British Lawmaker’s Killing Highlights Dangers Of Far-Right Nationalism

These are the groups fanning anti-immigrant fears ahead of the U.K.’s EU referendum.

 

Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen from the far-right group Britain First, a pseudo-political activist party that calls itself a “patriotic resistance” that opposes Islam, political correctness and the EU.

The killing of lawmaker Jo Cox this week raises concerns about the far-right fringes of a national debate on immigration and sovereignty in the lead-up to Britain’s referendum on the European Union.
The 41-year-old member of Parliament was fatally shot and stabbed on Thursday on the streets of Birstall, northern England. The former aid worker and rising political star was a passionate advocate for immigration. She backed Britain remaining in the EU as the June 23 vote loomed on whether the country should exit Europe’s politico-economic union, a move commonly known as a “Brexit.”
Thomas Mair, the 52-year-old man charged with her murder, gave his name as “death to traitors, freedom for Britain” when he appeared in a London court on Saturday.
Prosecutors said Mair told police he is a “political activist” and that officers found far-right materials in his house. Mair reportedly had contacts with far-right groups in South Africa and the U.S. in the past. His family said he has a history of mental illness.
Witnesses heard Cox’s killer yelling, “Britain first, Keep Britain independent, Britain always comes first,” during the attack. ‘Britain first’ is a popular slogan among English nationalists and also the name of an active anti-EU, anti-Islam political organization.
Britain First leader Paul Golding denied the group had any connection to Cox’s murder in a video statement posted to its Facebook page and website soon after the attack. “We hope that this person who carried it out is strung up by the neck on the nearest lamppost,” Golding said in the video.
While it is not yet clear whether Mair had any involvement in the group or other far-right organizations in the U.K., Cox’s killing has drawn attention to political extremism in Britain, amid increasingly heated rhetoric in the lead-up to Thursday’s EU referendum. 

Neil Hall / Reuters

British lawmaker Jo Cox was killed on the streets of northern England on Thursday. The man charged with her murder gave his name in court as “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain.”

What is Britain First?

Britain First was founded in 2011 and emerged out of similar far-right British nationalist groups, including the English Defence League and the British National Party. The pseudo-political activist party calls itself a “patriotic resistance” that opposes Islam, political correctness and the EU.
Although Britain First is on the very fringe of U.K. politics, the organization has grown a significant social media following through far-right memes and viral anti-immigration propaganda videos on the refugee crisis. One video shows leader Paul Golding mockingly questioning refugees and migrants in Calais on where they got their mobile phones, trying to portray them as wealthy and not in need of asylum.
In an attempt to gain more publicity, Golding ran for Mayor of London this year and received just over 1 percent of the vote. When London elected Sadiq Khan as its first Muslim mayor in May, Golding turned his back to the podium during the victory speech.
Britain First also tried to exploit the memory of British soldier Lee Rigby in promotional materials during its campaign. Rigby was killed in 2013, after Islamic extremists attacked him near a military barracks in Woolwich, southeast London. The soldier’s family condemned the group, stating that “Britain First’s views are not what Lee believed in and they have absolutely no support from his family.”
The far-right group had become something of a punchline for U.K. news organizations, due to its gaffes and bizarre media output. On a trip to Northern Ireland, members of Britain First mistook a town hall for a mosque and posed in front of it as part of their propaganda. The U.K. Independence Party, a more mainstream anti-EU and anti-immigration political organization, has also shunned advances from Britain First. UKIP says the extremist group is trying to associate itself with the party to gain support.
Beyond the bluster and rhetoric of Britain First, members have also been involved in militant anti-Muslim activism. They’ve invaded mosques to harass imams and conducted “Christian patrols” in Muslim-majority neighborhoods to incite clashes as part of this strategy.

Carl Court/Getty Images

Britain First mayoral candidate, Paul Golding, turns his back as Sadiq Khan, Labour’s newly elected London mayor, gives his victory speech. Golding finished eighth out of 12 candidates.

Nationalists Stir Fears Of Immigration

While Golding and Britain First were quick to distance themselves from Cox’s murder, her killing has come at a time when anti-EU, anti-immigrant sentiment and political tensions have come to the fore in Britain. As the referendum over a potential British exit from the EU gets closer, far-right political parties have made controversial and divisive appeals to leave the union — many playing to ethno-nationalist sentiment.
Nationalist parties such as UKIP have stirred up fears about immigration by casting refugees from Africa and the Middle East as potential terrorists or economic chancers, and conflating the refugees journeying through Europe, most of whom will never reach Britain, with EU citizens’ migration. 
The latest immigration figures show net migration in the U.K. was 330,000 last year, of which 184,000 were EU nationals. Some 41,500 people applied for asylum in Britain in the year leading up to March 2016, most of them from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Eritrea.

Stefan Wermuth / Reuters

Hours before Cox was killed, United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage Farage unveiled a poster showing a long line of refugees under the banner “Breaking Point.”

‘Breaking Point’

On Thursday morning, hours before Cox was killed, UKIP leader Nigel Farage unveiled a poster showing a long line of refugees under the banner “Breaking Point.” Its captions blamed the EU for migration to the U.K. “As you will see from today’s advert, the EU has failed us all,” Farage wrote in a British newspaper on Thursday, calling it the largest advertising campaign in the party’s history.
The image in the UKIP poster, which Getty Images photographer Jeff Mitchell took in Slovenia in October 2015, does show a crisis for the EU, but a very different one to that which Farage portrays. Hungary’s nationalist government shut its border with Croatia that month, pushing thousands of migrants and refugees to journey through Slovenia, hoping to continue north to wealthier and more welcoming nations like Germany and Sweden.
Mitchell’s photo captures Slovenian police escorting them to a refugee camp, as the country grappled with the consequences of the Hungarian backlash to the European refugee crisis. It highlights the fall-out of countries shutting borders and acting alone, not the opposite — as Farage suggests.
“It is always uncomfortable when an objective news photograph is used to deliver any political message or subjective agenda, however the image in question has been licensed legitimately,” Getty Images said in a statement to the WorldPost.
Critics of UKIP also pointed out that their newest campaign bears a strong resemblance to Nazi propaganda.

UKIP’s Farage also suggested last month that there could be violence if immigration isn’t controlled and citizens feel they don’t have a political voice. He also claimed that the Labour Party backed immigration to “rub our noses in diversity.”

Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Spreads

Other parties have also played on fears of foreigners and immigration, including the far-right British National Party, which circulated inaccurate statements that more than 80 million Turkish people will “pour” into Europe as a result of Merkel’s EU policies.
Even mainstream British politicians have been accused of anti-immigration scaremongering. The Vote Leave campaign, led by British justice secretary and Conservative MP Michael Gove, in March published a list of murders and rapes  it said EU citizens had committed in Britain.
In his video defending Britain First against any connection to Cox’s attacker, Golding inadvertently summed up the kind of rhetoric that has become common during the Brexit campaign.
“It’s the name of our party, yes, but I’ve heard UKIP people, I’ve heard Nigel Farage, everyone say it’s time we put Britain first. It’s the kind of language that’s been utilized during this referendum campaign.”
British politicians have warned of the dangers of such escalating rhetoric in the wake of Cox’s death.
“Unless we strive for a culture of respect to replace a culture which does too little to challenge prejudice, we will be learning nothing from what happened to Jo,” former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in the Guardian after Cox was killed.
Charlotte Alfred contributed reporting.

Tesla’s Model S can turn into a boat (kinda), Musk boasts

In case you were ever wondering, Tesla Inc.’s Model S electric car will float, in a pinch, CEO Elon Musk said Sunday.
At least now we know the “S” does not stand for “sinks.”
In a series of tweets, the Tesla TSLA, -1.13%   co-founder said the “Model S floats well enough to turn it into a boat for short periods of time,” and the rotating tires can provide thrust. As proof, Musk linked to a video showing a Model S swimming through a flooded underpass in Russia.


Musk did note, though, that turning your $70,000 car into a boat is not recommended.

A typical Model S is actually about 1,200 pounds heavier than a comparable luxury car, but its battery pack and drive units are sealed against the elements, Musk said.
Floating isn’t the only extreme condition Tesla has prepared for. Its Model X SUV has a “bioweapon defense mode” for its air filters.
As a future teaser, Musk added that he’s working on “a sports sub car that can drive on roads” as a side project. So maybe someday you too can cue up Carly Simon and live out your James Bond fantasy.

‘Undertow’ could drag oil back below $40 a barrel

OPIS’s Tom Kloza: Retail gas could fall below $2 a gallon

AFP/Getty Images

Oil bulls should beware the undertow.

Oil futures could fall back below $40 a barrel this year, pulling retail gasoline prices significantly lower with them, an analyst says, but the reasons may surprise you.
West Texas Intermediate CLN6, +1.67%  and Brent LCOQ6, +1.89%  crude futures lost more than 2% in the latest week and both are poised for their first monthly decline in five months. On Friday, WTI settled at $47.98 a barrel, while Brent finished at $49.17 a barrel.
Analysts have attributed recent weakness to the U.K. referendum next week on whether to stay in the European Union, changing expectations about U.S. Federal Reserve monetary policy and the economic impact and potential slowdown in energy demand that may ensue.

But those factors offer “excuses” rather than reasons for oil’s recent price retreat, Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, told MarketWatch.
Instead, an “undertow” in the market linked to refiners’ demand for crude is to blame, he said.
“There really is no precedent for transitioning from a glut of crude to a more balanced supply picture without creating at least a temporary glut of [crude] product,” said Kloza. In the U.S., the Energy Information Administration characterizes motor gasoline and distillate-fuel supplies as being “well above the upper limit of the average range” for this time of year.
“Gasoline and diesel prices are depressed in most of the global markets right now and gasoline…is priced at numbers that represent red ink for refiners in the fourth quarter,” Kloza said. And if refiners are losing money on manufacturing gasoline, “they cut runs, plain and simple.” Refinery crude runs offer a measure of refiners’ demand for crude.
If refiners sell gasoline at the Gulf Coast in December for a price of about $1.21 a gallon, or $50.82 a barrel, for example, that would be well below refiners’ break-even number of about $59.75, he said.
Refiners will cut production when high production results in a loss, said Kloza. Given that, he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see October to November crude-oil runs “that are 1.5 million barrels per day lower than they are at the summer peak.”
“Run cuts this year would be disastrous for crude,” and those run cuts are likely to materialize in the last 100 days of the year, he said. “The less crude that is processed, the more pressure the ‘undertow’ puts on the crude-oil market.”
Emphasizing that he doesn't own or trade oil futures or oil stocks, he said he expects WTI oil prices to trade between $45 a barrel and, possibly, the low $50s, with a possibility of autumn number retesting $40 a barrel. “Lower for longer is an accurate forecast,” Kloza said.
Read: Man who nailed 2015 oil plunge is predicting a dismal 2016
While the crude-oil market has seen nearly 4 million barrels a day of lost production “thanks to new and old problems” in Libya, Ngeria, Kurdistan, Sudan and Canada, restarts of some of this output “could thwart crude-oil rallies,” he said.
Macroeconomic risk is also to the downside, with the “notion of a slowdown, let alone a recession in the U.S., Europe, or in various Asian or South American countries has to be considered,” he said.
Oil prices will “eventually clean up,” said Kloza, but “I don’t think it happens this year.”
He won’t rule out the potential for sub-$40 a barrel crude prices this year—and a return to $2-a-gallon or less is a possible standard retail price for gasoline in many states later this year.

Everybody wants Out of the EU

Multi-billion-dollar computer giant Microsoft agrees secret deal with HMRC that 'allows the company to avoid £100m of UK tax'

• Computer firm signed advancing pricing agreement with the UK in 2011 
• Over £8bn in revenue from UK customers sent to Microsoft Ireland account
• Corporate tax in Ireland is just 12.5 per cent compared to 20 per cent in UK
• Firm had £2.3bn revenue from UK customers in 2015 but paid £16.9m tax 

By Alex Matthews For Mailonline

Microsoft agreed a secret deal with HMRC to avoid paying over £100million in tax to Britain despite making billions from UK customers.

Microsoft Ireland's accounts show that the computer giant made £2.3bn in revenues from sale of hardware and software in the year to June 2015, but its British arm paid a poultry £16,9million in corporate tax.

Bosses avoided shelling out a fortune on tax bills thanks to a secret deal with the Government called an advanced pricing agreement (APA), reveals an investigation by the Sunday Times.

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Microsoft, co-founded by Bill Gates (pictured), agreed a secret deal with HMRC to avoid paying over £100million in tax to Britain

An APA is a contract organised ahead of time, and often lasting a number of years, by a tax payer and the authority -  regarding a pricing method for its transactions.

Over 140 of the agreements were made by the HMRC, some of which involved the world's largest companies.

The deals also allow profit to be sent to accounts registered in different countries - which in Microsoft's case was Ireland. 

Microsoft has sent over £8billion of revenue generated from British customers to Ireland since 2011, where corporation tax is just 12.5 per cent, compared to 20 per cent in the UK. 

Its deal with HMRC runs until 2017 and involves a structure that eventually leads to a company called RI holdings in Bermuda.

The European Commission is now clamping down on APA's with probes launched to ensure they do not breach rules on state aid.

South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon, who sits on the public accounts committee, has called for transparency when it comes to the tax records of companies such as Microsoft and has labelled their special treatment 'unfair'.

He told the Sunday Times: 'The average person is getting sick and tired of this kind of thing. These are strategies which are not open to most ordinary companies.

'It is the suspicion of most informed people that companies like Google and Microsoft get away without paying their fair share. [People] see that as wrong and unfair.'

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Microsoft sent revenue to its Irish arm (pictured, Microsoft Ireland's head office) to avoid paying millions in tax

By using a complicated strategy to register sales in a different country, Microsoft is not breaking any tax laws.

However, firms who employ such tactics are coming under pressure to pay more tax in the countries where their purchases are taking place.

While the revelation about Microsoft's money-saving scheme is sure to enrage British tax-payers, HMRC has reassured that APA's are not a way for firms to avoid paying what is owed.

A spokesman told the Sunday Times: No company will pay a single penny less in tax because of [advance pricing agreement]. These simply set out how the tax rules will apply on complex transactions ahead of time and we keep them under complex review.'

Microsoft said it complied with 'all rules and regulations worldwide, including in Ireland the UK.'

The PhD Bubble Has Burst: Graduating 'Doctors' Are Having Trouble Finding Work

Spending nearly a decade in college, racking up significant amounts of debt, and emerging with that coveted PhD designation isn't what it used to be... in fact it is safe to say the PhD bubble has burst.
The percentage of new doctorate recipients without jobs or plans for future study climbed to 39% in 2014, up from 31% in 2009 according to a National Science Foundation survey. Those graduating with doctorates in the US climbed 28% in the decade ending in 2014 to an all-time high of 54,070, but the labor market - surprise surprise - has not been able to accommodate that growth. "The supply of PhD's has increased enormously and the demand in the labor market has increased but not nearly as fast. When you can import an international workforce or outsource research, you have a buyer's market" said Michael Teitelbaum, senior adviser to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Of course the labor market isn't able to accommodate those PhD's, unless of course their chosen concentration is bartending, which in that case would mean that opportunities are plentiful (although paying back those loans may pose a problem).
As a reminder, since December 2014, while all of those new PhD's were emerging from a decade of lecture halls and academic circle jerks, the only jobs that have been created in any meaningful way have been in the service industry. There have been pockets of growth elsewhere, but even those higher paying jobs were primarily part-time roles.

As employment opportunities become increasingly more difficult to find, those that committed their time and future consumption capabilities (ie: took on a lot of debt to finance the degree) are also finding that median salaries are falling as well as a glut of those with a doctorate degree have flooded the market looking for work. Median salaries for PhD's working full-time fell 6% between 2010 and 2013 the WSJ reports, which doesn't bode well with the fact that those who obtained the degree thought it would be a hedge against stagnating wages and unemployment.
While PhD's still earn a premium over others in the labor market, median salaries have declined significantly. As the WSJ notes, Computer scientists earned $121,300 in 2013, down from $129,839 in 2008; engineers earned $120,000, down from $125,511, and so on.

Contributing to the pain is the fact that universities (academics being the larges employer of PhD's) have moved away from only employing tenured professors and have begun using a greater number of relatively lower paid adjunct professors. Another development that is hurting PhD's is the same type of thing that has plagued those in other industries, and that is the outsourcing of jobs overseas. The pharmaceuticals industry, who is the largest employer of chemists in the country, has moved much of its research overseas, shedding 300,000 jobs in the US in recent years, and as a result, furthering the supply glut and causing salaries for chemists with PhD's to fall 12% between 2004 and 2014 the WSJ reports.
The shift in employment opportunities has led graduate students beginning to think of careers outside of - gasp - academics, or their research field. This is raising the bar for those competing for jobs in the other fields, as now their resume will be examined next to a Ph.Ds, and we know how PhD's are viewed as the oracles of every subject.
From the WSJ

The decline in full-time hiring in universities has resulted in tens of thousands of Ph.D. holders teaching classes for around $3000 each without benefits. And postdoctorates, once a year-long stopover for scientists on the way to better research positions, are now stretching four years on average. Most pay between $40,000 and $50,000 a year.

As a result, many graduate students are considering careers outside the academy or their research field. This has led to credential inflation as Ph.D.s fill jobs traditionally held by professionals without such lofty degrees. For instance the number of Ph.D.s applying to teach at private high schools has jumped between 10% and 20% over the last five years, according to Devereaux McLatchey, president of Carney, Sandoe & Associates which is one of the nation’s largest recruiters for private high schools.

Many graduate students, however, are reluctant to admit to their professors they are considering careers outside of the academy for fear they will lose their support for the few tenure track jobs that are out there.

“For some students, academia feels like a cult, with many grad students feeling isolated and disempowered,” said Kelly Brown, assistant director at the University of California Humanities Research Institute. The reality, especially in the humanities, is that only “Ph.D.s graduating from top-tier universities stand a real chance of landing a tenure-track position. The rest go on to contingent labor positions or leave academia altogether,” she said.

Schools are beginning to respond. Ms. Brown oversees a new program to place students in the private sector. One grad student working for her said she uses a pseudonym on the program’s blog to avoid alienating her professor. At Stanford University, a program is in its second year to help Ph.D. graduates find jobs as high-school teachers. At the University of Miami, doctoral students are interning in the school’s communications, development and research departments to learn more vocational skills; and at Columbia University, Ph.D.s are taking classes in using Twitter to better communicate their work to nonacademic audiences.

* * *
"There is hope" Jake Simson, a biomedical engineer turned financial analyst said in front of a group of doctoral candidates at the University of Chicago, as Simson was explaining how to find a job. Hope indeed, as central bankers around the world continue with the steadfast effort of completely ruining healing both the financial markets and the real economy, there is no doubt that PdD's will be in high demand to help model out the world's future.

Banker Suicide Conspiracy Revealed | Mainstream Media Finally Admits Mass Banker ‘Suicides’ Were Likely a Vast Criminal Conspiracy

Image Source.

Source - The Free Thought Project

by Jay Syrmopoulos
 

New York, NY – In 2015 there was a popular “conspiracy theory” floating around the internet after a rash of mysterious “suicides” by high profile banking professions. What once looked like wild speculation is now beginning to resemble a vast criminal conspiracy connected to the Libor, interest-rigging scandal.
 Over forty international bankers allegedly killed themselves over a two-year period in the wake of a major international scandal that implicated financial firms across the globe. However, three of these seemingly unrelated suicides seem to share common threads related to their connections to Deutsche Bank. These three banker suicides, in New York, London, and Siena, Italy, took place within 17 months of each other in 2013/14 in what investigators labeled as a series of unrelated suicides.

“In each case, the victim had a connection to a burgeoning global banking scandal, leaving more questions than answers as to the circumstances surrounding their deaths,” according to the New York Post. “But all three men worked for, or did business with, Deutsche Bank.”

Financial regulators in both Europe and the U.S. in 2013 began a probe that would ultimately become known as the Libor scandal, in which London bankers conspired to rig the London Interbank Offered Rate, which determines the interest banks charged on mortgages, personal and auto loans. The scandal rocked the financial world and cost a consortium of international banks, including Deutsche Bank, about $20 billion in fines.

David Rossi, a 51-year-old communications director at the world’s oldest bank, Italian Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which was on the brink of collapse due to heavy losses in the derivatives market in the 2008 financial crisis, fell to his death on March 6, 2013. At the time of his death, Monte Paschi was being investigated for its handling of billions in these risky derivative bets involving Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch.

According to a report in the NY Post:

A devastating security video shows Rossi landing on the pavement on his back, facing the building — an odd position more likely to occur when a body is pushed from a window.

The footage shows the three-story fall didn’t kill Rossi instantly. For almost 20 minutes, the banker lay on the dimly lit cobblestones, occasionally moving an arm and leg.

As he lay dying, two murky figures appear. Two men appear and one walks over to gaze at the banker. He offers no aid or comfort and doesn’t call for help before turning around and calmly walking out of the alley.

About an hour later, a co-worker discovered Rossi’s body. The arms were bruised and he sustained a head wound that, according to the local medical examiner’s report, suggested there might have been a struggle prior to his fall.

Ultimately Italian authorities ruled Rossi’s death a suicide. Rossi’s widow, Antonella Tognazzi, protested vigorously at the suggestion her husband’s death was a suicide, telling the Italian press that her husband “knew too much.” Tognazzi pointed to the alleged suicide note from Rossi as a prime example of the suspicious nature of his death. In the note, Rossi refers to Antonella Tognazzi as Toni, but according to Tognazzi, that was not something he ever called her.

 In October 2014, two Monte Paschi executives were convicted of obstructing regulators and misleading investigators by Italian authorities over the bailed-out Italian bank’s finances in the wake of the acquisition of Banca Antonveneta – which was heavily financed by Deutsche Bank.

In January of this year, Italian authorities civilly implicated three Deutsche Bank executives, including Michele Faissola, the wealth management director of the German bank — charging them with colluding with Monte Paschi in falsifying accounts, manipulating the market and obstructing justice.

Another of the mysterious deaths being revisited is that of William Broeksmit, 58, a Deutsche Bank exec was found hanging from a dog leash tied to a door at his London home in January 2014. Broeksmit was found among a mess of financial papers, with a number of notes to friends and family nearby. A Deutsche Bank colleague, Michele Faissola, was called and arrived minutes later and began suspiciously going through the financial documents and reading the suicide notes.

“Yes, he killed himself,” stepson Val Broeksmit told the NY Post. “But there’s a question: could it be suicide by extortion, could it be suicide by pressure or saying if you don’t do this, we’re going to do this? There’s a couple suspicions I have.”

Broeksmit’s stepson still wonders what his father’s colleague was searching for amongst the mess of financial documents. Adding to the suspicious nature of his stepfather’s death, Val provided the NY Post email messages revealing that prior to his death, Broeksmit had just messaged friends about his excitement for an upcoming ski vacation scheduled for one week later.
 Although a clinical psychologist revealed Broeksmit had been treated due to being “very anxious about authorities investigating areas of the bank at which he worked,” his depression over the Libor scandal had subsided, as his doctor gave him a clean bill of health only a month before his death.

According to the report by the NY Post:

A month before his death, William Broeksmit wrote — in what his son says shows his anger — to fellow executives, asking why he should take the lead on the sticky matter of the upcoming Federal Reserve-mandated stress test for the bank.

He also questioned the “generous” loan-loss numbers being used by the bank, afraid that federal regulators would see the bank was losing more on loans than the books showed. Large losses could lead the feds to slap the bank with restrictions.

“Who is recommending that I do this? I am supposed to be an independent director and this puts me further into a role aligned with management,” he wrote.

New York City attorney, Calogero “Charles” Gambino, 41, was a married father of two, and Deutsche Bank’s in-house lawyer for 11 years at the bank’s downtown headquarters. Gambino primarily worked on defending the Deutsch Bank against Libor charges and other regulatory probes.

In October 2014, Gambino’s was found hanging from an upstairs balcony of his Brooklyn home, with a rope that was snaked through the banister and tied off on the newel post on the first floor. There was no note found and the family has steadfastly refused to comment on his death.

In his work as corporate counsel for Deutsche, Gambino had dealings with many of the bank’s European executives — including Michele Faissola and William Broeksmit and had intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the bank’s operations. Gambino’s death was ruled a suicide.

In the cases of Gambino, Rossi and Broeksmit, authorities seemingly never looked for, nor discovered, the apparent connections that reveal a deadly international criminal conspiracy at work.

However, authorities in Siena, Italy have recently exhumed the body of banker David Rossi, 51, and reopened their investigation into his death. They are expected to release their findings at the end of the month.

The common thread in each of these deaths is that all of the dead bankers had intimate knowledge of the international Libor scandal as it related to Deutsche Bank. It seems apparent that these men were killed to ensure their silence, thus allowing those responsible for the interest rigging scandal within Deutsche to avoid responsibility.

About The Author

Jay Syrmopoulos is a political analyst, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has been published on Ben Swann’s Truth in Media, Truth-Out, Raw Story, MintPress News, as well as many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.
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Stillness in the Storm Editor's note: Did you find a spelling error or grammar mistake? Do you think this article needs a correction or update? Or do you just have some feedback? Send us an email at sitsshow@gmail.com. Thank you for reading.

Opinion: How to use stock options to profit from Brexit

Welcome to Brexit week. The U.K. is voting to stay in the European Union or leave, and global market volatility is expected to increase before and after the June 23 Brexit referendum. It should be a wild week for the markets. But for most investors, the odds of making money are probably better at a casino than trying to pick winning or losing Brexit stocks.
Rather than choosing individual stocks, there is an options strategy you can use to potentially profit from Brexit: the straddle. When you buy a straddle, you simultaneously buy a call and a put using the same strike price and expiration. This intermediate strategy can bring potential profits no matter which direction the market moves. The caveat: It works only if the market makes a good-sized move in either direction, up or down.
Although this strategy sounds too good to be true, like any options strategy, there are of course specific risks. For option traders willing to take a chance to make many times their investment with limited risk, buying straddles is one way to profit.

How to invest in volatile markets 

Low inflation, high volatility, and an overvalued stock market pose risks for investors, but those challenges also bring opportunities, say the experts at a MarketWatch panel discussion in London.

The ideal market environment for buying straddles is just before a market-moving event, such as a Fed meeting, an earnings report, or a momentous financial event such as Brexit. No one can predict whether the market will rally or drop once the U.K. news is announced. There is also the possibility that the market will give a big yawn and ignore the decision. By buying a straddle, you are speculating that there will be a large enough price change (up or down) to more than cover the cost of the straddle. You don’t care in which direction the market moves, so long as it moves.
To initiate a straddle, you will buy a straddle on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, SPY, -0.37%  . To reduce risk, I recommend that you limit the number of contracts you buy, especially if you are inexperienced.
For example, on Friday you could have bought a straddle on SPY 206 July 15 (1 put and 1 call) and paid $7.67 (the July 15 call was $4.00 and the July 15 put was $3.67; total cost was $7.67, but that price will have changed by the time you read this). This trade would cost $767 for one, 100-share straddle, $1,534 for 2 straddles, and $3,835 for 5 straddles (plus commission). Typically, you will buy a straddle with an at-the-money strike price (i.e. the strike price is near the SPY price).
One of the risks when making this trade is that implied volatility is expected to increase as Brexit approaches (implied volatility rises with anticipation and anxiety). This will push option prices much higher. In fact, one of the risks of this strategy is that you may overpay for the straddle. If you do overpay, you could still lose money even if the S&P 500 makes a fairly large move.
If you do make this trade, use a nearby expiration date. Most importantly, under no circumstances should you hold either the call or the put until the expiration date.
To reduce losses and lock in gains, sell both legs (call and put) within hours of the Brexit announcement, and definitely by the end of that day. In other words, sell the straddle once the news is known and the stock market has reacted. Time is your enemy when buying straddles, which is why you must sell quickly. You may choose to hold for several hours if you believe SPY will continue moving in the same direction during the day. Theoretically, the profit potential is unlimited for the life of the option, but in real life you will take your profits, if any, before the end of the day.
The most you can lose on this trade is the initial amount paid for the straddle. You will lose the maximum only if you hold until expiration and SPY is still at or near $206 on the expiration date.
Again, do not hold this straddle over the coming weekend, “hoping” you will make more money. That’s how traders watch profitable option positions turn to dust. Option traders rely on good odds, not hope.
Michael Sincere (michaelsincere.com) is author of “Understanding Options 2E” and “Understanding Stocks 2E.” The above examples are not recommendations to buy or sell options. If you have never traded options before, practice trading before putting real money on the line. Follow Sincere on Twitter: @michaelsincere

Janet Yellen’s $200-Trillion Debt Problem

by BILL BONNER
BALTIMORE – The U.S. stock market broke its losing streak yesterday.
After five straight losing sessions, the Dow eked out a 92-point gain.
The financial media didn’t know what to say about it. So, we ended up with the typical inanities, myths, and claptrap.

Blame “Brexit”

“Brexit panic may be your big chance to buy the S&P 500,” says a headline at MarketWatch.

The article claims investors have pushed down the value of the S&P 500 in fear of a so-called “Brexit.”
Next Thursday, in a national referendum, British voters will decide whether to end Britain’s 43-year membership in the European Union.
But there are a number of problems with this…
First, there has been no big rout in the S&P 500; it’s only a few hundred points below its all-time high.
Second, Brexit is a mystery to most U.S. investors, not a cause for alarm.
Third, nobody knows which side will win… or what it will mean.
Would a Brexit be good for Britain? Would it be bad for stocks?
Nobody knows!
[Editor’s Note: Bill’s experts on the ground in London shared their takes on the potential impact of a Brexit in yesterday’s Inner Circle titled “Britain Is About to Crash Out of the EU… Here’s What to Do.” Paid-up subs can catch up here.]
Meanwhile, the Financial Times focuses on “slowing job growth and risk of Brexit…”
It notes that a possible Brexit next week is one reason Fed chief Janet Yellen cited for holding off on raising U.S. interest rates at this week’s monetary policy meeting. The newspaper also notes that the Fed has left “the door open” to rate increases.
We’ve been saying the same thing for years: The Fed will NEVER follow through on its pledge to return interest rates back to “normal.”
Never is a long time; but so far, so good. The door is still nailed shut.

On Edge

First, the Fed waited until last December to pry open a single quarter-point rate increase.
That took the federal funds rate – the base lending rate of the entire economy – to all of 0.5%.
When that set the world’s nerves on edge, the Fed did as we warned it would: It put away the crowbar… procrastinated… hesitated… mumbled… and dragged its feet.
Every month brought a new meeting of the Fed’s monetary policy committee… and each meeting brought forth an effluent rich in waffle and hocus-pocus.
The Fed’s chief witch doctor, Janet Yellen, says the committee will make its decision based on the incoming data. The next move toward normalization of interest rates will be “data dependent,” she insists.
That idea is preposterous, too. These are markets we’re talking about; they go up and down. After so many years of a bull market on Wall Street, Mr. Market must be planning for a change. Stocks gotta go down sometime.
Can the Fed raise rates in the face of falling stock prices?
We don’t think so.
And with the annual rate U.S. GDP growth falling below 1% in the first three months of the year, a prudent investor should prepare for a little backsliding in the economy, too.
Will the Fed cling to its “normalizing” program when a recession sets in?
Nah.
Bear markets and recessions are facts of life. Because mistakes are facts of life. That’s why markets go up and down. People pay too much for stocks; they need to take a breather until their companies are worth what they paid for them.
Businesses invest too much… hire too many people… produce more than they can sell. Occasionally, they, too, need to slow down… work down their inventories… lay off workers… and prepare for the next growth spurt.

Upsetting the Applecart

There is no magic to this… nothing new to these patterns. Yet investors are surprised every time!
The headline news is still relatively good – positive GDP growth, high stock prices, and presidential candidates who will “Make America Great Again.”
What more could we want?
And yet, even with these benign conditions, the Yellen Fed is fearful. It won’t take a chance. It won’t make a move. The door is not open; it’s closed.
Of course, the Fed knows that the headlines mask the real weaknesses in the economy.
Industrial production has been falling for nine months in a row. Factory orders have been going down for the past 18 months. Commercial bankruptcies are rising. And tax receipts are beginning to fall, as they typically do before a recession.
More than $10 trillion of government bonds now trade at negative yields. And another $10 trillion or so worth of U.S. stocks trade well above their long-term average valuations.
And there’s more than $200 trillion of debt in the world – with about $60 trillion added since the global financial crisis.
All of this sits on the Fed’s financial applecart. Does Janet Yellen dare upset it?
Nah. It will have to upset itself.
Coming up next week:
The Donald… explained!
The Fed’s real strategy….
And more…
Regards,
Bill

Russia strikes over $15 billion worth of deals despite sanctions at SPIEF 2016

© Sergei Savostyanov / TASS
Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L-R background) look on as Pizzarotti President Paolo Pizzarotti, Gazprombank Management Board Chairman Andrei Akimov, and Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriyev.

From multibillion-dollar deals and new projects, including the use of Hyperloop tech in Russia's Far East, to hints that economic sanctions could be lifted - RT looks at the main highlights from the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

SPIEF is an annual international conference and a platform for discussing economic and business trends. This year it took place from June 16 to 18 and attracted more than 12,000 participants from all over the world, including top foreign officials, academics, and business leaders.

SPIEF by the numbers

Over 12,000 people from 130 countries took part in the forum, Anton Kobyakov, executive secretary of the forum's Organizing Committee, said.

All in all, 30 ministers from 21 countries took part in SPIEF, he said, adding that representatives of least 1,300 companies had attended, 880 of which were CEOs.

At least 332 official agreements worth more than $15.4 billion have been signed at the forum so far, not including unofficial deals, Kobyakov added.

Putin hints Russia could lift anti-EU sanctions unilaterally

Sanctions on Russia and the Russian embargo on EU products have been hot topics of discussion at SPIEF.

Speaking at the forum on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow might unilaterally lift its sanctions, which were imposed as a counter-measure to anti-Russia restrictions.

"If at some stage we see that almost everything [to resolve the Ukrainian crisis] has been fulfilled, then we will be ready to make the first step, including [sorting out] various restrictions in the sphere of trade and economics," he said.

However, he cautioned, "We must be sure that these unilateral measures taken by Russia will be followed by reciprocal steps, which won't be - as one famous classic has said - a one step forward, two steps back," a reference to a well-known phrase coined by Vladimir Lenin.

Putin spoke with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who said that he will urge his European colleagues in the 28-member bloc to thoroughly discuss their next move regarding the EU's anti-Russia sanctions.

In addition, speaking ahead of the forum, Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, called for anti-Russian sanctions to be lifted, adding that Europe has enough problems without them.

Over 1 billion euros worth of deals signed between Italian and Russian companies

The SPIEF has been productive for Italian and Russian companies. According to Renzi, Italian firms had signed deals worth more than 1 billion euros with Russian companies as of Friday.

"These are deals which are all legitimate within the context of the sanctions regime because we respect all the rules," Renzi said, adding that the accords "potentially open the way to deals worth between 4 and 5 billion euros."

Among the deals signed at the forum was the one struck between Italian shipbuilding company Fincantieri and Russian energy giant Rosneft.

Hyperloop tech for super-fast transport in Far East

One of the most innovative ideas discussed at the forum was an idea from Russia's Ministry of Transport to use Hyperloop technology along a 70-kilometer (43.4-mile) strip of Russia's first super high-speed transport system. Russia's Minister of Transport, Maksim Sokolov, said he was also seeking to get Chinese investors involved in funding the project.

According to Sokolov, building the super-fast Hyperloop will be cheaper than laying a regular railway network. The project's cost has been estimated at between 30 to 40 billion rubles ($455-607 million).

Foreign investors show growing interest in Russian assets

One of the largest Russian state banks, Gazprombank, has noted an increase in interest from foreign investors in Russian assets. According to the bank's First Vice President, Oleg Vaksman, investors want to buy Russian stocks and bonds, but not enough are available.

"There is an interesting trend. Our clients that have money abroad and foreign investors are now more likely to buy Russian stocks and bonds through the foreign branches of Russian banks. They used to do it through a Swiss or English bank, and this is a positive new trend," Vaksman told RT.

Putin calls for integration of Eurasian business

Russian and Asian countries should create a vast economic space, said President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

"With our partners, we believe the Eurasian Economic Union may be one of the centers of broader integration [with Asia]," said Putin on Friday. The EEU is a trade bloc established in 2015 based on the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. It currently has five members: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, while Tajikistan is a prospective member.

"We are suggesting the creation of a larger Eurasian partnership involving the Eurasian Economic Union and countries with which we have already had a close relationship: China, India, Pakistan, Iran," Putin added.

Indian oil firm buys 23.9 % stake in Rosneft oil field for $2.1 billion

India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has signed an agreement to buy a 23.9 percent stake in Vankor oil field from Russia's Rosneft company for about $2.1 billion.

"With the closure of the Vankor deal, IOC's equity oil portfolio will go up by 1.6 million tons per annum," the Indian company said.

The Vankor field in East Siberia is Russia's second largest by production, with estimated reserves of 520 million metric tons of oil.

Russia to maintain its presence in the Arctic, 'will abide by the law'

A separate discussion at the forum was devoted to Russia's icy stronghold - the Arctic. Moscow plans to maintain its presence in the Arctic, while abiding by international law, said Russia's envoy to the Arctic Council, Vladimir Barbin.

"Russia plans to stick to [international] agreements and act in the Arctic solely within international laws," Barbin stressed.

He added that international laws ruled out any "potential for conflict over access to mineral and biological resources" in the Arctic. "The international law is crystal clear on the rights of Arctic coastal countries and others."

In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin adopted a new maritime doctrine that underlined the growing role of the Northern sea route.

Putin speaks on Ukraine, US elections, NATO

The state of the economy wasn't the only issue discussed at SPIEF. On the second day of the forum, President Putin spoke for hours on the hottest topics on the global agenda, including Russia's relations with the EU and Washington.

When asked about his opinion of the candidates for US president, Putin explained his attitude towards "probably the only superpower," as the president called it. "America is a great state... We accept it, and we want to and are ready to work with the United States," he said, adding that no matter who is elected as America's next leader, Russia will work with him or her. Yet, the Russian President hinted that Donald Trump's foreign agenda might be more preferable to Moscow, "Mr. Trump has stated that he is ready to restore full format Russia-US relations... We all welcome it."

The situation in Ukraine is a good example of how things should not be done in the international arena, according to Russia's president.

"After the Arab Spring, [the US] sneaked up to our borders. Why did they need to support a coup in Ukraine? Chances are, the opposition that is currently in power could have reached it through democratic elections, and we would have been working with them, just the way we worked with those who were in power before president Yanukovich." "But no," Putin went on, "they had to lead it to a bloody coup with victims, to cause civil war."

According to the Russian president, NATO "needs a foreign enemy, otherwise what would be the reason for the existence of such an organization." The whole conflict was forced on Ukraine "to substantiate the very existence of the North Atlantic alliance," Putin concluded.

Wall Street rocked by $8 billion hedge fund implosion

Visium Asset Management, a multibillion dollar hedge fund, has imploded in the biggest scandal to hit the industry in years.
The fund told investors of its plan to close in a letter Friday. It’s the most high-profile shutdown since authorities forced Steve Cohen’s controversial SAC Capital to close in 2013.
A slew of factors — from a brewing insider-trading scandal to a contentious investment by Visium’s founder that rankled investors and staffers alike — led to Visium’s demise.
On top of all of that, Visium’s flagship fund had been reporting dismal performance. Visium is selling one of its better performing funds to AllianceBernstein, it said.
Just days before Visium announced the shut down, one of its top portfolio managers — Sanjay Valvani — was charged with wire and securities fraud. He is accused of using insider information from a Food and Drug Administration Official to place trades on drug companies ahead of key FDA decisions from about 2005 through 2011.

Jacob Gottlieb, the founder of Visium.
Two other former Visium portfolio managers, Christopher Plaford and Stefan Lumiere, were accused of purposefully miscalculating the price of securities so that they could charge investors inflated fees and mislead them about the fund’s liquidity.
The closure of the firm represents a remarkable turnaround: it managed about $7.8 billion firmwide at the start of the year, a 20% increase from the year before, according to Hedge Fund Intelligence.
The investigations Visium is facing would present a challenge for any firm. In a letter to investors announcing the closure, Jacob Gottlieb, the founder of Visium, wrote:

[G]iven the uncertainty relative to the final outcome of the recent regulatory developments, the negative impact of the resulting publicity, and the substantial investor withdrawals, it became clear that maintaining the status quo was increasingly untenable for the firm.

Still, there are other issues at play here, too.
For one, Visium’s flagship fund was down 9.3% this year through May while its competitors were up 0.2%, according to performance figures obtained by Business Insider. It’s a dramatic drop from where the fund had performed over the last several years, beating its index from 2011 up until last year.

Meanwhile, rumours about federal investigations into potential wrongdoing have been swirling for some time. That influenced Steve Cohen, who was banned from managing other investors’ money after his own firm’s insider trading scandal, to put a stop on hiring from Visium before the investigation even became public, people familiar with the matter told Business Insider. Authorities are lifting the ban on Cohen from managing outside money in 2018.
Then there are the departures and investor redemptions.
Many staffers recently left and morale had dropped, according to several recruiters and former staffers. Visium even stopped enforcing its noncompete agreements for some ex-employees in recent weeks. Noncompete agreements are common within the finance industry and were negotiated on an individual basis at Visium, former staffers and recruiters said. Traditionally, Visium paid former staffers a hefty salary to not work at its competitors for six to 12 months at a time.
But after the investigation into Visium was announced, employees found it increasingly difficult to find new homes.
“If you got out early, you were lucky,” one recent Visium departee, who declined to be named, told Business Insider. “And if you’re still there, it’s far more difficult to land somewhere else.”
Then there are the “substantial investor withdrawals” that Gottlieb referred to in his letter Friday. It isn’t clear exactly how much investors asked to pull from the firm, but two people familiar with the matter said the number was in excess of $3 billion.

Irked investors

Even before the latest problems, investors had been rankled by a trade that Gottlieb placed on his own behalf, in 2014, two former employees of the fund said.
In early January of that year, Visium disclosed a 5% stake in a drugmaker called Intercept Pharmaceuticals. A tiny portion of the stake, about 25,000 shares out of a total of 1 million, were bought by Gottlieb himself, who is a trained physician. The regulatory filing disclosing the stake doesn’t say when the shares were purchased, but on the same day as the filing, January 9, Intercept’s shares jumped 281% after the company said it was stopping a trial of its liver disease drug early because it was so effective.

It’s not clear precisely what price Visium and Gottlieb paid, but if they acquired the shares the day before the news of the drug’s efficacy broke, by the end of January 10 the Visium fund’s profits could have reached $364 million, while Gottlieb’s personal profits would have been about $9.6 million.
Intercept had already alerted investors to the fact that it would be revealing results from the trial on that day, and it had been drawing speculation over the good news for months.
What irked Visium’s investors was that Gottlieb had bought shares personally instead of through the fund, a violation of Visium’s own rules, according to two people who worked there at the time. Visium explained to investors that Gottlieb had been exempt from the policy at the time of the trade, one of the people said.
It also gave off the appearance that Gottlieb was focusing on his profits first, creating conflicts of interest with the performance of the flagship fund.
In his letter to investors announcing the closure of the fund, Gottlieb said that Visium had sought to put investors first.
“As you know, since Visium launched in 2005, we have sought to deliver strong risk-adjusted performance and more importantly, we’ve strived to put our investors first. I am enormously proud of Visium’s long-term track record,” the letter said.
The speed with which Visium has been forced to shutter is striking. As recently as last year, an industry publication highlighted the firm for its strong performance. And in 2014, Gottlieb was one of the headliners at a prominent New York hedge fund conference.
SOURCE

Pro-Israeli sides warn Boeing on Iran deal

An Iran Air Boeing 747 passenger plane sits on the tarmac of the Mehrabad airport in Tehran, Jan. 15, 2013.

A groundswell of opposition is building among pro-Israeli politicians in the US against Boeing’s plans to sell aircraft to Iran. 
The Chicago-based aerospace giant has reportedly received requests for more information after Iran said on Tuesday it had reached an initial agreement with Boeing for the supply of jetliners.
Two senior Republican House representatives have said Boeing could threaten US national security with the planned sale of aircraft to Iran.
"American companies should not be complicit in weaponizing” Iran, Representatives Jeb Hensarling and Peter Roskam were reported to have said in a letter to Boeing released on Friday.
In their letter to Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg, the lawmakers asked for "clarification" of the current state of negotiations.
A senior Iranian official said on Friday serious talks were underway between the two sides and expected “good news” about them to be announced within a couple of days.
The European Commission announced on Thursday that the Iranian flag carrier Iran Air has been taken off a safety blacklist and cleared to fly the European skies.
Iran Air agreed in January to buy 118 jets worth $27 billion from Airbus and is discussing further orders with Boeing.
Iranian officials have said the country needs as many as 500 jets to renew its fleet which has suffered under US-led sanctions for years, marked by a series of disasters in which hundreds of people have lost their lives.
Iran’s current civil aviation fleet consists of 248 aircraft with an average age of 20 years, of which 100 are grounded.
Israel law center Shurat Hadin said on Thursday it had told Boeing that it would place liens on any of its airplanes sold to Iran.
The center claims to be representing hundreds of families of alleged victims of terrorism, who have been awarded billions of dollars in damages from frozen Iranian assets.
Shurat Hadin reportedly warned Boeing that a nuclear deal the US and several others countries signed with Iran in July, lifting many sanctions on Tehran, did not override American judgments held by the families the Israeli center represents, which means they can serve liens on anything Iran purchases.
US Representatives Hensarling and Roskam have asked whether Boeing could guarantee that Iran could not convert Boeing passenger jets to cargo aircraft and whether it would repossess aircraft if the nuclear agreement fell through.
The nuclear pact reached by President Barack Obama was opposed by every Republican member of the US Congress. Several questioned the Boeing deal as soon as the news reports came out.
The planned Boeing deal would be the biggest by far between a US company and Tehran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
 Apart from Airbus and Boeing, Iran is also negotiating with several other global aviation giants over the purchases of planes including Bombardier and Embraer.
According to media reports, Iran’s order list from the American aviation giant includes narrow-body 737s for domestic flights and two-aisle 777s for long-haul routes.

Workers Threaten To Shut Down Atlantic City With Strike

Atlantic City’s casino economy has been on the brink of collapse for the last 5 years. According to this Connecticut Post report workers are ready to strike if demands aren’t met. I say let it burn……

Atlantic City’s casino workers say they’ll go on strike against five of the city’s eight casinos on July 1 if a contract isn’t reached by then.
Members of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union voted Thursday to authorize a strike against Bally’s, Caesars, Harrah’s and the Tropicana. The union had already authorized a strike against the Trump Taj Mahal.
A spokesman said Thursday several thousand workers cast ballots, which were 96 percent in favor of a strike.
The remaining three casinos— Borgata, Golden Nugget and Resorts — have been given an indefinite extension by the union, which says talks with them have been making progress.
The union says workers made painful sacrifices that need to be reversed now that Atlantic City’s casinos are regaining their financial footing.
“To me the most insulting thing is that in 2011 this union gave up part of its package to help the casinos when they were struggling,” union president Bob McDevitt said.
The vote comes at a precarious point for Atlantic City as it begins to stabilize from the loss of four of its 12 casinos in 2014, grapples with a $100 million budget shortfall and tries to fight off a state takeover and the prospect of in-state competition from two proposed casinos in the northern part of the state.
“These five employers clearly are not in touch with what their employees are feeling,” McDevitt said. “What is happening at the table is an insult. The day before a strike vote, Tropicana offered a five-year wage freeze. The day before!”