Saturday 21 October 2017

Weekend Update 21/10/17 Real, Not Fake News. Stumbling Over The Truth.



Diogenes was a controversial figure. His father minted coins for a living, and when Diogenes took to debasement of currency, he was banished from Sinope. After being exiled, he moved to Athens and criticized many cultural conventions of the city.

He became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man.

This weekend, in other less reported news.  While you were bubbling away buying over priced stocks, China aimed to replace the USA superpower within 30 years; Russia told Uncle Sam no more Mr. Nice Guy; and Italy, well just went on being Italy, the Catalans began work on the nuke option in mutual assured destruction, German auto makers seem to have a Japanese corporate ethics problem, with Daimler ratting out the rest. Modern media, making Goebbels proud.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston S. Churchill

China’s 30-year deadline to rule the world

CHINA’S leader has laid out his ambitious plans for a superpower in a three-hour speech with huge implications for Australia.
October 20, 20176:00am
BEIJING has outlined plans to become the world’s biggest superpower within the next 30 years.

Opening a five-yearly national congress, Chinese President Xi Jinping set out his time frame for the country to become a “global leader” with international influence.

In his 3 ½ hour speech, Mr Xi urged a reinvigorated Communist Party to take a stronger role in society and economic development to better address the nation’s “grim” challenges.

Speaking in the massive Great Hall of the People near Tiananmen Square, Mr Xi laid out his vision of a ruling party that served as the vanguard for everything from defending national security to providing moral guidance.

He also called for the party not only to safeguard China’s sovereignty but also to revitalise Chinese culture, oppose “erroneous” ideology and promote religion that is “Chinese in orientation”.

----“The Chinese nation … has stood up, grown rich, and become strong — and it now embraces the brilliant prospects of rejuvenation … It will be an era that sees China moving closer to centre stage and making greater contributions to mankind,” Mr Xi said.

Hailing the start of a “new era”, Mr Xi outlined a vision in which the party would lead China on the road to becoming a “great modern socialist country” by the mid-century.

“The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is no walk in the park or mere drum-beating and gong-clanging. The whole party must be prepared to make ever more difficult and harder efforts,” Mr Xi told hundreds of delegates.

----Senior analyst in defence strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Dr Malcolm Davis, told news.com.au Mr Xi’s message was loud and clear.

Dr Davis said Beijing wanted to replace the US as the world’s dominant superpower, an idea many people have dismissed as absurd as recently as a few years ago.

“China just doesn’t want to be a just regional superpower, it wants to be the superpower,” he said.
Dr Davis said Beijing wanted to challenge US supremacy and reshape the region according to China’s interests and economic development.

However, he acknowledged China faced several domestic challenges which stood in the way of its long-term goal, including suppression of democracy and freedom of speech.

Dr Davis also said Beijing faced a huge demographic problem with an increasing ageing population and declining birthrate.

This, in turn, would further impact on economic growth.
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October 19, 2017 / 3:19 PM

Putin dials up anti-U.S. rhetoric, keeps mum on re-election

SOCHI/MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin launched one of his most stinging critiques of U.S. foreign policy on Thursday, listing what he called some of the biggest betrayals in U.S.-Russia relations.

He declined to say if he would run for a fourth presidential term in an election set for March, though he is expected to stand after dominating Russian politics for 18 years.

Instead, he used a high-profile televised discussion with foreign academics in southern Russia to reach back to what he regards as the darkest days of U.S.-Russia relations.

Opinion polls suggest that harsh rhetoric towards the West plays well with many Russian voters, who credit Putin for restoring national pride and standing up to what they see as Western encroachment.

Asked by a Germany-based academic to identify what mistakes Moscow had made in its relations with the West, Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in the Black Sea resort of Sochi:

“Our biggest mistake was that we trusted you too much. You interpreted our trust as weakness and you exploited that.”

Visibly angry at times, Putin cast Russia as the wronged party and its post-Soviet leadership as too naive and trusting.

“Unfortunately, our Western partners, having divided the USSR’s geopolitical legacy, were certain of their own incontestable righteousness having declared themselves the victors of the ‘Cold War,'” said Putin.

“They started to openly interfere in the sovereign affairs of countries and to export democracy in the same way as in their time the Soviet leadership tried to export the Socialist revolution to the whole world.”

Putin said U.S.-Russia relations were in a lamentable state, referencing an “unprecedented” anti-Russian campaign in the United States, the closure of Russian diplomatic facilities there and pressure on Russian media by U.S. authorities.

He did not single out U.S. President Donald Trump for personal criticism, but said Trump’s behaviour was unpredictable as a result of political foes who were preventing him from fulfilling almost all of his policy pledges.
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Betrayed by Banks, 40,000 Businesses Are in Limbo

A banking meltdown in wealthy Veneto has wiped out the life savings of many residents.
By Sonia Sirletti, Luca Casiraghi, and Tommaso Ebhardt
October 20, 2017, 4:00 AM GMT+1
The Most Serene Republic, as the area around Venice was known for a millennium, is now the troubled epicenter of a banking meltdown that’s threatening to derail one of globalization’s great success stories.

The base of brands like Benetton, De’Longhi, Geox and Luxottica, Veneto has also become home to as many as 40,000 small businesses suddenly stranded without access to financing since a pair of regional banks collapsed in June.

The implosions of Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca, which also wiped out the life savings of many of their 200,000 shareholders, set off economic and political tremors felt from Rome to Frankfurt. Anger over what many view as lax oversight by national authorities is animating a movement for more autonomy that’s already emboldened by Catalonia’s efforts to split from Spain.

“The pain for Veneto’s banks may be over, but the pain for Veneto’s businesses is just beginning,” said Andrea Arman, a lawyer advising some of the companies and individuals who’ve been hit the hardest. “We’re just starting to see the consequences of the collapse and what we’re seeing is alarming.”

Nestled between the Alps and the Adriatic, Veneto is home to about 5 million people. Like Catalonia, it has a seafaring heritage, its own language and incomes far above the national average. Veneto President Luca Zaia, who’s called Italy and its 64 governments in 71 years a “bankrupt state,” plans to use the results of a nonbinding referendum on Oct. 22 to press Rome for more autonomy. Three out of four Veneti want more local power and 15 percent would support complete independence, according to a Demos poll published by La Repubblica this week.

While Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, Italy’s second-largest bank, paid a symbolic sum to acquire the healthiest parts of the two Veneto lenders, the state entity that’s absorbing the 18 billion euros ($21.3 billion) of troubled debt the banks amassed, called SGA, isn’t fully operational yet. That has left small and midsized companies in the lurch—in many cases unable to do business.

“Many of these borrowers are profitable companies, but they’re stuck in limbo,” said Mauro Rocchesso, head of Fidi Impresa e Turismo Veneto, a financial firm that provides collateral to companies seeking lines of credit. “They don’t have a counterparty anymore and can’t find fresh capital from a new lender because of their exposure to the two Veneto banks.”

A developer near Padua, who asked not to be identified, thought he’d solved his funding problem when he found a buyer for a commercial building along the highway linking Venice and Verona—only to be forced to halt the sale after a Veneto Banca loan tied to the property was assigned to SGA.

----Through the depths of Italy’s double-dip recession that started with the global financial crisis almost a decade ago, Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca continued to expand their corporate lending, bucking an industry trend. By the end of last year, their outstanding loans had reached 46 billion euros, about 40 percent of which were non-performing. That ratio was double the Italian average and more, even, than Siena-based Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena had before the government stepped in to keep the world’s oldest lender afloat.

Former managers at both Veneto banks are under investigation after the European Central Bank found they urged clients to borrow more than needed in order to buy stock in the lenders, artificially boosting reserves. Regulatory filings show they loaned $3 billion for this purpose from 2013 through 2016.

“It’s a scandal,” Intesa Sanpaolo Chief Executive Officer Carlo Messina said Oct. 10, after his lender announced the creation of a 100 million-euro fund to aid low-income clients who lost everything buying bank stocks. “They betrayed the confidence of their clients.”
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Catalans Seek to Use Spain Debt as Leverage in Secession Tussle

By Esteban Duarte
Catalonia Vice President Oriol Junqueras said his regional government has a weapon to use in its independence struggle that it’s yet to exploit: Leveraging Spain’s need to make debt payments.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will eventually have to let the pro-secession government of Catalonia have control of tax collection because it needs its help to ensure the Spanish state can sustain its 1.2 trillion-euro ($1.4 trillion) public debt, Junqueras, who is also the region’s economic policy chief, said in an interview.

“We are convinced that the Spanish government doesn’t have any interest in appearing like someone who doesn’t honor their commitments with third parties,” said Junqueras, who is in charge of budget and economy policies. Those third parties could include “bond investors,” he said.

Junqueras has a ways to go in convincing bond investors that his reading of power politics is more astute than Rajoy’s. Last month, rebel Catalonia’s power over budgets took a leap backwards when the state’s Budget Ministry seized control of public payments and set safeguards against the use of taxpayer money to fund separatism.

Tomorrow, Spain plans to invoke an obscure article in the Constitution to seize more even power from the administration in Barcelona.

At the same time, however, Junqueras speaks for his government. The region’s parliament last month passed a "transition" law of steps to separate from Spain which leaves the responsibility to service its share of the national debt up to future negotiations. While the law was struck down by Spain’s Constitutional Court, the Catalan Parliament hasn’t rescinded it.
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BMW Raided in Collusion Probe as Daimler Blows Whistle to EU

By Gaspard Sebag, Elisabeth Behrmann, and Stephanie Bodoni
BMW AG said it was raided by European Union antitrust watchdogs this week as the EU ramped up a probe into the German car industry following reports that carmakers colluded on technology for decades.

News of the search marks the latest development in a probe sparked earlier this year. Daimler AG reported a possible cartel as part of the EU’s leniency program that allows firms to dodge fines for being the first in line to report wrongdoing, Chief Financial Officer Bodo Uebber said earlier Friday, confirming previous press reports.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in September that her officials are checking whether “completely legal cooperation” between German car companies isn’t being confused with an illegal cartel. Her comments came after Germany’s Der Spiegel reported in July that talks on technical standards between Volkswagen AG, BMW and Daimler may have allowed them to collude on pricing.

SEE: Car Cartel Case Could Be Long and Winding Probe: QuickTake Q&A

The three carmakers worked together on a wide range of technology including discussing the size of tanks for AdBlue, a liquid that helps neutralize pollutants in diesel exhaust, according to Der Spiegel.

“The raid on BMW alone seems to suggest that it isn’t cooperating whereas the other companies are and have provided the EU with information, making a raid there useless,” said Adrien Giraud, a lawyer at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

Vestager’s department at the European Commission said in a separate statement that the inspection, begun on Oct. 16, related to concerns that several German car manufacturers may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices.

The commission didn’t give details of the products or companies under investigation beyond saying that one company had faced unannounced inspections and that Daimler was cooperating under the EU’s antitrust leniency program for whistle blowers.

----Firms who are the first to own up about a cartel can be eligible for a full reduction on any EU fines. There are discounts for other companies that help regulators with the probe or who agree to settle the case, which means they can’t appeal to the EU courts.

Daimler may escape fines because it appears to have beaten Volkswagen to blowing the whistle, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported in July.
More

Finally, this weekend, in our fake news, dumbed down, media spun world, it’s the messenger not the message that counts. What could possibly go wrong.

'Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.'

Winston S. Churchill.

Liberal Students Love Trump's Tax Plan (When Told It's Bernie's)

Campus Reform interviewed college students seeking their opinion on several features of Bernie Sanders' tax plan. They loved it. Interestingly the plan was not Bernie's but rather Trump's.

Enjoy the video.

Details from Campus Reform.
  • President Donald Trump’s proposal for comprehensive tax reform was almost immediately dismissed as heartless and impractical by his political opponents.
  • When the same ideas are packaged under Bernie Sanders' name, however, liberal college students excitedly endorsed them.
Unsurprisingly, Students Despise Obama Policies...When Credited to Trump.
  • In anticipation of the 100-day mark of Donald Trump's presidency, Campus Reform asked students at George Mason University to evaluate some of the president's accomplishments.
  • The students predictably blasted things like the "Apology Tour" and stimulus package, even comparing them to Nazi policies, at least until learning that they were actually accomplished during President Obama's first 100 days.
What's Going On
  1. These students are so brainwashed by mainstream media they respond to the person, not the idea.
  2. More fundamentally, the students know nothing of current events or they would not fall for these types of gotchas.
To be fair, we do not know the percentage of students who did not fall for the traps.

However, I strongly suspect the vast majority of the students (and most likely the average person on the street, not just students) would tend react to the person, not the issue.

“I sometimes get the impression that many U.S. media outlets work according to a principle which was common in the Soviet Union. Back then, people used to joke that the newspaper Pravda [Truth] had no truth in it, and the Izvestia [News] paper has no news in it. I get the impression that many U.S. media operate in the same way.”

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. May 2017.

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