Friday, November 17, 2017

Participants in 2014 Ukrainian coup confess

ORIGINAL LINK

Eric Zuesse

The overthrow of the democratically elected President of Ukraine in February 2014 was one of the most important geostrategic occurrences during the past century, because it led to the breakaway from Ukraine of the two regions — Crimea and Donbass — that had been the most opposed to the overthrow, and that had voted over 75% for the President who had been overthrown. And those two breakaways from Ukraine were then presented in the U.S.-allied “The West” as having resulted from ‘Russian aggression’, which then became punished, first by economic sanctions against Russia, and then by massive NATO military buildups on Russia’s borders. But, now, some of the participants in the coup are going public about the matter, because the people who had hired them cheated even them.

The Italian newspaper Il Giornale, and Italian Mediaset Matrix TV, Chanel 5, issued, on November 15th, confessions by a few of the snipers who on 20 February 2014 fired down into the crowd of “Maidan” demonstrators and police, in order “to sow chaos,” as they say that they had been instructed to do.

The Georgian mercenary Alexander Revazishvilli said: “Everyone started shooting two or three shots at a time. It went on for fifteen, twenty minutes. We had no choice. We were ordered to shoot both on the police and the demonstrators, without any difference.” This account is entirely consistent with the leaked phone-conversation on 26 February 2014 in which Urmas Paet, the investigator whom the EU had assigned to determine whom to blame for the snipers and their massive bloodshed during the overthrow, informed the EU’s Foreign Affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, that the anti-Yanukovych, pro-U.S. and pro-EU side, were to blame, and that Paet had just been informed of this by Petro Poroshenko (who shortly thereafter became elected as Ukraine’s figurehead President). Paet said:

what was quite disturbing, the same oligarch [Poroshenko — and so when he became President he already knew this] told that well, all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers, from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, [this will shock Ashton, who had just said that Yanukovych had masterminded the killings] that they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides [so, Poroshenko himself knows that his regime is based on a false-flag U.S.-controlled coup d’etat against his predecessor]

Revazishvilli, and the others confessing, have never yet received the $5,000 each, that they say they’d been promised, and so they finally are going public against the person whom they say had actually hired them for the coup. They name him as “Mamuka Mamulashvili, Saakashvili’s military advisor.”

That’s Mikheil Saakashvilli, the U.S.-imposed President of Georgia, during 2008-2013, who, after becoming extremely unpopular in Georgia, and convicted in absentia there for corruption, became subsequently the U.S.-imposed Governor of the Odessa region of Ukraine. He always suppressed speakers of the Russian language (such as Odessans are), in both countries, both of which nations border Russia (which is why the U.S. regime especially wants to place its missiles there). He now has no citizenship of any country, because he is outlawed both in his original country, Georgia, and in his adopted country, Ukraine. As being the 30 May 2014 appointed Governor of Odessa (where on 2 May 2014 had been perpetrated by the U.S-imposed regime a horrific massacre of locals there against the coup), he turned out to be too rabid a hater of Russians to be acceptable even to the U.S. regime’s figurehead President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, and so was removed and expelled from Ukraine.

The coup itself had been in preparation by the regime of U.S. President Barack Obama ever since 2011. It was a major plan of Obama but kept secret from the public until the coup was sprung in February 2014, such as is shown in this recorded phone-conversation, where Obama’s agent on Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, tells Obama’s Ukrainian Ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt, whom to place in charge of Ukraine after the coup will be completed, which occurred 22 days later. The coup itself hired far-right mercenaries from not only Georgia and Lithuania (such as are here confessing to these Italian newsmedia), but also from Israel and unnamed other countries, but above all from Ukraine itself — members of both of Ukraine’s two racist-fascist or idelogically nazi Parties, the Right Sector, and the “Freedom” or “Svoboda,” Party (which latter had previously been called the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine until the U.S. CIA told them to change their name to “Freedom,” which sounds much better to Americans).

The two heads of the coup, organizing it on the ground in Ukraine, were the Right Sector’s founder Dmitriy Yarosh, and the co-founder of Svoboda, Andriy Parubiy.

Parubiy, who had actually planned and led that violence, had hired Mamulashvili and others like him; Parubiy was referred to, even by wikipedia, in this way: “From December 2013 to February 2014 Parubiy was a commandant of Euromaidan.[16] He was coordinator of the volunteer security corps [i.e.: of the mercenaries] for the mainstream protesters.[17].” In addition, there were paid ‘protesters,’ to add mere bodies and voices to the crowds. And, “Parubiy co-led the Orange Revolution in 2004.” That was a straightforward CIA operation. So, Parubiy was an expert at organizing a coup for Washington. But, the people who now are going public about their participations in the coup didn’t know anything above the man who had hired them: “Mamuka Mamulashvili, Saakashvili’s military advisor.” In March 2016, Parubiy (the man who had actually hired Mamulashvili and a few others like him) was specially honored and received in Washington as a hero of democracy, by NATO’s PR agency, the Atlantic Council.

All of this is kept secret, from the American public, by the U.S. regime’s ‘news’media. This is important for them to do, because when Obama in 2014 imposed economic sanctions against Russia, and when the U.S. regime’s NATO military alliance against Russia, began sending missiles, troops, and bombers, to and near Russia’s borders in order to ‘defend’ NATO against ‘the Russian threat’ and ‘Russia’s aggression against Ukraine’, it was all ‘justified’ on the basis of that coup’s having been not a coup at all that the U.S. had perpetrated right on Russia’s border, but instead a ‘revolution’ that brought ‘democracy’ to Ukraine by (unconstitutionally) overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych.

George Orwell’s 1984 Big Brother is alive and well in ‘the free world’, the ‘democratic West.’ But apparently, Italy isn’t quite as much of a dictatorship as is today’s United States.

This news-report is — like all that I do — being sent free of charge for publication to all U.S. and many of its vassal-nations’ ‘news’media; and, so, if you don’t read about it, or any such news, in the New York Times, or in the New Yorker, or in the Washington Post, or Mother Jones, or National Review, or CNN, or Slate, or the Guardian, or the Independent, or etc., then you know why you don’t. It’s not because the ‘reporters’ and the editors and managers who hire and fire them, really believe that the coup in Ukraine wasn’t a coup, and that Russia, instead of the U.S., is the world’s ultimate aggressor-nation; it’s instead because they themselves are part of the aggressor-regime, the national government (both public and private) that’s overwhelmingly recognized, by people outside the U.S., to be “the biggest threat to peace” in the entire world. They know this — that they’re propagandists for America’s dictatorship — but Americans don’t; because the ‘news’ they receive never reports it (just like they never report that they had covered up George W. Bush’s lying about ’Saddam’s WMD’ etc.). The biggest news-stories are therefore the ones that the press won’t report, because the press are a crucial part of the perpetrator-regime itself. And this is called ‘democracy’. It’s ‘democracies’ such as this that perpetrate such atrocities as Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria since 2012, and Ukraine 2014; and they couldn’t do it without the crucial lying. Up next are Iran, Lebanon, and maybe, finally, Russia itself; and the lying against Russia is and has been nonstop, especially after 2011. Russia lies about small matters such as about sports-doping, but America lies about big matters, such as about which of the two nations is the aggressor against the other. Regarding the serious matters, Russia’s newsmedia are vastly more-honest than are America’s, and should therefore be read in preference to TIME, NYT, WP, CNN, etc. But, of course, none of the U.S. regime’s ‘news’media will allow this fact to be published. And a world-ending nuclear war could result from that.

Ukraine was seized by the U.S. regime as part of the plan to conquer ultimately Russia. This plan crucially includes adding, to NATO, Ukraine — which has Europe’s longest border with Russia. The only way to end that neo-Hitlerite plan is to end NATO now. In the U.S. regime’s ‘news’media, any such proposal cannot be debated, much less advocated. So, wherever you are reading this, is definitely not a part of the regime. It is an authentically free and independent newsmedium, a reliable news-source regarding serious international matters. All the rest — they’re liars; that’s their job.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Participants in 2014 Ukrainian coup confess was originally published on Washington's Blog



via IFTTT

Russia blasts US presence in Syria and support for ISIS

ORIGINAL LINK

On Tuesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry explained it has evidence of US support for ISIS, saying:“The Abu Kamal liberation operation conducted by the Syrian government army with air cover by the Russian Aerospace Force at the end of the last week revealed facts of direct cooperation and support for ISIS terrorists by the US-led ‘international coalition.’ “Russia’s Defense Ministry has photographic evidence, showing US aerial forces “peremptorily rejected to conduct ...

via IFTTT

Over 100 Scientific Studies Agree: Cannabis Annihilates Cancer

ORIGINAL LINK

Over-100-Scientific-Studies-Agree-Cannab

Despite the onslaught of negative warnings about cannabis, most of which are likely linked to or generated by drug companies that stand to lose billions on dangerous cancer drugs should cannabis be recognized as an effective natural alternative, there are countless cannabis cancer studies proving the herb’s powerful anti-cancer properties.



via IFTTT

I’ve Been Banned From Facebook for Sharing an Article About False Flags

ORIGINAL LINK

Opinion — My personal Facebook account, which has the maximum 5,000 friends and an additional 5,000+ followers, has been blocked from posting for three days. My page hasn’t been blocked yet, but we’ll see; I shared the article there, too.

The reason given for this ban by the little pop-up boxes when I logged on just now was that a couple months ago I had shared an article about admitted false flag operations perpetrated by governments around the world. I don’t know what happened that made Facebook’s system decide to crack down on me now all of a sudden, but I do know I’ve been a bit naughtier than usual in my last couple of articles.

The article I got the banhammer for sharing is titled For Those Who Don’t ‘Believe’ In ‘Conspiracies’ Here Are 58 Admitted False Flag Attacks. According to the site’s ticker it has 50,667 shares as of this writing. It’s laden with hyperlinks for further reading, and lists only instances of false flag operations that insiders are on the record as having admitted to themselves. It’s a good compilation of important information. People should be allowed to share it.

The notifications say I can be permanently banned if I continue posting that sort of material. I’ve had that account since 2007.

So. Who wants to see my Barbra Streisand impression?

1*DT-F4nJSdhOLYffEJJ2vmA.png
1*UmbWjIEcD3QUmFqvnoX2qg.png
1*fwJnrrNc9UpmutqkpOW-3w.png

In a corporatist system of government, corporate censorship is state censorship. When there’s no meaningful space between corporate power and government power, it doesn’t make much difference whether the guy silencing your dissent is Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Sessions. America most definitely has such a system.

If they’re going to get us locked down and propagandized into their vapid brain boxes, this will be how they’ll do it. Not by government censorship, but by corporate censorship. Government can’t make an overt attempt to stop a dissenting voice from speaking, but the corporations who own the venue of their speech can.

In a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, plutocrat-sponsored senators spoke with top legal and security officials for Facebook, Twitter and Google in a very disturbing way about the need to silence dissenting voices.

Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii demanded that the companies adopt a “mission statement” declaring their commitment “to prevent the fomenting of discord.”

A former FBI agent Clint Watts kicked it up even further, saying, “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words. America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

“Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced — silence the guns and the barrage will end,” he added.

This was on the Senate floor. Officials were speaking about the need to censor social media to prevent people from sharing dissenting ideas on the Senate floor.

World Socialist Web Site said of the hearing,

That such a statement could be made in a congressional hearing, entirely without objection, is an expression of the terminal decay of American democracy. There is no faction of the ruling class that maintains any commitment to basic democratic rights.

None of the Democrats in the committee raised any of the constitutional issues involved in asking massive technology companies to censor political speech on the Internet. Only one Republican raised concerns over censorship, but only to allege that Google had a liberal bias.

I’ll admit right now that this really scares me. Ever the optimist, I’ve been reassuring my readers that the corporatocracy would never risk taking off the black hole sun mask of corporate cheerfulness and move into regular, overt totalitarianism. I’ve contended that they must remain covert in order to keep successfully manufacture consent.

But, here we are. Through a studious application of psy-ops they have their censorship and they have their consent. Remember, in the book “Fahrenheit 451” the public wasn’t unhappy about the book burnings. They cheered them on, and that’s what we have now. The herd is mindlessly clapping their approval at censorship and even volunteering to report naughty behavior like good little hall monitors for the oligarchy. I’m sure that even some of my close friends and family will silently approve of my banning and will meet my distress with the pursed lips of a church lady secretly pleased at my comeuppance.

I tried joining Gab when I saw this coming, but it’s really alt-righty there and the energy there is just gross. Finding a new social media outlet might not even matter anyway, since these creeps just target any place people gather in large numbers.

I don’t know. I always freak out a bit when the eye of corporate censorship focuses on me. I’ve recently been told by a number of people that they’ve been banned for sharing my articles, and now it’s hitting me.

I’m babbling. This is weird. I just really, really don’t want humanity to become what these people are trying to turn it into, you know? Help me make some noise about this stuff, please. Manipulators can’t do their job when there’s a big spotlight pointed at them.

Top photo | Facebook’s moderation system, which combines an automated flagging system with human oversight, has consistently drawn criticism, once banning a satirical account which criticized U.S. military spending.(AP/Czarek Sokolowski)

This article was published with permission from Caitlin Johnstone. Johnstone is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her on Twitter, and maybe throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal.

The post I’ve Been Banned From Facebook for Sharing an Article About False Flags appeared first on MintPress News.



via IFTTT

People keep telling me I'm supposed to hate WikiLeaks now. I keep telling them there are entire teams of social engineers whose job it is to make us think that.

ORIGINAL LINK

DOyXlYmX4AA-JyV.jpg



via IFTTT

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Bombshell BBC Report Confirms US Struck a Deal with ISIS in Syria

ORIGINAL LINK

At a moment of widespread acknowledgment that the short-lived Islamic State (ISIS) is no longer a reality, and as ISIS is about to be defeated by the Syrian Army in its last urban holdout of Abu Kamal City in eastern Syria, the US is signaling an open-ended military presence in Syria. On Monday Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon that the US is preparing for a long-term military commitment in Syria to fight ISIS “as long as they want to fight.”

Mattis indicated that even should ISIS lose all of its territory there would still be a dangerous insurgency that could morph into an “ISIS 2.0” which he said the US would seek to prevent. “The enemy hasn’t declared that they’re done with the area yet, so we’ll keep fighting as long as they want to fight,” Mattis said. “We’re not just going to walk away right now before the Geneva process has traction.”

Mattis was referring to the stalled peace talks in Geneva which some analysts have described as a complete failure (especially as the Geneva process unrealistically stipulates the departure of Assad), as the future of Syria has of late been increasingly decided militarily on the battlefield, with the Syrian government now controlling the vast majority of the country’s most populated centers.

Ironically just as some degree of stability and normalcy has returned to many parts of the county now under government control, Mattis coupled the idea of a permanent US military presence with the goal of allowing Syrians to return to their homes. He said, “You keep broadening them. Try to (demilitarize) one area then (demilitarize) another and just keep it going, try to do the things that will allow people to return to their homes.”


Related 


Meanwhile, Turkey once again reiterated that the US has 13 bases in Syria, though the US-backed Syrian YPG has previously indicated seven US military bases in northern Syria. The Pentagon, however, would not confirm base locations or numbers – though only a year-and-a-half ago the American public was being assured that there would be “no boots on the ground” due to mission creep in Syria.

During the last year of the Obama administration, State Department spokesman John Kirby was called out multiple times by reporters for tell obvious and blatant lies concerning “boots on the ground” in Syria.

Remember this? “We are not going to be involved in a large scale combat mission on the ground in Syria. That is what the president [Obama] has long said.”

Last summer, in a move that angered the US administration, Turkish state media leaked the locations of no less than ten small-scale American military bases in northern Syria alone (revelations of US bases in southern Syria began surfacing as well). As another recent Pentagon press conference further acknowledged, these bases – though likely special forces forward operating bases – require a broad network of US personnel operating in various logistical roles inside Syria and likely now includes thousands of US troops deployed on the ground, instead of the Pentagon’s official (and highly dubious) “approximately 500 troops in Syria” number.

 

BBC bombshell

What makes even the timing of Mattis’ declaration of an open-ended military commitment in to supposedly fight ISIS is that it came the same day that the BBC confirmed that the US and its Kurdish SDF proxy (Syrian Democratic Forces) cut a deal with ISIS which allowed for the evacuation of possibly thousands of ISIS members and their families from Raqqa.

According to yesterday’s bombshell BBC report:

The BBC has uncovered details of a secret deal that let hundreds of Islamic State fighters and their families escape from Raqqa, under the gaze of the US and British-led coalition and Kurdish-led forces who control the city. A convoy included some of IS’s most notorious members and – despite reassurances – dozens of foreign fighters. Some of those have spread out across Syria, even making it as far as Turkey.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Omar fields falling into hands of SDF could well have been part of a Quid pro quo deal that allowed ISIS to leave Raqqa for allowing SDF to capture Omar oil field after ISIS attacks #SyrianArmy positions. If you read 1 article today, make sure its one by BBC below https://t.co/FFQhOIjPEC

— EHSANI2 (@EHSANI22) November 13, 2017

4000 #ISIS and families evacuated by #USA forces from #Raqqah, including foreign fighters: the scandal of the century. pic.twitter.com/P5UdgbgBn1

— Elijah J. Magnier (@ejmalrai) November 13, 2017

Though it’s always good when the mainstream media belatedly gives confirmation to stories that actually broke months prior, the BBC was very late to the story. ISIS terrorists being given free passage by coalition forces to leave Raqqa was a story which we and other outlets began to report last June, and which Moon of Alabama and Al-Masdar News exposed in detail a full month prior to the BBC report.

And astoundingly, even foreign fighters who had long vowed to carry out attacks in Europe and elsewhere were part of the deal brokered under the sponsorship of the US coalition in Syria. According to the BBC report:

Disillusioned, weary of the constant fighting and fearing for his life, Abu Basir decided to leave for the safety of Idlib. He now lives in the city. He was part of an almost exclusively French group within IS, and before he left some of his fellow fighters were given a new mission.

“There are some French brothers from our group who left for France to carry out attacks in what would be called a ‘day of reckoning.’”

Much is hidden beneath the rubble of Raqqa and the lies around this deal might easily have stayed buried there too. The numbers leaving were much higher than local tribal elders admitted. At first the coalition refused to admit the extent of the deal.

So it appears that the US allowed ISIS terrorists to freely leave areas under coalition control, according to no less than the BBC, while at the same time attempting to make the case before the public that a permanent Pentagon presence is needed in case of ISIS’ return. But it’s a familiar pattern by now: yesterday’s proxies become today’s terrorists, which return to being proxies again, all as part of justifying permanent US military presence on another nation’s sovereign territory.

America’s Syrian adventure went from public declarations of “we’re staying out” to “just some logistical aid to rebels” to “okay, some mere light arms to fight the evil dictator” to “well, a few anti-tank missiles wouldn’t hurt” to “we gotta bomb the new super-bad terror group that emerged!” to “ah but no boots on the ground!” to “alright kinetic strikes as a deterrent” to “but special forces aren’t really boots on the ground per se, right?” to yesterday’s Mattis declaration of an open-ended commitment. And on and on it goes.

Top photo | ISIS fighters from hold a celebratory parade after capturing Raqqa, Syria.


© Zerohedge.com

The post Bombshell BBC Report Confirms US Struck a Deal with ISIS in Syria appeared first on MintPress News.



via IFTTT

The Fed Issues A Subprime Warning As Household Debt Hits A New All Time High

ORIGINAL LINK

After we first reported last week that US credit card debt once again rose above $1 trillion, despite a recent sharp downward revision to the data, while both student and auto loans rose to a fresh record high...

revolving%20credit%20sept%202017_1.jpg

... it would probably not come as a surprise that according to the just released latest quarterly household debt and credit report by the NY Fed, Americans' debt rose to a new record high in the second quarter on the back of an increase in every form of debt: from mortgage, to auto, student and credit card debt. Aggregate household debt increased for the 13th consecutive quarter, rising by $116 billion (0.9%) to a new all time high. As of September 30, 2017, total household indebtedness was $12.96 trillion, an increase of $605 billion from a year ago and equivalent to 66% of US GDP, versus a high of around 87% in early 2009. After years of deleveraging in the wake of the 2007-09 recession, household debt has risen more than 16.2% since the trough hit in the spring of 2013.

Some more big picture trends:

Mortgage balances, the largest component of household debt, increased again during the first quarter to $8.74 trillion, an increase of $52 billion from the second quarter of 2017.  Balances on home equity lines of credit (HELOC) have been slowly declining; they dropped by $4 billion and now stand at $448 billion.  Non-housing balances, which have been increasing steadily for nearly 6 years overall, saw a $68 billion increase in the third
quarter. Auto loans grew by $23 billion and credit card balances increased by $24 billion, while student loans saw a $13 billion increase.

  • Suggestive of a modest rebound in mortgage activity, mortgage originations in Q3 were $479 billion, up from $421 billion in Q2 if still below the $491 billion as of Q1. The mMortgage delinquency rate improved to 1.38% from 1.47% prior quarter.The number of household loans increased to 671.07 million.
  • Auto loan balances increased by $23 billion, continuing their 6-year trend.  Auto loan delinquency rates increased slightly, with 4.0% of auto loan balances 90 or more days delinquent on September 30. There was a total of $150.6 billion in auto loan originations in Q3, an uptick from the $148 billion in the second quarter of 2017,  and among the highest quarterly volumes seen in the Fed's data.

     
  • Credit card balances increased by $24 billion. The aggregate credit card limit rose for the 19th consecutive quarter, with a 1.5% increase.
  • Outstanding student loan debt grew by $13 billion and stood at $1.357 trillion as of September 30, 2017, up from $1.344 trillion in Q2. 11.2% of aggregate student loan debt was 90+ days delinquent or in default in Q3 2017, unchanged since the previous quarter

In general, many new loans last quarter went to households with healthy credit. The median credit score for auto loans originated in the third quarter was 705, and the median credit score for new mortgage borrowers was 760, according to the WSJ.

Mortgages made up more than two-thirds of overall household debt and totaled $8.74 trillion in the third quarter, up $52 billion from the spring. Home-equity lines of credit, meanwhile, fell by $4 billion from the second quarter to $448 billion.

The table below summarizes the key changes in household debt and credit developments as of Q3 2017

On the qualtiative front, aggregate delinquency rates ticked up slightly, from 4.8% in Q2 to 4.9% in Q3.  Late-payment rates on the whole remain low, but flows into delinquency have risen in recent years for credit-card and auto debt. This was offset by foreclosures which reached a new historical low, as only 69,580 individuals had a new foreclosure notation added to their credit reports in the third quarter of 2017. Also of note, new bankruptcies fell to 208,440 from 224,020 prior quarter.

In a troubling development, and following on the warning issued last quarter, the New Your Fed explicitly warned that credit card and auto loan "flows into delinquency" increased. Specifically, credit card flows into delinquency have increased over the past year, while auto loan flows into delinquency have been steadily increasing for several years.

Also notable, auto loan originations were at $150.6 billion, up slightly from the previous quarter, marking the second highest level in more than a decade.

The New York Fed also issued a parallel report which examined the changes in the auto loan market in terms of originations and performance by lender type. And whereas last quarter the NY Fed's warning looked at deteriorating trends among credit cards and focused on the general downshift in credit quality, this quarter the Federal Reserve focused on troubling developments in the auto loan space, where "delinquency flows across several debt types climbed this quarter, including for auto loans,” according to Wilbert van der Klaauw, senior vice president at the New York Fed.

One continued concern: the sharp rise in delinquency for auto loans made to subprime borrowers by auto-finance companies, usually through auto makers or dealers.

“Examining the auto loan market more closely revealed notable differences between auto finance and auto bank lenders. Delinquency rates among auto finance lenders are considerably higher and rising, especially for subprime borrowers, in part reflecting differences in underwriting standards.”

Here are some other disturbing auto loan trends highlighted by the NY Fed:

Outstanding subprime auto debt (classified in the chart below as debt held by borrowers with origination credit scores under 620) now stands at about $300 billion. Although this amount has increased steadily in absolute terms, as a share of the total outstanding auto loan balance, it has been fairly steady at around 24 percent since about 2011. Subprime loans are disproportionately originated by auto finance companies, and their share has nearly doubled since 2011 and now stands at over $200 billion—represented in dark blue on the left panel of the chart below. In comparison, the outstanding balances of bank auto loans remain dominated by loans originated to borrowers with higher credit scores, as shown in the right panel below.

Since 2011, the overall delinquency rate of loans originated by auto finance companies has significantly deteriorated. The Fed found that while the 90+ day delinquency rate for bank auto loans has been steadily improving since the financial crisis, in contrast, the delinquency rate for auto finance companies has been sharply increasing since 2014, by more than 2 percentage points.

Further disaggregating the delinquency rates by the origination credit score of the borrower shows that while the delinquency rates for borrowers with credit scores of 660 or higher appear to be somewhat steady, the subprime delinquency rates are really where the pressure is. This is especially stark when the Fed breaks out auto finance and bank loans, which shows that the delinquency rate – even among borrowers in the same credit score bucket – is considerably higher and rising on the auto finance side. This suggests that bank auto loans may have some additional layers of underwriting – credit score alone does not explain the gap and divergence in the delinquency rates. Meanwhile, the overall delinquency rate for auto loans shows only a very slow increase masking the sharp rise in subprime delinquency, which is diluted by the increase in prime loans with better performance.

Putting these numbers in context, while the impact from these growing delinquencies on the larger financial sector may be muted, the Fed cautions that there are over 23 million consumers who hold subprime auto loans. These consumers may find their credit reports further damaged after a default or encounter further financial difficulties after experiencing a car repossession.

At this point it is worth recalling the explicit warning the NY Fed made three months ago on deteriorating trends in an other key debt product: credit cards.

“While relatively low, credit card delinquency flows climbed notably over the past year,” said Andrew Haughwout, senior vice president at the New York Fed. “This is occurring within the context of loosening lending standards, as borrowers with lower credit scores recover their ability to access credit cards. The current state of credit card delinquency flows can be an early indicator of future trends and we will closely monitor the degree to which this uptick is predictive of further consumer distress.

That bolded statement, was the first official warning by the Fed that the US consumer is sick, and the Fed has no way reasonable explanation for this troubling jump in delinquencies. As we said at the time, "timestamp it, because this will certainly not the be the last time the Fed warns about the dangerous consequences of all-time high credit card debt."

And now, in addition to credit cards we can also add auto loans to the growing list of things the Fed is becoming increasingly worried about, as well as including the universe of up to 23 million Americans who are facing an imminent default, and whose credit-funded purchasing power will soon be sharply curtailed.



via IFTTT

Monday, November 13, 2017

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: From One Frenzy To The Next. “America is in another of its Salem moments. Fre…

ORIGINAL LINK

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: From One Frenzy To The Next. “America is in another of its Salem moments. Frenzy is almost a living, breathing monster. It moves from host to host, fueled by rumor, gossip, and self-righteous furor. The Greeks knew well of the transitory nature of these mass panics. They claimed such fits were inspired by the Maniae, the three daughters of Night who were the goddesses of insanity, madness, and crazed frenzy. We’ve seen all three of them in action throughout the past year.”



via IFTTT

77th Holistic Doctor Shot Dead In Her AZ Home With Her Entire Family

ORIGINAL LINK

Dr. Annie Fairbanks, a holistic doctor practicing out of Arizona, was found shot dead in her home with husband Jason Fairbanks, 3 year old daughter and 9 month old son. This makes the 77th holistic doctor to have been found dead in this way over the past couple of years. Sgt. Ben Hoster, a spokesman for the Scottsdale Police Department, stated that the police do not believe any other parties are involved. This essentially means there are no suspects and that this is likely a murder-suicide. Even the local paper is calling it that. Oddly, this statement and conclusion was made just hours after the incident took place, hardly giving anyone enough time to make a call like that.



via IFTTT