From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From December 23, 2016 to December 29, 2016:

• The Big Theme for 2017: Global Cash Bans
  The big theme for 2017 will be Cash… not a pro-deflationary “time to own cash” theme… but a “let’s ban it as quickly as possible” theme. Let’s review. In 2016: 1) Former Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, called for the US to do away with the $100 bill. 2) Former Chief Economist for the IMF, Ken Rogoff, published his book The Curse of Cash. 3) The New York Times and Financial Times publicly endorse a ban on cash. 4) Fed Chair Janet Yellen, during a Q&A session said cash is “not a convenient store of value.” Of course the above items are simply propaganda and words. But 2016 also featured major actions as far as the War on Cash is concerned… The 7th largest country in the world by GDP (India) banned physical cash in denominations that comprise over 80% of all outstanding bills. The move was a political disaster… temporarily, but no one was forced out of office and the legislation remains in place.
• David Collum: We've Got A Recession Coming – A bad one, at that
  We've got a recession coming, one of the full-blown kind. And I don’t know what will happen. My prediction is that it is going to be a bad one. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that is when things start unwinding, counter party risk kicks in and faulty business models start showing up as bad and they start collapsing. All the accounting problems that built up behind the scenes so that the people cook the books to get their bonuses up and they made these crazy assumptions — under the protective cloak of a recession, CEOs can get away with announcing anything because they say Hey, don’t look at me. It’s a recession. So they write down huge blocks of cost. This actually exacerbates the downswing because people are dumping all their cooked books and getting all the fraud off their books so they don’t have to fess up to the fact that they cooked them. In actuality, they're getting ready to then start building up their stock options again from some bottom somewhere.
• Santa’s cRaZy 2017 Survival Plan
  I know it’s Christmas and you probably have a million things to do (I do too!) but I HAVE to tell you about this crazy little guy who showed up at my door today. He was short, about 4 feet tall. He also had weird shoes that curled at the toe. And even stranger, he had pointy ears. I asked him who he was and he said he was a messenger from Santa! Whoa. Apparently, Santa is getting concerned about the economic situation, and he was wondering how he might survive if things continue to go downhill. After all, he still wants to be able to deliver toys, but if he goes big, round belly-up over the course of the year, then he won’t be able to fulfill the wishes of children next Christmas.
• Keiser Report: ‘We are all in Trump world now’
  We review the year that was Donald Trump as markets rally the most since Herbert Hoover in 1928 but is a 1929 like crash in the cards? In the second half, Max interviews Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.org about whether or not Trump is, indeed, ‘draining the swamp?’ Or is he repopulating it with bigger, more terrifying swamp creatures?
• How Americans Spent Their Money In The Last 75 Years (In 1 Simple Chart)
  Consumer spending makes up 70% of the United States economy. We all have bills to pay and mouths to feed, but where do Americans spend their money? Here is a breakdown of how Americans spent their money in the last 75 years… In the chart, spending is broken into 12 categories: Reading, alcohol, tobacco, education, personal care, miscellaneous, recreation & entertainment, healthcare, clothing, food, transportation and housing. Each category is further broken down into spending by year, from 1941 to 2014, and each category is given a unique color. The data were collected from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data is adjusted for inflation and measures median spending of all Americans.
• Vladimir Putin’s Christmas Speech: Russian Leader Criticizes Western Countries for Abandoning Christian Roots
  This one goes out to the democratic party, those Vlad haters out there this holiday season. If you've ever wondered why Putin appeals to so many stable minded people in the United States, look no further than this speech where the Russian leader lays into Euro-Atlantic nations for abandoning its Christian roots, placing homosexual relationships on the same level as families, fomenting an environment for paedophilia and creating an atmosphere which will eventually lead to the degradation of civility — leading to the loss of dignity. Powerful stuff.
• The Italian Bank Run: Monte Paschi Capital Shortfall Surges 75% To €8.8Bn Due To “Rapid Liquidity Deterioration”
  While the big news last week was that Italy's third largest bank, Monte Paschi, had been nationalized after JPM destroyed the bank's chances of securing a private-sector rescue, and that Italy would issue up to €20 billion in public debt to fund the bailout of this, and other insolvent Italian banks, it appears there may be more moving parts to the story. Recall that as we warned, the biggest danger for both Monte Paschi, and Italy's banking system in general, is that retail depositor confidence in the Siena bank is shaken enough to lead to a bank run either in the world's oldest bank, or worse, across the entire Italian banking sector, leading to a worst case probability outcome of falling bank dominoes as bank funding needs explode, resulting in even more deposit outflows, and so on in a toxic feedback loop.
• As Mystery Of China's Multi-Billionaire Default Deepens, A New “Bond Scare” Emerges
  Last week, in a largely “under the radar” event, one of China's wealthiest billionaires (if only on paper), Wu Ruilin, chairman of the Guangdong based telecom company Cosun Group, and whose personal fortune of 98.2 billion yuan ($14 billion) makes him wealthier than Baidu founder Robin Li who is ranked 8th on the Hurun Rich List 2016, shocked Chinese bond market watchers when he defaulted on a paltry 100 million yuan ($14 million) in bonds sold to retail investors through an Alibaba-backed online wealth management platform, citing “tight cash flow.” Needless to say, many were stunned that a billionaire for whom $14 million is pocket change, blamed “tight cash flow” for defaulting on mom and pop investors. In any case, as South China Morning Post reported, despite the founder's personal fortune, according to a notice put up by the Guangdong Equity Exchange on Tuesday, two subsidiaries of Cosun Group are each defaulting on seven batches of privately raised bonds they issued in 2014. According to the notice, “the issuer had sent over a notice on December 15, claiming not to be able to make the payments on the bonds on time, due to short-term capital crunch.”
• Report: White House prepares to announce sanctions against Russia as punishment for election interference
  The White House is preparing to announce diplomatic censure and economic sanctions against Russia as punishment for its alleged interference in the 2016 election, reports the Washington Post. That information comes from unnamed government officials who spoke with the media outlet. According to those individuals, the Obama administration is assessing the allowances and limitations set forth in the 2015 executive order regarding cyber attacks against the United States.
• New Census Data Shows Why the Job Market is Still “Terrible” (as Trump said), but the Numbers Get Hushed up
  When Donald Trump campaigned on how “terrible” the jobs situation was, while the Obama Administration touted the jobs growth since the employment bottom of the Great Recession in 2010, it sounded like they were talking about two entirely different economies at different ends of the world. But they weren’t. Statistically speaking, they were both right. Since 2011, the US economy created 14.6 million “nonfarm payrolls” as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics – whether or not they’re low-wage or less than full-time jobs. But for individuals, this job market, statistically speaking, looks almost as tough as it was during the Great Recession.
• Jerusalem: About to Explode
  PASTOR WILLIAMS just shared this link with me. He asked that ALL readers should read this. He said he agreed wit hit and it explains what is happening at the UN at this moment. It also gives the outcome. Please share your thoughts. Half of Jerusalem. “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee” (Zechariah 14:1). The subject is the Day of the Lord—the end time. This whole book is focused on the latter days. “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (verse 2). Christ prophesied that He would “gather all nations” to battle Him in Jerusalem. Then He makes what might appear to be a strange statement. One half of Jerusalem is to be taken captive. Notice how specific this prophecy is. East Jerusalem—one half of the city—will be conquered by the Palestinians!
• A New Crisis Is Brewing in Spain – The government raided the state pension fund. And now what?
  When the Rajoy administration took the reins of power at the end of 2011, at the height of Spain’s debt crisis, the country’s Social Security fund had a surplus of over €65 billion, the result of a gradual accumulation of funds since the end of the 1990s. That money was supposed to serve as a nationwide nest egg to help cover the growing needs of Spain’s burgeoning ranks of pensioners. Instead, it has been used by the government to fill some of its own massive fiscal gaps, with the result that now, five years later, the total surplus has shrunk by 75%, to €15 billion. Things have gotten so bad that in October the Spanish government was forced to admit to the European Commission that by the end of next year the surplus will have become a deficit, of around €2.6 billion. In other words, a fund that took 16 years to build up will have been plundered dry in less than half that time, at an average rate of around €11 billion a year.
• India’s Demonetization Debacle Highlights the Dangers of Monetary Monopoly
  As longtime readers know, I believe we are at the beginning stages of what will be historical paradigm level change across the planet. We sit on the precipice of the self-destruction of almost all the dominant institutions we’ve been accustomed to throughout our lifetimes. To borrow a bit of played out and painfully clichéd Silicon Valley lingo, everything is on the table for “disruption.” Naturally, this doesn’t necessarily mean the paradigm that follows the current one will be materially better, but I am personally optimistic about what will emerge following a period of considerable confusion, hardship and conflict. In order to tilt the scales toward a positive outcome, those of us who wish to usher in a world characterized  by human freedom, decentralization, self-government and kindness, need to recognize the most likely avenues we have to get there. Technology is obviously extremely important, as a recent move by Whisper Systems to thwart censorship demonstrates.
• How To Invest In The New World Order
  In our latest Toward a New World Order, Part III we ended by promising to look closer at investment implications from the political and economic shift we currently find ourselves in; and that story must begin with the dollar. While known to the investing public for years, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) recently acknowledge that the real risk-off / risk-on metric in global markets is the dollar and nothing else. In the chart below, which we recreated from an absolute brilliant presentation by Macro Intelligence 2 Partners via RealVision-TV, we see the potential scale of the coming “dollar-problem”.  The dollar moves in cycles as most things. The lower extreme around 84, only broken when Bernanke pushed through QE2, means financial conditions for emerging markets and other commodity producing economies have gotten so out of hand that conventional risk-metrics finally lead investors to pull back. The trigger, as can be seen in the chart, is often policy driven, but the underlying structural imbalance has been building for years, if not decades, prior.
• Israel Urges Jews To Leave France, Suspends “Working Ties” With Countries That Voted For UN Resolution
  In an unexpected escalation that was not the result of Israel's angry response to Friday's UN vote which passed a resolution condemning the country's settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, and which the US refused to veto, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday called on French Jews to leave their country to protest a Paris-hosted conference planned for next month aimed at restarting Palestine-Israel peace talks, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth has reported. According to Turkey's Anadolu news agency, the Israeli government has repeatedly stated in recent months that it would not participate in the conference, which is scheduled to be held on Jan. 15 with the participation of representatives from 70 countries. Speaking at a meeting of his right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, Lieberman reportedly said: “Perhaps it's time to tell the Jews of France, ‘This isn't your country, this isn't your land. Leave France and come to Israel’.” “That's the only response to this plot,” Lieberman added, in reference to the planned conference.
• Obama Quietly Signs The “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act” Into Law
  Late on Friday, with the US population embracing the upcoming holidays and oblivious of most news emerging from the administration, Obama quietly signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorizes $611 billion for the military in 2017. In a statement, Obama said that: “Today, I have signed into law S. 2943, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017.” This Act authorizes fiscal year 2017 appropriations principally for the Department of Defense and for Department of Energy national security programs, provides vital benefits for military personnel and their families, and includes authorities to facilitate ongoing operations around the globe. It continues many critical authorizations necessary to ensure that we are able to sustain our momentum in countering the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to reassure our European allies, as well as many new authorizations that, among other things, provide the Departments of Defense and Energy more flexibility in countering cyber-attacks and our adversaries’ use of unmanned aerial vehicles.” Much of the balance of Obama's statement blamed the GOP for Guantanamo's continued operation and warned that “unless the Congress changes course, it will be judged harshly by history,” Obama said. Obama also said Congress failed to use the bill to reduce wasteful overhead (like perhaps massive F-35 cost overruns?) or modernize military health care, which he said would exacerbate budget pressures facing the military in the years ahead.
• Bundesbank Hauls its Gold back from New York & Paris Faster than Planned
  “In 2016, we brought back again substantially more gold to Germany than initially planned; by now, nearly half of the gold reserves are in Germany,” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann told the German tabloid Bild in what has become an annual Christmas interview about gold – to soothe the nerves of his compatriots. Because they’d been frazzled, apparently, by this whole saga. The German Bundesbank, which is in charge of managing Germany’s gold hoard of 3,381 metric tons, the second largest in the world behind the US, got into hot water in 2012 when rumors were circulating that some or much of its 2,000 tons of gold stored in New York, London, and Paris might not be there anymore, that it might have been melted down, leased, or sold.
• World Trade Falls to 2014 Level, just in Time for a “Trade War”
  “If you get into a trade war with China, sooner or later we’ll have to come to grips with that,” Carl Icahn, now special advisor to President-Elect Trump, told CNBC on Thursday. “I remember the day something like that would really knock the hell out of the market.” A trade war with China surely would be another wall of worry for stocks to climb. Trump’s rhetoric against China, each morsel packaged into 140 characters or less, has already recreated much-needed turbulence [read… Trump Tweets about China, US Businesses Freak out]. “But maybe if you’re going to do it,” Icahn said about the looming trade war with China, “you should get it over with, right?”
• As the Coup Against Trump Fails, the Threat Against His Life Rises — Paul Craig Roberts
  The use of the presstitute media to deny Trump the Republican presidential nomination failed. The use of the presstitute media to deny Trump victory in the presidential election failed. The vote recount failed. The effort to sway the Electoral College failed. But the effort continues. The CIA report on Russia’s alleged interference in the US presidential election ordered by Obama is in process. Faked evidence is a hallmark of CIA operations. In their determination to seal Trump’s ears against environmental concerns, a group of environmentalists plan to disrupt the inauguration. This in itself is of little consequence, but chaos presents opportunity for assassination.
• The Fed Admits The Good Old Days Are Never Coming Back
  The dots that the FOMC members contribute to the plot indicate their expectations for the federal funds rate. Technically, it’s what they think rates should be, not a prediction of what rates will be on those dates. Is that a forecast? You can call it whatever you like. I think “forecast” is close enough. But before we analyze the whatever-you-call-it, let’s look back at the not-so-distant past. I’ve highlighted this fact before, but it’s worth mentioning again: In 2007, less than a decade ago, the fed funds rate was over 5%. So were the interest rates for Treasury bills, CDs, and money market funds. People were making 5% on their money, risk-free. It seems like ancient history now, but that year marked the end of a halcyon era of ample rates that most of us lived through. The chart below shows historical certificate of deposit rates—but remember, you could put your money in a money market fund and do better than the six-month certificate of deposit yield, back in 2007.
• Trump May Be Inheriting A Market That’s Primed For Failure
  The optimism that has followed the election of Donald Trump has pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the threshold of 20,000, a level that will be both a nominal record and a symbolic milestone. Although this is not the way most observers had predicted that 2016 would play out, most on Wall Street have become extremely reluctant to look a gift horse in the mouth…or to even look at him at all. The impulse is to jump on and ride, and only ask questions if it pulls up lame. But if this year has proven one thing, it is that predictions made by the consensus should not be trusted.
• Mole Reveals Terrorist Group’s Violent Plans For U.S. Inauguration Day
  For anyone who hasn’t already heard, several different far-left activist groups including but not limited to Rising Tide North America, Showing up For Racial Justice, and of course the ever-popular Black Lives Matter are actively engaged at this very moment in various stages of planning for a violent uprising on Donald Trump's Inauguration Day. In a recent article that can be found at ipatriot.com, President-elect Trump’s close friend Roger Stone confirmed precisely what I’ve been warning about since at least this past June. Stone says that one of his undercover operatives was recently able to infiltrate a J-20 Committee planning session, which is the committee responsible for helping the #DisruptJ20 movement “create a sense of crisis” both in Washington D.C., and elsewhere around the country during the President-Elect's Inauguration.
• Obama Just Positioned Israel and Entire Middle East For a Horribly Bloody War
  Since the day he first took office, Barack Obama has thumbed his nose at virtually every long standing U.S. tradition, upended decades worth of foreign policy decisions that were paid for with the lives of thousands of our nation’s finest as well as trillions of dollars in American taxpayers’ money (back when they all still had jobs), has divided this country in a way unlike anything I’ve seen during my 40 years on this planet, and he’s done all of it with the full support of a grossly corrupt and dishonest mainstream media that didn’t tell Americans the truth about virtually any of it. Even with almost 100 million Americans out of work, our smallest military since the 1940’s, social unrest that’s reached critical mass and is poised to blow, because of how dishonest the media is, the overwhelming vast majority of Americans still have no any idea the extent of the destruction Obama has left in his wake, and they probably won’t know until it’s far too late. Many experts predicted that Obama would be more defiant than ever before during the closing days of presidency, but few thought Obama would go as far as he just did this past week.
• Barack Obama’s All-Out Attack On Israel
  During the very last month of his presidency, Barack Obama has decided to launch an all-out attack on Israel. On Friday, Barack Obama’s decision to allow UN Security Council resolution 2334 to pass without a veto was the greatest betrayal of Israel in modern American history, and now there are reports that the Obama administration is planning to introduce another resolution that would officially recognize a Palestinian state. Throughout his eight years in the White House, many have accused Obama of being the most anti-Israel president in our history, and now he is proving them right. Obama has also been accused of harboring sympathies for the agenda of the radical Islamic world, and at this point it is hard to argue that he doesn’t. Everyone always knew that Obama greatly disliked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the way that Obama is currently behaving goes way beyond just being vindictive. If it wasn’t for the election of Donald Trump, there would be little hope of salvaging U.S.-Israeli relations at this point. On Twitter, Newt Gingrich actually used the phrase “waging war” to describe what Obama is doing to Israel…
• 10 Times That God Has Hit America With A Major Disaster After The U.S. Attempted To Divide The Land Of Israel
  Because Barack Obama has cursed Israel at the United Nations, America is now under a curse. Friday’s stunning betrayal of Israel at the UN Security Council is making headlines all over the planet, but the truth is that what Obama has just done is far more serious than most people would dare to imagine. Over the past several decades, whenever the U.S. government has taken a major step toward the division of the land of Israel it has resulted in a major disaster hitting the United States. This keeps happening over and over again, and yet our leaders never seem to learn. And despite the fact that President-elect Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and prominent members of both parties in Congress strongly urged Obama to veto Security Council resolution 2334, he went ahead and let it pass anyway. Because the United States has veto power on the UN Security Council, nothing can get passed without our support. And it has been the policy of the U.S. government for decades to veto all anti-Israel resolutions that come before the Security Council. But this time around, it appears that the Obama administration was working very hard behind the scenes to get this resolution pushed through the Security Council before the end of Obama’s term. At least that is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming…
• Breaking Report: John Kerry Is Working On Another UN Resolution That Would Officially Recognize A Palestinian State
  Multiple media outlets are reporting that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is finalizing a document that the Obama administration hopes will form the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that officially recognizes a Palestinian state before the end of Barack Obama’s term on January 20th.  This comes on the heels of the UN Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2334 on December 23rd.  That resolution declared that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, it stated that the Security Council recognizes the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between Israel and “Palestine”, and it officially gave East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  But it stopped short of formally recognizing a Palestinian state.  Resolution 2334 speaks of a Palestinian state in the future tense, but this new resolution that John Kerry is reportedly working on would give immediate and permanent UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state. If there is a UN Security Council resolution that officially establishes a Palestinian state prior to January 20th, there will be no question that it will represent “the dividing of the land of Israel” at the United Nations that so many of us have been watching for. According to the Times of Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is anticipating precisely this kind of move at the UN, and he is reaching out to Donald Trump for assistance…
• The UN Security Council Has Just Officially Given Every Inch Of East Jerusalem To The Palestinians
  Barack Obama has just made the worst decision of his entire presidency.  On Friday, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2334, and this never would have happened without the support and approval of Barack Obama.  Since the United States has veto power on the Security Council, no resolution can ever pass unless the United States allows it to pass.  For decades, it has been the policy of the U.S. government to veto all anti-Israel resolutions at the Security Council, and the Israeli government had been expecting that Barack Obama would not suddenly change that policy at the very end of his second term.  Most of the news headlines about resolution 2334 refer to “Israeli settlements”, but the reality of the matter is that this resolution is about much more than that.  The truth is that this resolution has established legally binding parameters for a “two-state solution” that Israel will never accept, and this includes giving every inch of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. If you have not read it yet, you can find the full text of resolution 2334 right here.  It is one of the most important documents of our time, so you need to take a few minutes to read it. In the excerpt below, you will see that this resolution clearly states that East Jerusalem is in “Palestinian territory” and that the Security Council says that it will recognize no changes to the pre-1967 borders except “those agreed by the parties through negotiations”…
• Truck Killers will Cause EU to Vote Out Leaders, Trump Gets Ready for War, Merry Christmas
  Terrorists have stuck again by using a truck to mow down Christmas shoppers. The latest attack was committed by an Islamic terrorist who is aligned with ISIS.  This is one of the many reasons the status quo will be voted out of office in the 2017 elections in places like France and Germany.  People have had enough with the PC culture, while people are slaughtered by terrorists on a regular basis. Donald Trump has picked his cabinet and looks like he is going to war with the oligarchs. He has former Marine generals posted as Secretary of Defense and managing Homeland Security after he takes office on January 20th.  Another telling pick is former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission Don McGahn chosen as White House Counsel.  Is Trump going to take on election and voter fraud that is running rampant?  It sure looks that way.
• Top Ex-White House Economist Admits 94% Of All New Jobs Under Obama Were Part-Time
  Just over six years ago, in December of 2010, we wrote “Charting America's Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society”, in which we predicted – and showed – that in light of the underlying changes resulting from the second great depression, whose full impacts remain masked by trillions in monetary stimulus and soon, perhaps fiscal, America is shifting from a traditional work force, one where the majority of new employment is retained on a full-time basis, to a “gig” economy, where workers are severely disenfranchised, and enjoy far less employment leverage, job stability and perks than their pre-crash peers. It also explains why despite the 4.5% unemployment rate, which the Fed has erroneously assumed is indicative of job market at “capacity”, wage growth not only refuses to materialize, but as we showed yesterday, the growth in real disposable personal income was the lowest since 2014.
• Obama Betrays Israel At The United Nations – Is America’s Reprieve Now Over?
  Barack Obama actually did it.  Despite enormous pressure from the government of Israel, President-elect Donald Trump and members of his own party in Congress, Barack Obama decided to stick a knife in Israel’s back at the United Nations.  On Friday, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that calls for a “two-State solution based on the 1967 lines” and that shockingly states that “the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity”.  This resolution was approved by a vote of 14 to 0, and the U.S. abstained from voting.  But essentially the outcome of the vote was going to be determined by Barack Obama.  For decades, the U.S. veto power on the UN Security Council has shielded Israel from these types of resolutions, but this time around Obama decided to betray Israel by allowing this vote to pass.  Needless to say, this vote is going to have enormous implications for Israel, for the United States, and for the entire globe.
• Trumpocalypse? Suddenly Liberals Are The Ones Stockpiling Food, Guns And Emergency Supplies
  Now that the shoe is on the other foot, many liberals all over America have suddenly become extremely interested in prepping.  Fearing that a Trump presidency could rapidly evolve into a “Trumpocalypse”, a significant number of leftists are now stockpiling food, guns and emergency supplies.  In fact, even though many had expected a sharp drop in gun sales following Trump’s victory, what actually happened is that fear of what is coming under Trump pushed background checks for gun sales to an all-time record high on Black Friday.  The election of Donald Trump has awakened the left to a degree that we haven’t seen in decades, and some on the left are embracing hardcore survivalism without any apologies. That is ironic about all of this is that on the other end of the political spectrum interest in prepping is probably the lowest that it has ever been in the history of the modern prepper movement.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about how it was like “a nuclear bomb went off in the prepping community“, and nothing has changed since that time.
• European Banks agree $12.5bn in US fines
  Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse have agreed to pay $7.2bn (£5.9bn) and $5.3bn (£4.3bn) respectively in penalties relating to the collapse of the US housing market before the financial crisis. The Swiss lender announced it had reached a deal with the US Department of Justice hours after a similar move by Deutsche. While the German bank's sum is half the $14bn originally sought by investigators, it is more than $2bn above the amount analysts expected Europe's third-largest bank to shell out. Deutsche also warned the deal, following four months of negotiations, was subject to potential revision. Its share price rose more than 4% in early trading in Frankfurt.
• Codex Nutrition Committee Condemns 90% of World to Poor Health
  At the beginning of this week December 5-9, 2016, the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) became the very thing that Codex Secretariat Tom Heilandt warned against in his opening speech there – “lazy monkeys.” For those unfamiliar with that term, it is loosely translated as “being lazy for no reason and not functioning properly.” On the debate over the daily Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs) for VitaminÍ D and Vitamin E, the bulk of the Committee weakly argued and agreed amongst themselves that the World’s population does not need adequate blood levels of either Vitamin D or Vitamin E. In particular, the CCNFSDU decided that 5-15 micrograms (200-600 IUs) /day of Vitamin D and 9 milligrams (13.5 IUs)/day of Vitamin E are all that humanity needs. Lazy monkeys. As anyone with even a smidgen of nutritional knowledge knows, both Vitamin D and Vitamin E are critical for human health, and at far greater amounts than first thought. Long gone are the days when rational nutritionists and researchers thought that 400 IUs per day (10 mcg/day) of Vitamin D would sustain optimal health. And for those who live in that fairy-tale land where 13.5 IUs per day (9 mg/day) of Vitamin E will support normal fertility and childbirth, or health at any level, a very special place in Hell is reserved. Or else on a delegation at a Codex committee.
• Italy Joins the “Bail-In” Bunch
  Italy has now joined the “bail-in” crowd. ‘Monte dei Paschi di Siena is to be rescued by the Italian state using a new €20bn bailout package, as a last-gasp private sector rescue plan for the world’s oldest bank looked set to fail, forcing losses on bondholders. The government rescue, which had long been resisted in Rome, is designed to draw a line under the slow-burn crisis in Italian banking that has alarmed investors and become the main source of concern for European financial regulators.' In this particular case, the bail-in will use bondholders’ money. But depositors will be on the hook in future cases in Europe.
• College Student Earns 4.0 GPA, Then Drops Out: “You Are Being Scammed!”
  Billy Williams just finished his first college semester and did so with the all-impressive 4.0 GPA. Instead of celebrating his accomplishments with friends and family, he decided to drop out of college entirely. Billy made a facebook post that is now going viral in which he explains his reasoning for dropping out. Billy is right too that the price of college continues to soar.
• Baby Boomers Increasingly Having Social Security Checks Garnished To Cover Student Loan Payments
  The government has collected about $1.1 billion from Social Security recipients of all ages to go toward unpaid student loans since 2001, including $171 million last year, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. Most affected recipients in fiscal year 2015—114,000—were age 50 or older and receiving disability benefits, with the typical borrower losing about $140 a month. About 38,000 were above age 64. The report highlights the sharp growth in baby boomers entering retirement with student debt, most of it borrowed years ago to cover their own educations but some used to pay for their children’s schooling. Overall, about seven million Americans age 50 and older owed about $205 billion in federal student debt last year. About 1 in 3 were in default, raising the likelihood that garnishments will increase as more boomers retire. “I believe this is the tip of the iceberg of what may be to come if we don’t work harder on this problem,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the top Democrat on the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
• Chinese Multibillionaire Defaults On Retail Bonds Due To “Severe Cash Crunch”
  Italy's Monte Paschi isn't the only institutions that is about to soak retail investors who thought that two bailouts for Italy's third biggest bank in two years wouldn't be followed by a third nationalization in year #3. According to the South China Morning Post, a Chinese multi-billionaire businessman has defaulted on bonds worth a paltry 100 million yuan ($14.4 million) that he raised from retail investors, citing “tight cash flow”, according to reports. Wu Ruilin, chairman of the Guangdong based telecom company Cosun Group, has a personal fortune of 98.2 billion yuan, or just over $14 billion, China Business News (CBN) reported citing an audit by a third party. That makes Wu wealthier than Baidu’s founder Robin Li, who has 98 billion yuan and is ranked 8th on the Hurun Rich List 2016. And yet, despite the founder's personal fortune, according to a notice put up by the Guangdong Equity Exchange on Tuesday, two subsidiaries of Cosun Group are each defaulting on seven batches of privately raised bonds they issued in 2014. According to the notice, “the issuer had sent over a notice on December 15, claiming not to be able to make the payments on the bonds on time, due to short-term capital crunch.”
• What the Heck’s Happening to Our Share Buyback Boom?
  Companies in the S&P 500 spent about $3 trillion since 2011 to buy back their own shares, often with borrowed money. It’s part of a noble magic called financial engineering, the simplest way to goose the all-important metric of earnings per share (by lowering the number of shares outstanding). And it creates buying pressure in the stock market that drives up share prices. With buybacks, you don’t need to sell one extra iPhone to boost your earnings per share. So the amounts have grown and grown. With ultra-cheap money available to borrow endlessly, companies take on debt and hollow out shareholder equity. It has worked like a charm. Stock prices have soared. Declining revenues and earnings, no problem. But something is happening that hasn’t happened since the Financial Crisis.
• IPOs Have Worst Year since 2003, and the Dow is at 20,000?
  Stock indices are frolicking in record territory. The S&P 500 is up almost 11% this year, though the gains came after the election. The Dow has been titillating the entire world, day after day, with the prospect of finally, finally hitting 20,000 after being just a hair shy of it for two weeks. So it would seem that the IPO market would be hot. But for IPOs, 2016 has turned out to be a fabulously terrible year. That makes two years in a row. Last year at this time, I wrote that the IPO market in 2015 had been the worst since the Financial Crisis. I quoted Sam Kendall, UBS global head of equity capital markets: “We all thought that we might finally get a year where we would be able to put four quarters together,” he said at the time. “If you looked at the pipeline and how people were thinking about the world, it just felt good. And then the wheels came off.”
• Nightmare Before Christmas for Spanish Banks – The European Court of Justice refused to listen
  The European Court of Justice just delivered a landmark ruling that could cost Spanish banks – or Spanish taxpayers, in case of another bailout – billions of euros: 40 out of Spain’s 42 banks will have to refund all the money they surreptitiously overcharged borrowers as a result of the so-called “mortgage floor-clauses” that were unleashed across the whole home mortgage sector in 2009. These floor clauses set a minimum interest rate, typically of between 3% and 4.5%, for variable-rate mortgages, which are a very common mortgage in Spain, even if the Euribor dropped far below that figure. In other words, the mortgages were only really variable in one direction: upwards!
• In One of the Nation’s Unhealthiest Places, This Hospital Prescribes Fresh Food From Its Own Farm
  Five years ago, when Lankenau Medical Center was confronted with evidence that it was serving the unhealthiest county in Pennsylvania, the hospital decided to embrace the findings with an unconventional approach: building a half-acre organic farm on its campus to provide fresh produce to patients. The teaching and research hospital just outside Philadelphia was in the midst of its own patient health needs assessment in 2011 when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released findings about health outcomes in Pennsylvania counties. Lankenau is officially located within Montgomery County, one of the state’s healthiest, taking into account factors including obesity rates and access to reliable sources of food. But the campus is adjacent to and receives many patients from Philadelphia County, ranked the least healthy of all 67 counties.
• Generation Snowflake: Percentage Of Young Adults Living With Their Parents Hasn’t Been This High Since 1940
  Have we failed this generation of young adults by not equipping them to be able to handle the harsh realities of the real world?  According to the Wall Street Journal, the percentage of Americans in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket that are currently living with their parents hasn’t been this high in 75 years.  At this point nearly 40 percent of our young adults in that age range are living at home, and many are concerned that this could have some alarming implications for the future of our nation. In the United States today, more than 60 million people live in multi-generational households, and it is a good thing to have a tight family.  But at some point young adults need to learn how to live their own independent lives, and in millions of cases this independence is being delayed or is never happening at all. There are many factors involved in this trend.  First of all, there is truly a lack of good jobs despite what we are being told about an “economic recovery”.  Millions of young adults are graduating from college only to discover that there is a very limited number of good jobs available for our college graduates.  So some college graduates are able to secure the types of jobs that they were hoping for, but millions of others are not.
• Associate of Paul Craig Roberts Says Stock Market May Be About To Go ‘Super Nova’
  Today an associate of former Assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary official, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, said the stock market may be about to go “Super Nova.”  He also urged people to keep their eyes on the gold and silver markets. ETF flows tend to be a good contrary indicator when they become extreme, so the buying frenzy doesn’t bode well for U.S. equities. — David Santschi, CEO of TrimTabs. Dave Kranzler:  If the Federal Reserve were a private corporation and did not have a money tree, it would be technically insolvent – i.e. bankrupt. As of its latest balance sheet the Fed was reporting a book value (net worth) of $40.4 billion.  But the Fed does not have to mark to market its assets.   Given the recent 100+ basis point move in the 10-yr Treasury, if the Fed were forced to mark to market its $3.8 trillion Treasuries and mortgages, it would be forced to reduce the holding value by close to $400 billion, taking the Fed’s net worth to negative $360 billion…
• Look At The Shocking Difference Between When Ronald Reagan Took Office vs Donald Trump
  With the Dow near 20,000 and the U.S. Dollar Index above 103, and the Electoral College finally confirming our 45th President, look at the startling differences between when Reagan entered office vs Donald Trump. Trump: From Zero to Hero? Gold And The Illusion Of Monetary ValueThis time last year, we were expecting the US dollar to depreciate drastically since we regarded the then held opinion of four interest rate hikes in 2016 as defying implementation. At first, this assessment turned out to be the right call. The US dollar experienced a trend reversal, with the gold price recording a fantastic first half of the year. However, the BREXIT put an end to this development, and Trump’s victory turned the development by 180 degrees.
• Italy to bailout Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank with €20bn rescue fund
  A €20bn (£17bn) rescue fund for Italy’s banking sector has been approved by the country’s parliament, heralding a bailout of the world’s oldest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS). The bank said late on Wednesday that it had failed to secure an anchor investor – the Qatar sovereign wealth fund – for a €5bn offer of new shares. Despite announcing on Wednesday night that a debt-for-equity swap offer raised slightly over €2bn – part of a complex fundraising exercise intended to bolster the strength of the bank – the failure to persuade a major investor to contribute €1bn meant the rescue plan would not succeed before it closed at 2pm on Thursday.
• U.S. Economic Confidence Surges To The Highest Level That Gallup Has Ever Recorded
  Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index has never been higher than it is today.  The “Trumphoria” that has gripped the nation ever since Donald Trump’s miraculous victory on election night shows no signs of letting up.  Tens of millions of Americans that were deeply troubled by Barack Obama’s policies over the last eight years are feeling optimistic about the future for the first time in a very long time.  And it is hard to blame them, because what we have already seen happen since November 8th is nothing short of extraordinary.  The stock market keeps hitting record high after record high, the U.S. dollar is now the strongest that it has been in 14 years, and CEOs are personally promising Trump that they will bring jobs back to the United States.  These are things worth getting excited about, and so it makes perfect sense that Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index has now risen to the highest level that Gallup has ever seen…
• Pastor Lindsey Williams introduces Pastor David Bowen – December 22, 2016
  Pastor Lindsey Williams introduces Pastor David Bowen with his regular short weekly video for readers of Pastor Williams’ weekly newsletter.

THE FINAL BUBBLE! Pastor Williams says the information shared by this economist is outstanding and correct. What he says will happen. >>> CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO (This video is being shared because the information within it is truly good and correct. Half way through the video it turns into a sales pitch to sell a book and related products. Pastor Williams has asked me to state that Pastor Williams and LindseyWilliams.net do not endorse this book).

From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From December 16, 2016 to December 22, 2016:

• Why Trump's “Border Tax Proposal” Is The “Most Important Thing Nobody Is Talking About”
  While the market, and various pundits and economists have been mostly focused on the still to be disclosed details of Trump's infrastructure spending aspects of his fiscal plan, “one of the least talked about but possibly most important tax shifts in the history of the United States” is, according to DB, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s and President-elect Trump’s “border tax adjustment” proposal. This is part of the “Better Way” reform package and also figures prominently in the writings of senior Trump administration officials. What is it? Put simply, the proposal would tax US imports at the corporate income tax rate, while exempting income earned from exports from any taxation. The reform would closely mirror tax border adjustments in economies with consumption-based VAT tax systems. If enacted, the plan will likely be extremely bullish for the US dollar. What’s more, it would have a transformational impact on the US trade relationship with the rest of the world.
• Early 2017 Record Scam Stock Market Going to Blow Up-Michael Pento
  Money manager Michael Pento says don’t get too comfortable with the record highs in the stock market. Pento warns, “In December of 2015, the Fed raised rates. It was the first time in a decade. From the middle of December to the end of December (2015), it was nirvana. They raised rates. There was no problem, and then came January. The first trading day of January, boom, and we had the worst January in the history of all Januarys in the stock market. I think the very same thing is going to happen in 2017, but I think it’s going to be worse. Not only are we going to fall, I think there is going to be a huge tremor in China and in the emerging markets. That’s early in 2017, and when that occurs, Janet Yellen (Fed Head) can forget about three rate hikes. I think she will not get more than one rate hike out of the way before this whole thing unwinds and unfolds. Then, you are going to get a reversal of those rate hikes. You are going to go back into QE (quantitative easing or money printing) in 2017.”
• Italian Government To Meet At 7:30PM CET To Approve Monte Paschi Nationalization
  Having failed to secure a private sector rescue after its anchor investor Qatar balked at sinking another $1 billion into the perpetually insolvent bank, Italy's Monte Paschi is set to be nationalized as soon as 7:30pm CET today when the Italian cabinet is expected to meet and decide on a bank decree. The EU is said to have approved the Italian bank decree. As Bloomberg notes, the Italian government set to intervene soon after expected failure of Monte Paschi recapitalization plan, says senior Italian official who asked not be named before cabinet discusses banks’ decree. The decree would set up a €20 billion fund which would intervene when recaps by banks are not supported by market. Paschi and other troubled lenders will not be named in the decree, but it will apply to them. While shareholders will be hit, something which is obvious by the market cap of the company which is now below €500 million, the aim is to limit losses for stock and bondholders. The cabinet is also expected to announce a 6-month extension for popolari banks.
• Tis The Season For Credit Card Debt: This Christmas Americans Will Spend An Average Of 422 Dollars Per Child
  For many Americans, the quality of Christmas is determined by the quality of the presents.  This is especially true for our children, and some of them literally spend months anticipating their haul on Christmas morning.  I know that when I was growing up Christmas was all about the presents.  Yes, adults would give lip service to the other elements of Christmas, but all of the other holiday activities could have faded away and it still would have been Christmas as long as presents were under that tree on the morning of December 25th.  Perhaps things are different in your family, but it is undeniable that for our society as a whole gifts are the central feature of the holiday season. And that is why so many parents feel such immense pressure to spend a tremendous amount of money on gifts for their children each year.  Of course this pressure that they feel is constantly being reinforced by television ads and big Hollywood movies that continuously hammer home what a “good Christmas” should look like.
• Fed's Yellen trumpets education in changing economy
  Changing technologies and globalization have put a premium on completing a college education in order to get and keep higher-paying jobs, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Monday. “The drivers of this increasing demand for those with college and graduate degrees are likely to continue to be important,” Yellen said in prepared remarks to a University of Baltimore commencement ceremony at which she was due to receive an honorary degree. She did not mention monetary policy in her speech, which was solely focused on the world of work, but did note those graduating were entering the strongest jobs market in nearly a decade.
• Car-tastrophe – GM, Fiat Chrysler Idle 7 Plants; Over 10,000 Workers Affected
  Just weeks after Ford idled four plants “due to slowing sales”, GM and Fiat Chrysler announced today that they will idle seven plants across Canada and US as they work to reduce near-record high inventories amid weakening sales. With an inventories-to-sales ratio above historical peaks (only beaten by huge spike in 2008 when sales stopped), the pain for automakers has only just begun… For example, GM's inventory of vehicles on dealer lots at the end of November stood at 874,162, up 26.5% from the same time a year ago.
• Obama takes some blame for staggering Democratic losses during presidency
  Looking back at a Democratic Party that has been shattered nationwide under his leadership, President Obama is accepting blame for building an organization that benefited mainly himself. The president said Monday that he and his political team didn’t pay enough attention to local Democratic candidates after he came into office in 2009 with a recession and two wars to handle. “We were just putting out fires,” Mr. Obama said in an exit interview with NPR. “We were in a huge crisis situation. And so a lot of the organizing work that we did during the campaign, we started to see right away didn’t immediately translate to, wasn’t immediately transferable to, congressional candidates. And more work would have needed to be done to just build up that structure.”
• Column: Raising the minimum wage lowers employment for teens and low-skill workers
  A report by the National Employment Law Project estimates that American workers will gain $62 billion in wage increases due to state and local minimum wage increases advocated by the Fight for $15 movement. Where did it get that number? Although calls and emails to NELP to get the methodology behind its figures went unanswered, it’s clear that the study made a number of assumptions. NELP states in the report that, “Total income increase estimates [were] derived by multiplying the number of workers affected, by the per-worker income increase at the end of the phase-in period.” In other words, NELP estimated the number of workers at different wage levels in areas that passed minimum wage increases, calculated the difference in their former incomes and new incomes under the new minimum wage when that wage was completely phased in and added those increases to get to $62 billion.
• China Cuts Offering Size Of 3, 7 Year Bonds By 40% Over Concerns Of More Failed Auctions
  The danger signs are building up for the Chinese bond market. First, last Thursday, Chinese bond futures crashed by the most on record forcing China's regulator to briefly halt trading in the security until the panic fades. Then, on Friday, a Chinese bill auction technically “failed” when it was unable to find enough buyers for the total amount offered for sale. At the same time, interbank lending among Chinese banks effectively froze when, as a result of the spike in overnight lending rates, the PBOC was forced to intervene by providing a “massive” amount of liquidity . The PBOC tapped an emergency lending facility it created in 2014 to extend 394 billion yuan ($56.7 billion) in six-month and one-year loans to 19 banks. That pushed the net amount extended through the facility to 721.5 billion yuan so far in December, a monthly record, according to Beijing-based research firm NSBO.  The central bank also injected a net 45 billion yuan into the money market on Friday, following a net 145 billion yuan cash infusion on Thursday. The PBOC also ordered a few large banks to extend longer-term loans to nonbank financial institutions, while China’s securities regulator asked brokers tasked with making a market in bonds to continue trading and not shut any companies out of the market, according to Mr. Zheng of Dongxing Securities.
• “Demonetization Has Achieved Nothing” – India's Rapidly Plunging Toward A Police State
  India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, announced on 8th November 2016 that Rs 500 (~$7.50) and Rs 1,000 (~$15) banknotes would no longer be legal tender. Linked are Part-I, Part-II, Part-III, Part-IV, and Part-V, which provide updates on the demonetization saga and how Modi is acting as a catalyst to hasten the rapid degradation of India and what remains of its institutions. As the deadline of 31st December 2016 approaches, Gresham’s law has been turned upside down. When they needed to be converted, the banned currency notes were trading for a 20% discount to their face value. In the meantime, the discount has disappeared and the banned notes are trading at a premium of 10%. The mafia which deals in the banned notes could not possibly be happier — it promises to be a big supporter of Modi going forward.
• Judge orders unsealing of search warrant in Clinton email probe
  A federal judge has ordered the unsealing of a search warrant that played a role in the controversial public renewal of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email just before the presidential election. The warrant was issued by a federal magistrate in late October, after the FBI requested permission to search emails contained on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin. U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel issued an order Monday that the warrant linked to the Clinton probe and related records be unsealed at noon Tuesday, unless a higher court steps in. The judge acted after E. Randal Schoenberg, a California lawyer who mainly investigates art thefts, filed a suit seeking to force unsealing of the files.
• Italy Seeks Authorization To Raise National Debt To Fund Bank Bailouts, As BMPS Rescue Plan In Jeopardy
  While Italy scrambles to conclude a private sector rescue of ailing Monte Paschi, which hopes to raise €5 billion in the form a share sale to anchor and retail investors, while at the same time the bank is underoing a debt for equity swap, moments ago Reuters reported that Italy's cabinet will meet later on Monday to authorise an increase to the national debt to cover the cost of saving Monte dei Paschi di Siena, should a public bailout be unavoidable, as well as other ailing banks, government sources said cited by Reuters. As reported yesterday, Monte dei Paschi has launched a 5-billion-euro (4.2 billion pounds) capital increase and must raise the money by the end of the year or face being wound down. If it cannot find takers in the private sector, the government will be forced to step in.
• Doing Business the Chinese Way: Facebook Develops A Censorship Tool
  After seven years being banned in China, Facebook learned its lesson—Do business the Chinese way. According to the New York Times, Facebook has developed a censorship tool to restrict contents from appearing in feeds, hoping to re-enter the Chinese market, where many other tech companies including Google and Twitter failed in the past. It is likely Facebook would provide a third party with this censorship tool for monitoring posts, instead of censoring feeds itself. The company may partner with a Chinese firm, utilizing local expertise and connections in negotiating with Beijing. A Facebook spokeswoman said the company had not made decisions on its China re-entry plan.
• “Everyone Is Nervous” – Chinese Bond Bloodbath Reawakens As Hong Kong Stocks Turn Red For 2016
  After a brief respite, the bloodbath in Chinese bonds is back, with futures plunging back to lows overnight amid liquidity fears (short-term lending rates are inverted) and growing anxiety over China's almost unprecedented debtload. As The Wall Street Journal reports, a gradual tightening of short-term credit by China’s central bank – combined with rumors of liquidity squeezes at brokers – prompted a mini-rout in the country’s $8 trillion-plus bond market last week, forcing authorities to reverse course and inject some $86 billion in short- and medium-term funds.
• Secret terrifying 13 FOOT ‘Avatar war' robot learns to walk and mimic human movements
  Scientists have programmed a monster one-tonne robot that can walk and mimic human movements resembling something from Avatar. The METHOD-1 machine is four metres tall and when it stomps it leaves the ground “shaking”, according to designer Vitaly Bulgarov. The giant robot, built in South Korea, works by repeating the actions of its pilot sitting inside by moving its enormous arms and legs up and down.
• Deutsche axes bonuses to pay toxic loans fine
  Deutsche Bank is to axe bonuses for senior staff as part of its desperate efforts to pay for a potential $14bn (£11.2bn) legal settlement with American regulators. John Cryan, the German bank’s Yorkshire-born boss, warned top bankers this month that their bonuses would be seized to help foot the bill for the mis-selling of sub-prime mortgages. A handful of top-performing executives will receive “retention cheques” — much smaller sums that will be paid out over several years. Junior staff will still receive a bonus, but on a far smaller scale.
• Deutsche Bank Shares Stumble As DoJ Settlement Looms
  Deutsche Bank shares are sliding this morning after headlines from CNBC reporting a settlement is close with the US Justice Department over mortgage fraud. With analyst expectations/hopes in the $2 to $5 billion range (against the initial $14 billion fine), reports say the bank is set to pay “less than $14 billion” which has perhaps spooked investors with its uncertainty. As Bloomberg reports, Deutsche Bank will pay “far less” than the initial $14b settlement sought by the U.S. DOJ to resolve litigation over residential mortgage-backed securities, Reuters says, citing a person familiar with the matter. The source says there is a “good chance” the matter will be resolved this week, possibly as early as Wednesday. However, the deal is not finalized yet, and resolution could still be delayed. And for now the stock is fading…
• Chinese Interbank Lending Freezes, Forcing Massive Intervention By China's Central Bank
  China is finding itself in an increasingly more untenable situation, trapped on one hand by its sliding currency (and declining reserves), which as noted earlier it has manipulated higher by forcing overnight unsecured rates to spike, in the process punishing  “speculators” and other shorts… and on the other, by a banking sector that finds itself desperately in need of liquidity, unable to endure the PBOC's monetary interventions, and on the verge of a liquidity crisis comparable to what Chinese banks suffered in the summer of 2013 when overnight rates briefly shot up above 20% as China pushed aggressively with a failed deleveraging campaign.
• The War on Cash Rages On in India and Venezuela
  Imagine you roll out of bed tomorrow to find out that US $100 and $50 bills were outlawed and deemed worthless?  Hard as it is to believe, this is now taking place in both Venezuela and India. It’s a war on cash. And it’s coming soon to your doorstep. This past Sunday, President Maduro, the tyrannical leader of the socialist paradise of Venezuela gave a three day warning that he was eliminating his country’s 100 bolivar bank note. The official reasoning for the removal of these bills according to President Maduro’s statement on Venezuelan state-run TV: “There has been a scam and smuggling of the one hundred bills on the border with Colombia, we have tried the diplomatic way to deal with this problem with Colombia’s government; there are huge mafias.” The 100 bolivar note was the country’s largest currency denomination left in circulation and was equivalent in value to $0.02 USD.
• ALERT: A Major Warning Signal Was Just Triggered That Preceded The Last Collapse
  With interest rates spiking and the dollar surging, a major warning signal was just triggered that preceded the last collapse. Major Danger Signal Just Triggered. From Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader:  “Homebuilders are giddy. While their stocks have been flat for several years, company officials are the most optimistic since the housing bubble years. In the past 30 years, they have been this positive on their industry only three times, and two of those coincided with peaks in their stocks…
• How Deutsche Bank Sent Your Bullion to ISIS
  In some strange way I have been led to this final chapter as laid out by Mark Anthony Taylor below. The paper trail goes back to WW1 and the alliance between Germany and Turkey. Central to this period in history was the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Turks and with German observers. A similar brutality was repeated by Nazi Germany in WW2. 30 million Russians lost their lives in that war, along with 12 million Protestants and Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe and 6 million Jews.
• Prelude To Global Collapse And How Swiss Refiners Just Exposed The Big Lie In The Gold Market
  With interest rates soaring, today the man who has become legendary for his predictions on QE, historic moves in currencies, spoke with King World News about the prelude to global collapse and how the Swiss refiners just exposed the big lie in the gold market. The Final Mania In Global Markets. Egon von Greyerz:  “We are now approaching the final mania in markets. The Dow seems to be on its last swan song. Investors are determined to take it up to 20,000. Since there are only 160 points to go, this would not be hard to achieve. At the same time, U.S. Treasury bonds are crashing. The 10-year yield has gone from 1.4%, a low 1 1⁄2 years ago, to 2.6% today. Normally stock market investors would worry about higher interest rates but the market is currently in a euphoric mode so any bad news is ignored in this final crescendo…
• James Turk – This Will Be One Of The Big Keys For 2017
  As we kick off the final week of trading before Christmas, today James Turk spoke with King World News about what will be one of the big keys for 2017. James Turk:  “There is a lot of cheerleading coming from stock market bulls and the mainstream media as the Dow Jones Industrials Average (DJIA) approaches 20,000, Eric. I find it interesting though that little attention is being paid to the Dow Jones Transportation Average. The Transports peaked earlier this month and have dropped steadily since then. In fact, even the DJIA now appears to be hesitating, which highlights its struggle to reach 20,000.
• Italy Banking Crisis is Also a Huge Crime Scene – Toxic loans as a result of corruption, political kickbacks, fraud, and abuse
  The Bank of Italy’s Target 2 liabilities towards other Eurozone central banks — one of the most important indicators of banking stress — has risen by €129 billion in the last 12 months through November to €358.6 billion. That’s well above the €289 billion peak reached in August 2012 at the height of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. Foreign and local investors are dumping Italian government bonds and withdrawing their funding to Italian banks. The bank at the heart of Italy’s financial crisis, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), has bled €6 billion of “commercial direct deposits” between September 30 and December 13, €2 billion of which since December 4, the date of Italy’s constitutional referendum.
• Wall Street Wrong, Put All Your Eggs in One Basket: Jim Rogers
  Diversification is generally considered one of the basic tenets of investing and financial planning. Owning a mix of assets, ideally with a low correlation, including, stocks, bonds, real estate and gold, for example, is Investing 101. That is unless you’re one of the world’s most famous investors, Jim Rogers. Jim doesn’t buy into the cult of asset allocation. “I know that people are taught to diversify. But diversification is just that’s something that brokers came up with, so they don’t get sued,” Jim said. “If you want to get rich… You have to concentrate and focus,” he says. “The expression on Wall Street is, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Ha! You should put all of your eggs in one basket. But be sure you’ve got the right basket and make sure you watch the basket very, very carefully.”
• Donald Trump Will Ruthlessly Decimate the CIA for Turning on Him
  On Wednesday night, NBC released a report, in collusion with a myriad of anonymous sources reputed to be inside the CIA and other intelligence agencies, claiming that Vladimir Putin personally directed the destruction of Hillary Clinton via hacking hers and the DNC’s servers before the US presidential election. Via NBC: “U.S. intelligence officials now believe with “a high level of confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News. Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.” The report does not cite any source by name for its information, other than incorrigible moron Micheal McFaul, one time US ambassador to Russia, as a cheerleader for the report.
• Inflation, Stagflation, Hyperinflation & Deflation-All at the Same Time-Egon von Greyerz
  Financial expert Egon von Greyerz (EvG) says, “Bond markets around the world are in the biggest bubble in history.” EvG thinks when it blows up, we are going to get hit with everything in the financial horror house.  EvG explains, “We are guaranteed to have ‘flation.’  There will be inflation, stagflation, hyperinflation and deflation.  We will have all of that.  At the same time, a lot of prices will be inflationary or hyperinflationary, at some point, as they print more money.  We will also have deflation of debt and deflation of more of the bubble assets that the credit bubble has created.  Debt will implode and also property and stocks.”
• Interest Rate Explosion, Russia Did NOT Hack Elections, Facebook Fake News Police?
  The Federal Reserve just raised a key interest rate a quarter of a point.  This was only the second time in 10 years the Fed raised rates, but the market had already beaten the Fed to the punch. In July, the interest rate for the 10-year Treasury was 1.46%.  Five short months later, the same rate is now more that 1% higher.  This is what it means when you hear the phrase “the Fed is behind the curve” on interest rates.  Losses in the global bond markets are stacking up with the rising rates.  Now, there are reports that China and other central banks are dumping U.S. debt at an alarming rate.  More than $400 billion in U.S. government bonds was sold this year alone.  Could rising interest rates knock Donald Trump’s plans for a loop?  The answer, in a word, is yes.
• The Real Reason Why America Has Been Given A Reprieve
  This is one of the most important articles that I have written in a long time.  The strange events of the past year and a half have befuddled and mystified many, and in this article I am going to explain why America has been given a temporary reprieve.  If you go back to June 2015, I warned my readers that major financial problems were imminent, and sure enough in August 2015 we witnessed the greatest financial shaking that we had seen in seven years.  I remember getting emails from my readers applauding me for absolutely nailing that prediction, but we were all concerned about what was coming next in September.  If you will recall, there was more buzz about September 2015 than any other month that I can ever recall.  That was the month of the last blood moon, the end of the Shemitah year and the Pope’s visit to the United States among other things.  There was a tremendous amount of anticipation that the crisis that had begun in August 2015 would greatly accelerate in September and lead us into a period of cataclysmic global chaos.  But that did not happen.  Instead, U.S. financial markets calmed down and eventually recovered.  There was a shift in the political realm as well, as the second half of 2015 marked the rise of Donald Trump.  During those key months, Trump miraculously built a commanding lead in the race for the Republican nomination that none of his opponents were ever able to overcome.  And now that Trump has won the election, an economic surge appears to be happening that is unlike anything that we have witnessed in many years.
• Donald Trump Completes Final Lap, Electoral College, to White House
  Republican electors in Texas vaulted Mr. Trump past the 270 mark, granting him all but two of their 38 ballots in a ceremony in the State Capitol in Austin. In the House chamber, where the electors met, the vote was greeted with a standing ovation by citizens and Republican officials who had come to witness the event. Outside, perhaps 100 protesters waved placards and chanted “Save our democracy” in a vain effort to persuade electors to reject the Republican nominee. Normally a political footnote, the electoral vote acquired an unexpected element of drama this winter after Mr. Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton, who received 2.86 million more popular votes but won in states that totaled only 232 electoral votes. The states Mr. Trump won held 306 electoral votes.
• Australian republicans claim majority of MPs oppose monarchy
  A majority of Australian MPs want to break ties with the British monarchy, the nation's republican lobby claims. The Australian Republican Movement says 81 of 150 MPs and 40 of 76 senators favour the move, citing public statements from the politicians. Monarchists have disputed the figures, insisting more support the status quo. The numbers were revealed before an upcoming speech by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to mark the republican movement's 25th anniversary. Mr Turnbull, who led a failed republic bid in 1999 before entering politics, will speak at Sydney University on Saturday.
• Cuba offers rum to pay off $276m Czech debt
  Cuba has come up with an unusual way to repay its multimillion dollar debt to the Czech Republic – bottles of its famous rum, officials in Prague say. The Czech finance ministry said Havana had raised this possibility during recent negotiations on the issue. Cuba owes the Czech authorities $276m (£222m), and if the offer is accepted the Czechs would have enough Cuban rum for more than a century. However, Prague said it preferred to get at least some of the money in cash. Havana's debt dates back from the Cold War era – when Cuba and what was at the time Czechoslovakia were part of the communist bloc.
• Greece passes pension deal in defiance of bailout creditors
  The Greek parliament has defied the international creditors providing Athens' bailout funds and voted through a one-off payment to pensioners. Plans for the €617m (£517m; $656m) pre-Christmas handout were opposed by European bodies negotiating Greece's financial lifeline. A deal agreed earlier this month to provide the next tranche of debt relief for Athens is now on hold. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Greece would not be blackmailed. Athens said the pension payment would come out of a €1bn tax surplus but European creditors on Thursday said the Greek move raised “significant concerns on both process and substance” regarding the country's bailout obligations.
• What Is The Real Purpose Behind “Fake News” Propaganda?
  Here is the first problem with modern political discourse – too many people want to “win” arguments instead of getting to the greater truth of the matter. Discussions become brinkmanship. Opponents launch into immediate attacks instead of simply asking valid questions. They assert immediately that their position is the only valid position without verification. When confronted with rational responses and ample evidence, they dismiss everything instead of pondering what you have handed them. After this line is crossed, there is no point in continuing the debate. It will go on forever. This is one of the great tragedies of the Saul Alinsky method of political confrontation; it has bred entire generations of people who now believe that there is no objective truth. They think everything is relative. Because of this belief, they assume that there is no wrong or right side, no wrong or right goal. Instead, there are only goals that are MORE right than the goals of others. Everything boils down to a “lesser of two evils” mentality, and the ends therefore justify the means. Using dishonest measures to win the fight becomes acceptable.
• Can OPEC Send Oil To $70?
  OPEC managed to convince almost a dozen non-OPEC producers to take part in oil production cuts over the weekend, and the news immediately sent international benchmarks higher, prompting a fresh wave of bullish forecasts. The latest, by hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand, is that crude will reach US$70 by June 2017. Andurand made this call before the weekend deal between OPEC and external producers was announced, noting that the Vienna agreement reached among the members of the organization was a “major turning point”. Three months ago, Andurand had forecast that crude would reach US$60 by the end of the year and US$70 in 2017, so he’s now just repeating his earlier prediction, with a sounder basis this time. Back in September, he had said that Saudi Arabia is aware of the long-term implications of a depressed oil market and was ready to take steps to avoid a deficit in the longer run.
• Post-Election Madness – Down the Looking-Glass We Tumble – Into the most Dangerous and Kafka-esque Twilight Zone Imaginable.
  I have been writing for years now, that I believe some form of catastrophic collapse is coming for the US (and probably, by extension, for the planet). It has of course been difficult to pinpoint which of the many cracks in US primacy would be the first one to split wide enough open to set off the “collapse dominoes” on their grim journey. Would it be the (increasingly inevitable) collapse of the US dollar? Would it be spiraling hyper-inflation due to the ongoing demise of the petro-dollar and endless money-printing by the Fed? Would it be the ongoing destruction of the middle-class, with nearly 50 million people on food-stamps, and worsening unemployment? Would it be another stock-market crash, this time “unmanageable”? Would it be explosive civil unrest resulting from an ever-simmering race-war? Would it be the US defaulting in one way or another on its (unpayable) debt obligations? Would it be another “terrorist-incident” the likes of which I wrote about in my previous post? The list of fault-lines running through the US is many and varied … and trying to predict which one will ultimately cause a Fukushima-sized earthquake to rock their world … is no small challenge. That such a seismic event is coming however, is something I remain certain of.
• Doug Casey: “Sell All Your Bonds”
  So, Trump has won the election. Of course anything can happen between now and his presumed inauguration on January 20. Maybe the Swamp Creatures will succeed in causing a recount in so-called Purple States that could change the number of electors in Hillary’s favor. Maybe they’ll somehow influence Trump electors to vote for Hillary. None of this would have been an issue if Baby Bush II, Jeb, had been the Republican nominee, as was supposed to have happened. It all just shows what a transparent (a word these people love to use) fraud “democracy” has become. Let the hoi polloi cast a meaningless vote, so they have the illusion of being in control. Instead of seeing themselves as subjects, they’ll think they’re “we the people,” who actually have some say in what happens. That way they’ll pay their taxes willingly, enthusiastically sign on to aggressive wars on the other side of the world against people they know nothing about, and generally do as they’re told. Because it’s supposed to be patriotic. “Democracy” is a much more effective scam for controlling the plebs than kingship or dictatorship.
• Hollywood Celebrities Urge Electors Not To Vote For Trump
  The push to pressure and overturn the Electoral College vote on December 19 escalated last night, when a group of celebrities created a video to urge Electoral College members to cast their votes for someone other than President-elect Donald Trump on Monday.  “You have the position, the authority, and the opportunity to go down in the books as an American hero who changed the course of history,” several celebrities say in turn.
• Bill Holter: Every Society is Only 72 Hours From Pure Anarchy
  This past week on his show Operation Freedom, Dr. Dave Janda once again had one of the world’s leading forensic economists on as his guest, Bill Holter, to discuss the dire economic situation closing in not just on the United States right now, but also on hard working ordinary people all around the entire world as well. Last week, in a post titled, Start “Doubling Up On Your Prepping;” Countdown to Economic Collapse, I quoted Mac Slavo who recently said: “Now that the Western world has turned in the direction of Trump and Brexit, it may be that the bankster class is prepared to start the next phase.” It is often said that at any given moment, any society is only 72 hours away from complete anarchy. Why? Because even in the most affluent societies, there isn’t much more than a three day supply of food available. Once food runs out, economic conditions can deteriorate so quickly that they rival scenes found in big Hollywood blockbusters like Mad Max. Look at Venezuela for example, where people have been breaking into zoos, and killing the animals to eat for food.
• George Soros Is Funding Facebook's “Third-Party Fact Checking” Organization Targeting “Fake News”
  Behind almost every liberal crusade of the past several decades, from the blocking of voter ID laws to the Syrian refugee crisis, there has been one man quietly pulling the puppet strings from the background: George Soros.  So imagine our complete shock when we discovered Soros to be the financing source behind Facebook's “third-party fact checking” organization retained to flag, and thus eliminate, “fake news.” Just yesterday, Facebook posted the following press release to their website detailing their plans to use a “third-party fact checking organization,” known as The Poynter Institute, to flag “fake news.”  The role of the “fact checkers” will be to review news stories and flag anything they deem to be “fake” so that it can be deprioritized on Facebook's news feed.
• The Coming Fracture Of Saudi Arabia
  The Bible’s book of Galatians, VI teaches, «as you sow, so shall you reap». And for Saudi Arabia, which has overtly and covertly supported rebellions in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ethiopia, Philippines, and Lebanon that have led to civil wars and inter-religious strife, the day of reckoning may soon be at hand. The present Saudi king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is the last of the sons of the first Saudi king, Abdul Aziz al Saud, who will ever sit on the Saudi throne. After Salman dies, Saudi leadership will pass to a new generation of Saudi royals. But not all the descendants of the first Saudi king are happy about how the future succession may turn out. Salman named his nephew, Mohammed bin Nayef, as crown prince after firing his half-brother, Mugrin bin Abdul Aziz, as crown prince after the death of King Abdullah in 2015. For good measure, Salman also named his son, Mohammad bin Salman, who is little-known outside the kingdom, as deputy prime minister. The 30-year old Mohammad bin Salman is seen by some as the eventual crown prince after King Salman figures out some way to ease Mohammad bin Nayef, the Interior Minister and close friend of the United States, out of the position of heir apparent to the throne.
• NSA Whistleblower Destroys Obama's Russia Narrative – “Hard Evidence Points To An Inside Leak, Not Hacking”
  A group of retired senior intelligence officials, including the NSA whistleblower William Binney (former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA), have posted an open letter on consortiumnews.com that destroys the Obama administration's “Russian hacking” narrative.  Within the letter, Binney argues that, thanks to the NSA's “extensive domestic data-collection network,” any data removed remotely from Hillary Clinton or DNC servers would have passed over fiber networks and therefore would have been captured by the NSA who could have then analyzed packet data to determine the origination point and destination address of those packets.  As Binney further notes, the only way the leaks could have avoided NSA detection is if they were never passed over fiber networks but rather downloaded to a thumb drive by someone with internal access to servers.
• Russia more financially stable than China – report
  The Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest ranking of developing nation economies has put Russia ahead of China in terms of financial stability. The report released earlier in the week predicted a recovery in emerging markets – Russia, being a case in point – amid modest global economic growth. “Modest economic growth of 4.7 per cent is expected in emerging markets [in 2017], up from 4.1 per cent, which is better than in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world,” the report said. The report looks at fiscal stability versus vulnerability, growth and inflation versus stagflation, and high debt, among other factors. South Korea is the most fiscally stable emerging market; Russia comes in second, followed by China. India will gain top the world in terms of GDP growth, coming in at 7.6 per cent – a full one per cent ahead of China, but it came in fourth, one ranking below China in fiscal stability. Brazil fell to the eighth ranking while South Africa remained where it was last year, at the bottom of the top 10 emerging markets.
• Germany to force Facebook, Google and Twitter to act on hate speech
  Germany is to consider new laws that would force social media platforms such as Facebook and search engines such as Google to take a more active role in policing illegal hate speech on their sites. Measures considered by Angela Merkel’s coalition government include forcing companies to set up clear channels for registering complaints, to publish the number of complaints they receive and to hire legally qualified ombudsmen to carry out deletions.
• We’re Starting to See a Huge Disconnect Between Physical and Paper Gold
  Each day, when the stock market closes, it’s surprising that Americans on Main Street can’t hear coastal elites in their network studios by the sound of all their “Oooooohs,” and their “Ahhhhhhs,” as equity markets keep closing higher and higher. Sadly, for the American people who are relying on our woefully dishonest mainstream media for the valuable information they need, no one is talking about what’s happening in the bond market. If there is one thing liberals hate, it’s history (unless of course we’re talking about revisionist history), but if you look throughout history, virtually every single stock market crash we’ve ever had came immediately after a major bond crash, and bonds are beginning to crash in a major way! Despite the mainstream media ignoring it, there has been plenty of information available about enormous amounts of U.S. Treasuries being dumped at once. On multiple occasions over $100 billion in Treasuries has been dumped, often within just a few days.
• What's Missing From The Russian Hack Argument?
  Without any proof or evidence being presented that Russia interfered with our election, we're just seeing political grandstanding at this point by both President Obama and Secretary Clinton. Have you noticed that there's never any mention or concern about Secretary Clinton having a private server in her home? If anything, that server would have made it much easier for Russia (or anyone else) to know what was going on with our government.
• Senate Quietly Passes The “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act”
  While we wait to see if and when the Senate will pass (and president will sign) Bill  “H.R. 6393, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017”, which was passed by the House at the end of November with an overwhelming majority and which seeks to crack down on websites suspected of conducting Russian propaganda and calling for the US government to “counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence … carried out in  coordination with, or at the behest of, political leaders or the security services of the Russian Federation and the role of the Russian Federation has been hidden or not acknowledged publicly,” another, perhaps even more dangerous and limiting to civil rights and freedom of speech bill passed on December 8. Recall that as we reported in early June, “a bill to implement the U.S.’ very own de facto Ministry of Truth has been quietly introduced in Congress. As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information. Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, H.R. 5181 seeks a “whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.”
• New York Times to Vacate ‘at Least’ Eight Floors as Profits Tumble
  The New York Times is planning to vacate “at least eight floors” in its Manhattan headquarters as part of a plan to cut costs, generate rental income, and redesign office space, according to an internal memo. In a message to company employees, CEO Mark Thompson said that the company had “made the decision to consolidate our footprint across the building to create a more dynamic, modern and open workplace, one that is better suited to the moment.” “We’re planning significant investments in a redesign of our existing space in order to facilitate more cross-departmental collaboration. We expect a substantial financial benefit as well. All told, we will vacate at least eight floors, allowing us to generate significant rental income,” he continued.
• Is Americans’ Unfettered Optimism Starting to Border on Dangerous?
  In a survey conducted by CNBC for the fourth quarter, the survey found that the percentage of Americans who believe the economy is going to get better in the next year jumped an unprecedented 17 points to 42 percent after Donald Trump’s victory, when compared to surveys taken before the election results were in. Right now, it’s hard to deny that much of the country is experiencing what Michael Snyder refers to as “Trumphoria,” but is what they’re experiencing safe? According to another survey taken earlier this year, only six percent of Americans polled said they have “a great deal of confidence” in the mainstream media, and with good reason. Because the mainstream media has failed so horribly to live up to even the most basic of journalistic standards, and because they media has failed to give the American people honest and unbiased reporting, far too many Americans greatly overestimate what any president can do to alter our economic trajectory, particularly after decades of the abysmal monetary policy this country has been engaged in.
• Canadian Journalist on lies about Syria | December 9th 2016
  Press Briefing by Syrian Mission. Speakers: Sara flounders, Activist, Donna Nassor, lawyer and human rights and peace activist, Dr. Bahman Azad, Member of the Coordinating Committee for the Hands Off Syria and Organization Secretary of US Peace Council, and Eva Bartlett, Independent Canadian Journalist.
• Inevitable Global Ruin: Top Hedge Fund Managers Sound the Alarm
  When monetary control is centralized, as it is today, prosperity withers. The Wall Street Journal just surveyed top hedge fund managers and found a significant belief that full-fledged, global ruin is on its way. Tamper with freedom, monetarily or otherwise, and you end up facing catastrophe. That’s just where we are today. The managers pointed directly at the purposeful monetary mismanagement of central banks around the world. These central banks large and small are pumping oceans of money into financial markets as well as lowering rates until they are actually negative, which has never happened before in recorded history. When the final catastrophic implosion eventually occurs, we will look back on this era with amazement, wondering how people didn’t sense the disaster to come.
• The House Passes A Microchipping Law That Is Intended To Help Local Authorities Microchip Disabled People
  The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would get the federal government heavily involved in microchipping disabled people for tracking purposes. If you would like to read it for yourself, you can find H.R. 4919 right here. The bill is also known as Kevin and Avonte’s Law, and the idea behind it is that if disabled people are microchipped it won’t be so easy for them to get lost. Of course we have been microchipping pets in this country for years, and this is yet another giant step down the road toward universal microchipping of everyone. We are being told that implanted microchips will make those with developmental disabilities “safer”, but where does this stop? Pretty soon there will be a huge push to microchip all children “for their safety”, and once that is accomplished it won’t be too long before they will want to microchip the entire population.
• ECB Warns Paschi on Post Referendum Liquidity in Stress Test
  Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA said the European Central Bank rejected its request to extend a capital increase into January over concerns that the Italian lender’s liquidity “is progressively deteriorating in the wake of the Dec. 4 referendum.” The ECB said that under a negative stress-test scenario, the Siena-based bank has “a 29-day time horizon” in which it can meet its liquidity needs without resorting to new intervention,’’ according to an updated prospectus for its capital increase. The stress test scenario assumes a liquidity exit of 10.3 billion euros ($10.8 billion) within a month, according to the prospectus.
• Major Economic Warning Sign: The Euro Is Heading For Parity With The U.S. Dollar
  The collapse of the euro is accelerating, and it looks like we could be staring a major European financial crisis right in the face early in 2017.  On Thursday, the EUR/USD fell all the way to $1.0366 at one point before rebounding slightly.  That represents the lowest that the euro has been relative to the U.S. dollar since January 2003.  Ever since 2011, I have been relentlessly warning that the euro is heading for parity with the U.S. dollar.  When the EUR/USD was trading at about $1.40 that must have seemed like crazy talk, but I never wavered.  I just kept warning people that the euro was going to weaken greatly relative to the U.S. dollar.  Here is one example from March 2015: “How many times have I said it?  The euro is heading to all-time lows.  It is going to go to parity with the U.S. dollar, and then it is eventually going to go below parity.”  After Thursday, we are almost there, and once we do hit parity that is going to be a sign that all sorts of chaos is about to erupt in Europe.
• Foreigners are Dumping US Treasurys as Never Before
  All kinds of things are now happening in the world of bonds that haven’t happened before. For example, authorities in China today halted trading for the first time ever in futures contracts of government bonds, after prices had swooned, with the 10-year yield hitting 3.4%. Trading didn’t resume until after the People’s Bank of China injected $22 billion into the short-term money market. What does this turmoil have to do with US Treasurys? China has been dumping them to stave off problems in its own house. The US Treasury Department released its Treasury International Capital data for October, and what it said about the dynamics of Treasury securities is a doozie of historic proportions.
• Currency Armageddon? A Word about the Hated Dollar – The “death of the dollar” will have to be rescheduled
  Sharply higher yields on Treasury securities and the prospect of more rate hikes by the Fed – in a world where other major central banks are still stewing innocent bystanders in the juices of NIRP, negative yields, and “punishment interest” – sent the hated dollar, whose death has been promised for a long time, soaring. It soared against the euro. Or, seen from the other side, the euro plunged against the dollar, to $1.039, the lowest level since January 2003; down 35% from its peak of $1.60 during the Financial Crisis; down 10% from its 52-week high in March of $1.16; and down 2.7% from $1.068 yesterday before the Fed announcement. Pundits are once again declaring that the euro will fall to “parity” with the dollar, as the ECB has been wishing for a long time, though it cannot admit officially that it is trying to crush the euro to give member states an export advantage. That would be “currency manipulation,” which is frowned upon in other countries. But a big wave of “money printing” and forcing yields below zero “to stimulate the economy,” whereby the currency gets crushed as a side effect, is OK.
• Rep. Rohrabacher: Putin didn’t steal election
  The allegation that the Russians intervened in last month’s election remains just that: an allegation. Even the FBI and the CIA are conflicted over what happened. The absence of certainty has not stopped Hillary Clinton’s supporters from promoting the pathetic charge that the Russians rigged the election. One can appreciate our foreign policy establishment’s anxiety about the incoming administration’s apparent tilt toward Russia. The country is run by a strongman, Vladimir Putin, who has said and done much we don’t like. But suggesting he stole our election is a self-serving fallacy. More investigative journalism was undertaken by the hackers, whoever they were, than by the media establishment, which was consumed by a passion to defeat Donald Trump. The information they provided was factual, giving voters more information.
• Yellen Speaks, Yields Spike, Mortgage Rates Jump, Oil Plunges: But Why?
  Stocks sold off, starting at 2:04 PM, as the Fed’s slightly more hawkish stance was sinking in. The S&P 500 ended the day down 0.8%. Not even a tempest in a teapot. Gold sold off, now down 17.6% since July. Oil plunged over 4%, but unrelated to the Fed: the market is figuring out that nothing beyond wild jabbering by oil potentates is happening to contain the oil glut. But natural gas jumped nearly 3%, based not on the Fed, but on the weather. And bonds? Another opportunity to use the word “rout” or “carnage.” The Fed increased its target rate for the second time in nearly a decade, after having done so a year ago for the first time. It raised it from next to nothing by nearly nothing to a little above nothing: a range of 0.5% to 0.75%. But according to its dot plot, whose reliability has become a joke, it will raise rates three times next year, up from the prior dot plot which indicated only two hikes.
• Barack Obama promises retaliation against Russia over hacking during US election
  Barack Obama has warned that the US will retaliate for Russian cyberattacks during the presidential election. In an interview on National Public Radio on Friday morning, the US president said he is waiting for a final report he has ordered into a range of Russian hacking attacks, but promised there would be a response. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action,” Obama said. “And we will – at a time and place of our own choosing. “Some of it may be explicit and publicised; some of it may not be.” The CIA has judged that the Russian cyber attacks, including the hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee, were intended to influence the election in Donald Trump’s favour, according to reports. The FBI agrees that there was Russian hacking but has not as yet concluded it was intended to favour the Republican contender. Senators from both parties have called for a congressional enquiry, while Trump himself has rejected the reports and his office has derided the CIA.
• Money Under Fire – A reminder of the great wealth transfer underway
  One serious predicament we face is that the current leaders in the halls of monetary and political power do not appear to understand the dimensions of our situation. The mind-boggling part about it is that the situation is easy to understand. Our collective predicament is simply this: Nothing can grow forever. Sooner or later, everything must cease growing, or it will exhaust its environs and thereby destroy itself.  The Fed is busy doing everything in its considerable power to get credit (that is, debt) growing again so that we can get back to what it considers to be “normal.” But the problem is – or the predicament, I should more accurately say – is that the recent past was not normal.
• Academic: Former Stasi Secret Police Informant Unfit to Lead Government Internet Censorship Task Force 
  The Ministry of Justice has come under renewed pressure to cut ties with Anetta Kahane after a Stasi expert declared her unfit to lead a “sensitive task like controlling the internet” based on her history working with the Communist secret police. A review of the former Stasi informant’s files has led to further questions over Justice Minister Heiko Maas’s decision to use Kahane’s Amadeu Antonio Foundation to oversee a programme of removing “hate speech” online and prosecuting its authors. Writing in Focus on Sunday, Communist political oppression academic and Stasi expert Dr. Hubertus Knabe, said it is “incomprehensible” that the ministry chose a foundation headed by Kahane to lead a “sensitive task such as controlling the internet”.
• China Dumps Treasuries: Foreign Central Banks Liquidate A Record $403 Billion In US Paper
  One month ago, when we last looked at the Fed's update of Treasuries held in custody, we noted something troubling: the number had continued to drop sharply, declining by another $14 billion in one week, and pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.788 trillion, the lowest since 2012. One month later, we refresh this chart and find that in last week's update, there is finally some good news: foreign central banks finally bought some US paper held in the Fed's custody account, which following months of liquidation, rose over the past two weeks by $23 billion, the biggest two-week advance since November of 2016, pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.816 trillion, the highest since early October.
• Paschi to Proceed With Share Sale, Bigger Swap to Avert Aid
  Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will seek to sell shares by the end of the year and extend a debt-for-equity swap in a last-ditch effort to raise 5 billion euros ($5.2 billion) privately and avoid a state rescue. The swap offer will be increased to 4.5 billion euros and will include its so-called FRESH 2008 hybrid bond, the Siena, Italy-based bank said in a statement on Wednesday. Bondholders have already agreed to exchange about 1.02 billion euros for shares. The swap offer for retail investors as well as the share sales reserved to them are subject to regulatory approval. “It’s a challenging attempt, with a high execution risk,” said Jacopo Ceccatelli, head of Marzotto SIM SpA, a Milan-based broker-dealer. “It can only be successful if a white knight is available to invest in the bank. I doubt they can get one now after having unsuccessfully tried for months to get commitments from investors around the world.”
• Facebook is going to use Snopes and other fact-checkers to combat and bury ‘fake news'
  Facebook is going to start fact-checking, labeling, and burying fake news and hoaxes in its News Feed, the company said Thursday. The decision comes after Facebook received heated criticism for its role in spreading a deluge of political misinformation during the US presidential election, like one story that falsely said the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump. To combat fake news, Facebook has teamed up with a shortlist of media organizations, including Snopes and ABC News, that are part of an international fact-checking network led by Poynter, a nonprofit school for journalism in St. Petersburg, Florida.
• Swedish towns told to ‘make preparations regarding the threat of war and conflict' with Russia 
  Sweden’s towns and villages have been ordered to make preparations for a possible military attack in the latest sign of the country’s growing anxiety at its newly belligerent Russian neighbour. The country’s Civil Contingency Agency (MSB) last week sent a letter to local authorities across the country asking them to maintain operations centres in underground bunkers, ensure that a system of emergency sirens is in place, and to be open to cooperating on war exercises with the Swedish Armed Forces.
• Virgil: The Deep State vs. Donald Trump
  Do the Democrats want Donald Trump to become the 45th president?  Of course not.  And how about the Democrats’ handmaiden, the Main Stream Media?  Do they want Trump in the White House?  Of course not.  And how ‘bout all the other affluent residents of the Washington “swamp,” which Trump has pledged to drain—do you think any of them want Trump?  Of course not.  Together, these anti-Trump constituencies help form what has been called the Deep State, which is a real and serious thing, and which we will explore further in a moment. Yet first, we can take a look at the latest news, because let’s not kid ourselves: These anti-Trump constituencies might have lost the 2016 presidential election at the ballot box, but they don’t intend to lose their power.  And to that end, they have real clout, and they are using it. In particular, wily in the ways of Washington, the anti-Trumpers are operating behind the scenes, using their well-greased legal and political machinery to block the President-elect, or at least to discredit and de-legitimize him, such that his presidency is crippled.  And as a part of that backroom effort, the MSM is always ready with a supportive, momentum-building headline or two—or two thousand.
• Trump Honeymoon in Markets Will End in 2017-Mike Maloney
  Precious metals expert Mike Maloney says the rise you have seen in the stock market since Trump was elected will end sooner than later. Maloney explains, “Trump is probably, in the long term, going to be better for business. That’s the reason the stock markets are going up and the dollar is going up. So, gold is going down. However, this is a love affair that will probably last three to six months, and by April or May, you’ll probably see the markets topping out. We are already more than seven years into this economic expansion. The last recession started in 2008 and ended in 2009. So, we’re over seven years into this expansion, almost eight. It’s becoming the third longest economic expansion in history. . . . This recovery that we have had has been purchased for $3.2 trillion of base currency creation. That is four times what we produced in the previous 200 years as far as base currency goes. This recovery was a purchased thing, and we are near the end of it. It can’t go on forever. . . . We are in that rarified territory, the nosebleed territory, when a crash happens, it’s a big crash. We are just right around the corner from a recession. It’s just not possible to have an economic expansion that goes on forever when you have a fiat currency system, and a debt based monetary system.”
• Harvard University Professor Claims That 20 Republican ‘Faithless Electors’ Are Considering Voting Against Trump
  If what a Harvard University constitutional law professor is claiming is true, the plot to steal the Electoral College vote from Donald Trump is far more serious than most people thought. Larry Lessig briefly pursued the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, but these days he is using his position as a Harvard law professor to try to stop Donald Trump. His new organization is called “Electors Trust”, and it has been acting as a central hub for the campaign to deny Trump the 270 votes that he needs to become the next president. If this effort is to be successful, anti-Trump forces need to flip 37 of Trump’s votes, and Lessig says that so far 20 Republican electors are considering voting against Trump. Of course there are many that are skeptical of his claims, but why would a Harvard constitutional law professor lie about something like this? If Lessig is telling the truth, the Trump team should be deeply alarmed. It would be a grave mistake to simply assume that this Electoral College vote will be a formality, and we will find out on Monday what happens.
• After Raising Rates Once During The Obama Years, The Fed Promises Constant Rate Hikes During The Trump Era
  Now that Donald Trump has won the election, the Federal Reserve has decided now would be a great time to start raising interest rates and slowing down the economy.  Over the past several decades, the U.S. economy has always slowed down whenever interest rates have been raised significantly, and on Wednesday the Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to raise rates by a quarter point.  Stocks immediately started falling, and by the end of the session it was their worst day since October 11th. The funny thing is that the Federal Reserve could have been raising rates all throughout 2016, but they held off because they didn’t want to hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the election. And during Barack Obama’s eight years, there has only been one rate increase the entire time up until this point. But now that Donald Trump is headed for the White House, the Federal Reserve has decided that now would be a wonderful time to raise interest rates.  In addition to the rate hike on Wednesday, the Fed also announced that it is anticipating that rates will be raised three more times each year through the end of 2019…
• Pastor Lindsey Williams introduces Pastor David Bowen – December 15, 2016
  Pastor Lindsey Williams introduces Pastor David Bowen with his regular short weekly video for readers of Pastor Williams’ weekly newsletter.

THE FINAL BUBBLE! Pastor Williams says the information shared by this economist is outstanding and correct. What he says will happen. >>> CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO (This video is being shared because the information within it is truly good and correct. Half way through the video it turns into a sales pitch to sell a book and related products. Pastor Williams has asked me to state that Pastor Williams and LindseyWilliams.net do not endorse this book).

From James Harkin (Webmaster & Editor of LindseyWilliams.net). Here is a summary of articles of interest from around the world for this week. Please LIKE the Lindsey Williams Online Facebook Page to see stories posted daily regarding the current state of the economy around the world.

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Latest News From December 9, 2016 to December 15, 2016:

• If Everything is so Bullish, Why Are Bank Insiders Dumping Their Shares at Record Pace?
  The Big Bullish signal with a capital B – for those who believe in this kind of religion – was that the Dow Jones Transportation Average jumped to a new high on Wednesday for the first time since 2014, and that it rose again on Thursday to another record, even as the Dow also hit new records. The theory goes that transportation stocks predict the broader market in some manner. There were other bullish signals. Everyone is finding them suddenly everywhere. The hopes are flying high that whatever Trump is going to do – from instigating trade wars to letting Goldman Sachs run the Trump administration – it’s suddenly all good for stocks. Then why are insiders at banks and industrial companies selling their share as if there were no tomorrow?
• All Hell Is Breaking Loose In These Key Markets
  On the heels of the U.S. election, all hell has broken loose in these key markets. The following charts are from Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader. King World News note:  Below you can see the commercial hedgers position in the 10-Year Treasury market.  Note that commercial hedgers been dramatically increasing their long positions recently in the U.S. Treasury market — now near an all-time record.  Meaning, the selloff in Treasuries has reached an extreme and may be ready for at least a significant countertrend rally.
• Treasuries Melt Down, Junk Bonds Boom, Yield Spreads Collapse
  The costs of borrowing for the US government are jumping. On Monday, the US Treasury auctioned $34 billion of three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.53%, the highest since October 2008. These short-term bills sell for less than face value and are redeemed at face value. The difference is the yield for investors. For a three-month bill with a face value of $10,000, the price was $9,986.60. Holding this bill for three months until redeemed will make investors $13.40 in yield. That’s an annualized rate of 0.538%. During the rest of trading on Monday, the yield settled down a bit, but today is up again, currently at 0.55%. While still low by historic measures, it’s up from about zero in October last year.
• Wells Fargo fails ‘living will' test, faces restrictions: U.S. regulators
  U.S. officials on Tuesday limited Wells Fargo & Co's (WFC.N) ability to grow its business, punishing the bank for not having a sufficient plan to protect markets in the case of bankruptcy. The ruling crowns a dismal year for the San Francisco lender roiling from a scandal in which bank employees created as many as 2 million accounts without customer authorization. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf resigned in the wake of that controversy. Tuesday's ruling means the bank may not establish international bank entities or acquire non-bank subsidiaries, regulators said.
• Who the Heck are these Households that are Worth $90 Trillion?
  One thing is working in this economy that has been stuck for years in a slow-growth mire: the inflation of asset prices. And the Federal Reserve, which has been engineering this miracle so adroitly, just released its latest progress report. It reported today that the net worth of household and non-profits – they’re lumped together – rose in the third quarter by 1.8% or $1.59 trillion, to a record $90.2 trillion. That’s up 6% or $5.2 trillion from a year ago.
• WARNING: Is This The Greatest Threat To The World?
  Is this the greatest threat to the world? Stephen Leeb:  “So far, Trump’s tough talk and promise to make America great again have been intoxicating to investors. Money has been leaving the shelters of bonds and gold and pouring into stocks and commodities, propelling the market’s powerful rally and leaving gold – for now – a sad wallflower…
• Gerald Celente Blasts Washington Post, And Answers The All-Important Question, Will Alternative Media Survive?
  Today the top trends forecaster in the world spoke with King World News and blasted the Washington Post.  He also answered the all-important question, will the alternative media survive? Eric King:  “One of your top trends for 2017 is Rest In Peace, The Fourth Estate.  This has to do with newspapers being on their deathbeds — the mainstream media, etc — and there are some questions about what will replace it.  But in the meantime, obviously there is a war on alternative media.  Cover the war on alternative media and the Fourth Estate.  Will alternative media survive and what about the Fourth Estate?”
• James Turk – Central Banks Are Finally Losing Control
  As we kick off the third week of trading in December, today James Turk told King World News that central banks are finally losing control of global markets. Central Banks Are Losing Control. James Turk:  “Everybody needs to be focusing on what is happening with interest rates, Eric. The yield on the 10-year Treasury Note is flirting with 2.50%. The last time we saw a yield that high was over two years ago. But rising yields are not just happening in the US. Yields are rising in Europe and Asia too. The upward pressure on interest rates is global, and more to the point, central banks are losing control…
• Stock Market Genius Warns Americans About False Hope With US Economy
  In the recent weeks since Donald Trump was announced victorious in his bid for the White House, the general sentiment among a growing number ordinary Americans across country has shifted to the idea that Mr. Trump can somehow turn around the derelict vessel otherwise known as the U.S. economy, and prevent it from sinking. With daily sound bites covering how the “Post-Election Trump Bounce” has yielded a rise in the Dow by more than 1,200 points since Trump’s historic win, the announcement of Softbank investing $50 billion dollars and creating 50,000 new jobs in the United States, or the announcement of how the U.S. Dollar index is now at its highest levels since March of 2003, it’s hard to imagine why people wouldn’t be hopeful, right?
• Brazil: Clashes as Senate approves 20-year austerity plan
  The Brazilian Senate has approved a controversial amendment to the constitution capping public spending for the next 20 years. The approval of the austerity measure is an important victory for President Michel Temer. He took office earlier this year promising to lead the country out of its worst recession in many decades. Protests against the measure turned violent in the capital Brasilia and at least a dozen states in the country. The opposition says the measures will mainly hit areas such as health and education, which are already underfunded. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets during the Senate session to protest against the austerity plan. After the vote, many demonstrations descended into violence.
• Dr. Jim Willlie, Peter Schiff, and Bill Holter: Cracks Forming in Bond Markets
  After eight years of Obama’s disastrous economic policies, it’s understandable why Americans would want to be hopeful, and why they are consciously choosing to view the recent gains in U.S. equity markets as a harbinger of things to come under a Donald Trump presidency. Unfortunately, there is nothing to suggest the shifting sentiment toward the notion that Donald Trump can somehow fix our economy is warranted. In fact, it’s dangerous. Americans would be wise to heed a recent quote from Michael Snyder: “Now is not a time to party.  Rather, it is time to batten down the hatches and to prepare for very rough seas ahead. All of the things that so many experts warned were coming may have been delayed slightly, but without a doubt they are still on the way. So get prepared while you still can, because time is running out.”
• US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time in a year
  The Federal Reserve has raised a key interest rate in response to a solid US economy and expectations of higher inflation, and it foresees three rate hikes in 2017. The central bank announced after its latest policy meeting that it is increasing its benchmark rate by a modest quarter-point to a still-low range of 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent. The Fed's action will mean modestly higher rates on some loans. It should have little effect on mortgages or car and student loans because the Fed does not directly affect those rates, at least not in the short run. But rates on some other loans — notably credit cards, home equity loans and adjustable-rate mortgages — will likely rise soon, though only modestly.
• The Conspiracy to Shut Down Truth, Donald Trump, and The American People
  There is circumstantial evidence that the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the rest of the presstitute media are part of a conspiracy with the oligarchs, the military/security complex, the Hillary Democrats, and neoconized Republicans to shut down the dissident Internet alternative media and to deny Donald Trump the presidency. Consider the brand new website PropOrNot and its fake news list of 200 Internet Russian agents. PropOrNot is a website hidden behind multiple screens as would be an offshore tax avoidance scheme. In other words, no known, responsible entity is behind the site, which has libeled 200 other websites, or if it is, it is too ashamed of what it is doing to be associated with it publicly.
• IBM to hire 25,000 more workers in the US in the next four years and invest $1billion in employee development, tech boss vows ahead of Trump meeting
  US technology giant IBM has said it will hire 25,000 people in the United States over the next four years, ahead of a meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and tech industry leaders. About 6,000 of those appointments will be made in 2017, IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty wrote in opinion article published in USA Today. IBM, which in recent years has restructured its activities, will invest $1billion on employee training and development in the next four years, said the IBM president, chairman and CEO.
• Has Liberty Departed From America? — Paul Craig Roberts
  Can a few Internet sites save your existence as a free person protected by the US Constitution? Not without your help. If 400,000 Americans gave up the cost of a 6-pack of beer, it could mean the preservation of your freedom. If the millions of my readers were willing to give up the small cost of a 6-pack of beer, we could defeat the evil that rules the West. Are your civil liberties less valuable to you than a 6-pack of beer? The fake news stories pouring out of the blood-drenched Obama regime, the ruling Oligarchy’s “liberal progressive” well paid front groups for war criminal Hillary, and secret and unnamed propagandists, such as PropOrNot, endorsed by the Washington Post, New York Times, and the rest of the press prostitutes who lie for money, are intended to discredit those few who tell the truth. This column from August 31, 2016 is worth reading again. Are You a Mind-Controlled CIA Stooge?
• Art Cashin – 1930 Economic Collapse And Traders Worry This Will Be The Next Move By The Left Wing Conspiracy Theorists
  With the Nasdaq hitting new all-time highs along with the Dow, which is now approaching 20,000, today one of the greats in the business takes a look at the 1930 economic collapse and traders worry this will be the next move by the “left wing conspiracy theorists.” Today’s note from Art Cashin: On this day (-2) in 1930, American savers, the Federal Reserve and a Republican President all got a nasty surprise. The banking system had been shaky for a year or two but it looked like things might finally be beginning to stabilize. That is until today. On this day, a major financial institution, The Bank of the United States went belly up. And, with it went the savings, “in whole or in part”, of over 400,000 depositors. The Bank of the United States has been a historically unlucky name for several institutions. The first “Bank of the United States” was proposed by no less than Alexander Hamilton. It was a privately held central bank for the United States some 125 years before the Fed was created. It was very controversial as Southerners saw it as a boon and tool of the mercantile North while the South’s main industry, agriculture, didn’t need strong banking. The bank’s charter was allowed to expire and the bank disappeared.
• Dr. Jim Willie: What Happens When the U.S. is Forced to Launch a Domestic Only Currency?
  In the following interview, Dr. Jim Willie joins Elijah Johnson with SilverDoctors with for a discussion on recent developments in global financial markets. Several of the topics discussed include the recent Italian referendum that failed to pass by nearly a 20 point margin, which will likely result in Italy ultimately abandoning the common Euro Currency (not to be confused with abandoning the European Union), and how that decision will affect financial markets around the world. The interview then transitions into the recent presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and how the mainstream media here in the United States has reached unprecedented levels of dishonesty with the American people. How can you tell if something is “fake news” these days? The mainstream is covering it. Any “actual news” that people need to know so that they can make informed decisions, is avoided completely by the mainstream.
• So Who Gets to Pay for Italy’s Banking Crisis?
  “There is not and there will not be a banking crisis in Italy, nor will there be a European financial crisis coming from Italy.” Those were the emphatic words of EU Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici over the weekend. “We have the capacity to deal with the situation and it will be dealt with from both Italy and at the European level” he told France Info radio. Clearly, quixotic delusions are as rampant as ever at the loftiest heights of Brussels’ ivory towers. Either that, or things are now so serious that lying is the only tactic left available. The markets also appear to be in a state of eerie complacence. Since rumors of yet another publicly funded bailout emerged early last week, bank shares have taken off, not only in Italy but across most European markets. Shares of Unicredit, Italy’s only “systemically important financial institution,” has surged 20%, while Italy’s second largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, is up 10%.
• Why U.S. Dollar Will Absolutely Collapse; What Losing Global Reserve Currency Means
  Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last two or three years, it’s been almost impossible not to hear about how there’s a global economic collapse of some kind coming in the near future. Even if all you’ve heard about the coming collapse has been William Devane’s gold pitch for Rosland Capital (seemingly every other commercial on television), odds are you’ve heard at least something. Unfortunately, often due to no fault of their own, many Americans haven’t been taught economics, so they don’t really pay much attention to news that comea out regarding a coming global collapse, especially not when the President of the United States keeps telling them we’re in a “recovery.”  If there was something people needed to know, our always honest and truthful politicians, or the mainstream media would tell everyone right? Wrong.
• Is Donald Trump Going To Nominate Ted Cruz To Fill The Open Seat On The Supreme Court?
  Is the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice going to be Ted Cruz? As wild as that might sound, there is buzz that it might actually happen. We all remember the bitter words that were exchanged between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump during the Republican primaries, but since that time they have mended fences, and Cruz ultimately ended up endorsing Trump. And Trump has shown that he is willing to work with his former rivals. He has already chosen Ben Carson to be his Housing Secretary, for a while there it looked like Mitt Romney was the leading contender to be Secretary of State, and on Monday Carly Fiorina actually met with Trump about a potential position in his administration. So just because Ted Cruz and Donald Trump clashed on the campaign trail does not mean that Trump would hold a grudge.
• Financial Black Hole Will Be Filled-Gregory Mannarino
  Analyst/trader Gregory Mannarino says the bond market and stock market are way out of kilter and look for a big correction. Mannarino explains, “Something has to give here.  Either a lot of cash has to go back into the bond market, and I don’t know where it’s going to come from, or the stock market has to come down to normalize this.  Right now, the market is trying to price in a new President here with his outlook on the economy, lowering corporate taxes and trying to create jobs.” Mannarino also points out, “Asset prices have been pushed to extremes, and either an extreme to the top or an extreme to the bottom. In the middle is kind of like a black hole, and this black hole has to be filled.  . . . That hole has been created by runaway central banks that have done everything they can to re-inflate bubbles that have burst. For example, the last housing bubble that they re-inflated.  Housing is now more expensive than it has ever been.  It’s the same with the stock market bubble.  They have done this on the back of a debt bubble, which is the most epic bubble the world has ever seen.”
• Saudi Arabia Has Funded 20% Of Hillary's Presidential Campaign, Saudi Crown Prince Claims
  In what may be the pinnacle of hypocrisy, moments ago Hillary Clinton, while speaking live on national security and addressing the Orlando shooting took some time from her constant bashing of the Second Amendment and calling for a ban on assault rifles, to say some less than kind words about Saudi Arabia whom it accused of supporting radical organizations. This is what she said: ‘The third area that demands attention is preventing radicalization and countering efforts by ISIS and other international terrorist networks to recruit in the United States and Europe. For starters, it is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations. And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism. We also have to use all our capabilities to counter jihadist propaganda online. This is something that I spend a lot of time on at the State Department.' There is nothing wrong with that statement, as it is the whole truth – Saudi Arabia's involvement in supporting terrorism stretches from Sept 11 all the way through to ISIS – however, where there  is a big, and potentially law-breaking,  problem is what Jordan's official news agency, Petra News Agency, reported on Sunday citing the Saudi crown price, namely that Saudi Arabia is a major funder of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to become the next president of the United States.
• Rogue Elements of the CIA Are Operating Against President-elect Trump — Paul Craig Roberts
  Alex Jones catches a lot of grief. Some of it he brings on himself by being over the top, but most of the criticism he receives comes from his practice of dragging into the news issues that otherwise would remained cloaked in silence. Alex is certainly correct to stress that elements in the CIA, or someone claiming to be CIA, are planting stories in the media that Russia hacked Hillary’s emails and used the damning information to elect Trump. The truth of the emails is not what is in question. It is their alleged Russian origin. There is no evidence for this claim. Wikileaks said the emails came to them as a leak from inside, not from an outside hack, and former top NSA official William Binney has said that if Russia was the source the NSA would have conclusive proof.
• If You Are For Peace You Are A Russian Agent — Paul Craig Roberts
  Speaking of fake news, the latest issue of the National Enquirer at the supermarket checkout is giving the mainstream presstitute media a run for the money: “Castro’s Deathbed Confession: I Killed JFK. How I framed Oswald.” That’s almost as good as the fake news going around the presstitute media, such as the TV stations, the Washington Post, New York Times, and Guardian—yes, even the former leftwing British newspaper has joined the ranks of the press prostitutes—that the CIA has concluded that “Russian operatives covertly interfered in the election campaign in an attempt to ensure the Republican candidate’s victory.”
• MSM Makes Trump a Devil, Stocks Are Sky High-Again, US Drought Moves East
  Time Magazine chose President-Elect Donald Trump as the “Person of the Year.” Is that the mainstream media (MSM) trying to make amends for the way they treated Trump?  Maybe, but it appears Trump has devil horns by the way Time laid out the cover.  It says it was an inadvertent mistake, but this is a magazine company with 90 “Person of the Year” covers.  A professional magazine company that makes a mistake that big on an incoming President that the liberal biased media tried to destroy sounds disingenuous to me. Stocks are hitting the 27 to 28 PE ratios again. This is what the price to earnings were the last time the markets melted down in 2008.  Look out for a big correction.
• Trumphoria: Americans Are More Optimistic About The Economy Than They Have Been Since Obama’s Win In 2008
  Optimism about the future of the U.S. economy has not been this strong since Barack Obama’s first presidential election victory in 2008. Donald Trump promised us an economic resurgence, and what is not to like so far? As I discussed earlier this week, stocks are soaring, businesses are already announcing that they are bringing jobs back to the United States, and the U.S. dollar has been lifted to levels that we haven’t seen in many years. Many are referring to this post-election surge as “Trumphoria”, and I think that is quite appropriate. Personally, I couldn’t imagine financial markets behaving this way if Hillary Clinton had won the election. Right now tens of millions of Americans are feeling deeply optimistic about the future for the first time in a very long time, and this is clearly reflected in the results of the most recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey…
• Russian hackers ‘probably swayed Brexit vote'
  Russian hackers “probably” swayed the EU referendum vote in favour of Brexit, a former Labour minister has claimed in the Commons. Leading Remain campaigner Ben Bradshaw questioned the validity of the result in June, claiming people were underestimating the extent of cyber warfare by Russian President Vladimir Putin. His extraordinary claim came in an emergency Commons debate on the latest developments in Syria, where President Bashar Assad's Russian-backed forces have been storming the city of Aleppo. But his allegation was given short shrift by Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman, who responded: “I have not come across any evidence that Russian cyber warfare was used to influence the referendum.”
• 14 Signs That There Is A Plot To Use Russia As An Excuse To Steal The Presidency From Trump On December 19th Or January 6th
  Donald Trump could have the election legally stolen from him on either December 19th when the Electoral College casts their votes or on January 6th when a joint session of Congress gathers to count those votes.  The establishment is in full-blown panic mode at this point, and they seem to have settled on “Russian interference in the election” as the angle that they plan to use to try to deny Trump the presidency.  As you will see below, there is an all-out effort to try to persuade members of the Electoral College that are supposed to be committed to Donald Trump to cast their votes for someone else instead.  And if that doesn’t work, the groundwork is being laid for the Electoral College votes to potentially be invalidated when a joint session of Congress meets to count those votes on January 6th.  I will explain how that would work later on in this article, but first let’s take a look at 14 signs that indicate that there is a plot to use Russia as an excuse to steal the presidency from Donald Trump…
• Scientists Want to Give the Atmosphere an Antacid to Relieve Climate Change
  As long-term global average temperatures steadily rise, and international efforts to address them steadily fall short, some scientists and engineers are working on increasingly desperate solutions to the symptoms of global climate change. One approach to “geoengineering” the earth is to mimic the natural atmospheric cooling effect that tends to follow the massive dispersion of sulfur dioxide into the air during a volcanic eruption. There are a few obvious problems with this approach. For instance, it's unclear what nation or international body would be authorized to release the sulfur dioxide. The chemical is also a pollutant that can cause acid rain. It might indirectly both eat away at the layer of ozone that protects living things from ultraviolet light and warm the lower part of the stratosphere above the tropics, about 19 miles up.
• Secret Agenda: Are They Planning To Use ‘Russian Interference’ As An Excuse To Invalidate Trump’s Election Victory?
  It has been said that nothing happens by accident in politics, and it is certainly no accident that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, members of the U.S. Senate and the mainstream media are all suddenly buzzing about “Russian hacking” and “Russian interference” in our elections.  Over the past 48 hours, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and just about every other major news source in America has been breathlessly telling us that the CIA has concluded that the Russians “intervened” in the presidential election with the specific goal of helping Donald Trump win.  The implication is that if the Russian interference was significant enough, it could have “unfairly” altered the outcome of the election and thus Donald Trump’s victory was not legitimate.  And if his victory was not legitimate, that opens up all sorts of possibilities for the Democrats. For those that have been wondering if the establishment was going to attempt to steal the presidency away from Donald Trump before he can be inaugurated, we now appear to have our answer.
• The December 19 Electoral College Vote Must Be Postponed Until We Figure Out What’s Going On With Russian Electoral Interference
  In a post-truth political sphere, it’s almost impossible to find consensus. Trump won the Electoral College resoundingly; Clinton won the popular vote by millions. Trump’s November 8th coalition comprised as unusual and diverse an ideological coalition as the U.S. has seen; nearly half of Clinton voters thought Sanders should’ve been the Dem nominee. But here are three things all Americans, no matter their politics, agree on: 1. Foreign governments should play no role in the outcome of American elections. 2. No person should ascend to the presidency due to the interference of a hostile foreign government. 3. We have absolutely no idea whether a foreign government played a role in the outcome of the recent general election, and therefore we have no idea whether a political candidate is about to ascend to the presidency due to the interference of a hostile foreign government. I’ve been watching wall-to-wall coverage of the election for the past month, and I can’t recall hearing any Republican or Democratic operatives disagreeing with any of the above premises.
• Greece faces permanent crisis as IMF warns bail-out plan ‘simply not credible'
  The International Monetary Fund has hit back at claims that it is demanding more austerity in Greece, as the Fund warned that the country's ambitious budget targets were “simply not credible”. Firing a broadside at Brussels and Athens, Maurice Obstfeld, the IMF's chief economist, and Poul Thomsen, director of the IMF's European department, said cuts to investment and discretionary spending had “gone too far” and would prevent the Greek economy from recovering. Just 48 hours after Euclid Tsakalotos, Greece's finance minister, accused the IMF of “betraying” the country by pushing for more belt tightening, the senior IMF officials insisted that they were “not demanding more austerity”. “We have not changed our view that Greece does not need more austerity at this time. Claiming that it is the IMF who is calling for this turns the truth upside down,” they wrote in a blog post.
• Italy poses a huge threat to the euro and union
  Chronic inability to separate the probable from the desirable has been the tragedy of 2016. Wishful thinking is becoming a threat to the survival of liberalism itself. This tendency is especially evident in the discussion about Italy’s future in the eurozone. The complacent now say that Italy is good at muddling through; that the establishment can always stitch up the electoral system to prevent a victory by an extremist party. In any case, the Italian constitution does not allow for a referendum on leaving the euro. So it cannot happen. Really? I don’t think so. Start with the discrepancy in economic performance between Germany and Italy. One metric is the imbalances within Target 2, the eurozone’s payment system. At the end of November these reached higher levels than during the height of the eurozone crisis in 2012. Germany’s surplus is at €754bn, while Italy’s deficit is at €359bn. A part of the imbalances relates to the European Central Bank’s programme of quantitative easing, and is thus harmless. But the bulk is due to what might be described as a silent bank run.
• One River CIO's Disturbing Prediction: “This Is The Biggest Policy Error In 50 Years”
  With the Dow Jones just a handful of gamma imbalance rips away from 20,000, the CIO of One River Asset Management, Eric Peters, shares some critical perspective on the market's recent euphoric surge, going so far as to brand what is going on as America's “Massive Policy Error”, the biggest in the past 50 years.
• Top Conspiracy Theories about India’s Demonetisation Mess
  The sudden demonetisation of large denomination currency notes by the Government of India on 9th November 2016 has created a mix of shock, horror, confusion, speculation and conspiracy theories across the Subcontinent. The Government of India, led by BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claimed that this was a necessary measure because, 1. These large denomination notes were being used to hoard “black money” in India. Since demonetisation would require such notes to be deposited in a bank account or exchanged at the bank during a small window of time, the Government, eagerly monitoring the banks, would be able to spy on such “hoarders of black money” and seize/penalize/confiscate their moolah. Those who did not deposit their “black money” would be expected to sit crying while it turned into toilet paper after the deposit window expired. (And those of you without access to a bank account in India are expected to hang on these currency notes as souvenirs). 2. A very big portion of these notes was being counterfeited by a foreign power(s). Since these arguments are too simplistic to suffice readers of this website, Cabal Times presents the Top Demonetisation Conspiracy Theories currently swirling across the Subcontinent.
• Leaked Footage Exposes CNN Producing Fake News During First Gulf War
  Leaked footage has emerged of Charles Jaco when he was the CNN anchor made internationally famous for heroically covering the 1990 Persian Gulf War. The first part of this video shows the stage set he was on while he clowns around with fellow CNN staff. The Saudi Arabian “hotel” in the background is adorned by fake palm trees and a blue wall in a studio. This clip was leaked by CNN staff. The second part of this video is a live CNN satellite feed recorded onto VHS showing the final cut. Charles Jaco is wearing a different jacket, but he had the same act. Even though the acting is terrible as Charles Jaco wore a gas mask, and his fellow correspondent Carl Rochelle wore a helmet—the American public were manipulated and duped en masse. The sirens and missile sound effects are part of the stage set. The camera never pans out or shows the sky as they appear terrified of chemical weapons being dropped from above. These clips are the highest quality of this newscast and behind the scenes. And yes, Charles Jaco was a reporter for CNN and then worked as a reporter for FOX 2 NOW in Saint Louis, Missouri.
• TPP Could Go Forward without the United States
  The election of Donald Trump has closed the door to consideration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the lame duck session of Congress this year. During the campaign, Trump vowed to rip up TPP; Republican leaders in Congress, beholden to Trump for saving their majorities in the Senate and House, will not challenge him in the flush of this unexpected but decisive electoral victory. What’s the future for TPP? Most likely, Trump will simply not implement it. Without US participation, the pact cannot definitively enter into force. It’s death by malign neglect.
• TPP bill passed by New Zealand Parliament
  Parliament has passed the Bill that allows the Government to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement amid opposition complaints that it's a waste of time. The Bill lines up New Zealand laws with its obligations under the 12-nation agreement which covers 40 percent of global trade and 800 million people. Partner countries signed it in February but it still has to be ratified – and the United States is the big problem. President-elect Donald Trump is a vehement opponent and Prime Minister John Key has said the chance of the US Congress ratifying it before the January 20 inauguration is “close to zero”.
• Catholic Church: New Priests Will be Expected to Preach Global Warming
  Catholic Online reports that new priests will be expected to be familiar with and promote efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Whats next? Excommunication of scientists whose theories aren’t approved by the Pope?
• Saudi Arabia informs US and European customers of oil supply cuts from January
  Saudi Arabia is said to have told its customers across the US and Europe that it will be cutting down on its crude shipments from January. The world's second largest oil country in terms of proven reserves, has reportedly said that the move was in line with the outcome of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting last week. During the talks, member countries committed to cutting 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd). “We told our customers of the allocations and the compliance with allocations (for the cuts) for Saudi Arabia is 100 percent,” anonymous Gulf oil industry told Reuters.
• Revealed: the extent of the buy-to-let market collapse
  New research has exposed the scale of the fall in buy-to-let purchases in the year that the Government hiked stamp duty by 3pc on such transactions. The number of properties sold to buy-to-let investors has fallen 63.7pc in the year to November in England and Wales, according to the estate agency Haart, dropping 8.2pc last month alone. In London, the number of such properties sold fell by 40pc. It also reported that the number of landlords registering to buy properties is down 59.2pc annually. There was a big surge of transactions in March, before the stamp duty came in, followed by a sharp decline.
• India Confiscates Gold, Even Jewelry, In Raids On Hidden Money
  Global financial repression picks up steam, led by India. After declaring large denomination notes illegal, India now targets gold. It’s not just gold bars or bullion. The government has raided houses, no questions asked, confiscating jewelry. For background to this article, please see my November 27 article Cash Chaos in India, 86% of Money in Circulation Withdrawn; Cash Still King in Japan. Large denomination means 500-rupee ($7.30) and 1,000-rupee notes ($14.60), which account for more than 85 percent of the money supply. They are no longer legal tender, effective immediately.
• Rise Of The Machines: Millions Of American Jobs Will Be Wiped Out In The Next Five Years
  There is a paradigm shift coming and it is about to rewrite everything we know about economics, human labor, and government dependence. Earlier this week Amazon launched its first Amazon Go store, which allows a customer to walk in, grab the items they want, and simply walk out. Everything is tracked utilizing RFID chips, so the second you step out of the store Amazon knows exactly what you’ve purchased and automatically charges your account. Amazon’s latest move is simply the next evolution designed to make human labor obsolete.
• Goldman President Gary Cohn Accepts NEC Director Role
  As reported last week, Trump had offered Goldman Sachs president and COO the job of his top economic advisor, as Director of the National Economic Council Director. Moments ago CNBC reported that, as expected, Cohn has accepted the role. The National Economic Council, which Cohn would lead, is meant to “coordinate policy-making for domestic and international issues, to coordinate economic policy advice for the president, to ensure that policy decisions and programs are consistent with the president's economic goals, and to monitor implementation of the president's economic policy agenda,” according to the office's website. While we have no reason to doubt Cohn' patriotism, we are confident that another motivating factor was the ability to sell some his $210 million or so in Goldman shares tax free, saving approximately $80 million in taxes simply for becoming officially a part of the US administration, instead of merely running the country from the shadows.
• Here’s what happens when a currency completely breaks down
  In Venezuela, hyperinflation has become so pitiful that shopkeepers are no longer bothering to actually count money. Instead, they’re weighing it… as in literally pulling out a scale and weighing giant stacks of money. Do you want to buy a bottle of Coca Cola? That’ll be 1 kilo of currency please. One shopkeeper interviewed by the Guardian newspaper said he’s piling up bricks of cash so quickly he feels like Pablo Escobar. And yet Venezuela’s hyperinflation continues growing worse; those bricks of cash are buying less every week. This is an important lesson.
• China flies nuclear bomber over South China Sea to ‘send a message' to Donald Trump
  China has flown a nuclear-capable bomber outside its borders in a show of force for the first time since US President-elect Donald Trump's phone call with the president of Taiwan. The 10-minute telephone call with President Tsai Ing-wen was the first by a US president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of “One China”. It led to protests from Beijing. The Xian H-6 bomber flew along the disputed ‘nine-dash line' around the South China Sea on Thursday, US officials told Fox News, passing over a number of disputed islands. The officials said it was designed to send a message to the incoming administration. The Pentagon found out about the flight on Friday and officials said it was the first long-range flight along the demarcation line in more than 18 months – though this sortie extended further than previous ones.
• Which of these would you rather have in your safe?
  Let’s say you have two equal size safety deposit boxes. One box you completely fill up with stacks of $100 bills. The other box you fill up with gold. Which of the two is “worth” more? It’s easy to calculate. A stack of 100x $100 bills is 6.14 inches long, 2.61 inches wide, and 0.43 inches tall. That’s a volume of 6.89 cubic inches (112.92 cubic centimeters… and we’ll use the metric system from here on out because it really does make more sense!). A stack of 100x $100 bills is worth $10,000. So the paper money’s ‘value density’ is about $88.55 per cubic centimeter. Gold, on the other hand, is much more value dense. A 1-kilogram bar of gold is 11.55 cm long, 5.25 cm wide, and 0.92 cm tall, for a total volume of 55.79 cubic centimeters.
• Marc Faber on 2017 Trump Rally, Gold, Bonds and The Market
  Marc Faber’s ‘Contrarian’ Trump Strategy: Buy Gold, Emerging Markets Marc Faber, the editor and publisher of “The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report,” speaks to Brian Sullivan. “I think that in 2017 my recommendation would be to overweight emerging economies, and I would also overweight Europe, partly because I think that the sentiment about the U.S. dollar is far too optimistic. I think the dollar is terribly overbought and overvalued, so I wouldn’t get into the U.S. dollar at this time,” Faber said.
• Euro Devaluation Accelerates – Millions Of Europeans Wishing They’d Bought Gold
  ECB Chairman Mario Draghi’s announcement of bigger and better QE this morning should have surprised no one. The fact is that the eurozone is coming apart at the seams and the only tool left to delay the inevitable is easier money. As the following chart illustrates, the euro has been declining since 2008, with the descent accelerating lately. And more is coming. The only way for Italy, Greece and possibly France to keep it together is for their currency to plunge relative to those of their trading partners, thus making it easier to sell domestically-produced stuff abroad. So euro parity with the dollar will generate headlines when it happens but will just be a way-point on a journey to much lower numbers. That is, if the whole global financial system doesn’t blow up first.
• No Surrender in the Fed’s “War on the Markets”
  People never intend to bring disasters upon themselves. But they sometimes put themselves in situations in which disaster is the only way out. The War Between the States was supposed to be quick and decisive. The glorious histories of the war were already written – at least in the minds of the combatants – by the time of the First Battle of Bull Run. There would be a few heroic charges; Napoleon’s Marshal Ney would have nothing on the dashing Confederate generals in their gray and red tunics. Mounted on their fine Tennessee horses, waving their swords and shouting encouragement to their cavalry, they would sweep the enemy from the field…  send him fleeing back across the Potomac… and the war would be over. But even authors often don’t know how their stories will turn out. Events and personalities take over. Between the first chapter and the final one, there are twists and turns that few expect. The hero turns out to have a fatal flaw. Circumstances weren’t what they thought. The enemy had surprises. And then, at the end, the great victory turns into a nightmare defeat.
• Shell Studies Green Energy Deals to Prepare for Future After Oil
  Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s second-biggest publicly listed oil company, is studying acquisitions in the green energy sector, its CEO told Reuters, as it bows to shareholder demands for a strategy beyond fossil fuels. Shell, which has a market value of $200 billion, produces two percent of the world’s oil and gas but rapid technological change coupled with policies to protect the climate have kick-started a shift in energy markets that has put enormous pressure on oil companies to plan for a time after fossil fuels. “The idea that you can just be a very clever observer and step in when the moment is right, forget about it,” Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden told Reuters. “I am convinced that in this space we will play an active role, a leading role and we will plan acquisitions in it.”
• Three Member Countries Bail On OPEC’s Plan To Raise Oil Prices
  Three OPEC member states won’t be complying with the group’s deal to reduce oil production, according to a new survey. Angola will ignore OPEC’s plans to slash production, while Nigeria and Libya aren’t even bound by the cuts, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data. Angola increased production by 200,000 barrels a day last month while Nigeria and Libya increased their combined production by 140,000 barrels a day. OPEC recently announced production cuts, causing the price of oil to rise to around $52.04 per barrel. The move comes after OPEC refused to cut production in 2014 to depress prices and counter new competition, largely from U.S.-based hydraulic fracturing. The cheap prices were intended to kill off the American fracking industry and other new producers, but they have not had their intended effect. OPEC members were hurt even more than U.S. companies.
• A Major Red Flag? Chinese Oil Demand Growth Could Shrink 60% In 2017
  Chinese growth of crude oil imports may likely shrink by more than 60 percent next year, as storage facilities are filling in and smaller refiners face more scrutiny over taxes and licenses, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts. According to Energy Aspects analyst Michal Meidan, Chinese crude oil imports are expected to grow by 5 to 9 percent in 2017, compared to an estimated growth of 11 to 14 percent this year. According to customs data quoted by Bloomberg, Chinese imports increased by 14 percent to average 7.5 million bpd between January and November this year. The median estimate of 8 analysts in the survey showed that China would increase oil purchases by 4.8 percent on the year in 2017.
• A Major Red Flag? Chinese Oil Demand Growth Could Shrink 60% In 2017
  Chinese growth of crude oil imports may likely shrink by more than 60 percent next year, as storage facilities are filling in and smaller refiners face more scrutiny over taxes and licenses, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts. According to Energy Aspects analyst Michal Meidan, Chinese crude oil imports are expected to grow by 5 to 9 percent in 2017, compared to an estimated growth of 11 to 14 percent this year. According to customs data quoted by Bloomberg, Chinese imports increased by 14 percent to average 7.5 million bpd between January and November this year. The median estimate of 8 analysts in the survey showed that China would increase oil purchases by 4.8 percent on the year in 2017.
• Deutsche Bank Provides “Smoking Gun” Proof Of Massive Rigging And Fraud In The Silver Market
  Back in April, when we first reported that Deutsche Bank had agreed to settle allegations it had rigged the silver market in exchange for $38 million, we revealed something stunning: “in a curious twist, the settlement letter revealed that the former members of the manipulation cartel have turned on each other”, and that Deutsche Bank would provide docments implicating other precious metals riggers. To wit: “In addition to valuable monetary consideration, Deutsche Bank has also agreed to provide cooperation to plaintiffs, including the production of instant messages, and other electronic communications, as part of the settlement. In Plaintiff’s estimation, the cooperation to be provided by Deutsche Bank will substantially assist Plaintiffs in the prosecution of their claims against the non-settling defendants.” Overnight we finally got a glimpse into what this “production” contained, and according to documents filed by the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, what Deutsche Bank provided as part of its settlement was nothing short of “smoking gun” proof that UBS Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, Bank of Nova Scotia and other firms rigged the silver market. The allegation, as Bloomberg first noted, came in a filing Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed in 2014 by individuals and entities that bought or sold futures contracts.
• Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil Expected to Be Named Trump's Secretary of State: Sources
  Donald Trump is expected to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state, two sources close to the transition process told NBC News on Saturday. The 64-year-old veteran oil executive has no government or diplomatic experience, although he has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The pick would put to rest weeks-long speculation of who would earn the post as the U.S.'s top diplomat, and would place Tillerson fourth in line to the presidency. He will also be paired with former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as his deputy secretary of state, one of the sources added, with Bolton handling day-to-day management of the department.
• BRICS to share tax information
  Tax officials representing BRICS countries have reiterated their pledge to automatically share tax information between them. At the conclusion of their two-day meeting in Mumbai, India, heads of revenue said this efforts would pave the way for the adoption of global standards to tax transparency which would strengthen their efforts against tax evasion. They also said that they wanted to implement the standards used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the G20 on Automatic Exchange of Information. “We recognise the importance of the exchange of information between competent authorities in preventing cross- border tax evasion and we resolve to exchange information, both on request and on automatic basis, and to adopt global standards on tax transparency,” said the communique issued after the meeting.
• China, Egypt sign $2.6 bln currency-swap deal
  Egypt and China have signed on Tuesday a currency-swap deal worth about $2.6 billion, a move aimed at bolstering economic activities in the cash-strapped North African nation. The deal is worth 18 million yuan and will last three years, with a possibility for extension upon agreement of both sides, Egypt’s Central Bank said in a statement. “The currency swap is a mutually beneficial arrangement between both countries, and mirrored China’s support for the Egyptian economic reform program,” the statement read. The deal allows the central banks of both countries to exchange payments in one currency for equivalent amounts in the other which will facilitate bilateral trade settlements and provide liquidity support to financial markets. China has carried out swaps with more than 30 central banks around the world to increase the use of the yuan as a global reserve currency and to stimulate bilateral trade, Reuters reports.
• Why Time’s Trump Cover Is a Subversive Work of Political Art
  Time Magazine’s annual “Person of the Year” announcement is, year after year, grossly misunderstood. Time Magazine is clear on its sole criterion – “the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year” – yet, do a simple search on Twitter and you will find countless people who seem to think that the “Person of the Year” selection is tantamount to an endorsement. Previous winners have included Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942), Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), Adolf Hitler (1938), and other figures who I think it is safe to assume the Time staff does not endorse. This year, it should come as no surprise that President-elect Donald Trump was chosen to grace the cover of Time’s annual issue (shot by Jewish photographer Nadav Kander). “For better or worse,” Trump, during his campaign and now after his election, has certainly been among the greatest influences on the events of the year. For clues as to how Time feels about that question — is it “for better or worse?” — we can look to the image chosen for the cover of the issue. The decisions that Time made regarding how to photograph Trump reveal a layered, nuanced field of references that place the image among, in this viewer’s opinion, the magazine’s greatest covers.
• Are We Being Set Up For A Crash? Stocks Hit A Level Only Seen During The Bubbles Of 1929, 2000 And 2007
  Will the financial bubble that has been rapidly growing ever since Donald Trump won the election suddenly be popped once he takes office?  Could it be possible that we are being set up for a horrible financial crash that he will ultimately be blamed for?  Yesterday, I shared my thoughts on the incredible euphoria that we have seen since Donald Trump’s surprise victory on November 8th.  The U.S. dollar has been surging, companies are announcing that they are bringing jobs back to the U.S., and we are witnessing perhaps the greatest post-election stock market rally in Wall Street history.  In fact, the Dow, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 all set new all-time record highs again on Thursday.  What we are seeing is absolutely unprecedented, and many believe that the good times will continue to roll as we head into 2017. What has been most surprising to me is how well the stocks of the big Wall Street banks have been doing.  It is no secret that those banks poured a tremendous amount of money into Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and Donald Trump had some tough things to say about them leading up to election day.
• ‘It Is Like A Nuclear Bomb Went Off In The Prepping Community’
  Is the prepper movement in the United States dying?  At one time it was estimated that there were 3 million preppers in the United States, but in late 2016 interest in prepping has hit a multi-year low.  The big reason for this, of course, is that the election of Donald Trump has fueled a tremendous wave of optimism among those that consider themselves to be conservatives, patriots and evangelical Christians.  Not since the election of Ronald Reagan has the mood on the right shifted in such a positive direction so suddenly.  But now that everyone is feeling so good about things, very few people still seem interested in prepping for hard times ahead.  In fact, it is like a nuclear bomb went off in the prepping community. As the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, I am in contact with a lot of people that serve the prepping community.  And I can tell you that sales of emergency food and supplies have been crashing since Donald Trump’s surprise election victory.  Firms that help people relocate outside of the United States have seen business really dry up, and I know of one high profile individual that has actually decided to move back to the country after Trump’s victory.  It is almost as if the apocalypse has been canceled and the future history of the U.S. has been rewritten with a much happier ending.
• Trump’s Infrastructure Spending Plan Might Be For Real
  We saw an example of this polarity Tuesday morning when Trump took a shot at Boeing, tweeting to his nearly 17 million Twitter followers that the jet-manufacturer “is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!” When journalists sought clarification, Trump said he wants Boeing to make money, “but not that much money.” As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, the current Air Force One has been in use for 30 years—since Ronald Reagan’s administration—and includes many cutting-edge modifications for communications and defense. It’s designed to withstand a nuclear blast. For the value we get out of the president’s main ride, in other words, the exorbinant sticker price might not be so exorbinant as it initially appears.
• Thank You, President Obama
  Many people are alarmed and concerned that president-elect Donald Trump will undo and dismantle all of President Obama’s accomplishments and hard-won achievements that have benefited the American people for some eight years now. I think, therefore, we ought to recognize and applaud these accomplishments so that we do not forget them or so lightly discard them. President Obama’s great endeavor to bring democracy to Syria has resulted in a catastrophic war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Lest you think this a small feat, bear in mind it took nearly a decade for the Iran-Iraq War to rack up that death toll over almost a decade of scorpions-in-a-bottle fighting. Of course, President Obama can also be congratulated for helping to launch a war that will certainly be more than a mere legacy from his administration. No, a war like this is one parent can be proud to hand down to their children, just like the war in Afghanistan which will probably be left in the will for the next generation to fight in it.
• US provoking China into nuclear war? RT to air new Pilger documentary
  Nuclear war is no longer unthinkable as it may be provoked by a US military build-up in the Pacific, clearly aimed at confronting Beijing, John Pilger says in his new documentary ‘The Coming War on China’, set to be aired on rt.com and the RTD channel. According to the BAFTA-winning journalist and filmmaker, mainstream media reports of Beijing’s ambitious expansion and reclaiming of land in the South China Sea is in fact a response to US military activity around its borders. US President Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia in 2011 has resulted in the construction of 400 American bases, including in Guam, elsewhere in the South China Sea, South Korea and Japan – thereby encircling China.
• ECB extends bond-buying scheme but at slower pace
  The European Central Bank has said it will extend its bond-buying programme until at least December 2017, but cut its purchases by €20bn a month. The €80bn-a-month quantitative easing scheme had been due to end in March, although the bank had been expected to extend it for at least six months. In a move that surprised markets, the ECB said it would only buy bonds worth €60bn a month from April. The bank also kept its key interest rate unchanged at zero as expected. Yields on most eurozone government bond yields rose slightly after the changes were announced, before returning to levels hit just before the statement.
• Universities Strive for Diversity in Everything but Opinion
  My seminar students at McGill University told me that you can't say anything at this university without being accused of being sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, fascist, or racist, and then being threatened with punitive measures. They felt silenced by the oppressive atmosphere of political correctness. Nothing significant — sex, religion, relationships, public policy, race, immigration, or multiculturalism — could be discussed. Only the acceptable opinions could be expressed without nasty repercussions. It is generally held today in the West, if not elsewhere, that diversity is a good thing. Diversity in origin, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual preference is now regarded as not only desirable, but mandatory. Universities strive to increase their physical diversity. The currently accepted theory in Western academia is that physical diversity reflects diversity of experience and thus an enriching diversity of viewpoint.
• Monte dei Paschi shares plunge on ECB reports
  Shares in Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank have fallen following reports that the European Central Bank has rejected a request to give it more time to raise cash. Monte dei Paschi had sought a three-week extension until 20 January to seal a private sector €5bn rescue plan. If the ECB does deny the request, the Italian government will be under more pressure to bail out the country's third-largest bank. The ECB declined to comment.
• Trump ignores Gore’s advice, instead picks skeptic to head EPA & dismantle climate agenda
  Climate Depot’s publisher Marc Morano statement on President Elect Donald Trump’s selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt pick for EPA chief: “President-Elect Trump’s appointment of Scott Pruitt is a breath of fresh air. No longer do we have to suffer under President Obama’s ridiculous EPA ‘climate’ regulations. It is also refreshing that a Republican President is not throwing the EPA over to the green activists and the media by appointing a weak administrator. Christine Todd Whitman he is not! See: Bravo! Trump appoints ‘a fierce critic of the EPA’ — to head EPA! & Cheers! Trump picks leading EPA critic to head agency & NYT: ‘Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Climate Change Denialist, to Lead EPA‘ & Wash Post: Trump names Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma AG suing EPA on climate change. Trump’s pick of Pruitt finally means that a Republican President is standing up the green establishment! Historically, EPA chiefs have been among the most pro regulatory members of past Republican presidents from Nixon through Ford, Reagan and both Bushes. Trump has broken the cycle!
• Fresh survival fears for world's oldest bank
  Monte dei Paschi di Siena's shares have plunged in Milan amid renewed fears for its future – sparking a wider sell-off in the country's troubled banking sector. Trading in shares of the world's oldest bank was temporarily suspended by the Italian stock exchange after the price fell 11% following a news agency report that the European Central Bank had refused it a lifeline. Reuters, citing a banking source, said that the ECB had denied its request for two more weeks to find €5bn from investors to keep it afloat.
• National Grid nets £3.6bn in gas stake sale
  A team of international investors, including the Chinese state, is to take a majority stake in National Grid's gas pipeline business. The UK's power network operator confirmed it was offloading a 61% holding to a consortium led by Australian investment bank Macquarie and it was to net £3.6bn in cash as a result and a further £1.8bn in debt financing. The deal values the division – which has 82,000 miles of pipeline delivering gas to 11 million UK homes and businesses – at almost £14bn when debt is excluded.
• HSBC, JPMorgan and Crédit Agricole fined €485m by EU
  A five-year investigation by competition authorities in Brussels into rigging of interest rates drew to a close Wednesday when three major banks – including HSBC – were fined €485m (£412m) for colluding to manipulate a crucial benchmark rate. The three banks, which also included JP Morgan Chase and Crédit Agricole, did not agree to earlier the settlement involving a seven-bank cartel over the setting of the interest rate known as Euribor. JP Morgan was fined €337m, HSBC €33m and Crédit Agricole €114m. The levels were set on the time they participated in the cartel and the value of products involved.
• Trump: I Sold All Of My Stocks Back In June
  From Tyler Durden: Following today’s tweet and follow up suggesting that Trump is now targeting Boeing’s contract pricing practices, questions emerged whether the President-elect wasn’t engaging in a conflict of interest due to his numerous, existing shareholdings. However, according to Trump spokesman Jason Miller, Donald Trump sold all of his stockholdings in June, removing himself from positions in numerous U.S. companies. Miller made the revelation during a phone call with reporters on Tuesday morning. He was asked about Mr. Trump’s past holdings in Boeing Co., a company the president-elect had criticized earlier in the day for what he alleged were high costs for the next Air Force One, the WSJ reported. “The President-elect sold all of his stock back in June,” Miller said. He subsequently clarified he was referring broadly to all of Mr. Trump’s stock, not Boeing specifically.
• Protectionist Trump Policies To Crash Dollar, Gold and Bitcoin to Soar
  Many people seem to think Trump is going to “fix” the US by invoking the isolationist, nationalist, and oft failed economic policy of protectionism. But, as Ludwig von Mises put it in Nation, State and Economy, “From the purely economic point of view nothing speaks against free trade and everything against protectionism.” In other words, there is no economic argument in favor of protectionism. It is not a viable economic policy. Any basic economics class will inform you that protectionism is the opposite of free trade and the opposite of the harmony of nations. “The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war. The wars of our age are not at variance with popular economic doctrines; they are, on the contrary, the inescapable result of consistent application of these doctrines.” Mises said. There is no fixity in that direction. Trump’s protectionist policies are sure to fail!
• Get Used to Lousy Growth AND Rising Rates: Fed Dove Dudley
  For the year 2016, economic growth is expected to be a miserably slow 1.6%, according to a survey of “professional forecasters,” released today by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). For next year, the forecasters are more optimistic, but it’s the same lousy optimism that would have been considered rampant pessimism before the Financial Crisis. They lowered their forecasts to 2.2% growth for next year. And as they nearly always do as they get closer to reality, they’ll likely lower that forecast again and again.
• Panic Time?…Washington Post Walks Back its ‘Fake News' Claim 
  Wow! It was so great to hear back from so many of you when I asked what we should do about the Washington Post's scurrilous and defamatory article claiming that the Ron Paul Institute — along with other major sites such as Drudge, ZeroHedge, David Stockman's Contra Corner, Counterpunch, and others — were actually tools of the Kremlin whose secret mission is to undermine Americans' faith in the democratic process. Funny, most of us would agree that it's the Washington Post and the rest of the “mainstream” media that are engaged in “fake news” propaganda on the behalf of government entities. They are the real threat to our peace and prosperity!
• Trump Sets Stage for Huge Gold Rally in 2017
  Global political tensions have not been this palpable since 9/11, when gold prices jumped 32.87% in a single day, and the amount of uncertainty being ushered in for 2017 promises to be great for the precious metal—our age-hold hedge against chaos and instability. For a fully-funded junior gold miner backed by heavy hitters in one of the world’s hottest venues–Fiore Exploration Ltd (TSXV–F.V) the timing is excellent, the production costs appealing, and the future golden. What we have right now is a situation in which gold prices are stable, but mining and exploration, which has been all but halted, is very cheap, leaving all kinds of plays up for grabs.
• Trump To Name CEO Of Fast Food Restaurants As Labor Secretary
  Considering that during the Obama administration, the only job category that has performed remarkably well has been fast food workers, waiters and bartenders, a category which has added 571,000 jobs since 2014 as the US has lost 34,000 manufacturing workers in the same period… it is perhaps fitting that the next Labor Secretary will be the CEO of fast food chains. According to the WSJ, Donald Trump is set to name fast-food executive Andy Puzder as labor secretary. Puzder is the chief executive of CKE Restaurants Holdings, the parent company of the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s burger chains, and has been a vocal advocate for cutting back regulations he says have stifled growth in the restaurant industry, which represents 10% of the American workforce.
• Stocks Haven’t Been This Expensive Since 1929
  Careful not send the investing into a panic, Robert Shiller appeared on CNBC this morning to explain just how insane the valuation levels of the market are currently. I hate to rain on this parade. But the latest lurch upwards in stock prices has just taken market valuations up into the skybox levels, according to the market timing measure with the longest pedigree on Wall Street. It’s just gone from flashing amber to flashing red – meaning, if it’s right, that there is now a significant and rising risk of a crash, and a bigger risk of simply very poor returns. This has little to do with President-elect Donald Trump, by the way — and much more to do with President Ulysses S. Grant and all his successors.
• War On The Homeless: Cities All Over America Are Passing Laws Making It Illegal To Feed And Shelter Those In Need
  If you want to be a “Good Samaritan” to the homeless in your community, you might want to check and see if it is legal first.  All over the country, cities are passing laws that make it illegal to feed and shelter the homeless.  For example, in this article you will read about a church in Maryland that was just fined $12,000 for simply allowing homeless people to sleep outside the church at night.  This backlash against homeless people comes at a time when homelessness in America is absolutely exploding.  In a previous article, I shared with my readers the fact that the number of homeless people in New York City has just set a brand new all-time high, and the homelessness crisis in California has become so severe that the L.A. City Council has formally asked Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency.  Sadly, instead of opening up our hearts to the rapidly growing number of Americans without a home, way too many communities are trying to use the law to force them to go somewhere else.
• CRACKS IN THE BOND MARKET – Jim Willie Warns US Debt Default DEAD AHEAD
  Foreign USTreasury Bond dumping continues, and even accelerates. China and the Saudis are selling USTreasurys in a NEAR PANIC. The USGovt debt default is within view, DEAD AHEAD: Foreign USTreasury Bond dumping continues, and even accelerates. China and the Saudis are selling USTreasurys in a near panic. Foreign central banks liquidated a record $375 billion in USGovt debt in the last 12 months. An American disaster lies in the making from debt saturation, debt overload, and debt dumping. It is all denied by the Washington mouthpieces and the Wall Street handlers, as they lie. The USGovt debt default is within view, dead ahead. One month ago in October tally, the USFed update of Treasurys held in custody revealed a frightening picture of foreign sales, big sales, even accelerated sales. The total amount of custodial paper had fallen to $2.805 trillion, the lowest since 2012. One month later, foreign central banks continued their relentless liquidation of US debt paper, as measured by the same custody account.
• Paul Craig Roberts – The Matrix Of Lies And What The Elite Are Really Up To Is Terrifying
  Today former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, warned about the Matrix of lies and exposed what the elite are doing to keep the unsuspecting public in the dark. (King World News) Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:  The presstitute media delivered the false news, not from Russian propaganda websites such as the Washington Post accuses this one of being, but from Obama’s US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The false news is that the collapsing economy continues to boom with 178,000 new jobs in November and a further fall in the rate of unemployment to 4.6%…
• Pastor Lindsey Williams introduces Pastor David Bowen – December 8, 2016
  Pastor Lindsey Williams introduces Pastor David Bowen with his regular short weekly video for readers of Pastor Williams’ weekly newsletter.

Precious Metals Are The Only Lifeboat! I have persistently WARNED you what was happening in the gold market and why you needed to convert your paper assets to physical gold and silver by the middle of September 2015. You need to hedge against the financial instability with physical gold and silver. Call the experts to help you convert your IRA or 401k into Gold, Silver and Other Precious Metals. Call GoldCo NOW before it's too late! Call Toll-Free 1-877-414-1385.