up to fight against the rulers who had crushed the country and its people for centuries. Sicily was a land that had been more cruelly raped than any other in history. The Inquisition had tortured rich and poor alike. The landowning barons and the prices of the Catholic Church exercised absolute power over the shepherds and farmers. The police were the instruments of their power and so identified with them that to be called a policeman is the foulest insult one Sicilian can hurl at another.

 

Faced with the savagery of this absolute power, the suffering people learned never to betray their anger and their hatred for fear of being crushed. They learned never to make themselves vulnerable by uttering any sort of threat since giving such a warning insured a quick reprisal. They learned that society was their enemy and so when they sought redress they went to the rebel underground, the Mafia. And the Mafia cemented its power by originating the law of silence, the omerta. In the countryside of Sicily a stranger asking directions to the nearest town will not even receive the courtesy of an answer. And the greatest crime any member of the Mafia could commit would be to tell the police the name of the man who had just shot him or done him any kind of injury. Omerta became the religion of the people. A woman whose husband has been murdered would not tell the police the name of her husband’s murderer, not even of her child’s murderer, her daughter’s raper.

The Godfather, Mario Puzo

Probably 20 percent of Americans will tell you their life stories in a grocery store checkout line, and 50 percent over a cup of coffee. Many trade information about themselves as freely as they trade their money for groceries or coffee. Ask those who have escaped life in a totalitarian regime about it and they will marvel at the foolishness.

The oppressed learn to trust no one other than those who have demonstrated they deserve to be trusted, usually family or long-time friends. In response to disclosures that the government is monitoring them 24/7 and knows virtually everything they do and say, many Americans breezily assert that they’re not worried; they have nothing to hide. Behind omerta was the Sicilian peasant’s reality that any information, no matter how trivial or innocuous, was a weapon that could be used against him by the hostile and corrupt regime. American openness and trusting insouciance is quaintly naive—anachronisms from a better time—and pitiably foolish.

If you think the government, its friends, and those who pull its strings have your best interests at heart, that they tell the truth, that they can be trusted, you are living in a fool’s paradise and deserve whatever you get from your “benevolent” masters. For the rest of us, it’s time to go Sicilian, to start thinking like a Corleone. The dangers will intensify as things get much worse, before collapse offers the prospect of rebuilding something better.

The times demand caution, skepticism, less talking, more listening, alertness, wariness, hiding one’s strengths, remedying one’s weaknesses, self-sufficiency, cunning, and drawing closer to those few people in your life you know you can trust. Your survival is at stake and there are no guarantees. All you can do is better your odds. Indiscriminate trust and hoping for the best—without thinking about and preparing for the worse—will dramatically lower those odds.

In a widely anticipated national address, President Donald Trump on Monday announced that he will not pull out U.S. troops from Afghanistan, saying he’s committed to a new strategy aimed at winning the nation’s longest war, now in its 17th year. Admitting that his "original instinct was to pull out" of Afghanistan - Trump's core campaign pledge was to reduce US intervention in offshore conflicts - Trump effectively admitted he had been wrong, and said he’s arrived at three "fundamental conclu Read more.....

In a widely anticipated national address, President Donald Trump on Monday announced that he will not pull out U.S. troops from Afghanistan, saying he’s committed to a new strategy aimed at winning the nation’s longest war, now in its 17th year. Admitting that his "original instinct was to pull out" of Afghanistan - Trump's core campaign pledge was to reduce US intervention in offshore conflicts - Trump effectively admitted he had been wrong, and said he’s arrived at three "fundamental conclusions" about America’s core interests in Afghanistan:

• U.S. "must seek an honorable and enduring outcome" in which American troops "deserve a plan for victory"
• The consequences of a rapid exit would be "predictable and unacceptable" adding that "a hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11"
• The security threats U.S. faces "are immense"; and "we cannot repeat the mistake in Afghanistan our leaders made in Iraq."

Trump also promised to the soldiers gathered for the speech that "One way or another, these problems will be solved. I am a problem solver. And in the end, we will win."

In other words, Trump is unveiling a dramatic, new offensive in Afghanistan, only instead of giving details on troop deployments, specific dates, or what the definition of victory would be, Trump will keep the details of the new involvement secret, and that "conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on."

We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America's enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will. Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power, diplomatic, economic, and military, toward a successful outcome. Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban and Afghanistan, but nobody knows if or when that will ever happen. America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field.

Trump also defined what a victory in Afghanistan would mean:

Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win. From now on, victory will have a clear definition — attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge. We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy, with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own. We are confident they will.

President Trump: "From now on, victory will have a clear definition" https://t.co/WWDLK93V4z

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 22, 2017

Taking a quick detour into domestic politics, Trump said that "the young men and women we sent to fight our wars abroad deserve to return to a country that is not at war with itself at home. We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other."

However it was all about Afghanistan:

Ultimately, it is up to the people of Afghanistan to take ownership of their future, to govern their society, and to achieve an everlasting peace. We are a partner and a friend, but we will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live or how to govern their own complex society. We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists.

Well, that and Pakistan, which has now been thrown into the terrorist "melting pot" fray:

The next pillar of our new strategy is to change the approach in how to deal with Pakistan. We can no longer be silent about Pakistan's safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond.

 

Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists. In the past, Pakistan has been a valued partner. Our militaries have worked together against common enemies. The Pakistani people have suffered greatly from terrorism and extremism.  We recognize those contributions and those sacrifices, but Pakistan has also sheltered the same organizations that try every single day to kill our people. We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars, at the same time they are housing the same terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change. And that will change immediately.

And, in a surprising twist, Trump also brought in India to the mix:

Another critical part of the South Asia strategy or America is to further develop its strategic partnership with India, the world's largest democracy and a key security and economic harbor of the United States. We appreciate India's important contributions to stability in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development. We are committed to pursuing our shared objectives for peace and security in South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region.

Oddly enough, zero mentions of China, almost as if Trump is telegraphing the new US "axis" in South Asia.

Finally, speaking like a polished cog of a well-greased neo-con/military-industrial wheel - note that Lindsay Graham loved every word of tonight's speech - Trump warned "Terrorists, take heed. America will never let up until you are dealt a lasting defeat. Under my administration, many billions of dollars more is being spent on our military. And this includes vast amounts being spent on our nuclear arsenal and missile defense. In every generation we have faced down evil, and we have always prevailed."

In conclusion, Trump may not be able to get approval from Congress to pass his domestic spending agenda, but at least he is about to spend "billions" to continue a war that started 16 years ago and will surely never end, and make shareholders of defense stocks even richer.

Full transcript below (via NPR):

*   *   *

President Trump

Thank you very much. Thank you. Please be seated. Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Tillerson, members of the cabinet, General Dunford, Deputy Secretary Shanahan and Colonel Duggan. Most especially, thank you to the men and women of Fort Myer and every member of the United States military at home and abroad. We send our thoughts and prayers to the families of our brave sailors who were injured and lost after a tragic collision at sea as well as to those conducting the search and recovery efforts.

I am here tonight to lay out our path forward in Afghanistan and South Asia. But before I provide the details of our new strategy, I want to say a few words to the service members here with us tonight, to those watching from their posts, and to all Americans listening at home. Since the founding of our republic, our country has produced a special class of heroes whose selflessness, courage, and resolve is unmatched in human history.

American patriots from every generation have given their last breath on the battlefield - for our nation and for our freedom. Through their lives, and though their lives were cut short, in their deeds they achieved total immortality. By following the heroic example of those who fought to preserve our republic, we can find the inspiration our country needs to unify, to heal and to remain one nation under God. The men and women of our military operate as one team, with one shared mission and one shared sense of purpose.

They transcend every line of race, ethnicity, creed and color to serve together and sacrifice together in absolutely perfect cohesion. That is because all service members are brothers and sisters. They are all part of the same family. It’s called the American family. They take the same oath, fight for the same flag and live according to the same law.

They are bound together by common purpose, mutual trust and selfless devotion to our nation and to each other. The soldier understands what we as a nation too often forget, that a wound inflicted upon on a single member of our community is a wound inflicted upon us all. When one part of America hurts, we all hurt.

And when one citizen suffers an injustice, we all suffer together. Loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another. Love for America requires love for all of its people. When we open our hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice, no place for bigotry and no tolerance for hate. The young men and women we send to fight our wars abroad deserve to return to a country that is not at war with itself at home. We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other.

As we send our bravest to defeat our enemies overseas, and we will always win, let us find the courage to heal our divisions within. Let us make a simple promise to the men and women we ask to fight in our name, that when they return home from battle, they will find a country that has renewed the sacred bonds of love and loyalty that unite us together as one.

Thanks to the vigilance and skill of the American military, and of our many allies throughout the world, horrors on the scale of September 11, and nobody can ever forget that, have not been repeated on our shores. But we must acknowledge the reality I am here to talk about tonight, that nearly 16 years after September 11 attacks, after the extraordinary sacrifice of blood and treasure, the American people are weary of war without victory.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history - 17 years. I share the American people's frustration. I also share their frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money, and most importantly, lives trying to rebuild countries in our own image instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations. That is why shortly after my inauguration, I directed Secretary of Defense Mattis and my national security team to undertake a comprehensive review of all strategic options in Afghanistan and South Asia.

My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like following my instincts. But all my life, I have heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the oval office. In other words, when you are president of the United States. So I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle. After many meetings over many months, we held our final meeting last Friday at Camp David with my cabinet and generals to complete our strategy. I arrived at three fundamental conclusion about America's core interests in Afghanistan.

First, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives. The men and women who serve our nation in combat deserve a plan for victory. They deserve the tools they need and the trust they have earned to fight and to win. Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our history, was planned and directed from Afghanistan because that country by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11. And as we know, in 2011, America hastily and mistakenly withdrew from Iraq.

As a result, our hard-won gains slipped back into the hands of terrorists enemies. Our soldiers watched as cities they had fought for bled to liberate and won were occupied by a terrorist group called ISIS. The vacuum we created by leaving too soon gave safe haven for ISIS to spread, to grow, recruit and launch attacks. We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq.

Third and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense. Today, 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The highest concentration in any region anywhere in the world. For its part, Pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror. The threat is worse because Pakistan and India are two nuclear-armed states, whose tense relations threat to spiral into conflict, and that could happen.

No one denies that we have inherited a challenging and troubling situation in Afghanistan and South Asia, but we do not have the luxury of going back in time and making different or better decisions.

When I became president, I was given a bad and very complex hand, but I fully knew what I was getting into. Big and intricate problems. But one way or another, these problems will be solved. I am a problem solver. And in the end, we will win. We must address the reality of the world as it exists right now, the threats we face, and the confronting of all of the problems of today, an extremely predictable consequences of a hasty withdrawal. We need look no further than last week's vile, vicious attack in Barcelona to understand that terror groups will stop at nothing to commit the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children.

You saw it for yourself. Horrible. As I outlined in my speech in Saudi Arabia, three months ago, America and our partners are committed to stripping terrorists of their territory, cutting off their funding and exposing the false allure of their evil ideology. Terrorists who slaughter innocent people will find no glory in this life or the next. They are nothing but thugs and criminals and predators, and, that’s right, losers. Working alongside our allies, we will break their will, dry up their recruitment, keep them from crossing our borders, and yes, we will defeat them, and we will defeat them handily. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, America's interests are clear.

We must stop the resurgence of safe havens that enable terrorists to threaten America. And we must prevent nuclear weapons and materials from coming into the hands of terrorists and being used against us or anywhere in the world, for that matter. But to prosecute this war, we will learn from history.

As a result of our comprehensive review, American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically in the following ways: A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times, how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin or end military operations.

We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America's enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will. Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power, diplomatic, economic, and military, toward a successful outcome. Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban and Afghanistan, but nobody knows if or when that will ever happen. America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field.

Ultimately, it is up to the people of Afghanistan to take ownership of their future, to govern their society, and to achieve an everlasting peace. We are a partner and a friend, but we will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live or how to govern their own complex society. We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists.

The next pillar of our new strategy is to change the approach in how to deal with Pakistan. We can no longer be silent about Pakistan's safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond.

Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists. In the past, Pakistan has been a valued partner. Our militaries have worked together against common enemies. The Pakistani people have suffered greatly from terrorism and extremism. We recognize those contributions and those sacrifices, but Pakistan has also sheltered the same organizations that try every single day to kill our people. We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars, at the same time they are housing the same terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change. And that will change immediately. No partnership can survive a country's harboring of militants and terrorists who target U.S. service members and officials. It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilization, order, and to peace.

Another critical part of the South Asia strategy or America is to further develop its strategic partnership with India, the world's largest democracy and a key security and economic harbor of the United States. We appreciate India's important contributions to stability in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development. We are committed to pursuing our shared objectives for peace and security in South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region.

Finally, my administration will ensure that you, the brave defenders of the American people, will have the necessary tools and rules of engagement to make this strategy work and work effectively and work quickly. I have already lifted restrictions the previous administration placed on our war fighters that prevented the secretary of defense and our commanders in the field from fully and swiftly waging battle against the enemy. Micromanagement from Washington, D.C., does not win battles. They are won in the field drawing upon the judgment and expertise of wartime commanders and frontline soldiers, acting in real time with real authority and with a clear mission to defeat the enemy. That is why we will also expand authority for American armed forces to target the terrorists and criminal networks that sow violence and chaos throughout Afghanistan.

The killers need to know they have nowhere to hide, that no place is beyond the reach of American might and American arms. Retribution will be fast and powerful. As we lift restrictions and expand authorities in the field, we are already seeing dramatic results in the campaign to defeat ISIS, including the liberation of Mosul in Iraq. Since my inauguration, we have achieved record-breaking success in that regard. We will also maximize sanctions and other financial and law enforcement actions against these networks to eliminate their ability to export terror. When America commits its warriors to battle, we must ensure they have every weapon to apply swift, decisive, and overwhelming force.

Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win. From now on, victory will have a clear definition. — attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge. We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy, with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own. We are confident they will.

Since taking office, I have made clear that our allies and partners must contribute much more money to our collective defense, and they have done so. In this struggle, the heaviest burden will continue to be borne by the good people of Afghanistan and their courageous armed forces.

As the prime minister of Afghanistan has promised, we are going to participate in economic development to help defray the cost of this war to us. Afghanistan is fighting to defend and secure their country against the same enemies who threaten us. The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do. Afghans will secure and build their own nation and define their own future. We want them to succeed. But we will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over. Instead, we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interests.

We are not asking others to change their way of life but to pursue common goals that allow our children to live better and safer lives. This principled realism will guide our decisions moving forward. Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat arising in that country.

But strategically-applied force aims to create the conditions for a political process to achieve a lasting peace. America will work with the Afghan government as long as we see determination and progress.

However, our commitment is not unlimited, and our support is not a blank check. The government of Afghanistan must carry their share of the military, political, and economic burden. The American people expect to see real reforms, real progress, and real results.

Our patience is not unlimited. We will keep our eyes wide open. In abiding by the oath I took on January 20, I will remain steadfast in protecting American lives and American interests. In this effort, we will make common cause with any nation that chooses to stand and fight alongside us against this global threat.

Terrorists, take heed. America will never let up until you are dealt a lasting defeat. Under my administration, many billions of dollars more is being spent on our military. And this includes vast amounts being spent on our nuclear arsenal and missile defense. In every generation we have faced down evil, and we have always prevailed.

We prevailed because we know who we are and what we are fighting for. Not far from where we are gathered tonight, hundreds of thousands of America's greatest patriots lay in eternal rest at Arlington national cemetery. There is more courage, sacrifice, and love in those hallowed grounds than in any other spot on the face of this Earth.

Many of those who have fought and died in Afghanistan enlisted in the months after September 11, 2001. They volunteered for a simple reason: they loved America and they were determined to protect her. Now we must secure the cause for which they gave their lives. We must unite to defend America from its enemies abroad. We must restore the bonds of loyalty among our citizens at home, and we must achieve an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the enormous price that so many have paid.

Our actions and in the months to come, all of them will honor the sacrifice of every fallen hero, every family who lost a loved one, and every wounded warrior who shed their blood in defense of our great nation.

With our resolve, we will ensure that your service and that your families will bring about the defeat of our enemies and the arrival of peace. We will push onward to victory with power in our hearts, courage in our souls and everlasting pride in each and every one of you. Thank you. May God bless our military, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. Thank you.

When we discussed the latest monthly Chinese credit data reported by the PBOC, we pointed out something which to most pundits was broadly seen as success by the Politburo in its deleveraging efforts: for the first time in 9 months, debt within China's shadow banking system - defined as the sum of Trust Loans, Entrusted Loans and Undiscounted Bank Loans - contract Read more.....

When we discussed the latest monthly Chinese credit data reported by the PBOC, we pointed out something which to most pundits was broadly seen as success by the Politburo in its deleveraging efforts: for the first time in 9 months, debt within China's shadow banking system - defined as the sum of Trust Loans, Entrusted Loans and Undiscounted Bank Loans - contracted. These three key components combined, resulted in a 64BN yuan drain in credit from China's economy, the first negative print since October 2016, and rightfully seen by analysts as evidence that Beijing’s campaign to contain shadow banking and quash risks to the financial system, is starting to bear fruit.

Offsetting this unexpected decline in shadow bank credit (if not Total Social Financing) was a greater than expected increase in traditional yuan bank loans. As we observed last Tuesday, both corporate loans and household loans increased greater than last year; new corporate loans advanced to CNY354bn from a decline of CNY3bn a year ago, with long-term corporate loans contributing CNY433bn (a year ago: CNY151bn) and short-term loans adding CNY63bn (a year ago: CNY-201bn). New household loans registered CNY562bn, compared with CNY458bn a year ago.

So far, so good: after all a transition from the largely unregulated, and speculative shadow bank issuance to conventional bank issuance is just what the PBOC, China's regulators and most importantly, Xi Jinping want ahead of this year's all important Congress. Furthermore, the fact that China's economy continues to grow at a healthy pace, even if it means creating the occasional industrial metals bubble...

.... thanks to healthy bank loan creation, is good for both China and the rest of the world, and suggests that despite the sharp drop in China's credit impulse, there is more where it came from.

There is just one problem: there very well may not be much where it came from. In fact, according to analysts, there may be almost nothing left.

Reuters reports that following 7 months of blistering credit creation in terms of both new Loans and Total Social Financing, Chinese banks are set to see a slowdown in lending growth in the second half of the year, having exhausted most of their annual credit quota, in the process raising the spectre of corporate defaults as financing costs climb further in the world’s second-largest economy. The math is disturbing: only six months into 2017, banks have already used 80% of their yearly credit quota over January to June, versus the usual 60%, amid the abovementioned regulatory push to bring shadow financing activities to the main loan book, and Beijing’s crackdown on riskier lending.

While "loan demand is strong throughout the whole year”, as the second chart from the top shows, “the core conflict in the second half is loan quota – whether banks will be able to extend more loans than they originally planned" said Ma Kunpeng, chief financial industry analyst at China Merchants Securities, quoted by Reuters.

While it remains to be seen if Beijing will allow banks to breach their quotas, a sharp slowdown in new loan issuance is expected in either case: as reported last week, China saw a 12.9% growth in outstanding yuan loans as of the end of June. Nomura China economist Wendy Chen expects this to slow to 12.6% in Q3 and to 12.4% in Q4, more than 1% decline from 13.5% in 2016: a substantial hit to China's overly credit-reliant economy.

Adverse impact on the economy aside, the sharp contraction in bank loans in Q3 and Q4 means that “corporate defaults will rise if the availability of finance is further restricted. This could become a threat to economic growth ... especially if defaults are concentrated in labor-intensive segments like steel and coal,” Moody’s said.

While China’s commercial banks have been seemingly impervious to China's credit bubble, reporting higher first-half profits, while overall non-performing loans in Q2 remaining unchanged from Q1 (even if some analysts believe the real number is orders of magnitude higher), analysts cautioned that slower credit growth would eventually take a toll on banks’ profit margins. Just like in the US, net interest margins in China have fallen sharply in the past quarters following six successive benchmark interest rate cuts in 2014 to 2015.

For China’s top lender ICBC, the margin is forecast to narrow to 2.13 per cent in 2017 from 2.21 per cent last year, while China Construction Bank could report a drop of 27 basis points to 2.09 per cent in 2017, Thomson Reuters data shows.

Compounding the NIM decline and collapsing margins is Chinese banks' move to increase deposit interest rates this year to as much as 40% above central bank benchmark rates to lure depositors, statistics compiled by Reuters showed.

Part of the higher costs has been passed on to corporate borrowers. The price of loans as measured by the weighted average of loan interest rates rebounded to 5.67 per cent in June, from 5.22 per cent in September. But that will not be sufficient to cushion the impact on near-term profits.

“The most direct impact of the regulatory crackdown is on liquidity and profitability,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis. “Chinese banks will find themselves in a dilemma ... with more doors shut in the shadow banking, which has been a source of profits to offset the impact on net interest income.”

As a reminder, China’s economic growth has already been showed signs of fading in July when key economic indicators from retail sales, to industrial production to capital spending all declined while lending costs rose, but a hard landing is unlikely with Beijing keen to ensure stability ahead of a once-in-five-years Communist Party leadership reshuffle later this year.  What happens after, however, is very much an open question. Meanwhile, if Chinese banks only have 20% of their annual loan issuance quota left for the entire second half of the year, and if Beijing refuses to boost these quotas, the next global economic shock may be just several months ahead.

Authored by Antonius Aquinas,

It is altogether fitting that crypto currencies, in particular Bitcoin, have witnessed a meteoric rise in this illusionary age. 

Not only has their monetary value gone to dizzying heights, but they are now being touted as the destroyer of the current, crumbling monetary order and the next paradigm upon which a new money and banking syst Read more.....

Authored by Antonius Aquinas,

It is altogether fitting that crypto currencies, in particular Bitcoin, have witnessed a meteoric rise in this illusionary age. 

Not only has their monetary value gone to dizzying heights, but they are now being touted as the destroyer of the current, crumbling monetary order and the next paradigm upon which a new money and banking system will emerge.

In an era where sacrifice, hard work, loyalty, ingenuity, tradition, and independent thought are considered anathemas, while affirmative action, sloth, effeminacy, office seeking, and something-for-nothing schemes are endemic in every walk of life, it is not surprising that non-tangible, computer-generated currencies would become a “natural” feature of such a world.

While it has always been a haven for charlatans, traitors, cheats, thieves, liars, and serial adulterers, contemporary political life has become even more of a sham.  The most glaring example of politics’ utter corruption can be seen in the recent departed chief executive officer of the US.  Unless one abandons all critical thinking, Obummer was unqualified to be president because of the obvious fact that he was not born on American soil.  Not only did this disqualify him, but his educational and professional backgrounds have not been verified.  Neither his collegiate records nor his supposed teaching career at the University of Chicago Law School have ever been exposed to public scrutiny.  From the few utterances he has made about his supposed specialty – constitutional law – it appears that he has only a rudimentary knowledge of the subject.

Cultural life has descended to the basest of levels and has abandoned nearly all of Western Civilization’s glorious achievements.  Consider music.  The dominant form of what passes as music today is not the works of the great maestros of the past – Bach, Mozart, Beethoven – but instead, noise in the form of rock, hip hop, rap, grunge, or whatever the latest degenerate trend is in vogue.

Modern democracy is also a fallacy.  Being sold to the masses as a system where the people rule and personal liberties are guaranteed, democratic governance is anything but, and has instead been craftily used by the elites to amass state power to an unprecedented extent not witnessed in human history.  The much maligned monarchial age even during its “absolutist phase” could not come close to the scope and intrusiveness that democratic governments possess today.

Religion, too, is not immune from its share of hypocrisy.  Not only is the supposed head of the Catholic Church a manifest heretic who almost daily blasphemies the Divine Majesty, but he is not qualified to occupy the august chair in which he sits.  Jorge Bergoglio was neither ordained as a priest nor consecrated as a bishop in the traditional, Apostolic rite of Holy Orders.  He is, therefore, an imposter not a priest, nor the bishop of Rome, and scandalously not a true pope.

Now enter crypto currencies.  Not only will they never become money – a general medium of exchange – as gold and silver once were and will become once again, but cryptos lack the necessary requirements to be money.  Yet, their “development” is systematic of the times.  Cryptos are another variant of fiat currencies which digitally can be created by a stroke of a computer key or in cryptos’ case, a code.

Gold and silver – real money – must be mined from the ground, minted and “marketed” before they can be used to facilitate exchange.  This is an arduous, capital-intensive process which takes resources, labor, and time to accomplish.  Something as important as money should require an elaborate procedure not be created out of thin air as are all fiat currencies as well as cryptos.

Money must originate as a tangible, sought-after commodity – the great Misesian insight that crypto enthusiasts do not know or do not understand – then, over time, be recognized as having a “second feature” as a good sought after for “exchange value.”  Once a good is demanded for its use primarily to facilitate exchange, it then becomes a “money.”

In a fundamental sense, crypto currency cultists are rebelling against the natural order of things.  The precious metals were created in their quantity and quality by Divine Wisdom for a purpose – to act as money.  While governments have habitually corrupted the monetary order through coin clipping, fractional-reserve banking, and other nefarious schemes, it does not undo this primordial fact.  It is for the intellectually honest opponents of monetary chicanery to point this out and decry all governments and banksters’ attempts to eradicate gold and silver as money, not attempt to create another unnatural and false monetary order that mirrors the current fiat system.

Money, like all other institutions of society, will reflect its belief system.  Decaying cultures will most likely have debased monetary units.  A turnabout in the status of money will only happen when Western Civilization returns to what money is – gold and silver – and abstains from trying to create illusions of it through computer software schemes.

As we detailed last night, President Trump will unveil his long-awaited new strategy for Afghanistan tonight. Will he, as Ron Paul suggests, do the sensible thing and end the failed longest war in history? Read more.....

Authored by Mark Thornton via The Mises Institute,

Authored by Mark Thornton via The Mises Institute,

The Opioid epidemic is spreading across the heartland of America. The number of drug overdose deaths from both prescription (e.g., Oxycontin) and black market (e.g., heroin) opiates exceeded 30,000 in 2015. Initial estimates for 2016 indicate yet another new record of deaths. It is such an enormous problem that I taught a special class on it at our undergraduate instructional conference, Mises University, which you can listen to here.

Recently the Commission on Combating the Opioid Crisis issued a preliminary report and recommended that the president declare a national emergency.

From 2002 to 2015 the number of such deaths has increased by 280%. The chart below shows that prescription opiates were the main contributor from 2002 to 2011. Illicit opiates have been the main contributor since:

It is vitally important that we understand what is causing this epidemic and even more important, how do we solve it. Plus, we need to avoid becoming a victim of it. In the past, most people ignored the issue of drug overdoses as merely an urban “junkie” problem, but this epidemic is hitting ordinary Americans such as coal miners, teachers, and high school football players.

The Washington Post asserted that the problem arose because of “aggressive marketing” on the part of the pharmaceutical companies that sell opiate painkillers. Others on the left think it is an arbitrary explosion of demand. They make it sound like market failure, but the “aggressive marketing” was not slick TV commercials. Rather, the drug companies targeted doctors, not consumers. They provided many lucrative carrots to doctors and spent resources lobbying to change regulations and pain prescribing guidelines in order to rig the FDA/AMA system in their favor.

In terms of solutions, leftists advocate spending lots of more money on just about everything they can think of, especially drug addiction treatment programs, but such programs are both extremely expensive and ineffective.

Conservatives tend to think of the cause of the epidemic in terms of the evil Mexicans and Chinese, along with street dealers and drug gangs. The Trump administration thinks that building the Mexican wall will help. They have also advocated for policies that have been demonstrated to be failures, such as expanding minimum mandatory prison sentences and asset forfeiture programs. They think expanding the D.A.R.E. program will help solve the problem, but several government-sponsored reports have discredited the effectiveness of the Drug Awareness Resistance Education program.

The real cause of this epidemic is various government policies and the real solution is the dismantling of those same policies, in perpetuum.

The Four Causes

Let us start with drug prohibition which dates back to the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914. Drug prohibition results in a black market where illegal products are not commercially produced and where suppliers are not constrained by the rule of law and product liability law. The result is that illegal drugs are more dangerous than legal drugs. Potency varies greatly from batch to batch and products often contain dangerous impurities and substitute ingredients. Opiate overdoses often occur when an addict is unaware that a particular dose is highly potent or contains Fentanyl, a pain medication that is 50 to a 1,000 times more potent than morphine.

The next cause is called the Iron Law of Prohibition, a phrase first used by Richard Cowan to describe the phenomenon that when drug law enforcement becomes more powerful, the potency of illegal drugs increases. One of the effects of enhancing prohibition enforcement is that suppliers will produce a higher potency drug. For example, during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s suppliers switched from producing beer and wine to highly potent spirits, such as gin and whiskey.

A second result of more rigorous prohibition enforcement is that suppliers will switch from lower potency drug types to higher potency drug types. For example, during Ronald Reagan’s “war on drugs” during the 1980s, smugglers switched from bulky marijuana to highly concentrated cocaine and domestic suppliers turned much of this cocaine into crack cocaine, resulting in the crack cocaine epidemic. The Iron Law of Prohibition explains why we see more and more dangerous drugs on the black market and why we see decreases in overdoses in states that have legalized cannabis.

Government intervention in the economy is a largely unrecognized cause of addiction. Intervention has at least two distinct channels of creating addicts. The first is war. War creates addicts through both painful physical injuries and painful emotional and psychological disorders, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorders. The second cause is the general impact of widespread government intervention in the economy. Much of government interventionism results in the creation of privileges and monopoly power. For example, licensing requirements provide members of a profession, such as medical doctors, with monopoly profits by restricting the number of practicing physicians. This enriches licensed doctors and impoverishes potential doctors who must find work in another profession. These excess potential doctors thereby suppress wages in other labor markets. Given the pervasiveness of government intervention, this creates two classes in labor markets — the advantaged and the disadvantaged and addiction tends to develop in disadvantaged labor markets where people are more likely to be despondent and lack hope and economic resources.

The three above causes have been around for a long time creating the environment for drug overdoses, but at much lower levels than we see today.

The final cause has only been around for a couple of decades, but it is now responsible for the majority of deaths. Alluded to above, Big Pharma undertook “aggressive marketing” in order to encourage doctors to write massive numbers of prescriptions for opiate painkillers and to change to pain prescribing guidelines in order to sell more of these heroin-like pills.

As a result, doctors began prescribing drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin, which are similar to opiates, such as morphine and heroin, for ordinary injuries and minor surgeries. The problem with this is that if you take these pills for 30 or 60 days, there is a distinct possibility that you will become physically addicted to them. The doctor is not going to write you refills for the prescription once the injury has healed.

This leaves the addict with three bad choices.

One, you can enter a drug addiction rehabilitation program, but these programs are expensive and are not necessarily effective.

 

Two, you can go cold turkey. However, detoxification comes with a slew of physical and psychological symptoms and can result in suicide and death.

 

Three, you can go into the black market and buy illegal Oxycontin and Vicodin pills. The problem with this option is that such pills are expensive and have an unstable supply. What happens if you choose this option, but run low on money or have trouble acquiring the pills? Well, very often the drug dealer who sold you the pills can also sell you heroin or tell you where to buy it. Heroin is often cheaper per dose and has a more stable supply. This is how people who would never even consider entering a room in which heroin was present become heroin addicts. This process is what has caused the major surge in drug overdoses.

The solution to the epidemic is to legalize drugs. Doctors should be able to put their patients on drug maintenance and recovery programs. Commercially produced opiates would be pure and relatively safe. Addicts could go about their lives, attempting to recover physically, psychologically, socially, and economically without having to worry about how to obtain and pay for their drugs. Drug addiction is often a multi-faceted problem that simply cannot be fixed with a 30 day rehab experience. Addicts that are successfully detoxed, but without solving more basic problems, often relapse and die because the dose they take is now too strong for their detoxed body.

Legalizing cannabis would also be a key to solving the epidemic. Legal cannabis improves the epidemic through two channels. First, medical formulations of cannabis can be a potent, but non-addictive pain killer. Therefore, legalization leads to a reduced level of opiate use, abuse, and mortality and there are several peer-reviewed studies that confirm this. Second, because cannabis reduces pain and anxiety, and improves sleep and appetite it is very helpful for those who are trying to beat their heroin addiction.

The Opioid epidemic is killing more than 30,000 Americans a year. For most experts, the epidemic is a mystery with regard to its cause and solution. A little progress has been made, but to really eliminate the problem we need to legalize drugs, reduce the size of government, and increase freedom in our lives. We also need to find an answer for the pain epidemic which has shackled too many Americans to Big Pharma and the medical belief that every symptom requires another prescription!

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