Ron Paul Urges Trump To Dump AG: "Jeff Sessions Endorses Theft"

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently ordered the Justice Department to increase the use of civil asset forfeiture, thus once again endorsing an unconstitutional, authoritarian, and increasingly unpopular policy.

Civil asset forfeiture, which should be called civil asset theft, is the practice of seizing property believed to be involved in a crime. The government keeps the property even if it never convicts, or even charges, the owner of the property.

Police can even use civil asset theft to steal from people whose property was used in criminal activity without the owners’ knowledge. Some have even lost their homes because a renter or houseguest was dealing drugs on the premises behind the owners’ backs.

Civil asset theft is a multi-billion dollar a year moneymaker for all levels of government. Police and prosecutors receive more than their "fair share” of the loot. According to a 2016 study by the Institute for Justice, 43 states allow police and prosecutors to keep at least half of the loot they got from civil asset theft.

Obviously, this gives police an incentive to aggressively use civil asset theft, even against those who are not even tangentially involved in a crime. For example, police in Tenaha, Texas literally engaged in highway robbery — seizing cash and other items from innocent motorists — while police in Detroit once seized every car in an art institute’s parking lot. The official justification for that seizure was that the cars belonged to attendees at an event for which the institute had failed to get a liquor license.

The Tenaha police are not the only ones targeting those carrying large sums of cash. Anyone traveling with "too much" cash runs the risk of having it stolen by a police officer, since carrying large amounts of cash is treated as evidence of involvement in criminal activity.

Civil asset theft also provides an easy way for the IRS to squeeze more money from the American taxpayer. As the growing federal debt increases the pressure to increase tax collections without raising tax rates, the IRS will likely ramp up its use of civil asset forfeiture.

Growing opposition to the legalized theft called civil asset forfeiture has led 24 states to pass laws limiting its use. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is out of step with this growing consensus. After all, Sessions is a cheerleader for the drug war, and civil asset theft came into common usage as a tool in the drug war.

President Trump could do the American people a favor by naming a new attorney general who opposes police state policies like the drug war and police state tactics like civil asset theft.

Albuquerque Becomes America's No. 1 "Hotspot" As Car Thefts Soar

With vehicle thefts believed to have risen last year at the fastest pace in more than a decade, Albuquerque, New Mexico rose from the number-two spot to claim the title of car-theft capital of the US, according to the National Insurance Crime Board"s annual "HotSpots" report. 

As Bloomberg noted, Albuquerque unseated Modesto, Calif., the number-one seed from 2015, which fell to the No. 4 spot last year. Car thefts are believed to have risen 6.6% in 2016 - the largest annual increae in at least a decade, according to preliminary figures from the FBI"s uniform crime report. However, despite the increase, theft totals remain well below peaks seen in the early 1990s. The historic peak year for vehicle theft was 1991, with 1,661,738 reported thefts. In 2015, the total was 707,758. That is a 57.4 percent reduction since 1991.

The Albuquerque metropolitan statistical area logged 10,011 vehicle thefts last year, for a rate of 1,114 thefts per 100,000 residents – the highest in the country. Pueblo, Colo came in second, with 899 thefts per 100,000, even though it only recorded 1,325 vehicle thefts in 2016.

The NICB published an interactive map with its report that breaks down the data by state.

New to the top 10 this year are the metro areas of Anchorage, Alaska (No. 6) and Billings, Mont. (No. 10). As a population-based survey, an area with a much smaller population and a moderate number of thefts can—and often does—have a higher theft rate than an area with a much more significant vehicle theft problem and a larger population to absorb it.

The rate would be even lower if more people followed simple security practices like not leaving keys in an unlocked car.

For the years 2013 through 2015, a total of 147,434 vehicles were reported stolen with the keys left in them—57,096 in 2015 alone. With the debut of “smart keys” in 1997 and all of the improved anti-theft technology since, it is worthless if drivers continue to leave their keys in the car or leave their vehicles running, unattended, while they make a quick stop at a convenience store.

Don't Let This Happen To You

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Some lives were changed recently:

(Mercury News) — British officials say they’ve been unable to trace the rightful heirs to a trove of gold coins found stashed inside a piano and worth a “life-changing” amount of money.

The Shropshire school that owns the piano and the tuner who found the gold are now in line for a windfall after a coroner investigating the find declared it treasure. The couple who owned the piano for three decades before donating it to the school will likely miss out.

Coroner John Ellery said Thursday that, despite a thorough investigation and a public appeal for information, “we simply do not know” who concealed the coins.

The 913 gold coins which were found in a piano, are displayed at Ludlow Museum in Ludlow, England Thursday April 20, 2017, where they are being kept under lock and key.

The hoard was discovered last year when the piano was sent for tuning. Under the keyboard — neatly stacked in hand-stitched packages and pouches — were 913 gold sovereigns and half-sovereigns minted in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Piano tuner Martin Backhouse said when he found the pouches and slit open the stitching, he thought: “Ooh, it looks like there’s rather a lot of gold in this.”

The hoard, which weighs 13 pounds, has not been formally valued. But Peter Reavill of the British Museum has said it is worth a “potentially life-changing” amount.

Revenue from items declared “treasure” is generally split between the owner — in this case, Bishops Castle Community College — and the finder.

The piano was owned for 33 years by Graham and Meg Hemmings, who donated it last year to the school close to their home, near the Welsh border about 45 miles west of Birmingham. Meg Hemmings said she’s not bitter at missing out on treasure that was right under her nose.

“The sadness is, it’s not a complete story,” she said. “They’ve looked and searched for the people and they unfortunately haven’t come forward.

——————

(Popular Mechanics) – A tank collector in the United Kingdom was in for a surprise when he and his mechanic opened one of his tank’s diesel fuel tanks. Inside were gold bars totaling approximately $1.2 million dollars.

The tank came into possession of Nick Mead, a tank collector and owner of Tanks Alot, a company that offers tanks and other armored vehicles for driving classes, private events, and television and film appearances. Mead found the tank, an ex-Iraqi Army Type 69, on sale on eBay and traded it for an Abbot self-propelled howitzer and a British Army truck.

Mead and his mechanic, Todd Chamberlain, were filming the opening of the fuel tank because they had already found machine gun ammunition in the armored vehicle and wanted video proof in case more ammunition was found. They pulled out five gold bars weighing about twelve pounds worth an estimated $2.4 million. The gold was handed over to authorities, and Mead has placed a receipt for the bars of bullion in a safe deposit box.

There are two ways to react to such stories. The first is from the point of view of the finder, which is obviously “AWESOME!!!”

The second is to consider the person who hid the gold in the first place and realize what a horrendous failure it represents. Someone saves for a lifetime (or audaciously steals or otherwise acquires real wealth), and rather than trusting the banking/currency system, hides that wealth in physical form, either for their own future enjoyment or their descendants’ security. This kind of wealth really can change the course of many future generations.

But they made a big mistake. They didn’t tell anyone, or they told the wrong person, or they failed to plan for some other event that broke the link between gold hoard and owner/beneficiary. And so the gold is lost until found by strangers.

This is both profoundly sad and an object lesson for anyone who hears and takes to heart the idea that “gold in hand” is the only truly safe way to store real wealth. Because while true in theory, it involves serious challenges in practice. How, for instance, do you hide gold and silver so that it’s both undetectable by the wrong people and accessible to the right ones? Whom do you tell so that it will never be stolen but also never lost and forgotten?

These are questions with different answers for every situation. But they have to be asked and correctly answered for gold in hand to be truly a safe.

Soaring Lease Returns Set To Wreak Havoc Used Car Pricing and Auto Industry Profits

For months we"ve warned that declining used car prices could spell disaster for subprime auto securitizations (see "Slumping Used Car Prices Spell Disaster For Subprime Auto Securitizations").  While it"s always difficult to predict the exact timing of when bubbles will burst, a combination of record-high lease returns in 2017 and 2018, combined with rising interest rates could imply that the auto bubble is on the precipice.

As Bloomberg recently pointed out, strong used car pricing is a critical component required to prop up the overall auto market.  While American"s love their brand new cars, if used car prices become too soft then substitution can hurt new car sales.  Add to that the impact of falling residual values on the finance arms of the auto OEMs and you have all the ingredients required for an auto market meltdown.

A glut of used vehicles has started to depress prices. That trend will intensify as Americans will return 3.36 million leased cars and trucks this year, another jump after a 33 percent surge in 2016, according to J.D. Power. The fallout has already begun, with Ford Motor Co. shaving $300 million from its financial-services arm’s profit forecast for this year.

“Ford is the canary in the coal mine,” said Maryann Keller, a former Wall Street analyst who’s now an auto industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut.

This drag may be hitting the rest of the industry, too. A National Automobile Dealers Association index of used-vehicle prices declined each of the last six months of last year. If used values weaken more than anticipated, it can lead to losses across the industry, hitting carmakers, auto lenders and rental companies.

Unfortunately, the volume of lease returns is only expected to grow even more in 2018 with returns expected to approach 4mm units.

As J.D. Power points out in it"s most recent "NADA Used Car Guide Industry Update," the flood of lease returns is driving used car prices lower.

Of course, how we got here is fairly obvious.  The majority of Americans buy cars based on one factor: monthly payment.  And when it comes to managing your monthly payment to the lowest level possible, leasing is the way to go.  Per the Bank Rate calculator below, buying a $30,000 car comes with a monthly payment of around $600 while leasing the same vehicle might only cost $420 per month. 

Of course, why buy a $30,000 Ford for a $600 monthly payment when you could lease a $40,000 BMW for $560?  You can afford it so long as you can cover the monthly payment, right?

Not surprisingly, these dynamics have caused lease share of U.S. vehicles to skyrocket in the wake of the "great recession" as people seek to maintain their excessive lifestyles on smaller budgets.

Of course, the problem is that leased vehicles get returned to their originating lenders every 3 years for brand new leases...we wouldn"t want anyone driving around in a 5-year-old clunker now would we?  But, as we all know, vehicles have useful lives of 15-20 years.  Therefore, it doesn"t take too many excessive lease cycles to flood the market with used supply and bring the whole ponzi crashing down.