United States

The Problem Is Washington

Guest Column by Mike Whitney

“And let’s be honest, the only reason Kim Jong Un hasn’t joined Saddam and Gadhafi in the great hereafter, is because (a)– The North does not sit on an ocean of oil, and (b)– The North has the capacity to reduce Seoul, Okinawa and Tokyo into smoldering debris-fields.  Absent Kim’s WMDs,  Pyongyang would have faced a preemptive attack long ago and Kim would have faced a fate similar to Gadhafi’s.  Nuclear weapons are the only known antidote to US adventurism.

S&P500 futures have started the second half solidly in the green, up 0.3% to 2,429, tracking European markets broadly in the green, while Asian stocks fell slightly and crude oil is little changed. With US markets set to close at 1pm today trading volumes in many markets remain light before Tuesday’s July 4th holiday and as investors await Friday’s report on the American jobs market. Traders will be looking at key upcoming economic data for validation of the hawkish shift from central banks that roiled markets last week. 

Just days before Trump's meeting with the Chinese president in Hamburg later this week for the G-20 summit, the Trump administration sent a guided-missile destroyer near Triton Island in the South China Sea, Bloomberg reported, a move "which may cause concern ahead of President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart."

According to an anonymous official cited by Bloomberg, the U.S. Navy sent the destroyer USS Stethem within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of Triton Island on Sunday, passing through the contested waters on the basis of "innocent passage." 

The State of Delaware just took a historic step toward ensuring that US stock exchanges will soon be violently disrupted by blockchain technology - possibly to the extent of being rendered obsolete. CoinDesk reports that lawmakers in the state’s general assembly passed a law that makes explicit the right to trade stocks on a blockchain. Details of the bill are still emerging. One source indicated that the bill passed with near unanimity, with a single vote against.

Authored by James Holbrooks via TheAntiMedia.org,

As the Syrian and Russian governments accuse the United States of trying to invent reasons to launch an attack in the Middle East, an international group of former military and diplomatic leaders is warning of an “unacceptably high” risk of global nuclear war if cooler heads don’t prevail.