Communist China Set to Introduce Rules to Reduce Hedonism and Pomp, Promoting Frugality and ‘Democratic Life’

Oh this is rich. There are so many ironies in this article, it’s almost too much to bear. This, coming from the party that seeks to assign social scores to its citizens is asking its decadent party of dog eating officials to refrain from exhibiting public displays of wealth, in an effort to assuage the people to accept a more frugal lifestyle. By taking away aspiration, the communist party will control its populace of slave factory workers with greater efficiency.

Should the slaves bear witness to excess and prosperity, they might become jealous and storm the capitol with pitched forks.

What’s immensely ironic here is the fact that the totalitarian communists, operating a grotesquely corrupt network of state run conglomerates, is seeking to rebrand itself as ‘democratic.’ Following the lead of trailblazers like Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama, you could see where the Chinese got their inspiration — or vice versa.

Annual checks will be had, and the hedonistic lifestyles of party members will be examined, thoroughly, by party officials. Failure to adhere to these new austere rules might lead to a sundry of penalties, such as no more fine dining of half cooked live fish, or a rationaing of prime canine meat.

Source: Reuters
China’s ruling Communist Party has issued new rules to push its fight against deeply entrenched corruption, telling senior officials to travel “without pomp”, not to have too many staff and not take too many holidays.

President Xi Jinping has waged war against graft since assuming office four years ago, warning, like others before him, that the problem is so severe it could weaken the party’s grip on power.

The party has already cracked down on what it terms extravagance, hedonism and bureaucratism. The new rules, issued late on Wednesday, further formalize practices and guidelines already generally in effect.

Top officials should “travel without pomp, minimize impact on public life, and not have vehicles exceeding the set standards”, say the rules, which were released by the official Xinhua news agency.

Holidays should be limited and properly approved, the “right” number of staff should be employed, relatives and employees must be “strictly constrained” and top officials should not delay leaving their offices on retirement, the rules state.

The Politburo, one of the party’s elite ruling bodies headed by Xi, would be the first to follow the rules, and Xi himself is leading by example, Xinhua said.

“To forge an iron, one must be strong oneself,” it said.
“Whatever you demand others do, you should first do yourself; whatever you forbid others to do, you should firmly forbid to yourself,” it said.

Government departments should now draft detailed plans to implement the new rules and strengthen supervision, which should be implemented without compromise, it said.

On Wednesday, the party also adopted measures on what it refers to as “democratic life” to ensure officials have the “correct political consciousness”.

“Authorities should organize 2016 annual democratic life meetings to analyze party members’ integrity by criteria such as loyalty, honesty, frugality and whether they insist on seeking truth from facts,” it added.

China has more billionaires than any country in the world at 568.

A little more than a week ago, it was revealed that the CEO of Reddit, Steve ‘Cannibal’ Huffman edited user comments that were mean to him. While he might’ve thought his actions were cute and funny, the community, especially in the very popular and active The_Donald subreddit, went apeshit and the people turned on him, in the most acrimonious ways possible.

For those unfamiliar, The_Donald subreddit has grown into a community of truth seekers, delving into all sort of topics, ranging from John Podesta’s alleged child trafficking ring (Pizzagate) to Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments. In many ways, it has become ground zero for news and information — often scooping stories first before the legendary Matt Drudge.

Head Cuck and Chief of Reddit, Steve Huffman, isn’t interested in any of that success and in a letter out today threatened an outright ban on The_Donald, in addition to announcing the corporate overlords at Reddit have identified many ‘troublesome users’ and will be taking action soon.

Additionally, The_Donald will no longer enjoy the privilege of having their content featured on the r/all page — due to uncivil and troll like behavior.

tl;dr: I fucked up. I ruined Thanksgiving. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. We are taking a more aggressive stance against toxic users and poorly behaving communities. You can filter r/all now.

Hi All,

I am sorry: I am sorry for compromising the trust you all have in Reddit, and I am sorry to those that I created work and stress for, particularly over the holidays. It is heartbreaking to think that my actions distracted people from their family over the holiday; instigated harassment of our moderators; and may have harmed Reddit itself, which I love more than just about anything.

The United States is more divided than ever, and we see that tension within Reddit itself. The community that was formed in support of President-elect Donald Trump organized and grew rapidly, but within it were users that devoted themselves to antagonising the broader Reddit community.

Many of you are aware of my attempt to troll the trolls last week. I honestly thought I might find some common ground with that community by meeting them on their level. It did not go as planned. I restored the original comments after less than an hour, and explained what I did.

I spent my formative years as a young troll on the Internet. I also led the team that built Reddit ten years ago, and spent years moderating the original Reddit communities, so I am as comfortable online as anyone. As CEO, I am often out in the world speaking about how Reddit is the home to conversation online, and a follow on question about harassment on our site is always asked. We have dedicated many of our resources to fighting harassment on Reddit, which is why letting one of our most engaged communities openly harass me felt hypocritical.

While many users across the site found what I did funny, or appreciated that I was standing up to the bullies (I received plenty of support from users of r/the_donald), many others did not. I understand what I did has greater implications than my relationship with one community, and it is fair to raise the question of whether this erodes trust in Reddit. I hope our transparency around this event is an indication that we take matters of trust seriously. Reddit is no longer the little website my college roommate, u/kn0thing, and I started more than eleven years ago. It is a massive collection of communities that provides news, entertainment, and fulfillment for millions of people around the world, and I am continually humbled by what Reddit has grown into. I will never risk your trust like this again, and we are updating our internal controls to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.

More than anything, I want Reddit to heal, and I want our country to heal, and although many of you have asked us to ban the r/the_donald outright, it is with this spirit of healing that I have resisted doing so. If there is anything about this election that we have learned, it is that there are communities that feel alienated and just want to be heard, and Reddit has always been a place where those voices can be heard.

However, when we separate the behavior of some of r/the_donald users from their politics, it is their behavior we cannot tolerate. The opening statement of our Content Policy asks that we all show enough respect to others so that we all may continue to enjoy Reddit for what it is. It is my first duty to do what is best for Reddit, and the current situation is not sustainable.

Historically, we have relied on our relationship with moderators to curb bad behaviors. While some of the moderators have been helpful, this has not been wholly effective, and we are now taking a more proactive approach to policing behavior that is detrimental to Reddit:
We have identified hundreds of the most toxic users and are taking action against them, ranging from warnings to timeouts to permanent bans. Posts stickied on r/the_donald will no longer appear in r/all. r/all is not our frontpage, but is a popular listing that our most engaged users frequent, including myself. The sticky feature was designed for moderators to make announcements or highlight specific posts. It was not meant to circumvent organic voting, which r/the_donald does to slingshot posts into r/all, often in a manner that is antagonistic to the rest of the community.

We will continue taking on the most troublesome users, and going forward, if we do not see the situation improve, we will continue to take privileges from communities whose users continually cross the line—up to an outright ban.

Again, I am sorry for the trouble I have caused. While I intended no harm, that was not the result, and I hope these changes improve your experience on Reddit.

Steve

PS: As a bonus, I have enabled filtering for r/all for all users. You can modify the filters by visiting r/all on the desktop web (I’m old, sorry), but it will affect all platforms, including our native apps on iOS and Android.

The_Donald users aren’t happy at all by Huffman’s ‘coming together’ letter of healing.

Please participate in my non-biased poll.

Is the CEO of Reddit, Steve Huffman, a cannibal?

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) November 30, 2016

Another day under the protection of Trumpenomics, making things and people great again, and another sharp uptick in the dollar. While most of the layman, moron, media advertises this as a good thing, the truth of the matter is foreign governments are raking us over the coals — brazenly manipulating their currencies v the dollar to gain an unfair advantage in trade.

The dollar index is at new highs.

Our chief trading nemesis, Japan, has recently enjoyed a 14% reduction in the yen. Do you have any idea how badly that fucks us?

In spite of this windfall, Japanese shares have grossly underperformed in the US, primarily due to the sharp drop in the yen.

A reckoning is coming.

Rejoice, both Fannie and Freddie are going to make Fairholme’s Berkowitz whole again, two monster positions for the wretched and horrible retailer leading Sears into the ground.

Incoming Mnuchin promises to release both Fannie and Freddie from Obama’s torture dungeons, permitting them to be great again.

Steven Mnuchin, president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. Treasury Secretary, said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should leave government control and that the incoming administration “will get it done reasonably fast.”

The fight over the future of the mortgage companies has been raging since they were bailed out in 2008 for an eventual cost of $187.5 billion. There’s been competing legislation proposed in Congress and battles with shareholders over the U.S. Treasury taking most of the companies’ profits. Since the takeover, the companies have sent the Treasury more than $250 billion.

“We will make sure that when they are restructured, they are absolutely safe and don’t get taken over again. But we’ve got to get them out of government control,” Mnuchin said.

Both Fannie and Freddie are ecstatic to the upside.

Berkowitz owns upwards of 12m shares of Fannie.

That’s not rain you see outside of your windows today, but the tears of Bill Ackman — after talks broke down between Valeant and Takeda to sell Salix — a transaction that would’ve permitted them to retire more than $10b of the $30b in debt they’re currently bedraggled by.

Most people wanted VRX to keep Salix because of its growth prospects. However, with the share price in the dumps and debt/eq ratios blowing out to dangerous levels, the VRX board decided to sell core assets to wind down the clown show before it’s too late.

Takeda is likely applying pressure to VRX, squeezing them in the hopes of picking up the unit at a cheaper price. Either way, Bill Ackman loses.

God save Bill.

Bank stocks have enjoyed their best post election run ever. Its been a long time since anyone cared about a banker, I mean really cared. With the appointment of Mnuchin, Trump all but assures wanton support by Wall Street for his reelection run in 2020. If he should appoint Romney as his Secretary of State, he’ll lock down the old school republican vote too.

Some view this as Trump caving in by operating under a business as usual administration. If his policies turn out to be of the globalist neocon nature, I’ll be the first one to toss Trump under the bus. For now, I’m assuming this is a Machiavellian ploy to keep his enemies close, in order to control them.

We’ve had a magnanimous run. Crude stocks are higher by 13% today — sporting moves which harken back to a place and time on Wall Street that was glorious.

While the prep schools in the Northeast of America celebrate the resurgence of Wall Street, the techfags in Silicon Valley are enduring an acrimonious assault upon their valuations, one that shouldn’t be dismissed.

The FAANG stocks are down again — leading the NASDAQ lower on a day of reckless speculation. Over the last month, this monopolistic cadre of stocks have lost more than 5% in market cap, a group which has a conjoined market cap of $1.9t. The entire basic material sector, including $XOM and the other giants, equals $4.2t.

Biotech stocks are also lower today, off by 2%.

The greatness of The Donald is being praised and lauded almost everywhere. That’s odd, just one month ago he was depicted by the media and most investment banks are the devil, literally.

Deutsche Bank is out with a note this morning, suggesting shares of $GS are about to soar — thanks to a rip roaring economy and widening spreads.

source: CNBC

The rally in bank stocks has priced in higher interest rates, but there is much more upside in the sector’s shares from the economic growth that will come from the Trump administration’s plans for deregulation and lower taxes, according to Deutsche Bank. Goldman Sachs will be one of the particular beneficiaries of the second part of this rally, Deutsche said, upgrading the share to buy from hold.

“GS seems well positioned for a stronger macro environment given revenue upside, good cost control and a valuation below peers (despite similar/higher current and expected returns),” wrote analyst Matt O’Connor in a note Tuesday.

“A stronger economy should benefit many capital market businesses—incl advisory, equity capital markets, and both fixed and equity trading (all areas of strength at GS). This should also be a positive backdrop for investing and lending (even assuming no regulatory changes).”

The analyst raised his 12-month price target to $255 a share from $180. The new forecast represents a 20 percent increase from Goldman’s Tuesday’s close.

“GS shares have mostly kept pace in the post election rally, but this was after lagging peers since the February lows (GS shares are up 50% since the 2/11 bottom vs. a ~60% rise for Market Sensitives on average),” stated the note.

“We sense that leverage to higher rates is mostly reflected in stock prices, but that higher lending and fee volumes from a stronger economy may not be,” stated O’Connor.

The analyst said he believes there is a total of 25 to 30 percent earnings upside for the banking sector based on “a combination of stronger economic growth (better loan growth and fee revenues), higher interest rates (driving higher net interest margins), less regulation and lower tax rates.”

With Goldman’s Mnuchin being tapped as the new Treasury Secretary, it appears the great vampire squid wins again — in spite of their best efforts to support Hillary Clinton and prevent Trump from taking office.

They seem to be doing quite well.

Such generosity by the House of Saud, restricting the supply of crude to record levels, burdening their people with deleterious volume reductions in order to smash us over the skulls with sharply higher prices.

RIGGEDENOMICS

What’s interesting to note, aside from the cartel’s first cut in 8 years, is the fact that traders are jumping in like lemmings without putting these cuts into context. Let’s explore, shall we?

As you can see, quite clearly, OPEC had been pumping out crude as fast as their devilish hands could pump the stuff, up until now. With these cuts, production will plunge to 32.5m bpd — levels not seen since  April of 2016!

Clearly traders are squeezing the life out of those who bet against this cut. Goldman lured their clients to the cliff and kicked them over — suggesting an OPEC cut had only a 30% chance of occurring.

OPEC clinched a deal to curtail oil supply, confounding skeptics as the need to clear a record global crude glut — and prove the group’s credibility — brought about its first cuts in eight years, Bloomberg News reports.

OPEC will reduce production by 1.2 million barrels a day to 32.5 million a day, a delegate said Wednesday in Vienna, asking not to be identified as the decision isn’t yet public. Oil jumped 7.6 percent to $49.90 a barrel in London at 1:23 p.m. local time.

After weeks of often tense negotiations, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ three biggest producers — Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran — resolved differences over sharing the burden of cuts to rein in supply for the first time since 2008. Notably, it appears the Saudis accepted that Iran, as a special case, can raise production to about 3.9 million barrels a day. The agreement is also likely to include a reduction of about 600,000 barrels a day by non-OPEC countries.

WTI and Brent are enthusiastically soaring this morning, higher by more than 7%.

Commerzbank calls the cuts ‘completely worthless’.

Prepare to be great again. Former Goldman banker and Hollywood degenerate, Steve Mnuchin, in a CNBC interview this morning said the economy could be super charged to grow at 3-4%, instead of the feckless shit Obama has presided over, if corporate taxes could be slashed down to 15%.

“By cutting corporate taxes, we’re going to create huge economic growth and we’ll have huge personal income,” Mnuchin told “Squawk Box,” confirming he has been tapped for treasury secretary.

Reducing the corporate tax rate from 30 percent to 15 percent will be a major goal for the Trump administration, the former Wall Street executive said.

“Our most important priority is sustained economic growth, and I think we can absolutely get to sustained 3 to 4 percent GDP, and that is absolutely critical for the country,” Mnuchin said.

“To get there, our number one priority is tax reform. This will be the largest tax change since [President Ronald] Reagan.”

In addition, he said he wants to simplify taxes for the average citizen. “Taxes are way too complicated, and people spend way too much time worrying about ways to get them lower,” he said.
Mnuchin was Trump’s campaign finance chairman during the election.

It’s going to be fantastic. Champagne breakfasts for all and cocaine lunches for some. For the D.C. types out there, your pizza parties are coming to an end.

The Father of Lies resides in the Middle East. We just don’t know who it is, exactly. The Iraqi oil minister said Iraq could cut production for 6 months, before going hog fucking wild on the markets again.

No one else agreed to shit. The Russians are at home eating disgusting borscht. Oil has rallied by more than 5%.

Oil is surging because of optimism about an OPEC deal https://t.co/0dNSL3njC9

Latest from @flacqua: pic.twitter.com/SwXs5uOUFg

— Bloomberg (@business) November 30, 2016

Bonds are getting hit. Brace yourselves for the longest fucking line of cocaine the world has ever seen.