France Suspends Role In NATO Naval Mission, Outraged Over “Turkish Aggression” Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2020 – 02:45 France has notified NATO command that its military is suspending involvement in an ongoing Mediterranean operation called Sea Guardian in protest of a June 10 incident wherein Turkish warships off Libya’s coast “engaged” a French frigate via radar. This means the Turkish ship essentially had missile lock on the NATO allied ship. The AP detailed in the days after the hostile encounter between two NATO members that “the frigate Courbet was ‘lit up’ three times by Turkish naval targeting radar when it tried to approach a Turkish civilian ship suspected of involvement in arms trafficking.” The Turkish military ships were allegedly escorting the smaller civilian ship, suspected by the French of illegal gun-… [Read More...]

Why The US Empire Works So Hard To Control The International Narrative About Russia Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 23:45 Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com, On a December 2010 episode of Fox News’ Freedom Watch, John Bolton and the show’s host Andrew Napolitano were debating about recent WikiLeaks publications, and naturally the subject of government secrecy came up. “Now I want to make the case for secrecy in government when it comes to the conduct of national security affairs, and possibly for deception where that’s appropriate,” Bolton said. “You know Winston Churchill said during World War Two that in wartime truth is so important it should be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.” “Do you really believe that?” asked an incredulous Napolitano. “Absolutely,” Bolton replied. … [Read More...]

Seeing The Big Picture… Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 14:45 Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com, Onto the dog days of summer. The first half of 2020 has been intense for all involved and the second half looks to be intense as well. Stepping back from the daily noise of headlines it may serve useful to look at the big picture. For now there is little doubt that the unprecedented interventions by the Fed continue to support equity markets on their journey toward the largest asset bubble inside of a recession ever. Indeed all market down move events in June found the Fed immediately responding with announcements, from corporate bond buying, to loosening the Volcker rule, and announcing its corporate credit facility to be operational this week. All of these … [Read More...]

Should Governments Save Lives Or Jobs Amid Pandemic? Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 02:45 It looked like the U.S. had reached the peak of its coronavirus infections on April 24 when it experienced 36,738 new daily cases, a figure that fell to 17,618 by May 11. Back then, it looked like the U.S. had put the worst of the pandemic behind it and President Trump consistently pressed for the economy to be reopened. While testifying in front of the Senate in mid May, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, cautioned against reopening too early, stating that the virus could spiral out of control resulting in increased suffering and death as well as a setback on the road to economic recovery. On June 26, the U.S. reported 45,300 new daily … [Read More...]

The Purge: The Natural Progression Of “Woke” Censorship Is Tyranny Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 00:05 Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com, As I have noted in the past, in order to be a conservative one has to stick to certain principles. For example, you have to stand against big government and state intrusions into individual lives, you have to support our constitutional framework and defend civil liberties, and you also have to uphold the rights of private property. Websites are indeed private property, as much as a person’s home is private property. There is no such thing as free speech rights in another person’s home, and there is no such thing as free speech rights on a website. That said, there are some exceptions. When a corporation … [Read More...]

Goldman: We “Don’t Love Risk/Reward Up Here… Starting To Worry About Valuation” Tyler Durden Tue, 06/30/2020 – 14:40 By Tony Pasquariello, global head of HF Sales at Goldman Sachs The dominant narrative of the week was a return to trading COVID headlines, as the worst period for US case growth since April served as disruption for those expecting business-as-usual trading conditions this summer.   Along the way, stock operators absorbed another heavy dose of deal supply — adding to what will be a record month and record quarter for US new issue — with quarter end looming.  On the week, S&P lost 2.9%, although one can reasonably argue the market traded with decently thick skin.  In fact, when you get below the hood of the major indices, there were … [Read More...]

How Long Will Europeans Work For? Tyler Durden Tue, 06/30/2020 – 02:45 Eurostat have released an interesting forecast about how long a person can expect to be active in the European labour market during his or her life. The data is measured in years and it’s based on someone who was 15-years-old in 2019. On average, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that the expected duration of working life in the European Union was 35.2 years – 3.6 years longer than in 2000. In individual member states, it ranges from 32 years in Italy to 42 years in Sweden… You will find more infographics at Statista The data also includes several countries outside the EU and their figures are diverse. In Turkey for example, a 15-year-old can expect a working life of 29.3 years. In Iceland, however, a 15-… [Read More...]