Tag Archives: Brexit

Desperately Trying to Salvage Canada-EU Trade Pact after Brexit, EU Escalates Assault on Democracy, by Don Quijones

Posted on July 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

Somewhere in all the commentary and polls after Brexit, we recall seeing the phrase “unaccountable elites,” perhaps more than once. Having been thus rebuked, how do Europe’s unaccountable elites react? By continuing to act as unaccountables elite. From Don Quijones at wolfstreet.com:

Having learned absolutely ZERO from Brexit.

The European Commission, it seems, will never learn. Despite the existential crisis caused by Britain’s decision to leave the EU and the serious questions being raised about the EU’s gaping lack of democratic legitimacy, the European Commission just escalated its assault on European democracy. This week the Commission announced that it would ratify CETA, the controversial trade deal between Canada and the EU, as a unilateral EU agreement, not as a so-called mixed agreement.

What that means is that the national parliaments of the 27 remaining EU member states will have no influence whatsoever over the approval process, even though (or more likely because) the trade agreement will have huge, sweeping effects on the society, governance, and economy of all the nations concerned. In other words, the EU’s democratic deficit, one of the decisive factors in Britain’s decision to sever the cord from Brussels, just got a whole lot bigger. Yet it was barely reported in the press.

Here’s more from Euractiv, one of the few English-language media outlets that actually bothered to cover the story:

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reportedly told EU leaders on Tuesday (28 June) that the Commission considers the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) an “EU-only” agreement and would propose next week (5 July) a simple approval procedure…

“The agreement we have made with Canada is the best agreement the EU has ever made,” Juncker said, insisting that the Commission had come to the conclusion that CETA was not a mixed agreement, after a detailed analysis. “But if the member states decide legal opinions are not valid in politics then I am the last person that would stand in their way.”

Juncker went on to say that it was a false debate. “None of the member states have a problem with the content of this agreement,” he insisted, adding he had asked the leaders this individually while they were here in Brussels.

And that is how democracy works — or better put, doesn’t work — in Europe today.

The European Commission has repeatedly responded to public criticism of the hyper-secret trade agreements it has been negotiating by pledging that when the time comes for their ratification, the elected representatives of each Member State will be consulted. Now, it is saying quite the opposite (in classic Juncker fashion): a few nods of approval from a few heads of state over a gourmet meal, together with the approval of the generally acquiescent EU parliament, is now all that’s needed to pass the agreement into law.
Pushing CETA through in this manner would naturally fuel fears that all other planned future trade agreements, including the game-changing TTIP and TiSA, would be bulldozed into law in similar fashion, as many “conspiracy theorists,” as Euractiv put it, have long been warning would happen.

But it’s not just “conspiracy theorists” who are questioning the wisdom of bypassing national parliaments; so, too, are senior politicians, including German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. “If the Commission goes about CETA like this, then TTIP is dead,” Gabriel thundered, directly contradicting Juncker’s preposterous claim that “none of the member countries have a problem with the agreement.”

Gabriel is not alone. Even Merkel has expressed reservations about Juncker’s latest diktat. Talking to the press, she said that the Commission can be overruled by the Council. “For Germany, I can say that however it ends we will ask for an opinion from the Bundestag,” she stressed.

To continue reading: Desperately Trying to Salvage Canada-EU Trade Pact after Brexit, EU Escalates Assault on Democracy

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Firing the Elites, by Dmitry Orlov

Posted on June 29, 2016 | 2 comments

Always provocative Dmitry Orlov’s take on Brexit, at cluborlov.com:

Given what’s happening right now with the EU redux, it’s hard not to write a little something about it, so I won’t even try to resist the temptation. Stock markets are crashing, banks are on the verge of failure, gold is spiking and City of London and Wall Street financial types are running around with their hair on fire. But beyond such financial superficialities, what is really happening is that class warfare is back with a vengeance, so far in the UK with the Brexit referendum, but likely to spread.

In that referendum, the older generations who know which class they belong to voted to fire their malign overlords in Brussels and London, while the younger generations, brainwashed by EU propaganda, did not. Some “experts” claimed that there is some sort of generational divide, but I think that older generations did a smart thing, and that this is adequately explained by the fact that they are smarter. You see, fools tend to die young, and the mere act of surviving is a sign of intelligence. But that’s just a minor side-point.

The main point is that the malign elites very much need to be fired, both in Europe and in the US. There are several problems with them, which I would like to briefly enumerate:

• They tend to be neoliberal, and espouse all of the faulty ideas that come with that failed ideology. The results are plain to see: retirees robbed, young people deprived of meaningful employment; fabulous riches for a tiny elite and austerity for everyone else; more of everything for Germany, less of everything for everyone else. A financial scheme that is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme, is guaranteed to blow up, and may be blowing up as I write this.

• They tend to be under the sway of the neoconservatives in Washington, and together with them they lurch from one disaster to another. The results are again plain to see: an entire list of countries destroyed (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, the Ukraine), a flood of migrants flooding out of these countries and into Europe in what is the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, and extremely dangerous, and entirely unnecessary provocations against Russia.

• They espouse an ideology that seeks to erase all ethnic and cultural distinctions and that forces a repulsive political correctness on everyone except the Moslems (who are, curiously, considered exempt). Having eliminated most significant human freedoms (including, most significantly, freedom of the press, which in Europe is a captive of corporate interests), the two remaining freedoms that are now championed in Europe are the freedom to rootlessly drift about the continent, and the freedom to engage in any sexual perversion you like, including bestiality and pedophilia.

• But the biggest problem with these transatlantic elites is this: they cannot be fired. The more they fail, the more entrenched they become. Obviously, this has nothing to do with education, or merit, or popularity; it is simply a matter of class. The elites consider themselves to be Übermenschen, elevated far above mere mortals. Democracy is a plaything for them. Most of the time they have been able to manipulate the politics to their advantage. When that fails, the “little people” get to vote over and over again until they “get it right.” But this political fix is now failing, on both sides of the Atlantic, because it would appear that the “little people” have finally had enough.

To consider reading: Firing the Elites

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Britain Can’t Stand On Its Own Two Legs, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on June 29, 2016 | 1 comment

Somehow, the argument goes, a nation that stood on its own for centuries, that built a mighty, globe-stradling empire, and was a center of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, will just shrivel up and die if it actually leaves the EU. Poppycock! From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

George Osborne declared on Monday that the UK “is in a position of strength” (he meant the economy, not the football team). No, it is not. That’s why he and his ilk lost the vote. But Osborne’s actually thick enough to look in the mirror and tell himself he did a good job. Utterly blind to the people he keelhauled over the past 6 years.

And no doubt while he’s at it, he’s at least tempted to label all 17 million Britons who voted ‘Leave’, uneducated racists. George’s well-to-do friends may be in “a position of strength”, but the British people who paid for these friends of George’s to be comfortable, are nowhere near “a position of strength”.

The only way to protest the wringer they have been put through was to vote against anything Osborne and Cameron represent. And so they did.

Most of the “Brexit is the end of the world” claims that have followed Friday’s referendum result are as stunning as Osborne’s blind spot for this own people (who he doesn’t even see as ‘his own’). And most of them come from people who until recently claimed to detest ‘Gideon’.

In the eyes of a vast majority of commentators, all hell is busy imminently breaking loose in UK society and its economy because those 17 million dumb racists voted No to the EU, which was in reality simply a No to Osborne and Cameron -and Juncker et al-, and all they stand for, something just about entirely overlooked; for most of these voters, it was not a Yes to anyone else, just a NO!.

At the same time the Leave campaign claims endless streams of milk and honey are in the offing, an equally unlikely proposition (is it perhaps an idea to not only talk about money or race; how about physics?).

Fact is nobody knows where Brexit will lead, for the simple reason that there are no precedents or other comparisons. Everybody on all sides just makes things up. Since most of the media outlets that have any pretense left of serious journalism are on the Remain train, it would be easy to be fooled by them.

The whole ‘discussion’ -it’s more an endless parade of monologues- has turned into the metaphorical hammer looking for a nail in embarrassing ways.

Who do all these people have to blame but themselves? Weren’t they the ones who felt up to the very last moment that there would be no Brexit? And isn’t that why they decided to keep calm and carry on? Let’s see some denials of that, please.

The “I was asleep but that’s not really my fault, is it?” kind of thing. Bring it on. The Guardian has the audacity to ask for donations from those who “appreciate their Brexit coverage”. Granted, they publish some 826 pieces a day on the topic. But I’d consider paying them just to stop doing that.

Hillary Clinton’s reaction to Brexit was to call for ‘steady, experienced leadership’. Which sounds sort of reasonable but is in reality just another way of saying ‘more of the same’. And that in turn happens to be exactly what Brexit was a reaction against.

Clinton’s simply and obviously aiming for those Americans who are afraid of change. But that doesn’t mean she has the power to prevent it. Nor that it’s a wise track to be on, given that Trump is where he is because so many people clearly want change, not ‘more of the same’.

To continue reading: Britain Can’t Stand On Its Own Two Legs

 

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Rotten to the Core, by Robert Gore

Posted on June 29, 2016 | 20 comments

Coercion is inseparable from corruption. When a group coerces with impunity, it steals from, lies to, defrauds, and enslaves the subjugated. The dominant group invariably develops a morally comforting ideology of its superiority and the subjugated’s inferiority. Such relationships are the essence of corruption.

Every square inch on the planet is subject to the jurisdiction of one or more coercive regimes, with their attendant corruption and fraud. Trillions of dollars, euros, pounds, and yen, et al., are extracted from the productive and diverted to governments, who buy political support. Trillions more are borrowed. Central banks issue fiat debt units backed only by laws mandating their acceptance and extract funding for governments via the hidden tax of debt depreciation and the hidden theft of debt monetization and interest rate suppression. Regulation allows governments to reward cronies and extort and terrorize the unfavored. Perpetual wars benefit militaries and those who supply the armaments, with part of their profits recycled to those championing war. This is pervasive, legal corruption. One can only guess at the extent of sub rosa criminality, which may dwarf it.

Last week’s Brexit vote, in particular financial markets’ reaction, underscore the corruption and fraud, and the inevitability of its failure. Brexit is a victory for Britain’s honest producers; those who work in districts far removed from The City, London’s financial precinct. They will be freed from onerous European Union mismanagement, bureaucracy, regulations, and taxes that have contributed to Europe’s economic stagnation, dearth of innovation, and persistently high unemployment, especially among its youth. The European Central Bank’s debt monetization and negative interest rates, while obscuring the sorry state of the European economy, have only made it sorrier. Chronic debt issuance has left many European governments, and their banks, which own much of that debt, one economic or financial crisis away from insolvency.

British voters chose to free themselves from the EU albatross, although they will still be plagued by numerous home-grown albatrosses. The pound, euro, equity markets, and oil plunged, while perceived safe havens gold, the dollar, yen, and US Treasury debt rose. (The yen is not really a safe haven, but much of the world’s “carry” trades—borrowing to fund nominally higher yielding, but risky speculations—are funded at low Japanese interest rates. When those highly leveraged trades go south, margin calls create a demand for yen to repay the underlying loans.) There were telling details amidst the carnage. Continental equity markets, particularly those of Spain and Italy and their banks, suffered far larger percentage drops than the British stock market. The British, were they to remain in the EU, would be expected to help support the Europe’s southern tier.

When the high and mighty sing the same tune—Great Britain needs the EU more than the EU needs the British—the opposite is assuredly true. The British economy has outperformed most of Europe’s sluggards. Trying to get a fix on large banks is always a crap shoot—their financial statements are usually next to useless—but it appears that British banks and their regulators took more steps to address the problems exposed by the last financial crisis than their continental counterparts and may better withstand the coming stresses. Then again, British banks were hit just as hard as continental ones in the two days after the vote.

Never underestimate the petulance of humiliated Eurocrats, or other poobahs for that matter. What terrifies the Eurocrats is the virtual certainty that the British economy will outperform Europe’s after the Brexit. They may cut off their constituents’ noses to spite their own faces, erecting trade barriers against British goods and services, for which Europe’s consumers will pay the price. However, trade barriers are a two-way street. Britain is an important export market, especially for the de facto leader of the EU, Germany, so cooler heads may prevail, a hope expressed by Nigel Farage in a remarkable speech to the European Parliament.

Can anything be more corrupt than the desire to gratuitously harm another to preserve one’s power? Such corruption is the rotten core of the global economic and financial system. Its pilots are determined to fly it into a mountain, but will fight to the death any attempt to wrest away the controls. The financial markets’ reaction to Brexit has been appropriate, but anyone expecting asset prices to take one-way rides down or up in the directions they were pushed by Brexit will be disappointed.

Global finance and global statism are Siamese twins joined at the brain, a fact made abundantly clear during the last financial crisis. Heavily indebted governments depend on the machinations of central banks and the acquiescence of markets to perpetuate their economic misrule. Governments, in turn, coddle and succor their indispensable allies. Too big to fail, bail outs, and deposit insurance are their backstops for the inherent risks of fractional reserve banking, turning it into a heads-we-win, tails-the-taxpayers-lose proposition. Central banks provide emergency fiat liquidity on preferential terms—financial market “puts”; promote cartelization, and serve the constituent banks they were meant to regulate, acting as the banks’ agents within governments.

Brexit is a shot across the bow, but it is only a shot across the bow. Financial asset prices will continue to be supported or suppressed as the powers see fit. There is not one price in the entire firmament of markets and finance that is not pegged to continuing regimes of corruption and fraud. To transact based on such prices is a bet that a rigged game will stay rigged.

The belief that it will is understandable, but a house of cards must fall. Political winds—Brexit and what’s sure to follow—may blow this one over; it may collapse due to its structural deficiencies, or, most likely, some combination of the two will render it rubble. The important point is that rotten-to-the-core economies and finances, resting on foundations of coercion, corruption, and fraud, have to be rendered rubble before freer, more honest, and more durable structures can be erected.

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He Said That? 6/28/16

Posted on June 28, 2016 | 2 comments

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, gave a hell of a speech to the European Parliament this week. The text of the speech, followed by the video:

Isn’t it funny? When I came here 17 years ago and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, you all laughed at me – well, I have to say, you’re not laughing now, are you? The reason you’re so upset, you’re so angry, has been perfectly clear, from all the angry exchanges this morning.

You, as a political project, are in denial. You’re in denial that your currency is failing. Just look at the Mediterranean! As a policy to impose poverty on Greece and the Mediterranean, you’ve done very well.

You’re in denial over Mrs. Merkel’s call for as many people as possible to cross the Mediterranean – which has led to massive divisions between within countries and between countries.

The biggest problem you’ve got and the main reason the UK voted the way it did is because you have by stealth and deception, and without telling the truth to the rest of the peoples of Europe, you have imposed upon them a political union. When the people in 2005 in the Netherlands and France voted against that political union and rejected the constitution you simply ignored them and brought the Lisbon treaty in through the back door.

What happened last Thursday was a remarkable result – it was a seismic result. Not just for British politics, for European politics, but perhaps even for global politics too.

Because what the little people did, what the ordinary people did – what the people who’d been oppressed over the last few years who’d seen their living standards go down did – was they rejected the multinationals, they rejected the merchant banks, they rejected big politics and they said actually, we want our country back, we want our fishing waters back, we want our borders back.

We want to be an independent, self-governing, normal nation. That is what we have done and that is what must happen. In doing so we now offer a beacon of hope to democrats across the rest of the European continent. I’ll make one prediction this morning: the United Kingdom will not be the last member state to leave the European Union.

The question is: what do we do next? It is up to the British government to invoke Article 50 and I don’t think we should spend too long in doing it. I totally agree that the British people have voted, we need to make sure that it happens.

What I’d like to see is a grown-up and sensible attitude to how we negotiate a different relationship. I know that virtually none of you have never done a proper job in your lives, or worked in business, or worked in trade, or indeed ever created a job. But listen, just listen.

[MEPs boo. Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, calls for order]

You’re quite right Mr Schultz – Ukip used to protest against the establishment and now the establishment protests against Ukip. Something has happened here. Let us listen to some simple pragmatic economics – my country and your country, between us we do an enormous amount of business in goods and services. That trade is mutually beneficial to both of us; that trade matters. If you were to cut off your noses to spite your faces and reject any idea of a sensible trade deal, the consequences would be far worse for you than it would be for us.

[Laughter from MEPs]

Even no deal is better for the United Kingdom is better than the current rotten deal that we’ve got. But if we were to move to a position where tariffs were reintroduced on products like motorcars then hundreds of thousands of German works would risk losing their jobs.

Why don’t we be grown up, pragmatic, sensible, realistic and let’s cut between us a sensible tariff-free deal and thereafter recognise that the United Kingdom will be your friend; that we will trade with you, cooperate with you, we will be your best friends in the world. Do that, do it sensibly, and allow us to go off and pursue our global ambitions and future.

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16 Reasons to Celebrate Brexit’s Win, by Doug Bandow

Posted on June 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

SLL is tapering down on Brexit stories because they’re all starting to sound alike, but here’s a good summary in one article that will serve as SLL’s  compendium of Brexit joy, from Doug Bandow at nationalinterest.org:

Watching the Brexit campaign generated mixed feelings: it was a little like the man who saw his mother-in-law drive his new Mercedes off a cliff. In the United Kingdom, some people who hated free trade, immigration and market innovation challenged the officious, wannabe superstate headquartered in Brussels. Who to cheer for?

We should cheer for the Brexiteers, who deserve at least a couple of hurrahs. The European Union created a common market throughout the continent, an undoubted good, but since then has focused on becoming a meddling Leviathan like Washington, DC. For Britain, the virtues of remaining appeared to pale in comparison to the likely costs of continued subservience to Brussels. In a variety of imperfect ways, Brexit promoted liberty, community, democracy and the rule of law. In short, the good guys won.

Here are sixteen reasons why the United Kingdom was better off Brexiting:

1. Average folks took on the commanding heights of politics, business, journalism and academia and triumphed. Obviously, the “little guy” isn’t always right, but the fact he can win demonstrates that a system whose pathways remain open to those the Bible refer to as “the least of these.” The wealthiest, best-organized and most publicized factions don’t always win.

2. Told to choose between economic bounty and self-governance, a majority of Britons chose the latter. It’s a false choice in this case, but people recognized that the sum of human existence is not material. The problem is not just the decisions previously taken away from those elected to govern the UK; it’s also the decisions that would have been taken away in the future had “Remain” won.

3. Those governed decided that they should make fundamental decisions about who would rule over them. The Eurocrats, a gaggle of politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, academics, lobbyists and businessmen were determined to achieve their ends no matter what the European people thought. A constitution rejected? Use a treaty. A treaty rejected? Vote again. A busted monetary union? Force a political union. And never, ever consult the public. No longer, said the British.

4. The rule of law will be respected—or at least not flagrantly flouted. Those signing up as EU members did not realize that the EU would be a transfer union. At least some countries likely would not have ratified the Lisbon Treaty, expanding Brussels’ writ, had they realized that explicit strictures against bailouts would be ostentatiously ignored. No doubt the usual suspects believed they were doing the Lord’s work by violating legal guarantees. But today no one living under the EU has any assurance that laws made, rules issued and promises offered would be kept.

To continue reading: 16 Reasons to Celebrate Brexit’s Win

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You Know That Brexit ‘Do-Over’ Petition MSM Reports Has ‘3+ Million Signatures’? Well, It’s a Hacker-Prank, by Tiffany Gabbay

Posted on June 28, 2016 | 2 comments

The opponents of Brexit are working overtime to conjure a case of “buyers remorse” among British voters. The only problem is, there has been no such remorse. From Tiffany Gabbay at truthrevolt.org:

As if we needed further proof that the mainstream media are barren of a single shred of journalistic integrity and that its members are in dire need of public flogging…

So desperate are media elite for a Brexit vote reversal that they are literally reporting lies as incontrovertible fact. No sooner had the majority of British voters made their voices heard with a vote to exit the European Union, than mainstream media at home and abroad begin peddling the narrative that Brits were “remorseful” over their decision and wanted a “do-over.”

How on earth members of media knew precisely how millions of British voters felt in the 24 hours following the vote is beyond us. Perhaps they went door to door to ask. Perhaps they acquired new telepathic abilities.

No. They just lied. As they always do.

You’ve probably seen the popular story circulating MSM this weekend that claims a referendum petition is in the works calling for a Brexit re-vote and that it’s garnered around 3 – 3.5 million signatories thus far.

As recently as Monday, June 27, CNN reported that so many people rushed to sign the petition that the official government site where it is housed crashed. Yes, that’s how badly MSM wants you to believe that Brits realized the “error of their ways” and that, despite their conclusive vote to exit the E.U., what Brits “really want” is a chance to re-cast their votes to “remain.”

Worst of all was ABC’s George Stephanopolous, who on Sunday touted the 3-million “strong” petition and who, along with guests, actually had the gall to say Britain’s standing in the world has been, “slightly diminished” and that also diminished is the U.S.-Britain “special relationship.”

https://www.mrctv.org/embed/165791

Only it turns out that many of the petition’s signatories are fabricated in a prank engineered by hackers 4Chan and Anonymous (we are unclear if it is “the” Anonymous or just a lone hacker posting as “anonymous”).

The blog HeatStreet did the journalistic work the BBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, SkyNews and just about every other mainstream outlet failed to do, exposing the petition’s signatories as fraudulent. The site reports:

The BBC’s desperate shilling for Remain will come under increasing scrutiny as we exclusively reveal that the supposed ‘popular petition’ for a second referendum – wholly illegal and unworkable, and unprecedented in British history – is a prank by notorious sh*tposters 4 Chan.

The BBC, the UK’s national broadcaster, gleefully reported, as real, with no basic journalistic checks, an online petition that appeared to be growing at a colossal rate. By 1:30 pm, it was one of the fastest-growing petitions in history.

So fast, in fact, that somebody should have checked for bots and scripts. The BBC is failing totally in its Charter Duty to perform basic journalistic research.

To continue reading: You Know That Brexit ‘Do-Over’ Petition MSM Reports Has ‘3+ Million Signatures’? Well, It’s a Hacker-Prank

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European Banks Get Crushed, Worst 2-Day Plunge Ever, Italian Banks to Get Taxpayer Bailout, Contagion Hits US Banks, by Wolf Richter

Posted on June 27, 2016 | 4 comments

Banks are wards of governments. The Brexit vote is roiling European governments and their wards. From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

European banking crisis jumps to the next level.

European bank stocks just experienced their worst two-day plunge ever in the post-Brexit fallout that rained down on the already blooming European banking crisis.

Healthy big banks would get over Brexit and the political turmoil it is spawning, particularly non-UK banks. But there are no healthy big banks in Europe. And non-UK banks are crashing just as hard, and some harder. This is about a banking crisis morphing into a financial crisis.

These bank stocks got crushed on Friday. And they got crushed again today. Italian banks have been reduced to penny stocks. Spanish banks are getting closer. Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, and still partially owned by the German government as a consequence of the last bailout, is well on the way.

The two-day losses are just breathtaking. This table shows the largest banks by country with their percentage losses for today and for the two-day period:

Note that the European Stoxx 600 banking index fell 7.6% today for a 21.1% two-day plunge! It isn’t just a few banks whose stocks are collapsing!

Deutsche Bank’s infamous CoCo bonds deserve a special word. These hybrid bonds that are just above equity on the capital totem pole had spiraled down, with the 6% CoCos hitting 70 cents on the euro in February. At that point, they and all other Deutsche Bank bonds were propped up by government verbiage and bank money. The bank ingeniously announced it would buy back its own bonds! Like all these transparent market manipulations, the market ate it up, and even the CoCo bonds jumped to 87 cents on the euro. But that didn’t last long. They have since lost 11.5%, including today’s 3.7% plunge to 77 cents on the euro.

In Italy, the banking crisis that has been growing for years has reduced all major Italian banks to penny stocks. It has triggered bailouts of some banks, including the third largest publicly traded bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Now the taxpayer is going to get shanghaied into bailing them out to put a floor under the collapsing share prices and prevent them from going to zero.

Italian banks are bogged down in a sea of bad debt whose true dimensions are still unknown publicly, and that the ECB publicly estimates to be €360 billion. But every time someone looks at it, it gets larger.

According to “a banking source familiar with the government’s thinking,” as Reuters put it, the Italian government is now fretting about a hedge-fund attack on these zombies, following the Brexit turmoil! To counter this attack, the government is trying to figure out how to “protect its banks from a destabilizing sell-off of their shares” that “could tip them into full-blown crisis.”

(I have some news for the Italian government: Your banks have been in full-blown crisis for years!)

To continue reading: European Banks Get Crushed, Worst 2-Day Plunge Ever, Italian Banks to Get Taxpayer Bailout, Contagion Hits US Banks

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Brexit: A Glorious Victory, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on June 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

The Brexit vote wasn’t just about pounds and pence. Burgeoning nationalism is bigger than economics. An excellent article from Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com: 

As the results of the British referendum on remaining in the European Union rolled in, and the victory of “Brexit” became apparent, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage summarized its meaning:

“Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom!

”This, if the predictions now are right, this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people.

”We have fought against the multinationals, we have fought against the big merchant banks, we have fought against big politics, we have fought against lies, corruption and deceit.

”And today honesty, decency and belief in nation, I think now is going to win.

”And we will have done it without having to fight, without a single bullet …”

As ordinary British people celebrated, the London elite – and their international comrades – reacted with fury. The ignorant masses – whom, they rather stupidly claimed, were Googling “What is the EU” after voting to rid themselves of it – were “racist,” “reactionary,” and – of course – “isolationist” Know-Nothings who had thrown away a glorious future for an “uncertain” although supposedly much “darker” withdrawal into “Little England.”

There has been much discussion in these circles about who’s to “blame” for the Brexit vote – the assumption being, naturally, that it’s a Bad Thing, a disaster for which someone must take responsibility. The best of these head-scratchers comes courtesy of Glenn Greenwald, who writes:

“The decision by UK voters to leave the EU to leave the EU is such a glaring repudiation of the wisdom and relevance of elite political and media institutions that – for once – their failures have become a prominent part of the storyline. Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting one’s own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility. Virtually every reaction that falls into the former category emphasizes the profound failures of western establishment factions; these institutions have spawned pervasive misery and inequality, only to spew condescending scorn at their victims when they object.”

You’ll note that this is all about the self-described “elites,” and their alleged failure to educate the inchoate insensate proles, who don’t know what’s good for them. After all, don’t British fishermen realize that EU rules forbidding them to fish in British waters for all but 90 days a year are for the Good of Humanity? And why don’t they get it that pizza ovens must be kept at a certain temperature Because Of The Children?

Greenwald gets it at least in part: elite journalists, he rightly says, naturally sympathize with the status quo, since they are instrumental in framing and justifying it. Yet what he doesn’t get is the most important part of what has happened and will continue to happen, much to the Establishment’s consternation: for ordinary people in the English-speaking world and beyond, national sovereignty isn’t an archaic remnant of a bygone era, it’s something they assume is a rational and desirable part of life. They are patriotic not because they want to elevate themselves above everyone else but because they have a sense of place. Unlike the transnational jet-setters of the political class, they see themselves as citizens of Britain, France, the United States – not “citizens of the world.”

To continue reading: Brexit: A Glorious Victory

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“Trying To Wash Away Her Bad Judgment?” – Clinton Attacks Trump Following Brexit Results, by Tyler Durden

Posted on June 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

Hillary endorsed Remain, Trump endorsed Brexit. The actual vote will probably help Trump and hurt Hillary. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Aside from the millions of UK voters who chose to regain sovereignty last week, one of the biggest winners of the Brexit vote is potentially Donald Trump.

Trump’s rise in popularity is in no small part due to the fact that people in the US are tired of the status quo, politics as usual nonsense, and Trump allows for an outlet to that sentiment. The historic vote to regain independence by the UK may very well play into Trump’s favor in the US over the course of the next few months, as the UK proved that it is possible to oppose political elites and win. Trump wasted no time in putting out a statement after the final results were in to drive home that point.

Here is Trump’s statement

Statement Regarding British Referendum on E.U. Membership

The people of the United Kingdom have exercised the sacred right of all free peoples. They have declared their independence from the European Union, and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, borders and economy. A Trump Administration pledges to strengthen our ties with a free and independent Britain, deepening our bonds in commerce, culture and mutual defense. The whole world is more peaceful and stable when our two countries – and our two peoples – are united together, as they will be under a Trump Administration.

Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. Americans will have a chance to vote for trade, immigration and foreign policies that put our citizens first. They will have the chance to reject today’s rule by the global elite, and to embrace real change that delivers a government of, by and for the people. I hope America is watching, it will soon be time to believe in America again.

Hillary Clinton on the other hand, was urging Britain to remain in the EU, thus finding herself on the losing end of a historic event that could radically shape the political and economic landscape across the globe for decades to come. Well aware of this fact, and presumably concerned that Trump would be able to capitalize on the Brexit vote, the Clinton campaign is trying desperately to get past the fact that Hillary was on the wrong side of the vote as quickly as possible.

To that end, Clinton is using funds from the $42.5 million in cash on hand at the beginning of June to quickly attack Trump for commenting on his golf course in Scotland instead of being sensitive to the global meltdown that ensued after the vote.

To continue reading: “Trying To Wash Away Her Bad Judgment?” – Clinton Attacks Trump Following Brexit Results

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