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Puerto Rico files for bankruptcy protection in largest ever US municipal debt restructuring

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 03 May 2017 17:59 UTC
or sale sign is seen hanging from a balcony next to a Puerto Rican flag
© Joe Raedle—Getty ImagesA for sale sign is seen hanging from a balcony next to a Puerto Rican flag in Old San Juan as the island's residents deal with the government's $72 billion debt .
Update: PUERTO RICO FEDERAL BOARD FILES BANKRUPTCY CASE IN U.S. COURT

As per our report last night that following the expiration of the litigation freeze, Puerto Rico's creditors had filed a barrage of lawsuits against the insolvent Commonwealth a bankruptcy was imminent, moments ago Puerto Rico's governor announced the commonwealth will request bankruptcy protection of a portion of the island's $70 billion in debt, setting up a showdown with Wall Street firms owed billions of dollars, in what will be the largest-ever U.S. municipal debt restructuring and further complicating the U.S. territory's efforts to pull itself out of a financial crisis.

The Puerto Rico restructuring would be far larger than Detroit's record-setting bankruptcy, with little to no details how long a court proceeding would last or what cuts would are imposed on bondholders. The island's financial recovery plan covers less than a quarter of the debt payments due over the next decade.

Comment: Just a reminder of who is helping Puerto Rico: Former Ukraine minister Natalie Jaresko named to manage Puerto Rico's financial crisis

And here is good presentation from Stefan Molyeux last year about the debt crises:



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V

Assange fires back at Killary, rightfully calling her "butcher of Libya"


RT
Wed, 03 May 2017 17:29 UTC
assange
© Axel Schmidt / Reuters
Julian Assange has fired back at Hillary Clinton, branding her the "butcher of Libya" in a scathing response to the former presidential candidate's labeling of WikiLeaks as "Russian WikiLeaks".

The editor of the whistle-blowing website shared his agitated response in a tweet Wednesday, a day after Clinton claimed that her loss to Donald Trump in last year's presidential election was caused by the actions of FBI Director James Comey and WikiLeaks.

Clinton claimed to take "absolute personal responsibility" for her loss, adding that she "was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey's letter, on October 28, and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off."


Comment: It doesn't seem like Killary really understands what 'taking responsibility' means. Let's make it clear to Killary, since she doesn't seem to have a good grasp of the English language: by blaming your loss on the FBI and Wikileaks, you are doing the opposite of taking responsibility. Also, if all it took was a few leaked emails to raise doubts and lose the election, you probably didn't have as many voters in your camp as you think you did. Wake up Killary! Most people don't like you and think you're a lying, murdering psychopath who deserved to lose and never be heard from again.

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Attention

Border bombshell: Brussels orders EU countries to scrap internal checks within 6 months

Nick Gutteridge
Express
Tue, 02 May 2017 17:42 UTC
Dimitris Avramopoulos
Dimitris Avramopoulos said member states must drop internal border controls.
Brussels today ordered European countries to drop internal border checks originally introduced to bring the migrant crisis under control within the next six months.

In an announcement tonight eurocrats said there was no justification for keeping police checkpoints at frontiers within the bloc and said they must be removed by the end of the year.

The diktat means that Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway will all have to swiftly find alternative ways to police irregular movements of people across their borders.


Comment: And just how will Brussels enforce this 'diktat'?


Comment: Interesting timing since Erdogan has threatened to unleash large numbers of refugees to Europe. Erdogan threatens to say 'goodbye' as EU official warns Turkey won't be joining bloc

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Stormtrooper

US Army, Navy, and Air Force Commandos Set to Counter North Korean Nuclear Sites

Bill Gertz
The Washington Free Beacon
Wed, 03 May 2017 19:28 UTC
This undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 26, 2017 shows the combined fire demonstration of the services of the Korean People's Army
© Getty ImagesThis undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 26, 2017 shows the combined fire demonstration of the services of the Korean People's Army

Neutralizing Pyongyang's nuclear, chemical arms warfighting priority, SOCOM commander says

U.S. special operations forces are set to conduct operations against North Korean nuclear, missile, and other weapons of mass destruction sites in any future conflict, the commander of Special Operations Command told Congress Tuesday.

Army Gen. Raymond A. Thomas stated in testimony to a House subcommittee that Army, Navy, and Air Force commandos are based both permanently and in rotations on the Korean peninsula in case conflict breaks out.

The special operations training and preparation is a warfighting priority, Thomas said in prepared testimony. There are currently around 8,000 special operations troops deployed in more than 80 countries.

"We are actively pursuing a training path to ensure readiness for the entire range of contingency operations in which [special operations forces], to include our exquisite [countering weapons of mass destruction] capabilities, may play a critical role," he told the subcommittee on emerging threats.

Comment: See also: Warning from Pyongyang's media: Nuclear war inches closer with US drills near Korean Peninsula

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Stock Down

The economics of the future - standing on the brink

Michael Hudson
CounterPunch
Wed, 03 May 2017 16:55 UTC
book economic crisis
© Steve Keen
At first glance Steve Keen's new book Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis? seems too small-sized at 147 pages. But like a well-made atom-bomb, it is compactly designed for maximum reverberation to blow up its intended target.

Explaining why today's debt residue has turned the United States, Britain and southern Europe into zombie economies, Steve Keen shows how ignoring debt the blind spot of neoliberal economics - basically the old neoclassical just-pretend view of the world. Its glib mathiness is a gloss for its unscientific "don't worry about debt" message. Blame for today's U.S., British and southern European inability to achieve economic recovery thus rests on the economic mainstream and its refusal to recognize that debt matters.

Mainstream models are unable to forecast or explain a depression. That is because depressions are essentially financial in character. The business cycle itself is a financial cycle - that is, a cycle of the buildup and collapse of debt.

Keen's "Minsky" model traces this to what he has called "endogenous money creation," that is, bank credit mainly to buyers of real estate, companies and other assets. He recently suggested a more catchy moniker: "Bank Originated Money and Debt" (BOMD). That seems easier to remember.

Comment: Ellen Brown also has a lot to say about this too:

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Eye 1

NSA collected over 151 million phone records last year despite having only 42 warrants


RT
Wed, 03 May 2017 17:25 UTC
talking on phone
© Global Look Press
The NSA collected over 151 million phone records from Americans last year, while having warrants for only 42 terrorist suspects, an annual report shows. In 2015, the agency's snooping powers were cut following Edward Snowden's revelations.

The new transparency report revealing the agency's haul was released Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The records include communicational "metadata," showing who contacted whom, but not what they said. The amount of collected data is still lower compared to previous years, when the National Security Agency (NSA) collected "billions of records per day," according to a 2014 report.

The 151 million records, however, do not represent the actual number of phone calls or people who had their data collected, the report explained, because this volume includes multiple calls made to or from the same phone numbers. Apart from that, a single phone call logged by two phone companies counted as two records.
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Oscar

Why the 'Russia spin' got so much torque

Norman Solomon
CounterPunch
Wed, 03 May 2017 00:00 UTC
Hillary shattered
© ABC News
A new book about Hillary Clinton's last campaign for president — Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign by journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes — has gotten a lot of publicity since it appeared two weeks ago. But major media have ignored a revealing passage near the end of the book.

Soon after Clinton's defeat, top strategists decided where to place the blame. "Within 24 hours of her concession speech," the authors report, campaign manager Robby Mook and campaign chair John Podesta "assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument."

Six months later, that centerpiece of the argument is rampant — with claims often lurching from unsubstantiated overreach to outright demagoguery.

A lavishly-funded example is the "Moscow Project," a mega-spin effort that surfaced in midwinter as a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It's led by Neera Tanden, a self-described "loyal solider" for Clinton who also runs the Center for American Progress (where she succeeded Podesta as president). The Center's board includes several billionaires.

The "Moscow Project" is expressly inclined to go over the top, aiming to help normalize ultra-partisan conjectures as supposedly factual. And so, the homepage of the "Moscow Project" prominently declares:
"Given Trump's obedience to Vladimir Putin and the deep ties between his advisers and the Kremlin, Russia's actions are a significant and ongoing cause for concern."
Let's freeze-frame how that sentence begins: "Given Trump's obedience to Vladimir Putin." It's a jaw-dropping claim; a preposterous smear.

Comment: Clinton has always had MSM in her pocket. The past presidential campaign was revealing in the ways and means of a few hellbent, corrupt movers and shakers were able to persuade, finagle, override common sense and instincts with one of the grandest scenarios of delusion and deflection known in recent times. In fact, they believe in it so much they still think it is working...

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Dollars

Britain balks at ballooning Brexit divorce bill over €100bn


RT
Wed, 03 May 2017 10:53 UTC
Ballooning Brexit
© Bloomberg/Getty Images€100bn and rising!
UK Brexit Secretary David Davis has flatly rejected a reported bill of €100 billion (£84.5 billion) from the European Union, and warned he would walk away from the talks without an agreement if provoked.

According to a report in the Financial Times, EU members France, Germany, and Poland put the Brexit bill at between €91 billion (£77 billion) and €113 billion (£95 billion). The figure is matched by a similar assessment made by the Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel that says the bill could be as much as €109 billion (£92 billion). Both estimates are well above the €60 billion (£50.8 billion) put forward by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Davis immediately rejected suggestions the country would foot a €100 billion Brexit bill, stressing Brussels can get only what it is legally owed. "It was fifty billion at one point, sixty billion, and a hundred billion. We have not seen a number. We have said we will meet our international obligations, but there will be our international obligations including assets and liabilities and there will be the ones that are correct in law, not just the ones the Commission want," said Davis.

The hike reportedly mirrors the worsening position of some of the EU members that have added demands for a payoff from the UK. European officials want Britain to meet up to €15 billion (£13 billion) in farm related payments, as well to lose the right to a share in European assets as part of Brexit. The latter would reportedly have brought down the net bill.

Comment: Is the EU trying to salve its financial woes at the expense of the UK, and/or, by putting out an astronomically high number, trying to discourage future defections? Perhaps both.

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Chess

China on North Korean standoff: 'Stay calm and stop irritating each other'


RT
Wed, 03 May 2017 10:44 UTC
N Korean display menandarms
© Damir Sagolj / Reuters
China has called for all sides in the North Korean standoff to stay calm and "stop irritating each other." It comes just one day after Pyongyang said the US was pushing the region closer to a nuclear war. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called the situation between the two sides "highly complex" and sensitive on Wednesday. "The urgent task is to lower temperatures and resume talks," he told reporters.

"We again urge all relevant parties to remain calm and exercise restraint, stop irritating each other, work hard to create an atmosphere for contact and dialogue between all sides, and seek a return to the correct path of dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible," Geng said, as quoted by Reuters.

His statements came after reporters asked about two US Air Force supersonic B-1 Lancer bombers which flew across the Korean Peninsula in joint drills with South Korea and Japan earlier this week, and Pyongyang's subsequent response, in which state media accused the US of "reckless military provocation" which is pushing the region "closer to the brink of nuclear war."

Although Trump has previously criticized China for its relationship with Pyongyang, he recently praised Beijing for its efforts to "rein in the menace of North Korea," and has urged China to put pressure on North Korea as its main economic lifeline. In an interview with CBS on Sunday, Trump said his relationship with China has already been acclaimed as being "something very special, something very different than we've ever had."

Comment: Bringing the North Korean-US issues to the forefront, at this time, provides China with the most leverage it will have to be a 'go-between' and 'peace persuader' for disarmament before Kim finally creates a missile that works and decides to use it. It is truly a chess game with high stakes, best ended sooner than later. It remains to be seen if the strong rhetoric from the US is real or a foil to prod this situation to an ultimately peaceful conclusion. May cool heads and reason prevail!

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Bug

Clinton at it again: Blames FBI's Comey and 'Russian WikiLeaks' for scaring off her supporters


RT
Tue, 02 May 2017 23:32 UTC
HillClint
© Stuff(Looks like she's seat-belted in...)
Hillary Clinton emerged from her relatively low profile since losing to President Donald Trump to claim she would have won the election were it not for FBI Director James Comey and "Russian WikiLeaks" creating doubt in her supporters' minds.

Speaking at a Women on Women luncheon Tuesday, Clinton accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of interfering in the election and claimed, "If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president."

Clinton was asked whether she took any personal responsibility for her loss. "I take absolute personal responsibility," she said. "I was the candidate, I was the person who was on the ballot, and I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had. It wasn't a perfect campaign, there is no such thing," she continued. "But I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey's letter, on October 28, and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off."

[Go to 13:20 for the Clinton segment.]


Comment: This is a sad, sad woman of unbelievable tenacity and delusion who never figured out it was her complete lack of "truth and honor" that lost her the election.

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