[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
This French postcard from 1942 depicts our mother Europe sheltering her chicks with Switzerland and Sweden nearby and Britain heading towards the USA. Note the Star of David on the lid of the American box, and the striking image of Marshal Philippe Petain on the postage stamp. Seventy-eight years later things are much the same.
The Marshall has gone from France but their current president, Emmanuel Macron, fancies himself as ‘Father of the Nation’. Switzerland belongs to EFTA which is just outside the EU. Sweden is a member of the EU but with her own currency and an air of detachment. The Swedes, like the British, talk about ‘Europe’ as though it’s a separate place. And Britain is still drawn to America where the Star of David is as dominant as ever. As the French say: “Plus ca change…”
The big difference today is the coronavirus pandemic that has circled the world. When the EU offered us ventilators to treat the infection, Boris Johnson put Brexit before breathing by rejecting them, but now he has tested positive. His petty nationalism is in contrast to the co-operation between the EU states that are helping each other. President Donald Trump insists on calling it “the Chinese virus” but viruses don’t recognise nationalities, even paranoid North Korea is effected.
Our Day Will Come
We have quit the European Union just in time to be struck down by the coronavirus pandemic. Boris Johnson is doing his best but the crisis has revealed that we have fewer hospital beds and doctors than Spain or Italy. It has also exposed the fragility of our gig economy. Tim Martin the boss of Wetherspoons who is an apostle of the free market has told his redundant workers to get a job at Tescos.
Boris is spending money like a drunken sailor to show his concern for the workers, but at heart he is an old-fashioned Tory who described the poorest twenty percent of the population as: “chavs, losers, burglars and drug addicts.” He called single mothers: “uppity and irresponsible” and accused their children of being: “ill raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate.” When Ken Bigley was beheaded by Isis terrorists, his home city of Liverpool mourned him, but Boris Johnson condemned: “the mawkish sentimentality of a society that is hooked on grief and likes to wallow in a sense of vicarious victimhood.” Nevertheless, the punters still voted for him.
When slavery was abolished in America most of the liberated slaves stayed on the plantations because there was nowhere else to go, and it seems that the British electorate are in the same position. We don’t trust the Labour Party, and if we vote Liberal Democrat our vote will be cancelled out by an unfair ‘first past the post’ system. So we stay where we are, with a government directed by the unelected advisor Dominic Cummings.
Our new Home Secretary Priti Patel has vowed to cut inward migration by 70%, and treat all applicants equally. We shall have to see what happens but every Immigration Act so far has failed to stem the tide.
Much of our industry relies on imported labour and some of our biggest companies are foreign-owned. This makes our workers vulnerable to cutbacks and redundancies. HSBC have announced 35,000 redundancies worldwide, many of them in the UK. Naturally, as a Chinese bank they are looking after their own people. And the same is true of Honda who will be making their electric cars in Japan.
Is there any hope? Yes, we can talk, read and write. We can express our contempt for the Old Gang parties and propose alternative policies. Ideas can’t be destroyed and nothing lasts forever. One day our class-ridden country will be liberated from plutocracy. The blatant hypocrites who preach peace and make war will be gone. So will the inverted racists who promote every nation except our own. Not to mention; faux patriots, metric martyrs, Luddites, Morris dancers, flat earthers, conspiracy freaks, Holocaust deniers, and assorted fruitcakes who support Boris Johnson. Don’t despair comrades; our day will come.
Union Movement Policy
Under Priti Patel’s points based immigration policy our fellow Europeans are to be excluded but West Indians, Africans and Asians are welcome. The Tories are anxious to improve trade with the Third World and they have already promised China and India that they will make life easier for their students and workers.
They have separated us from Europe but those of us who believe in genuine liberation are not satisfied with a country divided by class, where ex-servicemen sleep in doorways and beg for food, and where whole families live in bed and breakfast accommodation. We despise the politicians who misgovern us and we recall Union Movement’s policy from 1948 which is still relevant, except for point six about Africa.
1) To secure the Union of the European peoples.
2) To resist the menace of International Communism and International Finance.
3) To win the consent and enthusiasm of the people for a new way of life.
4) To win power in Britain by the vote of the people.
5) To abolish the Party game and thus to create a system of united national action.
6) To develop Africa as an estate of the European which can solve the economic problem of our continent.
7) To abolish the values and influence of class which rests on hereditary wealth and impedes the life of the nation.
8) To provide continuing security in creative service of the people for the man who has built his own means of livelihood and desires his children to follow after him in heredity, science, art, craft, profession or business.
9) To assert the right and will of the whole British people above every faction and thus to enable all to earn what they are worth with full security in sickness and old age.
10) To create a new sense of service and a new morality in the State.
Union Movement no longer exists but Mosley’s ideas are still discussed and Brexit has actually encouraged the European movement. As the elderly Brexiteers pass away the younger generation will reverse the decision to leave Europe. It’s only a matter of time.
In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good.
The financial crisis began in late February, when the World Health Organization announced that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic. The Russia-Saudi oil price war added fuel to the flames, causing all three Wall Street indices to fall more than 7 percent on March 9. It was called Black Monday, the worst drop since the Great Recession in 2008; but it would get worse.
On March 12, the Fed announced new capital injections totaling an unprecedented $1.5 trillion in the repo market, where banks now borrow to stay afloat. The market responded by driving stocks 8% lower.
On Sunday, March 15, the Fed emptied its bazooka by lowering the fed funds rate nearly to zero and announcing that it would be purchasing $700 billion in assets, including federal securities of all maturities, restarting its quantitative easing program. It also eliminated bank reserve requirements and slashed Interest on Excess Reserves (the interest it pays to banks for parking their cash at the Fed) to 0.10%. The result was to cause the stock market to open on Monday nearly 10% lower. Rather than projecting confidence, the Fed’s measures were generating panic.
As financial analyst George Gammon observes, the Fed’s massive $1.5 trillion in expanded repo operations had few takers. Why? He says the shortage in the repo market was not in “liquidity” (money available to lend) but in “pristine collateral” (the securities that must be put up for the loans). Pristine collateral consists mainly of short-term Treasury bills. The Fed can inject as much liquidity as it likes, but it cannot create T-bills, something only the Treasury can do. That means the government (which is already $23 trillion in debt) must add yet more debt to its balance sheet in order to rescue the repo market that now funds the banks.
The Fed’s tools alone are obviously incapable of stemming the bloodletting from the forced shutdown of businesses across the country. Fed chair Jerome Powell admitted as much at his March 15 press conference, stating, “[W]e don’t have the tools to reach individuals and particularly small businesses and other businesses and people who may be out of work …. We do think fiscal response is critical.” “Fiscal policy” means the administration and Congress must step up to the plate.
What about using the Fed’s “nuclear option” – a “helicopter drop” of money to support people directly? A March 16 article in Axios quoted former Fed senior economist Claudia Sahm:
The political ramifications of the Fed essentially printing money and giving it to people – there are ways to do it, but the problem is if the Fed does this and Congress still has not passed anything … that would mean the Fed has stepped in and done something that Congress didn’t want to do. If they did helicopter money without congressional approval, Congress could, and rightly so, end the Fed.
The government must act first, before the Fed can use its money-printing machine to benefit the people and the economy directly.
The Fed, Congress and the Administration Need to Work as a Team
On March 13, President Trump did act, declaring a national emergency that opened access to as much as $50 billion “for states and territories and localities in our shared fight against this disease.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average responded by ending the day up nearly 2,000 points, or 9.4 percent.
The same day, Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard proposed a universal basic income of $1,000 per month for every American for the duration of the crisis. She said, “Too much attention has been focused here in Washington on bailing out Wall Street banks and corporate industries as people are making the same old tired argument of how trickle-down economics will eventually help the American people.” Meanwhile the American taxpayer “gets left holding the bag, struggling and getting no help during a time of crisis.” H.R. 897, her bill for an emergency UBI, she said was the most simple, direct form of assistance to help weather the storm.
An Italian virologist says that the country’s attempt not to appear “racist” in the early says of the coronavirus outbreak crippled the ability to properly respond to the pandemic.
Professor of Virology and Microbiology at the University of Padova Dr. Giorgio Pal told CNN that measures imposing travel restrictions and border controls were taken too late due to fears over political correctness.
“There was a proposal to isolate people coming from the epicenter, coming from China,” Pal told CNN. “Then it became seen as racist, but they were people coming from the outbreak.”
Italy is now the hardest hit country in the world in terms of coronavirus deaths, with 3,405 people losing their lives.
The need to minimize potential “racism” and “stigmatization” in response to the coronavirus was a policy endorsed by the World Health Organization itself on numerous occasions and adopted by the left-wing Italian government.
As we previously highlighted, the Mayor of Florence launched a nationwide campaign at the start of February encouraging Italians to hug Chinese people on the street to “stem the hatred.”
Footage of the stunt even shows Italians physically removing a Chinese man’s face mask while closely embracing him.
The Mayor even released a Twitter video of himself hugging an awkward-looking Chinese person to promote the campaign, which was launched to “express solidarity with the Chinese community.”
Mayor of Florence Dario Nardella has suggested residents hug Chinese people to encourage them in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, a member of Associazione Unione Giovani Italo Cinesi, a Chinese society in Italy aimed at promoting friendship between people in the two countries, called for respect for novel coronavirus patients during a street demonstration. “I’m not a virus. I’m a human. Eradicate the prejudice.”
The video was uploaded February 4th
It’s sad to me, really, because in concrete terms, I’d like for there to be good relations between Europeans and Orientals. It is the abstract concept of anti-racism and anti prejudice and its consequences that is the problem.
That video was uploaded February 4th. Three weeks later, Italy had recorded its third death. On March 20th alone, 627 deaths were recorded, bringing the total to over 4,000, with a frightening new trend introducing critical patients in their 40s and 30s.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 21 March 2020 11:23.
Schools and universities have already been closed.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced the closure of all UK pubs, restaurants, cinemas and gyms as part of coronavirus containment measures. Britain has almost 4,000 confirmed cases. The real number can be much higher as testing has been limited. Government scientists say the virus is spreading quickly across London and many people have ignored advice to stay home.
Beware Japan, where Starbucks enters that means they are attempting to get a property foothold and anti ethnonationalist positioning.
The following article illustrates nine Starbucks locations with perfect crypsis to assimiate the local Japanese culture and gain a realestate footold from which they may promote their (((anti-non-Jewish ethnonationalist agenda))).
In Japan, Starbucks has created unique and stunning coffee shops that marry art, architecture, local history and café culture
International coffee chain Starbucks may be big around the globe, but in Japan, it has developed a cult-like following. Since opening its first outlet in Ginza more than two decades ago in 1996, the Seattle-born brand now has a whopping 1,434 stores (and counting) across the country.
For the past few years, its fandom has reached a fever pitch. In 2015, the opening of Starbucks’ first outpost in Tottori, Japan’s least populated prefecture, attracted a thousand fans to line up from the early morning hours so that they could be the first to enter the new store. Earlier this year, prior to the opening of the world’s largest Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Meguro, the coffee giant came up with a lottery system to give winners access tickets based on specific time slots to visit the outlet. Till today, it’s not uncommon to endure a waiting time of up to five hours at the Roastery on weekends.
Starbucks’ skyrocketing popularity in Japan is partly fueled by its continuous offering of seasonal, limited-time beverages and merchandise, most of which are exclusive to the country. Moreover, the coffee chain has found a way to adapt to local culture, creating Insta-worthy, one-of-a-kind spaces at inspiring locations while featuring cutting-edge architecture and design. In fact, these outlets are so innovative that you wouldn’t have thought it was a Starbucks until you notice the familiar green mermaid logo. So here are the most stunning Starbucks in the country, from one that’s set in a heritage house in Kyoto to the Kawagoe outlet that features a zen garden.
If you prefer local and independent coffee shops instead, check our full list here.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 11 March 2020 07:45.
The Fed’s Baffling Response to the Coronavirus Explained
Man wearing mask in front of New York Stock Exchange buildingA man taking precautions amid the coronavirus outbreak walks past the New York Stock Exchange. (Mark Lennihan / AP)
When the World Health Organization announced on Feb. 24 that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic, the stock market plummeted. Over the following week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by more than 3,500 points, or 10%. In an attempt to contain the damage, the Federal Reserve on March 3 slashed the fed funds rate from 1.5% to 1.0%, in its first emergency rate move and biggest one-time cut since the 2008 financial crisis. But rather than reassuring investors, the move fueled another panic sell-off.
Exasperated commentators on CNBC wondered what the Fed was thinking. They said a half-point rate cut would not stop the spread of the coronavirus or fix the broken Chinese supply chains that are driving U.S. companies to the brink. A new report by corporate data analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet calculates that some 51,000 companies around the world have one or more direct suppliers in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus. At least 5 million companies globally have one or more tier-two suppliers in the region, meaning that their suppliers get their supplies there; and 938 of the Fortune 1,000 companies have tier-one or tier-two suppliers there. Moreover, fully 80% of U.S. pharmaceuticals are made in China. A break in the supply chain can grind businesses to a halt.
So what was the Fed’s reasoning for lowering the fed funds rate? According to some financial analysts, the fire it was trying to put out was actually in the repo market, where the Fed has lost control despite its emergency measures of the last six months. Repo market transactions come to $1 trillion to $2.2 trillion per day and keep our modern-day financial system afloat. But to follow the developments there, we first need a recap of the repo action since 2008.
Repos and the Fed
Before the 2008 banking crisis, banks in need of liquidity borrowed excess reserves from each other in the fed funds market. But after 2008, banks were reluctant to lend in that unsecured market, because they did not trust their counterparts to have the money to pay up. Banks desperate for funds could borrow at the Fed’s discount window, but it carried a stigma. It signaled that the bank must be in distress, since other banks were not willing to lend to it at a reasonable rate. So banks turned instead to the private repo market, which is anonymous and is secured with collateral (Treasuries and other acceptable securities). Repo trades, although technically “sales and repurchases” of collateral, are in effect secured short-term loans, usually repayable the next day or in two weeks.
The risky element of these apparently secure trades is that the collateral itself may not be reliable, because it may be subject to more than one claim. For example, it may have been acquired in a swap with another party for securitized auto loans or other shaky assets — a swap that will have to be reversed at maturity. As I explained in an earlier article, the private repo market has been invaded by hedge funds, which are highly leveraged and risky; so risk-averse money market funds and other institutional lenders have been withdrawing from that market. When the normally low repo interest rate shot up to 10% in September, the Fed felt compelled to step in. The action it took was to restart its former practice of injecting money short-term through its own repo agreements with its primary dealers, which then lent to banks and other players. On March 3, however, even that central bank facility was oversubscribed, with far more demand for loans than the subscription limit.
The Fed’s emergency rate cut was in response to that crisis. Lowering the fed funds rate by half a percentage point was supposed to relieve the pressure on the central bank’s repo facility by encouraging banks to lend to each other. But the rate cut had virtually no effect, and the central bank’s repo facility continued to be oversubscribed the next day and the following. As observed by Zero Hedge:
This continuing liquidity crunch is bizarre, as it means that not only did the rate cut not unlock additional funding, it actually made the problem worse, and now banks and dealers are telegraphing that they need not only more repo buffer but likely an expansion of QE [quantitative easing].
The Collateral Problem
Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute; author of thirteen books including “Web of Debt”, “The Public Bank Solution” and her latest, “Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.”
As financial analyst George Gammon explains, however, the crunch in the private repo market is not actually due to a shortage of liquidity. Banks still have $1.5 trillion in excess reserves in their accounts with the Fed, stockpiled after multiple rounds of quantitative easing. The problem is in the collateral, which lenders no longer trust. Lowering the fed funds rate did not relieve the pressure on the Fed’s repo facility for obvious reasons: Banks that are not willing to take the risk of lending to each other unsecured at 1.5% in the fed funds market are going to be even less willing to lend at 1%. They can earn that much just by leaving their excess reserves at the safe, secure Fed, drawing on the Interest on Excess Reserves it has been doling out ever since the 2008 crisis.
But surely the Fed knew that. So why lower the fed funds rate? Perhaps because it had to do something to maintain the façade of being in control, and lowering the interest rate was the most acceptable tool it had. The alternative would be another round of quantitative easing, but the Fed has so far denied entertaining that controversial alternative. Those protests aside, QE is probably next after the Fed’s orthodox tools fail, as the Zero Hedge author notes.
The central bank has become the only game in town, and its hammer keeps missing the nail. A recession caused by a massive disruption in supply chains cannot be fixed through central-bank monetary easing alone. Monetary policy is a tool designed to deal with demand — the amount of money competing for goods and services, driving prices up. To fix a supply-side problem, monetary policy needs to be combined with fiscal policy, which means Congress and the Fed need to work together. There are successful contemporary models for this, and the best are in China and Japan.
The Chinese Stock Market Has Held Its Ground
While U.S. markets were crashing, the Chinese stock market actually went up by 10% in February. How could that be? China is the country hardest hit by the disruptive COVID-19 virus, yet investors are evidently confident that it will prevail against the virus and market threats.
(((Schultz/Starbucks vulture capitalism - governmental collusion with NGO’s and tribal interests)))
Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute; author of twelve books including “Web of Debt” and “The Public Bank Solution.”
