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IMF head Christine Lagarde says "IMF credibility is at stake". She blames the US for that development, and calls on US to give more voting power to China to solve the problem.
As the following chart compiling the IMF's various quarterly economic forecasts over the past 5 years clearly shows, what the IMF had actually forecast, was a constant hockeystick rebound in China growth starting in 2011... until 2014 when the monetary fund finally gave up.
Credibility Recovery
In a "credibility boosting" exercise Zerohedge comments ...
"The IMF's forecast of China's growth after the fact is now so negative, it is well below the consensus projections, as the IMF is all too happy to boast ..."
Ta-Da!
The IMF's credibility has been magically restored by impressive revisionist history. But as we see today, that credibility is once again at stake.
Governments and central banks risk tipping the world into a fresh financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund has warned, as it called time on a corporate debt binge in the developing world.
Emerging market companies have "over-borrowed" by $3 trillion in the last decade, reflecting a quadrupling of private sector debt between 2004 and 2014, found the IMF's Global Financial Stability Report.
This dangerous over-leveraging now threatens to unleash a wave of defaults that will imperil an already weak global economy, said stark findings from the IMF's twice yearly report.
Mercy!
Q. How did this happen? A. The answer of course is corporations took on insane amounts of debts precisely as central banks and the IMF wanted them to do.
Q. Why did the IMF and central banks encourage this debt? A. To help stimulate the global economy.
Q. Did it work? A. Obviously not.
Q. So why do they think still more debt will fix a problem caused by debt? A. You tell me.
Mish Proposal
If the IMF wants China in the name of credibility, please let them have it.
In return, I ask one simple thing: The US cuts off all IMF funding, as it should have done long ago.
As I have commented before alleged "free trade" agreements are anything but. We now have confirmation from Canada as to what it took for other signatories to agree to the monstrosity of TPP.
These easy-to-find challenges to NCBA's silly Trans-Pacific cheerleading point to several underlying myths at the heart of Big Ag's rock-ribbed belief that free trade is the past, current, and future salvation of American farms and ranches.
One myth is that all U.S. farm and ranch profits are tied directly to free trade. The Obama White House made that connection again Oct. 5 when it noted "roughly 20 percent of all farm income in the United States," is "provided" by "exports."
True, but farm income is not farm profit. If it were, U.S. net farm income would have risen when ag exports rose from $141 billion in 2013 to $152 billion in 2014. Instead, U.S. net farm income fell from $135 billion to $126 billion in that period.
Another myth about free trade is that trade agreements are about freedom to export. In truth, most trade deals "specify who will be protected from international competition and who will not," explains the Economic Policy Institute in its overview of the TPP.
Clear evidence comes from America's giant neighbor, Canada, whose ag minister announced his dairy and poultry farmers will be compensated for "any losses" caused by TPP before the deal was even signed. It confirms Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz's long-held belief that free trade deals are "managed trade agreements, tailored for corporate interests…"
American farmers and ranchers know this in their bones but not their hearts. They are farmers and ranchers, not exporters. Big Agbiz — Cargill, JBS, Smithfield, ADM and the like — are global buyers and sellers who, when able to play both sides of any trade-leveled playing field the world over, rarely lose.
Maybe that's why the Big Boys aren't saying squat about the TPP; they got everything they demanded during negotiations. Now they want you to pressure Congress to pass it for them and their shareholders.
In fact, they're betting on it and, already, their bets are paying off.
The Grateful Dead hit their peak in 1977. Miles Davis in 1959, Warhol perhaps ten years later. It's not surprising that artists hit a peak—their lives have an arc, and so does the work. It can't possibly keep amazing us forever.
Fans say that the Porsche arguably hit a peak in 1995 or so, and the Corvette before that. Sears hit a peak more than a decade ago. It's more surprising to us when a brand, an organization or a business hits a peak, because the purpose of the institution is to improve over time. They gain more resources, more experience, more market acceptance... they're not supposed to get bored, or old or lose their touch. If Disney hadn't peaked, there would never have been a Pixar. If Nokia and Motorola hadn't peaked, there never would have been a smart phone.
One reason for peaking turns out to be success.
Success means more employees, more meetings and more compromise. Success means more pressure to expand the market base and to broaden the appeal to get there. Success means that stubborn visionaries are pushed aside by profit-maximizing managers.
An organization that seeks to continue its success, that wants to keep its promises to customers, employees and investors needs to be on alert for where the peak lies, and be ready to do something about it. And the answer isn't more meetings or more layers of spec.
I got my first Mac in 1984. I was a beta tester for the first desktop publishing program (ReadySetGo) and I've used a Mac just about every day for the last thirty years. It occurred to me recently that the Mac hit its peak as a productivity tool about three years ago.
Three years or so ago, the software did what I needed it to. The operating system was stable. Things didn't crash, things fit together properly, when something broke, I could fix it.
Since then, we've seen:
Operating systems that aren't faster or more reliable at running key apps, merely more like the iPhone. The latest update broke my RSS reader (which hasn't been updated) and did nothing at all to make my experience doing actual work get better.
Geniuses at the Genius Bar who are trained to use a manual and to triage, not to actually make things work better. With all the traffic they have to face, they have little choice.
Software like Keynote, iMovie and iTunes that doesn't get consistently better, but instead, serves other corporate goals. We don't know the names of the people behind these products, because there isn't a public, connected leader behind each of them, they're anonymous bits of a corporate whole.
Compare this approach to the one taken by Nisus, the makers of my favorite word processor. An organization with a single-minded focus on making something that works, keeping a promise to users, not investors.
Mostly, a brand's products begin to peak when no one seems to care. Sure, the organization ostensibly cares, but great tools and products and work require a person to care in an apparently unreasonable way.
It's always tricky to call a peak. More likely than not, you'll be like the economist who predicted twelve or the last three recessions.
The best strategy for a growing organization is to have insiders be the ones calling it. Insiders speaking up and speaking out on behalf of the users that are already customers, not merely the ones you're hoping to acquire.
Most Apple parables aren't worth much to others, because it's a special case. But in this case, if it can happen to their organization, it can happen to yours.
Purportedly the Fed is ready willing and able to go to next step of financial repression insanity: Negative Interest Rates.
Federal Reserve officials now seem open to deploying negative interest rates to combat the next serious recession even though they rejected that option during the darkest days of the financial crisis in 2009 and 2010.
"Some of the experiences [in Europe] suggest maybe can we use negative interest rates and the costs aren't as great as you anticipate," said William Dudley, the president of the New York Fed, in an interview on CNBC on Friday.
Bernanke told Bloomberg Radio last week he didn't deploy negative rates because he was "afraid" zero interest rates would have adverse effects on money markets funds -- a concern they wouldn't be able to recover management fees -- and the federal-funds market might not work. Staff work told him the benefits were not great.
But events in Europe over the past few years have changed his mind. In Europe, the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank and the central banks of Denmark and Sweden have deployed negative rates to some small degree.
"We see now in the past few years that it has been made to work in some European countries," he said.
In fact, Narayana Kocherlakota, the dovish president of the Minneapolis Fed, projected negative rates in his latest forecast of the path of interest rates released last month.
Kocherlakota said he was willing to push rates down to give a boost to the labor market, which he said has stagnated after a strong 2014.
Although negative rates have a "Dr. Strangelove" feel, pushing rates into negative territory works in many ways just like a regular decline in interest rates that we're all used to, said Miles Kimball, an economics professor at the University of Michigan and an advocate of negative rates.
But the benefits are tantalizing, especially given the low productivity growth path facing the U.S.
With negative rates, "aggregate demand is no longer scarce," Kimball said.
Tantalizing Stupidity
For starters, negative interest rates should be seen as what they are: theft.
Actually, the inflationist policies of central banks are theft, but negative interest rate proposals go one step further down the rabbit hole.
With this proposal, we can add Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Fed, and Miles Kimball, an economics professor at the University of Michigan to the never-ending list of economically illiterate jackasses.
There is absolutely no benefit with financial repression measures that further punish those on fixed income. The positive effects these clowns see are nothing but a mirage that will vanish as soon as asset bubbles collapse.
The problem is debt coupled with asset bubbles created by debt, yet the proposed solution is to make people spend more while taking away scarce resources of those who save.
Financial Repression
I recently discussed financial repression with Gordon Long.
Our focus in that interview was the sorry state of affairs in Illinois. Our next interview no doubt will be on negative interest rates.
Case for Gold
It is F*ing stupid to attempt to force people to spend money on things they don't want or need on the inane belief demand is too low and wasting money is the cure.
These economic idiots will never stop, which is one reason why I am firmly committed to gold over the long haul.
The US is halting a controversial $500m programme to create a rebel force in Syria after concluding that it was having practically no impact in the battle against Isis fighters in the war-torn country.
Instead of trying to build up a new force of fighters — training them outside Syria and then sending them back in equipped — the Pentagon will now focus on arming and training a smaller number of leaders of Arab and Kurdish groups in Syria that have had some success fighting the Islamist militant group Isis.
Since arming Syrian al Qaeda "rebel" terrorists was always a bad idea, I would call this bit of news a distinct positive.
On July 1, in the Washington Times article Hillary's Secret War Judge Andrew Napolitano listed his conclusion after reviewing documents and emails from a period in which Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
Napolitano stated "What I saw has persuaded me beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that Mrs. Clinton provided material assistance to terrorists and lied to Congress in a venue where the law required her to be truthful."
Succession of Bad Ideas
Recall that one of the reasons president Bush gave for invading Iraq was that Hussein was harboring al Qaeda. In reality, al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq to any degree until the US invaded and put in a dangerously unstable government. ISIS was the direct result.
In the wake of the Iraq mess, the US armed alleged "moderate rebels" in three places. It backfired in Libya, Iraq, and Syria.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) staked out a bold position on a foreign policy matter—pushing to arm Kurdish fighters against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) even more than the U.S. has already done, but also calling for the creation of a new nation of Kurdistan.
"Part of the problem is the Kurds aren't getting enough arms," Paul said. "The Kurds are the best fighters. The arms are going through Baghdad to get to the Kurds and they're being siphoned off and they're not getting what they need. I think any arms coming from us or coming from any European countries ought to go directly to the Kurds. They seem to be the most effective and most determined fighters."
"But I would go one step further: I would draw new lines for Kurdistan and I would promise them a country," Paul said.
Map-Making Problems
Should the US be drawing lines, promising to build countries? Or should the US tell the Kurds that if they create a country, the US would recognize it? Something else?
A Wikipedia Map of Kurdistan highlights the issues with re-drawing lines.
"Contemporary use of the term refers to four parts of a greater Kurdistan, which include parts of southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), northern Syria (Western Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Southern Kurdistan), and western Iran (Eastern Kurdistan). Some Kurdish nationalist organizations seek to create an independent nation state of Kurdistan, consisting of some or all of the areas with Kurdish majority, while others campaign for greater Kurdish autonomy within the existing national boundaries."
The Kurds are fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Turkey is fighting the Kurds in Turkey.
Turkey does not want an independent Kurdistan in Iraq for fear it will lose part of Turkey in the process. And what about Iran? Would it cede territory to a new Kurdish state?
Simply put, the US should not be in the map-making business. Nor should the US arm terrorists. But what is the definition of terrorist?
Terrorism in the Eyes of the Beholder
The US has a definition of "terrorist" that it frequently and foolishly overlooks with terrible results.
Syria has a definition that would include US-backed al Qaeda rebels.
Turkey has a definition that would include the independence-minded Kurds in Turkey.
The Kurds have a fourth definition, and Iran a fifth.
Of course Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinians all have their overlapping definitions too.
A twin bombing in Ankara has killed at least 86 people at a peace rally, the deadliest attack in Turkey's history.
The blasts took place on Saturday near a train station where a crowd of supporters of the Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) had gathered ahead of the rally to protest against armed clashes between security forces and Kurdish insurgents.
Authorities have called the attack an act of terror and are said to be looking into reports that two suicide bombers were involved.
The bombing comes just three weeks ahead of an early election in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) hopes to regain the parliamentary majority it lost in the June poll after a surprisingly strong showing by the pro-Kurdish HDP.
The run-up to the November 1 vote has already been marred by widespread violence across the country, particularly in the Kurdish south-east, after the collapse of a ceasefire between the government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Kurdistan Worker's Party
Wikipedia reports the Kurdistan Worker's Party "(PKK) is usually used interchangeably for the name of its armed wing, the People's Defence Force (HPG), which was formerly called the Kurdistan National Liberty Army (ARGK). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by several states and organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union. However countries such as India, China, Russia, Switzerland and Egypt have not designated the PKK as a terrorist organization. Also, the UN has not listed the PKK as a terrorist organisation."
Paul didn't merely say that if the Kurds succeed in carving out a territory, the U.S. should recognize it. He said America should actively involve itself in launching the state and establishing its borders.
Eugene McCarthy once wisecracked that you can blame most of the world's problems on British mapmakers, who casually carved countries out of their dying empire without regard for whether the boundaries they were drawing made much sense.
I can't say I have much faith that mapmakers based in Washington would do a more impressive job — and I have even less faith that it would be worth any ordinary American's while to get tangled up in the conflicts that would inevitably follow.
Mish Proposals
Let's get out of the map-making business, forever.
If the Kurds want to fight ISIS, it's reasonable to help them on the grounds this is their legitimate battle, not ours, and also because ISIS is essentially a US creation. Also note that ISIS, unlike Saddam Hussein, is a potential security threat, if not a genuine one already.
If Russia wants to take on ISIS, let them, or better yet, welcome them.
No US troops
Let's get to the bottom of this Hillary mess, whatever it takes.