• German Prosecutors Charge 3 Former Wirecard Executives With Fraud
  German Prosecutors Charge 3 Former Wirecard Executives With Fraud

  Two years have passed since Wirecard abruptly filed for bankruptcy protection, confirming the allegations of bears and skeptics. And after two years of investigations, German prosecutors have finally formally charged former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun and two other executives with fraud – while former CIO Jan Marsalek remains a fugitive from justice.

  

  Prosecutors in Munich said Monday that ex-CEO Markus Braun signed off on financial reports despite knowing they had been faked. They said the firm booked nonexistent revenue it attributed to multiple partnerships, mostly in Asia and the Philippines in particular, and used fake documents to purportedly show the firm had money that it ultimately did not, the Associated Press reports.

  Braun’s attorney said the charges were “seriously flawed” and “assumed a false picture of the facts.” The defense claims that Braun was unaware of machinations by other executives. Despite this, he remains in custody.

  In addition to Braun, the firm’s former head of accounting and the managing director of the Dubai-based subsidiary also were charged.

  Wirecard’s fraud cost banks 3.1 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in loans and writedowns, according to the prosecutors’ statement.

  During its heyday, Wirecard grew rapidly, and eventually found itself being listed among Germany’s top blue-chip stocks before the firm filed insolvency proceedings in 2020, based on the revelation that €1.9 billion ($2 billion) that had been included on the country’s balance sheet could not be found.

  Of course, a German court must agree to the charges before a trial can be held.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/16/2022 – 02:45

• Has Russia Been Financing Western Environmentalism?
  Has Russia Been Financing Western Environmentalism?

  By Drieu Godefridi of The Gatestone Institute

  Have Western environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), movements and parties been possible, even unwitting, collaborators with the Russian government for the last ten years?

  This question arises from a recent report by the Foundation for Political Innovation (Fondapol) in Paris. Fondapol’s director, Dominique Reynié, said in a recent interview:

  “We have found Gazprom funding in particular environmental NGOs, which furnished certain European countries with ministers — Belgium for example — who then evidently embarked on a sort of return of favor by defending an exit from nuclear power.”

  These allegations are not new.

  The Guardian, already in 2014, quoted NATO’s then Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, making the following accusation:

  “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.”

  Below Europe’s soil lie large reserves of shale gas, also known as bedrock gas. The exploitation of these natural gas reserves would have substantially reduced Europe’s purchases of, and dependence on, Russia’s gas — in particular on its gas giant, Gazprom. The same is true of nuclear power, which offers Westerners an abundant, non-CO₂-emitting energy source as an alternative to Russian gas.

  Hence the interest, for the Russian government, in mounting a vast disinformation campaign against shale gas and nuclear power in the West, by massively financing the groups most likely “naturally” to oppose it: environmentalist organizations.

  On June 29, 2017, two of America’s leading federal lawmakers on energy issues, US Representatives Randy Weber and Lamar Smith , sent a letter to then-Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, demanding an investigation into the funding of US environmental organizations by the government of the Russian Federation. According to The Hill:

  “The letter notes that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton complained in a speech to a private audience in 2016, ‘We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians …'”

  Without providing direct proof of the origin of the funds — that is not their role — these two Congressmen demonstrated the mechanism, which can be summarized as follows: “Funds from the Russian government -> Shell company ‘incorporated’ in Bermuda -> American foundation -> American environmental organizations.”

  The advantage of Bermuda is that it does not require any disclosure that funds come from a foreign government, contrary to American law.

  The Sea Change Foundation is a US-based 501(c)(3) private not-for-profit organization. As every American 501(c)(3), Sea Change must disclose that it has received funds from abroad — in this instance a Bermuda company. Nothing more.

  On March 11, 2022, US Representatives Jim Banks and Bill Johnson sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, asking for an investigation into the reported Russian manipulation of American “green groups” that are seemingly funded with “dark money” (anonymous donations). “Russia spent millions promoting anti-energy policies and politicians in the U.S.,” Banks said to Fox News Digital.

  “Now, thanks to Biden’s war on domestic energy, U.S. oil production has dropped 10%, pushing up prices and enriching and emboldening Putin before he invaded Ukraine…. Unlike the Russia hoax, Putin’s malign influence on our energy sector is real and deserves further investigation.”

  Their letter noted:

  “According to Sea Change’s tax filing, in 2010 the group received $23 million, half of its total annual contributions, from a Bahamian shell corporation tied to the Russian government. Sea Change then passed that money to groups like the Sierra Club and the Center for American Progress who lobbied strongly against fracking and pro-energy policies, to reduce competition with Russian oil and gas. In 2020, the Center for American Progress donated over $800,000 exclusively to Democrat politicians and groups’ and Sierra Club Independent Action spent $3.7 million supporting Democrat candidates.

  “Russia also used its state media and social medial disinformation campaigns to attack America’s energy industry. Russia Today is especially focused on energy policy. According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Russia Today’s coverage ‘is likely reflective of the Russian Government’s concern about the impact of fracking and US natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to Gazprom’s profitability.’ In 2021, after Biden’s first year in office, Gazprom, a Russian state-owned energy company, earned record profits.”

  The American environmental organizations specified by the letters are among the main ones, including the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, all of which are massively involved in the opposition to shale gas exploitation in the United States and which have received a total of $10 million a year from the American Sea Change Foundation, which is richly endowed by the Bermuda-based umbrella company.

  In Germany, the leading environmental organizations WWF, BUND and NABU have set up an “environmental” foundation — Naturschutzstiftung Deutsche Ostsee — with the company Nord Stream AG. Based in Zug, Switzerland, Nord Stream AG is an international consortium of five major companies established in 2005 for the planning, construction and subsequent operation of two 1,224-kilometre natural gas pipelines through the Baltic Sea. The five shareholders of the consortium are Gazprom International Projects LLC, Wintershall Dea AG, PEG Infrastruktur AG, N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie and ENGIE. Gazprom International Projects LLC holds a 51% stake in the pipeline project.

  The “environmental” foundation Naturschutzstiftung Deutsche Ostsee was endowed with 10 million euros by Gazprom, as claimed by Nord Stream. These German environmental organizations WWF, BUND, NABU were, moreover, at the same time, fierce opponents of German civil nuclear power and of shale gas exploitation in Europe.

  Notably, the example Dominique Reynié gave of the mechanism he described appears to be that of that of Belgium. Indeed, the current Belgian Federal Minister of Energy, Tinne Van der Straeten, of the environmentalist Groen Party, was, before she took office, the co-owner — a 50% partner — of a law firm one of whose “big” clients was none other than Gazprom, the Russian gas giant. When she became Minister of Energy in 2020, Van der Straeten worked on completely dismantling the Belgian civil nuclear park, in conformity with the fierce will of the environmentalists for almost twenty years, to replace it with gas-fired power plants, which will have to be supplied, among others, by — Gazprom.

  It is of course the nuclear industry that often best demonstrates the duplicity of certain environmentalist organizations. While these organizations constantly swear by the reduction of CO₂ emissions in all things, when it comes to nuclear power, we see them demanding to replace an energy source that emits almost no CO₂, with fossil fuels that emit forty times more. In Belgium, the green parties Ecolo and Groen explicitly advocate replacing nuclear reactors with gas-fired power plants.

  Accusations of being financed by the Russian government, even if they are signed by the Secretary General of NATO, the Director of the Foundation for Political Innovation and the Secretary of State of the United States, do not make one guilty of corruption, conflict of interests, non-disclosure of being financed by and/or being an agent of a foreign government. The presumption of innocence applies to everyone.

  The aggression on Ukraine by Russia, whose military is literally financed by European purchases of Russian gas — which is 40% of the gas consumed in Europe — obliges us to throw the full media and judicial spotlight on these accusations. In this respect, the recent call by the Republican Study Committee — the largest group of conservatives in the US House of Representatives — for Treasury Secretary Yellen to investigate whether Russian money financed USA green groups is a step in the right direction.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/16/2022 – 02:00

• "Here Be Monsters"
  “Here Be Monsters”

  Authored by Kyle Shideler via The American Mind (emphasis ours),

  Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the phrase “national interest” has become something of a blasphemy. Certain thinkers in the “realist” school of foreign policy analysis have drawn social media ire for articulating the interests which might motivate Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine or questioning whether the United States has a significant interest in intervening there.

  

  Increasingly in our censorious modern world, any attempt to understand the behavior of an actor (in this case Russia) is treated as a de facto endorsement of that actor’s behavior. This is not a new development. During the Global War on Terror those of us who tried to articulate the ideological framework within which jihadists operated were accused of believing the same things as the terrorists themselves.

  But to recognize that Russia has long opposed the expansion of Western power into its near abroad is not the same as defending its security claims. And recognizing the Russian demand in no way denies Ukraine’s own interest in preventing itself from being dominated by its larger neighbor. To recognize the interests of one nation is not to deny the interests of another, nor does it make a moral claim as to which set of interests are “right” or “wrong.”

  But the idea of “national interest” itself is in profound opposition to the Progressive vision of the global order. If countries act according to national interests, and those interests’ conflict, then disputes between nations may prove inevitable. Eliminating the idea that nations have interests does not eliminate those interests, but it does make predicting and mitigating the conflicts that result harder.

  Understanding the interests of other nations may be easier if we first understand our own. How do we as Americans figure out where our own interests lie? And among our interests, how do we determine which are most important?

  Begin at the beginning

  To have a national interest at all one must first have a nation, defined as a people within a territory, under a single government.

  The first and most paramount national interest is preserving the security and safety of the people who make up the nation. This means both protecting them from threats from without by means of invasion, as well as protecting them from within from civil conflict and upheaval. It also means preserving the way of life, beliefs, and distinctiveness of a people. For Americans, that distinctiveness is based, in part, upon shared principles, articulated in our Declaration of Independence and forged in the fire of the revolution fought to secure them. But it is also grounded in the shared co-habitation and history together in this land, liberated by that revolution.

  Failing to maintain this distinctiveness can break down what it means to be a people at all. The result can be factiousness, strife, and even civil war, a threat that the country’s founders well understood.

  George Washington’s Farewell Address is best-known for its admonishment against entangling foreign alliances but in it he warns against the spread of factionalism, and the excessive love or hatred towards other nations which often breeds it. Washington wrote:

  Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

  We now live in a period where some Americans, who would not be caught dead flying Old Glory, are displaying the flags of countries they cannot even find on a map, while accusing fellow citizens who hesitate to take a side in a distant conflict of being agents in the service of a foreign power.

  George Washington’s gentle reprove ought to ring urgently in our ears. There is no interest abroad so vital that it is worth destroying what remains of the bonds of civil friendship at home. 

  What is nearest is dearest

  Safety and security for the people requires a nation to be able to hold its territory sovereign. Therefore, upholding national boundaries and ensuring that borders are defensible and intact is a primary interest.  Because all nations have people and territory, they hold these interests in common. But not all countries are the same. Some are large, and others are small; some have the misfortune to be located next to larger and more powerful neighbors. It is these geopolitical realities which shape a nation’s secondary interests, which are peculiar to that nation, but are still based upon their primary interests for a secure people and territory.

  In the case of the United States, we are a continental nation with only two land borders which, once finalized, have been historically peaceful.  This in turn means that ensuring that our neighbors remain stable and peaceable and preventing disruptions or chaos among our neighbors is within our interests.

  That order has largely broken down in Mexico, where narco- and human-trafficking cartels corrupt the national Mexican government, control swathes of territory, and openly engage our own border patrol with military weapons. Our sovereignty is routinely violated, and our borders unsecured to the point that border states have declared the ongoing crisis “an invasion.”

  To our North, a border safe and settled since 1846, the Canadians are embroiled in a political dispute over COVID-19 lockdowns that saw the invocation of their version of martial law and led to protests and blockages along our own border. While unlikely to go the way of our southern border, as a neighbor Canada is more restive than any time in modern memory.

  Besides the borders, the United States possesses two very long coastlines and is separated from other significant historical powers by large oceans. We thus have an interest in maintaining the distance and separation those oceans provide, by preventing outside powers from developing a foothold in the Western hemisphere. As President James Monroe articulated in the doctrine that bears his name:

  We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere, but with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

  The U.S. has woefully neglected its own hemisphere—one of its oldest articulated national interests—for decades. Chinese strategic interests in Central America have risen sharply, with nearly 20 Latin American countries participating in the Chinese “Belt and Road initiative.” Russia has deployed air defense systems, and has even conducted training exercises with nuclear weapons-capable bombers, in Venezuela. Following the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, Russia threatened to deploy troops and weapons to Latin America, bringing back the specter of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  This does not mean (as Monroe notes) that America has an interest in overthrowing every Latin American country whose regime is not favorable to our own, but it does mean deterring great powers abroad from meddling in the Western hemisphere and attempting to assert their power over our southern neighbors.

  Note also that while we may bear some affection for the independence and republican form of government possessed by (most of) our Latin neighbors, our commitment to prevent interference in the hemisphere is grounded not in their rights, but in our interests.

  Here be monsters

  It is these primary national interests, and secondary interests shaped by geographic realities, from which we derive the rest of our national interests. Our desire to ensure freedom of navigation, a long stated American interest, is grounded in our long coastlines and distance from the other continents. We rely upon shipping to engage in commerce with the rest of the world to make our people and country prosperous (and prosperity is to be valued for maintaining the security of the people).

  To preserve the safety that the oceans provide, we have an interest in preventing the rise of a naval power equal to or superior to our own, either in the Atlantic or in the Pacific. We also have an interest in preventing the rise of a power consolidating all Northwestern Europe, the Pacific Rim, or the Middle East, as such a power could hamper or deny our ability to engage in commerce, and likewise harm us.  

  In large part these interests were acquired following the collapse of the British Empire, which also had an interest in securing these global conditions As a result, the early Republic was not forced to exercise as much effort to enjoy the benefits, provided it maintained a policy of not meddling in internal European struggles.  

  New technologies also impact our interests, particularly the rise of nuclear weapons and ICBMs, which reduce the value of oceanic distance and gives us an interest in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and ensuring that those nations which already possess them are stable and deterred from threatening us.

  At this tertiary level, it becomes easy to extrapolate additional interests and even to have interests which may conflict. For example, when does our interest in preventing the rise of a continental European power outweigh our interest in avoiding European entanglements?

  This is where prudence—the ability to weigh the benefits and costs of pursuing a given course, which in turn requires a solid understanding of both adversaries and ourselves—is required. Is our nation strong or weak at this moment? Are we as a people united or divided? Are we successfully managing other more vital interests?  We may well decide that securing an interest requires fighting and winning a war. But it is never in our interest to lose one.

  We would do well to remember John Quincy Adam’s axiom about America’s interests:

  Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

  The further we get away from the nation’s primary interests, the harder it becomes to distinguish between what is in our country’s interest and what is not. The further away from your own borders you go, the easier it is to find yourself at the place on the map where it says, “here be monsters.”

  *  *  *

  Kyle Shideler is the director and senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 23:40

• World Economy Braces For Supply Chain Chaos As COVID Closes China  
  World Economy Braces For Supply Chain Chaos As COVID Closes China  

  The global economy is in disarray as the war in Ukraine unleashed a commodity shock with increasing risks of stagflation. Adding to the turmoil is an outbreak of COVID-19 in China that may unleash another supply chain crisis. 

  News from China over the last day shows a new outbreak of the highly contagious omicron variant has infected more than 5,000 people, the most since the early days of the pandemic in early 2020. China’s zero-tolerance approach has shuttered factories and placed some 51 million people into some form of lockdown. 

  

  As of Tuesday, omicron variant infections have been reported in 21 provinces and municipalities nationwide, including the capital of Beijing. According to CNN, five cities are in lockdown, including Changchun, Jilin, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Langfang. 

  

  Lockdowns have forced factories to idle production and risk snarling production from Apple iPhones to Amazon Echo & Alexa devices to Toyota SUVs to smart television to all sorts of other electronic devices. Disruptions to exports may induce shortages and drive up inflation, just as the Federal Reserve embarks on hiking interest rates to control inflation at four-decade highs. 

  A Bank of America Corp. survey of fund managers published on Tuesday showed confidence in global growth this year is the lowest since July 2008, and stagflation expectations have jumped to a whopping 62% of respondents. 

  “You take all these little paper cuts and you start to add them up and you could be looking at a potential significant slowing of the global economy,” said Jay Bryson, chief economist at Wells Fargo & Co.

  China’s zero-tolerance policy has reminded us that supply chains are still subjected to massive disruptions. The lockdowns couldn’t come at a worse time, as spring tends to be one of the busiest shipping seasons of the year. 

  Shenzhen’s 17.5 million residents were placed under lockdown on Sunday. The city resides in Guangdong, a coastal province of southeast China known for its manufacturing hub and ports, which account for about 11% of China’s economy. The province accounted for 23% of China’s shipments in 2021. 

  Bloomberg Economics warns that a prolonged lockdown in Shenzhen could unleash supply chain disruptions worldwide. 

  “The forceful action to contain the worst COVID-19 outbreak since early March will deal a direct hit to the production and consumption sides of a province that accounts for 11% of GDP. Previous steps to contain virus flareups left manufacturing unscathed for the most part. This lockdown will hit output in key industries such as tech and machinery that feed into global supply chains,” Chang Shu, chief economist for Asia, said. 

  “Given that China is a major global manufacturing hub and one of the most important links in global supply chains, the country’s Covid policy can have notable spillovers to its trading partners’ activity and the global economy,” said Tuuli McCully, head of Asia-Pacific economics at Scotiabank.

  According to Stephanie Loomis, vice president of International Procurement, the global impact of lockdowns could roil supply chains once more. 

  “If they don’t let any of these guys go to factories and produce goods, then nothing will move,” Loomis said. “It’ll just stop.”

  We expect factory shutdowns will spread if the virus isn’t contained and could have massive implications on the global supply chain if lockdowns persist for the next several weeks. It’s still debatable whether the factory shutdowns will impact the US. If so, it usually has a 6-8 week lag. 

  We question if container ships will limit delivering Chinese goods to the US because of factory shutdowns as the demand to ship sinks. This may lead to depressed shipping rates on an intermediate basis because of the lack of demand. However, long term, shipping rates should rebound due to a backlog of products that would need to be shipped once factories reopen.  

  “The outbreaks impose downside risk to China’s economy at least in the next few months,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said. 

  “A China slowdown would exacerbate the risk of stagflation and global supply chain problems,” said Zhang. 

  And when you thought things couldn’t get any crazier for the global economy, they certainly did and risked further economic turmoil that may roil global supply chains, just like what happened in the early days of the pandemic. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 23:20

• So Many Russians Are Buying Gold That Central Bank Halts Bank Purchases
  So Many Russians Are Buying Gold That Central Bank Halts Bank Purchases

  Russia’s central bank announced that it will suspend purchases of gold from banks due to overwhelming demand from households, Reuters reports. The purchasing pause will take effect Tuesday with no end date set.

  

  “Currently, households’ demand for buying physical gold in bars has increased, driven, in particular, by the abolition of value-added tax on these operations,” reads a statement from the central bank.

  On Feb. 28, the central bank raised the key rate from 9.5% to 20% as the ruble crashed to record lows amid the Kremlin’s so-called “special operation” in Ukraine. The announcement is a flip-flop from a February announcement that the financial authority would resume gold purchases after commercial banks were hit with Western sanctions in response to the invasion.

  “With the goal of diversifying the central bank’s reserves, at the moment there is no sense in building up reserves in gold,” according to VTB analysts, who added that the banking sector’s structural liquidity deficit had contracted to under 4 trillion rubles (US$36 billion), down from a record 7 trillion rubles.

  Before the rush into gold, many wealthy Russians had been purchasing luxury items such as watches and other jewelry in order to defend against the ruble’s tumble. While cryptos were also purchased aggressively, there is little insight into who much bitcoin Russians currently own.

  Analysts from BCS suggested that the gold purchases will help reduce the amount of cash in circulation, and will help banks’ liquidity.

  In lieu of funding via gold purchases, Russia’s central bank has been providing liquidity to banks through more conventional operations such as holding daily repo auctions at lending institutions. So far, these have proven sufficient.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 23:00

• Tesla Increases Vehicle Prices For Second Time in Weeks Amid Commodity Shock
  Tesla Increases Vehicle Prices For Second Time in Weeks Amid Commodity Shock

  For the second time in weeks, Tesla Inc. raised prices on its vehicles following a historic commodity surge. 

  Bloomberg reports the cheapest Model 3 in the US is $46,990. In a note to clients, Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy said Tesla raised prices on all its vehicles between 3% to 5% this week. This is the second time in weeks that Tesla has raised prices (see: here). 

  The increase comes after a historic surge in commodity prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Western sanctions isolate the commodity-rich Russia from the rest of the world, threatening metal supplies. Bloomberg’s industrial metals index surged to record highs. 

  

  Also, the most significant weekly change in industrial metals just occurred and kicked off the first round of Tesla price hikes last week.

  

  There’s no word on which metal(s) is impacting Tesla the most, but if we had to guess it’s probably metals for its batteries that have skyrocketed in price, such as nickel. 

  “Those new price increases today come just as the price of nickel is surging due to the crisis in Ukraine leading to embargoes and sanctions on Russia, the world’s third-biggest producer of nickel – a material critical to high-energy-density battery cells found in some electric vehicles,” Electrek said last week. 

  On Sunday, Tesla’s Elon Musk, clearly frustrated with the commodity shock, tweeted, “Tesla & SpaceX are seeing significant recent inflation pressure in raw materials & logistic.” 

  Tesla & SpaceX are seeing significant recent inflation pressure in raw materials & logistics

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2022

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  To mitigate costs, Tesla has opted to equip some base Model 3s with iron-phosphate battery cells that don’t require nickel to keep costs low. However, such a move appears not to be working, and electric cars can certainly not escape today’s out-of-control inflationary environment. 

  Mush has promised an affordable version of the Model 3, but the likelihood of that happening during a commodity shock is zero. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 22:40

• Senate Passes Resolution To Undo Transit Mask Rule; Romney Only Republican To Vote With Dems
  Senate Passes Resolution To Undo Transit Mask Rule; Romney Only Republican To Vote With Dems

  The Senate passed a resolution Tuesday that would eliminate extended federal regulation requiring mask on public transportation, including planes, trains and subways.

  

  Passing by a margin of 57-40, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) was the only Republican Senator to oppose the measure, while eight Democrats crossed the aisle to join Republicans in passing it.

  The resolution only needed to pass by a simple majority in the Senate, and was not subject to the 60-vote filibuster.

  “This is a free country. If someone wants to wear a mask on a five-hour flight from one American city to another, there is no reason they can’t do that,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MI) at a press conference leading up to the vote.

  “But the testimony we’ve had in the Commerce Committee, from the airline industry and from scientists is that airline air is the safest air that Americans can breathe indoors, anywhere.”

  The bill will not head to the House, however it’s unclear if Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will even allow a vote according to NBC News.

  The Biden administration last week extended the requirement for masks on public transportation through April 18. When they extended it, they said that the CDC will “work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor.”

  In other pandemic news, Hillsborough County, Florida will end its State of Emergency over Covid-19 after the positivity rate fell from 9.7% last June to 2.9%.

  The decision was based in part on research which found that “masks had little to no impact on the spread of the virus,” according to News9.

  That kind of talk would get one banned from social media just months ago…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 22:20

• US-Mexico Border Town Transformed Into Warzone After Drug Cartel Leader's Arrest
  US-Mexico Border Town Transformed Into Warzone After Drug Cartel Leader’s Arrest

  The Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo has been transformed into a warzone after the arrest of a top cartel boss. Burning vehicles littered the streets, and heavy gunfighting was reported causing the U.S. consulate to go on lockdown and the U.S. border crossing to be temporarily shut down on Monday. 

  The chaos erupted late Sunday when Juan Gerardo Trevino, or “El Huevo,” the leader of one faction of the Northeast Cartel, the successor group to the Zetas Cartel, was arrested. He is also a U.S. citizen, a Mexican government official told Reuters. Trevino is on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) list of most wanted cartel members. 

  Trevino faces a U.S. extradition order for drug trafficking and money laundering. 

  In response to the arrest, cartel members hijacked and burned vehicles and attacked law enforcement and military personnel. 

  “During the night of Sunday, there were shootings, burning of trucks, and a grenade attack on the U.S. consulate,” Mexican newspaper El Occidental said. 

  On Monday, Nuevo Laredo Mayor Carmen Lilia Canturosas warned citizens in the border town to take cover. 

  

  Bloomberg reported the U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo was closed to the public due to an “emergency situation,” U.S. citizens “should avoid the area or seek shelter.”

  U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar said, “I have raised our grave concerns about these incidents and the safety and security of our employees directly with the government of Mexico.”

  “We are aware of an emergency situation near the U.S. Consulate General Nuevo Laredo. U.S. citizens should avoid the area or seek secure shelter.” pic.twitter.com/nfQe4rLGoh

  — USCG Nvo Laredo (@USAConNVL) March 14, 2022

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  Shocking videos uploaded to Twitter show the warzone. 

  Un poco más de Nuevo Laredo esta madrugada (otra parte del mismo video) pic.twitter.com/l8RaYiduhW

  — Pascal BeltrandelRio (@beltrandelrio) March 14, 2022

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  Puente internacional ,1 Nuevo Laredo pic.twitter.com/5UP6f6VuAx

  — elChihuas (@Hiram87041270) March 14, 2022

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  🔴 Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, amaneció este lunes entre el caos de vialidades cortadas e incendios aquí y allá, debido a la detención por parte del Ejército del jefe del cartel del Noroeste, Juan Gerardo Treviño, alias El Huevo

  Por @carmenmoranb

  🔗 https://t.co/8bgzobmEzy pic.twitter.com/QzDICzDnqw

  — EL PAÍS México (@elpaismexico) March 15, 2022

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  All of this happened just across the border from Laredo, Texas. Last month, CBP agents were advised to wear full kevlar (commonly known as body armor) and be equipped with long-arm guns, such as lightweight semi-automatic rifles, due to the increased cartel activity on the border. 

  As the border crisis rages on, the Biden administration still doesn’t have a viable plan to subdue the violence. Widespread violence is also occurring across the country’s most popular beach resort areas.  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 22:00

• FOMC Preview: The First Rate Hike Since 2018
  FOMC Preview: The First Rate Hike Since 2018

  Central banks face a challenging trade-off: do they react to the labor market close to full employment and near record jump in inflation visible even before the latest energy price moves to prevent a further unanchoring of inflation expectations to the upside, or do they react to the considerable downside risks to the economic outlook from a massive geopolitical and energy price shock, preferring not to add volatility to the current market environment. The ECB opted for the former, and the Fed is expected to follow suit.

  

  Tomorrow the Fed will hike 25bps – its first rate hike since Dec 2018 and the first liftoff (from zero) since Dec. 2015. In his recent testimony to Congress, Chair Powell summed up the compromise that the FOMC appears to have reached by noting in his recent testimony to Congress that he will support a 25bp hike at the March meeting, but is open to hiking by more than 25bp at a future meeting if inflation surprises to the upside or remains persistently high.

  

  To be sure, many will ask why just 25bps – after all, the last time inflation was 7.9%, the Fed Funds rate was 15%. The answer is that never before has the US financial system been so hyperfinancialized, and any “rushed” attempt to lift rates will lead to a complete collapse in risk assets.

  

  The Fed will also update the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) to show that inflation will remain higher for longer and result in hikes of 100-125bps in each of ’22 & ’23, even though markets are far more hawkish, and have priced in 7 rate hikes for all of 2022, and a 15% chance of a 50bps rate hike on Wednesday.

  

  The Fed may also trim growth forecasts because of geopolitical risks. According to BofA’s Ralf Preusser, Powell will offer limited guidance on the outlook for hikes: he will stress elevated uncertainty, data dependency, & retain option for 50bp hikes if needed.

  The 25bp vs. 50bp debate in the months ahead will also depend on the war in Ukraine. The war has raised energy prices, tightened financial conditions, and lowered growth prospects abroad, implying higher inflation and lower growth in the US. Goldman suspects that the FOMC will be reluctant to consider a 50bp hike until downside risks to the global economy from the war diminish.

  While a rate hike is fully priced in, the market focus will be on the outlook for hikes and QT. In its FOMC preview, Goldman writes that it does not expect the war to knock the Fed off of a 25bp-per-meeting tightening path. With inflation likely to remain uncomfortably high all year, the FOMC will probably only pause if it thinks further tightening risks pushing the economy into recession. Goldman expects seven 25bp hikes this year – in line with the market – one at every meeting this year, followed by four quarterly hikes in 2023, for a total of 11 rate hikes by the end of 2023, and for a terminal rate of 2.75-3%.

  

  Going down the SEP, the dots are likely to jump again in March, though the FOMC’s forecast will be less hawkish than the market’s. Even more hawkish than BofA, Goldman expects the median dot to show six hikes in 2022, but the risks are tilted to the downside, especially if FOMC participants view balance sheet reduction as equivalent to multiple rate hikes. In 2023, GS expects the median dot to show four more hikes in 2023 and a terminal rate of 2.5-2.75%, just above the FOMC’s 2.5% neutral rate estimate.

  

  Goldman also believes that the FOMC will avoid appearing to commit to a specific pace of tightening in its statement. The Committee could adapt Powell’s recent comment, “We will use our policy tools as appropriate to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched while promoting a sustainable expansion and a strong labor market.”

  An interesting question, according to Bank of America, is whether the latest evidence of liquidity pressure in the Treasury market is causing a rethink on timing and design of QT. On QT, the bank expects the Fed to finalize their redemption caps for UST coupons, MBS, & bills (BofA cap base case: UST coupons = $60b/m, MBS = $40b/m, bills = no cap); these will likely be updated in the Fed’s “principles for reducing balance sheet” document.

  BofA believes that QT details will be finalized at this meeting and allow the Fed to start QT as early as May, however, QT risks being delayed due to deteriorating UST liquidity and a Fed that does not want to add market uncertainty. According to the bank, there are risks that QT could get pushed to June or July; and may also start with only MBS QT if UST liquidity remains strained. “A later QT start could add to curve flattening pressures”, BofA warns.

  Goldman does not believe that the Fed will rush QT and reminds clients that Powell said in his testimony to Congress that the FOMC will not finalize its plan to shrink the Fed’s balance sheet at the March meeting. Instead, the FOMC will likely finalize and publish its plan at the May meeting and then announce the start of balance sheet reduction at the June meeting.

  That said, where Goldman does agree with BofA is in the expectation of how much QT will be once it does begin: the bank expects the FOMC to permit passive runoff capped at $60bn per month for US Treasury securities (UST) and $40bn per month for mortgage-backed securities (MBS), with at most a brief ramp-up period to reach those peak rates. Some Fed officials have also raised the possibility of permitting uncapped runoff of MBS. This would have almost no incremental impact on runoff relative to the $40bn per month cap but it might seem like an agreeable compromise to participants who had advocated sales of MBS. Comments from Fed officials suggest that the FOMC has also discussed the possibility of treating bills separately from other Treasury securities and letting them run off more quickly.

  In sum, Goldman’s assumptions imply that the balance sheet will ultimately shrink from just under $9tn today to just over $6tn in 2025, although since a recession will hit long before then, this estimate appears at best naive.

  

  A more detailed FOMC preview is below, courtesy of Newsquawk

  The Fed Funds target range is expected to be lifted by 25bps in the first hike since COVID-19 with inflation running hot and the labor market widely considered close to full employment. The accompanying SEPs are expected to signal a string of hikes to follow this year in wake of ramped inflation forecasts, countered with lower growth forecasts. The guidance will be gauged to see whether FOMC is moving towards the market pricing of front-loaded hikes (seven this year), or a more measured three/four hikes. The uncertainty around the Ukraine invasion has pushed back on the chances of 50bps hikes, but the door is still open. Powell could provide more details around balance sheet reduction, but plans/launch are not to be finalised until mid-2022.

  HIKE INCREMENT: The majority of Fed officials have come out in support of a 25bps liftoff for the Federal Funds target range, particularly in wake of the Ukraine uncertainty. Fed Chair Powell said in his testimony in the Capitol that he thinks it is appropriate to hike by 25bps in March. Although he warned if inflation doesn’t begin to come down, “we’re prepared to raise by more than that amount in a meeting or meetings”, keeping the door open on 50bps in future meetings. A Reuters poll of economists saw all respondents forecast a 25bps hike, while 20/37 economists saw the risk of a 50bps hike later this year as high or very high. Rates markets are implying a 5% chance of a 50bps liftoff. On administered rates, the majority expect the IOR (currently 0.15%) and RRP (currently 0.05%) to both be hiked by the same 25bps increment with money markets having been stable and the effective Federal Funds rate comfortably within the target range.

  RATE PATH: Bloomberg’s survey has 28% of economists seeing the March statement indicating a hike in May, 45% expect signalling for a string of increases, and 28% see no forward guidance in the statement. Meanwhile, the Dot Plot is expected to signal more hikes are to follow this year in the Fed’s efforts to get the Fed Funds closer to neutral (largely seen at 2.5%). Powell has said that every meeting is live for 2022, but the broader discourse has seen a binomial  outlook develop, with one camp leaning towards three/four hikes while the other leans towards the mid-to-high single digits, corroborating with market pricing. On which, after a Ukraine-induced unwind in market hike pricing in early March, rates markets are now back to pricing seven 25bps hikes by year-end, supported recently by the hawkish ECB and given the Fed has been undeterred in its policy outlook in wake of the invasion. The cooling of market volatility has helped.

  BALANCE SHEET: Powell has said balance sheet normalisation/reduction plans will not be finalised at the March FOMC but will occur some time after the initial rate lift off. Little new details have been touted by officials in wake of the announcement made at the January confab either, where the Fed released its Principles for Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet. Powell may use the upcoming FOMC to give a calendar guide to when the process will begin, where expectations range largely for the rolloff to begin between July and September. And potentially on pace and composition, with Bloomberg’s median survey of economist estimates seeing the balance sheet at USD 8.5tln by 2022-end compared to the current USD 9tln area, and another USD 1tln reduction is expected in 2023. Meanwhile, amid some calls for faster MBS roll-off, most economists don’t expect a faster relative pace of MBS vs Treasuries reduction to begin with, although the Fed has kept the door open to that possibility going ahead, with some officials touting potential outright sales, instead of the current rolloff plans.

  FINANCIAL CONDITIONS: A big part of the argument for 25bps liftoff instead of 50bps is the already realised deterioration in financial conditions, tightening the flow of credit to the economy. Goldman Sachs’ Global Financial Conditions index hit its tightest since May 2009, tightening 130bps since the Ukraine invasion, and adding to the increased certainty of central bank tightening paths that were already beginning to affect conditions beforehand. That tightening has been accentuated by a spell of funding pressures amid the market volatility, seen in lower stocks and record-breaking commodity strength, playing into credit spread widening. Note the recent cooling of those pressures, however. Albeit, the market is already tightening and the Fed now needs to ratify those expectations with  its liftoff, but there’s less urgency to surprise too hawkishly.

  INFLATION: Headline Feb CPI rose 7.9% Y/Y, with the core not far behind at +6.4% as price pressures become more broad based. Figures were in line with the Wall St consensus and presumably a slight sigh of relief for policymakers that there wasn’t another right tail print, albeit still at alarming levels. Further, given the approaching commodity shock, the Fed will now be viewing the figures as a base to grow off/sustain, rather than a peak that was expected before the Ukraine invasion. Even after the Feb NFP saw signs of cooling wage growth and easing price spiral fears, it’s noteworthy Fed’s Evans (non-voter; last speaker ahead of FOMC blackout) on CNBC said the report didn’t change much for the Fed and took the time to warn about further approaching inflation, with particular concern around food prices. Indeed, the Feb CPI report saw food prices rise 1% M/M, the largest since the early COVID period, with risks skewed to the upside ahead given the rally in ags. And that’s not to mention the already lofty 3.5% spike in energy M/M, and over 25% rise Y/Y. The Fed has largely kept a cool head to look through the inflation, with the party line being the anchoring of longer term inflation expectations keeping credence to the idea that the pressures will recede. However, the recent breakout of market-based, longer-term inflation expectations post-Ukraine will be raising eyebrows and emboldening tightening plans, with 5yr5yr CPI swaps rising further towards their 2013/14 peaks of 3% and away from their 2% target.

  DOTS: Bloomberg’s economist survey sees the FOMC raising its PCE forecasts for 2022 to a 3.9% median from 2.6% in December, cutting its 2022 GDP median to 3.3% from 4.0%, while maintaining the unemployment median at 3.5% for the next several years, according to the survey. Median dot expectations via Bloomberg’s survey:

  • FEDERAL FUNDS RATE: exp. at 1.1% in 2022 (prev. 0.9% in Dec), 1.9% in 2023 (prev. 1.6%), 2.38% in 2024 (prev. 2.1%), 2.5% in longer run (prev. 2.5%)
  • CHANGE IN REAL GDP: exp. at 3.3% in 2022 (prev. 4.0% in Dec), 2.2% in 2023 (prev. 2.2%), 2.0% in 2024 (prev. 2.0%), 1.8% in longer run (prev. 1.8%)
  • UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: exp. at 3.5% in 2022 (prev. 3.5% in Dec), 3.5% in 2023 (prev. 3.5%), 3.5% in 2024 (prev. 3.5%), 3.5% in longer run (prev. 4.0%)
  • PCE INFLATION: exp. at 3.9% in 2022 (prev. 2.6% in Dec), 2.5% in 2023 (prev. 2.3%), 2.1% in 2024 (prev. 2.1%), 2.0% in longer run (prev. 2.0%)
  • CORE PCE INFLATION: exp. at 3.3% in 2022 (prev. 2.7% in Dec), 2.4% in 2023 (prev. 2.3%), 2.1% in 2024 (prev. 2.1%)

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 21:40

• JP Morgan Lifts Ban On Hiring Unvaccinated Workers
  JP Morgan Lifts Ban On Hiring Unvaccinated Workers

  Just days after saying it would hire ex-cons, JP Morgan has decided that it will also hire unvaccinated individuals as it scrambles to fill jobs amid a stubbornly persistent labor shortage in the US.

  According to Bloomberg, which cited a memo to the bank’s staff, JPM has decided to abandon the ban starting next month, the latest sign that the bank is “putting the pandemic behind it”.

  

  For existing employees, JPM will end mandatory testing for the unvaccinated starting April 4. On top of that, it will also stop requiring staff to report COVID infections.

  And for both unvaccinated and vaccinated staff, masking while inside JPM’s corporate offices will become voluntary, effective immediately.

  Local rules will continue to apply, and JPM’s workers in NYC must continue to abide by vaccination requirements imposed by the city, employees must continue to meet vaccination requirements, unless the city lifts its order. The city presently requires all public-facing workers to be vaccinated.

  In its memo, the bank said the changes are part of its efforts to treat COVID as part of “our new normal”.

  “Across the US, as we continue to see cases decline, restrictions lifted and more flexibility with daily activities, we are learning to live with Covid as part of our new normal,” the bank said in its memo.

  The decision comes as America’s megabanks recall workers to the office. Wells Fargo is planning to bring employees back starting Monday, and starting next week, Citigroup is recalling vaccinated workers to its US offices for at least two days a week.

  As we concluded in a tweet, JPM’s decision is the latest indication that, in the US at least, COVID has become “ancient history”.

  Covid is ancient history

  *JPMORGAN TO END MANDATORY TESTING FOR UNVACCINATED STAFF

  *JPMORGAN: MASKING IN CORPORATE OFFICES TO BE VOLUNTARY FOR ALL

  *JPMORGAN TO RESUME HIRING UNVACCINATED INDIVIDUALS FROM APRIL 4

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 14, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 21:20

• Evaporating 'Buy-The-Dip' Shows Minksy Moment May Have Come
  Evaporating ‘Buy-The-Dip’ Shows Minksy Moment May Have Come

  Authored by Ven Ram via Bloomberg,

  In the euphoric stock rally since the end of 2018, pretty much every dip was met with a volley of even stronger buying. It was as though people were waiting for others to get off the bus so they could get in.

  Investors who wanted to ask questions first and buy later were left with only questions and no answers. Those who had the heart to take the ride did pretty well by all means. Why, the Nasdaq 100 Index surged nearly three-fold and the S&P 500 Index almost doubled in just three years. When your money grows at a compounded annual growth rate of 26% and 38%, even Shylock wouldn’t complain.

  If the rally in Nasdaq from the end of the global financial crisis until the first wave of the pandemic was the gentle ascent of a plane, the takeoff after the first wave was that of a helicopter. Yet, that steep climb was but a preparation for an eventual bungee-jumping. The fairy tale couldn’t continue forever, and there were enough alarm bells that were set ringing for those who were in the mood to pay heed.

  Fast forward to 2022. And suddenly the appetite for dip-buying has evaporated, seemingly into thin air.

  

  That has meant that Nasdaq 100 has declined more than 20% from its peak. Valuations have gotten cheaper (not cheap, though, mind you), and investors who were quick to pounce in after the first wave of the pandemic have been scratching their heads and saying, “No, thank you,” to Mr. Market.

  And so there don’t seem to be as many exits as those looking to get out would like.

  Just as the screenplay turned sour in the movie you were watching, it seems the plot line is not any more alluring elsewhere either. Stocks and bonds have been playing to a similar horror script. Charming Commodities has been playing to packed houses, but how many have the conviction to get in this late in the hope that the show will go on? And unless you are a dedicated fund, chances are that your commodities overlay isn’t all that big in any case.

  Meanwhile, the Fed Opera begins tomorrow. If Chair Jerome Powell and his committee indeed play the mood music they have been outlining for a while now, the rush for the exits may have just begun.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 21:00

• Eli Lilly Halts Sales Of All Non-Essential Drugs In Russia
  Eli Lilly Halts Sales Of All Non-Essential Drugs In Russia

  Here’s one deprivation the Russian people probably weren’t expecting.

  American drugmaker Eli Lilly has decided to halt export of all non-essential drugs to Russia, including its blockbuster erectile dysfunction drug, Cialis.

  

  The drugmaker told the FT that while it would continue to supply drugs for life-threatening illnesses, it will suspend all marketing, drug trials and investment in Russia, along with all non-essential meds, which they will no longer export.

  This marks the first time a US drugmaker has decided to pull its business from Russia since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.

  “For nearly 150 years, Lilly has worked to ensure patients have access to the medicines they need, no matter where they may live,” it said in a statement. “Our Russian operations are now only focused on ensuring people suffering from diseases like cancer and diabetes continue to get the Lilly medicines they need.”

  Meanwhile, Pfizer said this week that pausing the flow of its medicines to Russia would violate the company’s foundational principle of “putting patients first” (which…is that what they have been doing with all those price hikes?).

  The export of medicine and the materials necessary for making drugs and medical equipment were excluded from the sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and Europe.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 20:40

• "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" – Biden Signs New Backdoor Gun Control Into Law
  “Guilty Until Proven Innocent” – Biden Signs New Backdoor Gun Control Into Law

  Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,

  President Biden has signed a $1.5 Trillion spending bill that sends $13.6 Billion to Ukraine and funds the Government until September. The bill itself passed the Senate with a bipartisan 68-31 vote.

  As we’ve reported before, the Biden administration’s only way to pass gun control at all is by backdoor means. So, of course, they’ve hidden gun control in a massive spending bill designed to fund the Government. Hidden within this 3000-page bill were two significant pieces of gun control.

  But that’s only half of this shady gun control strategy. The second half is to wrap gun control into a bill that is difficult to vote against for fear of social stigma.

  So, inside the omnibus bill is a previously failed act called VAWA, or the Violence Against Women’s Act. This act contains significant backdoor gun control that stands to harm gun owners. But you wouldn’t know that just by reading the title. The swamp creatures in the Senate took the opportunity to revive VAWA (which initially failed explicitly because of the gun control provisions), placing the gun control section 2207 pages into the overall bill itself.

  VAWA contains two major changes to current law.

  The first is titled the NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022. This act will require the criminal investigation of all denials on the National Instant Criminal-Background-Check System. For those unaware, the NICS system is used any time a sale occurs, and a firearm is transferred from a Federal Firearms Licensee (also known as an FFL) and an individual. This process happens thousands of times per day all over the country. It happens almost every time a legal gun sale takes place.

  

  Here’s the thing, though, the NICS system isn’t perfect. It’s actually not even close to perfect. Many people experience never-ending delays or even flat-out denials because they have a common name, or the system confuses them for someone else entirely.

  In fact, according to Gun Owners of America, the FBI itself admits that it’s often wrong on gun-related background check denials. GOA filed an FIOA request, and the FBI revealed that around “27.7 percent of NICS appeals received during the requested time period were overturned, and the firearm purchase/transfer were proceeded.” (proceeded is when the NICS check completes, the FFL is given a green “proceed” status)

  Additionally, GOA mentions that according to claims from John Lott, a Second Amendment researcher and economist, 99 percent of NICS denials are false positives, which means that most denied people are not actually prohibited from owning a firearm.

  So, the fact that the Government is compelling law enforcement to act upon a system that produces so many false positives is insane. This change to the law treats people who simply want to purchase a firearm and are falsely denied as guilty until proven innocent.

  To make matters worse, the act allows the Federal Government to deputize local police and attorneys to act on behalf of the ATF.

  

  This deputization of local police is a massive overreach for the ATF. It’s also likely a direct response to the popular Second Amendment Sanctuary County movement, which composes about 62% of counties in the entire United States as of September 2021 and has continued to grow since. These counties have pledged not to enforce federal gun control laws

  

  This act is another example of anti-gun politicians using dirty tricks to pass unpopular legislation. Anti-Gun Politicians had brought VAWA itself before Congress in 2019, but many in Congress opposed it because they did not support the gun control portions of the bill itself. Who knew that it would eventually be resurrected and hidden into a 3000-page government spending bill.

  Steph from TMGN breaks down how this may affect you:

  This situation, of course, reflects another large problem in Government where a bloated, trillion-dollar spending bill is jammed through Congress at the last minute to avoid a government shutdown. Who knows what else is hidden in there.

  As the situation in Ukraine continues to capture the headlines here in the United States, this massive spending bill will likely be overlooked by the corporate legacy media. It is ironic while the Ukrainians are being praised, funded, and even given weapons in some cases. Meanwhile, regular Americans in the United States are slowly having those same rights eroded bit by bit.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 20:20

• SoftBank's Masa Son Sees $25 Billion Evaporate Amid Crushing Tech Selloff
  SoftBank’s Masa Son Sees $25 Billion Evaporate Amid Crushing Tech Selloff

  The recent selloff in markets has been hard for a lot of investors, but SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son has probably seen more of his net worth evaporate than any other billionaire besides Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

  According to Bloomberg, the SoftBank billionaire has seen his net worth fall by $25 billion over the past year, to just $13.5 billion today. While it doesn’t come close to the $70 billion he lost during the dotcom implosion, it’s still a massive sum.

  It looks like we were on to something back in 2019 when we posited that SoftBank might be the tech bubble era’s “short of the century”.

  Of course, what’s even more problematic than Softbank’s paper losses is the firm’s loan-to-value ratio. During the good times, SoftBank leveraged up and used the money to invest in more tech stocks.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Now, the stocks that it has borrowed against – most notably the firm’s massive holdings in Alibaba, which has been one of the hardest-hit stocks during the selloff in Chinese stocks.

  The chart is SoftBank’s loan-to-value ratio, which Son says he checks four times a day. It’s key to how he staged his comeback over the past two decades after losing $70 billion during the dot-com crash.

  Just last year, SoftBank was flying high, borrowing against its wildly lucrative stakes in tech investments such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and plowing the money into the promising upstarts of tomorrow. Even when there were epic failures – Wirecard AG or Greensill Capital – profits elsewhere buried the problem.

  And if the pain keeps coming, SoftBank just might be in store for an epic margin call on its debt.

  The stock has tumbled almost 60% in the past year and the loan-to-value chart that Son obsesses over daily just keeps ticking higher, indicating SoftBank’s net debt is getting unwieldy relative to the equity value of its holdings. Some market watchers are flagging the risk of margin calls.

  “There’s no good news in sight,” said Tomoaki Kawasaki, a senior analyst at Iwai Cosmo Securities Co. “If they’re asked to increase collateral, it’ll mean investors have to be more cautious of the finance risks the company’s facing.”

  Already, SoftBank has been forced to sell some of its equity holdings at a brutal discount.

  The market for new share sales, critical to SoftBank’s success, has dried up. Didi Global Inc. sank a record 44% on Friday after the ride-hailing company suspended preparations for a Hong Kong listing. In the latest sign that SoftBank is strapped for cash, its Vision Fund sold $1 billion of shares in South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. at a discount last week.

  SoftBank bears are ready to pounce, as SoftBank’s asset-backed debt strategy is looking less like a smart way to redeploy capital into early stage startups, and more like a pyramid scheme.

  SoftBank has long relied on asset-backed financing, which is cheaper than other forms of funding. This includes pledging assets in exchange for cash to invest in early-stage startups and using prepaid forward contracts – where SoftBank receives money upfront for a future sale of its holdings.

  As of December, it had pledged more than half of its stakes in Alibaba, T-Mobile US Inc., Deutsche Telekom AG and its telecom unit SoftBank Corp. Asset-backed financing makes up $54 billion of the conglomerate’s $128 billion in total debt, according to a BI analysis.

  “They have to keep raising financing, and the complexity of the ways they do it is probably what makes people less comfortable,” BI’s Chen said.

  Bloomberg keeps a running tally of SoftBank’s losses.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Still, there’s one group of investors who haven’t entirely given up hope on SoftBank (or at least that’s what they tell their clients). The investment banks and brokerage firms still largely rate SoftBank’s shares as a “buy”, according to 18 out of 20 analysts tracked by Bloomberg.

  So much for being the “conductor of the AI revoluton”.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 20:00

• 49 Republican Senators Will Oppose Iran Nuclear Deal
  49 Republican Senators Will Oppose Iran Nuclear Deal

  Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

  In a sign that getting the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran through Congress might be difficult, if not impossible, 49 out of 50 Republican Senators have announced they will not back any deal that doesn’t limit Iran’s missile program and “confront Iran’s support for terrorism.”

  The deal isn’t intended to cover those issues, merely Iran’s civilian nuclear program. The terms are not public, but its not expected to touch on either issue. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the only senator to not come out opposed.

  

  Sen. Paul said it didn’t make sense to condemn an unfinished deal, saying it is “not a very thoughtful position.” It is unclear where Senate Democrats will fall on the deal.

  Either way, reports noted that the nuclear deal survived Congress in 2015 despite overwhelming Republican objection and their control of the Senate. Now, they don’t control the body at all, so any attempt to block it outright is going to depend on support from Democrats.

  How this will ultimately break down likely depends on if and when the deal is finalized, and what efforts the Biden Administration makes to sell the plan.

  The Iran side of the deal promises to get more Iranian oil onto the global market, and potentially the US market too. With prices up on the Russia-Ukraine war, that could be a strong incentive.

  At the same time, there are questions about how the deal will reconcile Iran sanctions relief and Russian responsibilities with new Russia sanctions. The US has said they won’t interfere, but has also demanded Russia stop asking for consultations on how the two deals won’t interfere. The US has threatened to leave the talks, and work out a bilateral deal without Russia.

  Republican U.S. senators warn on #Iran JCPOA: “We strongly urge the administration, our Democrat colleagues, & the international community to learn the lessons of the very recent past. A major agreement that does not have strong bipartisan support in Congress will not survive.” pic.twitter.com/QgEyjjrFUg

  — Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) March 14, 2022

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  Though it’s not clear this is related to that, an alternative track for the deal could give Biden more time to get support, and a new selling point in that they are spiting Russia.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 19:40

• Zelensky Says "Ukraine Must Recognize It Will Not Join NATO" As Ceasefire Talks Resume
  Zelensky Says “Ukraine Must Recognize It Will Not Join NATO” As Ceasefire Talks Resume

  Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podoliak confirmed in a message posted to Twitter on Tuesday that “negotiations are ongoing” after the meeting was “paused” the day prior.

  “Consultations on the main negotiation platform renewed. General regulation matters, ceasefire, withdrawal of troops from the territory of the country,” he stated. This as the AFP is reporting of the Ukrainian President’s latest surprise comments, coming on the 20th day of Russia’s invasion: “Zelensky says Ukraine must recognize it will not join NATO.”

  Negotiations are ongoing. Consultations on the main negotiation platform renewed. General regulation matters, ceasefire, withdrawal of troops from the territory of the country…

  — Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) March 15, 2022

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  A week ago Zelensky said he had “cooled” on the question of NATO membership – statements which have apparently led to greater positive interactions with Russia at the ceasefire negotiation table.

  In the fresh Tuesday remarks, he also said that NATO Article 5 is “weaker” than ever before. Article 5 spells out the collective defense basis of the Western military alliance, or essentially than an “attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies.”

  “We realized that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. We understand this, we are reasonable people,” he was reported as saying according to a translation. “Kyiv needs new formats to interact with the West and separate security guarantees.”

  He are further comments he made:

  “Some states of alliance have intimidated themselves, saying that they can’t answer. That they cannot collide with Russian missiles and planes in the Ukrainian sky. Because this, they say, will lead to escalation, will lead to the Third World War. … And what will they say if Russia goes further to Europe, attacking other countries? I am sure the same thing they say to Ukraine. Article 5 of the NATO treaty has never been as weak as it is now. This is just our opinion,” he said.

  Zelensky:

  “We realized that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. We understand this, we are reasonable people.”

  “Kyiv needs new formats to interact with the West and separate security guarantees”

  pic.twitter.com/0iEz33NGjL

  — Ben Judah (@b_judah) March 15, 2022

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  One online commenter pointed out the obvious in terms of what many might be thinking, but are perhaps hesitant to say openly… “He needed to say that before the whole country was destroyed.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 19:20

• Progressive Governance Needs A Social Credit State
  Progressive Governance Needs A Social Credit State

  Authored by William L Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  Critics of the Chinese Communist regime often point toward the government’s social credit system, in which the government traces individuals’ electronic paths, from their comments on social media to items they purchase, and issues rewards and punishments based on the information collected.

  For example, a Chinese citizen who receives a “bad” social credit score might not be permitted to ride one of the famous high-speed trains, being relegated to the slower trains for travel, and might be denied air travel.

  

  Not surprisingly, people in the West have denounced the system as being heavy-handed, including CBS News, hardly a voice of antiprogressivism:

  The fear is that the government will use the social credit scoring system to punish people who are not sufficiently loyal to the communist party, and trying to clear your name or fight your score is nearly impossible since there is no real due process.

  Human Rights Watch, hardly a right-wing entity, is even more scathing in its criticism of China’s system:

  Apple CEO Tim Cook looks forward to a “common future in cyberspace” with China, he told the Chinese government’s World Internet Conference earlier this month. This was an embarrassing gesture toward a state that aggressively censors the internet and envisions a dystopian future online.

  Other progressive entities, including the New York Times, also have been critical of China’s social credit system but apparently have no problem with the establishment of a similar de facto system here.  The Washington Post went even further, openly taking part in a social credit scheme by publicly identifying people who recently contributed to the Canadian truck protesters and demanding to know why they gave money.

  Understand that the Washington Post accessed an illegally hacked document and then used it as a weapon against people who dared contribute to something with which the newspaper’s staff disagreed, and the purpose was not to be informative but rather to endanger contributors and make them vulnerable to job loss, public shaming, and other kinds of attacks. This is not a rendition of “Democracy Dies in Darkness” but rather an attempt to impose a greater darkness on all of us.

  Not that long ago, political liberals universally would have agreed that using massive electronic surveillance to monitor speech and political contributions was unthinkable. Today, not one mainstream journalistic entity has raised a question about the actions taken by Canada’s government against dissenters or even questioned the Post’s doxing of those contributors. One surmises that the editors of the Post agree with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, since many protesters do not share the political views of the Post’s staff.

  The Washington Post is hardly the only entity that has taken the view that supporting the truckers is tantamount to supporting the Nazi Party. The New York Times has denounced the truckers as violent terrorists, in contrast to the demonstrators in 2020 that “peacefully” destroyed huge portions of American cities, killing and looting as they went. Writes Paul Krugman:

  [T]his isn’t a grass-roots trucker uprising. It’s more like a slow-motion Jan. 6, a disruption caused by a relatively small number of activists, many of them right-wing extremists. At their peak, the demonstrations in Ottawa reportedly involved only around 8,000 people, while numbers at other locations have been much smaller.

  Despite their lack of numbers, however, the protesters have been inflicting a remarkable amount of economic damage. The U.S. and Canadian economies are very closely integrated. In particular, North American manufacturing, especially but not only in the auto industry, relies on a constant flow of parts between factories on both sides of the border. As a result, the disruption of that flow has hobbled industry, forcing production cuts and even factory shutdowns.

  It is not that Krugman believes that governments always should curtail violent protests. While his attacks on the truckers present them as violent thugs, Krugman changes directions regarding the riots in American cities in 2020, claiming that they were “remarkably nonviolent”:

  This comparison will no doubt surprise those who get their news from right-wing media, which portrayed B.L.M. as an orgy of arson and looting. I still receive mail from people who believe that much of New York City was reduced to smoking rubble. In fact, the demonstrations were remarkably nonviolent; vandalism happened in a few cases, but it was relatively rare, and the damage was small considering the huge size of the protests.

  By contrast, causing economic damage was and is what the Canadian protests are all about—because blocking essential flows of goods, threatening people’s livelihoods, is every bit as destructive as smashing a store window. And unlike, say, a strike aimed at a particular company, this damage fell indiscriminately on anyone who had the misfortune to rely on unobstructed trade.

  And to what end? The B.L.M. demonstrations were a reaction to police killings of innocent people; what’s going on in Canada is, on its face, about rejecting public health measures intended to save lives. Of course, even that is mainly an excuse: What it’s really about is an attempt to exploit pandemic weariness to boost the usual culture-war agenda.

  Krugman hardly is alone at the New York Times. Fellow columnist Michelle Goldberg described the demonstrations as “terrifying” and roundly condemned the truckers as nothing more than “right-wing” protesters, which is NYT speak for people who should have no rights. As for the 2020 demonstrations being peaceful, former NYT writer Nellie Bowles wrote about how the NYT withheld her account of the aftermath of the Kenosha riots until after the 2020 election. She had this to say about the mentality behind the NYT’s decision to withhold the truth:

  Eventually the election passed. Biden was in the White House. And my Kenosha story ran. Whatever the reason for holding the piece, covering the suffering after the riots was not a priority. The reality that brought Kyle Rittenhouse into the streets was one we reporters were meant to ignore. The old man who tried to put out a blaze at a Kenosha store had his jaw broken. The top editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer had to resign in June 2020 amid staff outcry for publishing a piece with the headline, “Buildings Matter, Too.” 

  If you lived in those neighborhoods on fire, you were not supposed to get an extinguisher. The proper response—the only acceptable response—was to see the brick and mortar torn down, to watch the fires burn and to say: thank you.

  But what does this have to do with the American and Canadian views of social credit?

  First, as noted earlier, there has been no condemnation of the Canadian government’s heavy-handed crackdown on the truckers, just as no one in the mainstream press even has questioned the Washington Post’s attempt to shame and dox the truckers’ donors. When given the opportunity to condemn what clearly are social credit measures, elite American and Canadian politicians, academics, and journalists have been silent.

  Second, by invoking emergency powers, Trudeau has assumed near-dictatorial powers, which would be antidemocratic in anyone’s book, yet again, the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” crowd has remained silent. I link no articles because there are none to link.

  Beyond the issue of its classifying people who simply are demonstrating nonviolently as “terrorists,” there is no way that such an order can be limited to one instance. Now that Canada’s progressive government has criminalized even peaceful dissent—with approval by the progressive elites in both Canada and the US—it will be easier for governments to cross those lines when people express dissent against progressive measures in the future.

  All of this goes well beyond the usual accusations of political hypocrisy. One accuses people of being hypocrites in order to shame them, but the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” crowd is well beyond any capability of being shamed. To them, whatever Trudeau and other progressive regimes do to those that dare dissent against progressive governance is legitimate because there can be no other permissible way of thinking, even while those same people give lip service to constitutional protections such as the First Amendment.

  Such protections do not and will not apply to people in groups that do not support progressive ideals and, as we have seen in Canada, officials will increasingly resort to a social credit system undergirded by the “woke capitalists” of the technology sectors, who apparently have no problems being primary agents of state-sponsored surveillance. For example, Twitter gladly permitted the doxing of people who contributed money to the truckers via a supposedly secure platform. We can expect more of this. Writes Michael Rectenwald:

  [W]oke capitalism cannot be sufficiently explained in terms of placating coastal leftists, ingratiating left-liberal legislators, or avoiding the wrath of activists. Rather, as wokeness has escalated and taken hold of corporations and states, it has become a demarcation device, a shibboleth for cartel members to identify and distinguish themselves from their nonwoke competitors, who are to be starved of capital investments. Woke capitalism has become a monopoly game.

  Just as nonwoke individuals are cancelled from civic life, so too are nonwoke companies cancelled from the economy, leaving the spoils to the woke. Corporate cancellations are not merely the result of political fallout. They are being institutionalized and carried out through the stock market. The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Index is a Chinese-style social credit score for rating corporations. Woke planners wield the ESG Index to reward the in-group and to squeeze nonwoke players out of the market. Woke investment drives ownership and control of production away from the noncompliant. The ESG Index serves as an admission ticket for entry into the woke cartels.

  Likewise, we can expect the same pressures to be placed upon nonbusiness entities like nonprofit advocacy groups and especially conservative churches. As progressives continue breaking down the historical barriers between the state and private life, a social credit system will fill the void. Individuals, business firms, and organizations that promote progressive viewpoints will see minimal disruption in their lives.

  However, those individuals and entities that hold viewpoints that are “unacceptable” can expect to see daily disruptions, from their finances to simple communications by email. Given the support that American political and economic elites have shown for Trudeau and his crackdowns on “terrorist” truckers, there is little protection left for those that are not in the good graces of progressives.

  Because progressive governance ultimately clashes with reality, progressives must develop ways to enforce their measures, especially when the inevitable pushback occurs. As we have learned from China, a social credit system is one way to curb dissent and to force some people to the margins. American and Canadian progressives are finding social credit also can figuratively beat people into submission.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 19:00

• A Historic Day On Deck: Powell Hikes, Putin Defaults
  A Historic Day On Deck: Powell Hikes, Putin Defaults

  Tomorrow we get the highlight of what has already been an event-packed week, when at 2pm the Fed will hike rates for the first time since December 2018, raising the Fed Funds rate from 0% where it has been since the covid crisis to 0.25%. The widely telegraphed rate hike will be the first of many as the Fed scrambles to contain inflation which has led to a record high, double digit PPI and the highest CPI since the early 1980s, when the Volcker Fed hiked rates as high as 20% to contain galloping inflation. And, in doing so, the Fed will also set the US economy on course for a crash landing, with forward OIS market already pricing in almost 2 rate cuts over the next three years, a number that will only grow as the US slides into a crippling recession over the next few quarters (we will have a full FOMC preview later today).

  

  Also tomorrow, another even more momentous event may take place when Russia is due to make two interest payments on its dollar bonds on Wednesday, but it is unclear whether western investors will actually receive their cash in dollars, in devalued rubles, or at all, potentially lining up a uniquely messy government debt default, the first since 1998 which eventually led to the collapse of LTCM and the start of the too big to fail bailout culture which defines the US financial system to this day.

  On Wednesday, March 16, Russia is scheduled to hand investors a total of $117 million in interest payments on two of its bonds: namely $73 million on RUSSIA USD 2023 and $44 million on RUSSIA USD 2043. There is a 30-day grace period on these bonds, meaning that there may be time until April 15 to pay it; if it does not, that would constitute a default. There is no alternative payment clause on these bonds.

  The next principal payment is on March 31, $359 million on RUSSIA USD 2030, which has a 15-day grace period, which again brings it to April 15. This is then followed by a $2 billion principal payment from RUSSIA USD 2022 maturing on April 4. Many more scheduled payments follow until the end of the year.

  

  Altogether Russia has some $38.5BN of foreign-currency bonds (a tiny amount: the US issues roughly this much in every single monthly 10Y auction), of which roughly $20BN are owned by overseas investors. But foreigners also hold roughly 20% of Moscow’s local currency debt, which totaled roughly $200bn before the war sparked a collapse in the value of the ruble and made the bonds virtually untradeable.

  The Russian government has already said that a recent coupon payment on these local bonds would not reach foreign holders, citing a central bank ban on sending foreign currency abroad. This has already been painful for western asset management groups. More than two dozen have had to freeze funds with significant Russia exposure, while others have sharply written down the value of their Russian holdings.

  Will Moscow pay? As the FT notes, the finance ministry said on Monday that it had ordered the payments to be made as usual, but added that its ability to do so could be curbed by western sanctions against the Russian central bank. Finance minister Anton Siluanov said those sanctions – brought in earlier this month – were bouncing the country into an “artificial default”.

  Digging deeper, there are both external and internal constraints that may limit payment.

  In terms of the former, it may be that the US will prohibit payments being made on Russia’s eurobonds. This issue appeared with Directive 4 under Executive Order 14024 that prohibits US persons from conducting certain transactions with Russia’s Ministry of Finance. While it is unclear whether this extends to US banks receiving coupon payments, General License 9A appears to clarify that it would. In particular, it notes that prohibitions from Directive 4 related to the receipt of interest and maturity payments relating to debt or equity of specified entities issued before February 24, 2022 would be authorized only through May 25,2022.FAQ 981 then also notes that, beyond this date,a specific license would be required to keep receiving these payments. This all suggests that beyond May 25, it would not be possible for NYC banks to receive the interest payments, and that banks would need to ‘reject’ such transactions. This would therefore impact the interest payments due on May 27 for RUSSIA USD 2026 and EUR 2036.

  Alternatively, a key domestic constraint to payment is that there may simply no longer be a willingness by Russia to make payments given the tough sanctions applied at this stage, especially given that making these payments would require using up FX that may increasingly be in short supply. Announcing that Russia is not allowing domestic bond OFZ repayments to be taken outside Russia already makes this point. Separately, a decree has now also been published by the Kremlin (see here) that allows for the repayment of foreign debt to select non-residents to be made to onshore accounts in RUB as opposed to being made to foreign accounts in FX. The decree states that this is applicable to both the government and other entities. For now, it’s not clear whether it is mandatory, or whether the CBR/Ministry of Finance would be willing to use their apparent override to enable eurobond payments to still go through. However, given that similar restrictions have been made for local government bonds, it is certainly possible that it applies to eurobonds too.

  According to Morgan Stanley, it is unlikely that Russia will make the foreign debt payments: “we think it is very likely that there will be a missed payment in the coming months, perhaps as soon as the next payment on March 16. There are ways to avoid it. GL9A could be extended once May 25 hits. Also, Russia could decide to make the sovereign debt payments in USD as required. Yet for now this would be far from our base case. Note that as usual a default would not see bonds excluded from the EMBI indices. Index exclusions, barring new rules being put in place given the exceptional circumstances, would only take place due to no secondary trading.”

  To be sure, markets have already largely priced in a default. Russia’s foreign bonds are trading at about 20 per cent of their face value – a level that suggests very little confidence of being repaid. Credit rating agencies, which up until late February awarded Russia investment-grade status, have slashed it to the very lowest “junk” ratings, with Fitch Ratings saying a default is “imminent.”

  

  If Russia pays in rubles, is it still a default?  Siluanov has said it is “absolutely fair” for Russia to make payments on its government debt in rubles until sanctions that he claimed have frozen nearly half of the country’s $643bn in foreign exchange reserves are lifted. But as the FT notes, payment in the Russian currency would still constitute a default in the eyes of most western investors, and not only because of its recent drop in value. Six of Russia’s 15 dollar- or euro-denominated bonds do contain a “fallback” clause allowing repayment in roubles, but the two bonds with coupons due on Wednesday are not among them. Furthermore, late on Tuesday Fitch said that were Russia to make its coupon payments due March 16 in rubles, rather than U.S. dollars, that would constitute a default following the 30-day grace period.

  In any case, investors in Europe and the US say sanctions – both their own governments’ and Moscow’s – would in practice make it impossible to set up the Russian bank accounts necessary to receive rouble payments. Lawyers agree with Morgan Stanley (above) and say that even with the loophole of the alternative payment clause, a Russian default is likely and litigation almost inevitable.

  What happens next? Typically, a default is followed by a period of negotiation between a government and its bondholders to reach an agreement on restructuring the debt. This is usually done by eventually exchanging the old defaulted bonds with new, less onerous ones, either simply worth less, with lower interest payments or with longer repayment schedules, or a combination of all three. Alternatively, the ECB may just end up buying them to pretend that an event of default never happened although Russia would need to invade Greece for that scenario to work.

  While investors are usually reluctant to sue and get a formal default declared by a court because that could make the entire bond come due and potentially trigger defaults in other bonds where payments have not been missed, a “normal” restructuring seems unlikely in Russia’s case. The sanctions are designed to lock the country out of global bond markets and the participation of western investors in any new debt sales is forbidden.

  Instead, investors will probably have to sit tight, writing off their Russian bonds and awaiting a de-escalation in the Ukraine conflict that might lead to an easing of sanctions. Some may actually want to quickly vote to demand immediate repayment and get court judgments from US and UK judges that allow them to try to seize overseas Russian assets, to ratchet up pressure on Moscow.

  A subset of investors will also be hoping that the failure to make interest payments triggers a payout on credit-default swaps. The decision will be made by a finance industry “determinations committee”, made up of representatives of big banks and asset managers active in the CDS market. Unfortunately, the CDS may not end up helping bondholders, as the financial sanctions could snarl up the intricate system used to settle the contracts and it is unclear just how a CDS auction would take place.

  Will a default spark a financial crisis? For a generation of trade, Russia’s last default in 1998 is still a vivid memory. Moscow’s shock decision to devalue the rouble and renege on its local debt followed on the heels of the Asian financial crisis and sent shockwaves through financial markets, leading to the collapse of US hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, which was bailed out at the behest of the Fed by a consortium of banks, launching America’s too big to fail Wall Street culture.

  Even then, Russia kept up payments on its dollar bonds, but defaulted on some Soviet-era international bonds. The last complete external default came in 1918, when the Bolshevik regime repudiated Tsarist-era debts following the Russian Revolution.

  Analysts are relatively confident a rerun of 1998 can be avoided. Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou of JPMorgan points out that foreign investors and banks have already been cutting their exposure to Russia since the country’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, unlike the mid-1990s when highly leveraged funds were loading up on Russian assets. So far, the invasion of Ukraine has sparked only modest contagion in other emerging markets, with the far more significant fallout from the crisis being felt in a surge in commodity prices.

  Still, anyone predicting that the Russian default won’t have adverse and unexpected consequences, is lying to themselves: as the FT notes, history of finance is littered with examples of how unexpected second-order effects from widely anticipated events still ended up causing broader calamities.

  The 30-day grace period means this “probably isn’t yet the moment where we see where the full stresses in the financial system might reside . . . However, this is clearly an important story to watch,” said Jim Reid, a senior strategist at Deutsche Bank.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 18:41

• US Navy Warship Was At Sea When Officials Said It Was Undeployable: Commander
  US Navy Warship Was At Sea When Officials Said It Was Undeployable: Commander

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  The warship that U.S. Navy officials described as undeployable if they were not able to remove the unvaccinated commander was actually deployed when the assertions were made, the commander told a judge during a recent hearing.

  “No sir, I do not,” the commander, who has not been publicly named, said when asked whether he thought the officials’ statements were accurate.

  

  U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday, a George H. W. Bush appointee who is overseeing the case, ordered military officials in February not to take punitive action against the commander because they appear to have wrongfully denied the commander’s request for a religious exemption from the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

  In an emergency motion to the judge on Feb. 28, officials alleged the ruling was affecting military readiness because unvaccinated sailors “pose a risk to other personnel” since the COVID-19 vaccines have proven effective at halting the spread of the virus that causes the disease.

  The order “effectively places a multi-billion dollar guided missile destroyer out of commission,” the motion stated. “For example, if it becomes necessary to deploy an East Coast-based surface ship in response to global events in Ukraine (or elsewhere), the Navy will not deploy the Commander’s vessel. In this way, the Court’s order will have a wide-ranging impact on Navy operations and national security.”

  Besides federal health officials saying the vaccines don’t affect the transmission of the virus, and the vaccines proving virtually ineffective against preventing infection, the claim about the ship itself was undermined by the commander’s testimony in federal court, according to a transcript released March 14.

  “I was out at sea” on Feb. 28, when the motion was entered, the commander said.

  The officer said he was in charge of his ship and there did not appear to be any problems stemming from his vaccination status, as both unvaccinated and vaccinated people can test positive for COVID-19, particularly since the emergence of the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

  The training exercises the ship was completing lasted through about March 4, according to the commander.

  The Navy and Department of Justice, whose lawyers are representing the military in the case, declined to comment.

  “I’m here today because the military is not executing this policy while respecting the constitutional freedoms laid out in the First Amendment or RFRA,” the commander said, referring to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

  “I should not be the one standing here to say that today; generals and admirals, the executives in our service, should be here to say that to the politics, to the bureaucracy, to their decision-making.”

  One day after the hearing, the judge rejected the government’s motion.

  The Navy has asked an appeals court to step in; that court has yet to rule on the request.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 18:20

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• Germany To Buy Dozens Of US F-35s To Replace Bombers, Citing Putin's War In Ukraine
  Germany To Buy Dozens Of US F-35s To Replace Bombers, Citing Putin’s War In Ukraine

  The Russian war in Ukraine has very belatedly sent one lead NATO country into a defense spending spree. Before the Feb.24 invasion, Germany wouldn’t so much as let its weapons be transferred to Kiev via allies – wanting to present a sense of neutrality with Moscow – but now with all prior reluctance apparently abandoned, Berlin is poised to rapidly beef up its advanced fighter jet capability: “Germany plans to buy up to 35 US-made F-35 fighter jets and 15 Eurofighter jets, a parliamentary source said Monday, as part of a major push to modernize the armed forces in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Bloomberg reports Monday.

  The Lockheed-produced jets look to be acquired in the “dozens” – taking up a big chunk of Germany’s proposed defense budget which will be north of 50 billion euros this year, acknowledged as a “record high”. This as Germany has agreed to boost defense spending above 2% of gross domestic product – something which NATO had previously been frequently lectured on by Trump. 

  

  In making the announcement, Berlin officials specifically cited the need for the necessary level of deterrence against Russia and Vladimir Putin. AFP recalls, “In a landmark speech late last month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to invest an extra 100 billion euros ($112 billion) in the nation’s chronically underfunded Bundeswehr armed forces.”

  The report underscores that “The spending boost marks a major reversal for Europe’s top economy, upending its policy of keeping a low military profile in part out of guilt over World War II.”

  Germany’s air force commander Ingo Gerhartz said: “There can be only one answer to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s aggression,” He added: “Unity in NATO and a credible deterrent. This in particular means there is no alternative but to choose the F-35.”

  The stealth jet is indented to replace Luftwaffe’s fleet Tornado jets, which are capable of carrying and delivering US nuclear bombs currently placed in Germany as part of NATO’s atomic arsenal. 

  Late last month during the opening days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed that “Putin wants to establish a Russian empire…the question is…whether we can summon the strength to set boundaries to warmongers like Putin.”

  Germany to buy US F-35 stealth fighters, capable of carrying nuclear bombs. At present, the Tornado is the only German jet capable of carrying US nuclear bombs, stored in Germany, in case of a conflict (#NATO conflict with #Russia)

  https://t.co/cUi6NVQ94d

  — Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) March 14, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Previously Bloomberg described that “Scholz had been widely criticized by opponents and allies alike in recent weeks for what they perceived as dithering and weakness in the face of Russia’s mounting aggression toward Ukraine.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 02:45

• Why Did Vladimir Putin Invade Ukraine?
  Why Did Vladimir Putin Invade Ukraine?

  Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

  Nearly three weeks have passed since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine, but it still is not clear why he did so and what he hopes to achieve. Western analysts, commentators and government officials have put forward more than a dozen theories to explain Putin’s actions, motives, and objectives.

  Some analysts posit that Putin is motivated by a desire to rebuild the Russian Empire. Others say he is obsessed with bringing Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence. Some believe that Putin wants to control Ukraine’s vast offshore energy resources. Still others speculate that Putin, an aging autocrat, is seeking to maintain his grip on power.

  While some argue that Putin has a long-term proactive strategy aimed at establishing Russian primacy in Europe, others believe he is a short-term reactionary seeking to preserve what remains of Russia’s diminishing position on the world stage.

  Following is a compilation of eight differing but complementary theories that try to explain why Putin invaded Ukraine.

  

  1. Empire Building

  The most common explanation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that Putin, burning with resentment over the demise of the Soviet Empire, is determined to reestablish Russia (generally considered a regional power) as a great power that can exert influence on a global scale.

  According to this theory, Putin aims to regain control over the 14 post-Soviet states — often referred to as Russia’s “near abroad” — that became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This is part of greater plan to rebuild the Russian Empire, which territorially was even more expansive than the Soviet Empire.

  The Russian Empire theory holds that Putin’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, as well as his 2015 decision to intervene militarily in Syria, were all parts of a strategy to restore Russia’s geopolitical position — and erode the U.S.-led rules-based international order.

  Those who believe Putin is trying to reestablish Russia as a great power say that once he gains control over Ukraine, he will turn his focus to other former Soviet republics, including the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and eventually Bulgaria, Romania and even Poland.

  Putin’s ultimate objective, they say, is to drive the United States out of Europe, establish an exclusive great-power sphere of influence for Russia on the continent and dominate the European security order.

  Russian literature supports this view. In 1997, for instance, Russian strategist Aleksandr Dugin, a friend of Putin, published a highly influential book — “Foundation of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia” — which argued that Russia’s long-term goal should be the creation, not of a Russian Empire, but of a Eurasian Empire.

  Dugin’s book, which is required reading in Russian military academies, states that to make Russia great again, Georgia should be dismembered, Finland should be annexed and Ukraine should cease to exist: “Ukraine, as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions, represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia.” Dugin, who has been described as “Putin’s Rasputin,” added:

  “The Eurasian Empire will be constructed on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, the strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us.”

  In April 2005, Putin echoed this sentiment when, in his annual state of the nation address, he described the collapse of the Soviet empire as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” Since then, Putin has repeatedly criticized the U.S.-led world order, in which Russia has a subordinate position.

  In February 2007, during a speech to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Putin attacked the idea of a “unipolar” world order in which the United States, as the sole superpower, was able to spread its liberal democratic values to other parts of the world, including Russia.

  In October 2014, in a speech to the Valdai Discussion Club, a high-profile Russian think tank close to the Kremlin, Putin criticized the post-World War II liberal international order, whose principles and norms — including adherence to the rule of law, respect for human rights and the promotion of liberal democracy, as well as preserving the sanctity of territorial sovereignty and existing boundaries — have regulated the conduct of international relations for nearly 80 years. Putin called for the creation of a new multipolar world order that is more friendly to the interests of an autocratic Russia.

  The late Zbigniew Brzezinski (former National Security Advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter), in his 1997 book “The Grand Chessboard,” wrote that Ukraine is essential to Russian imperial ambitions:

  “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire…. However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”

  The German historian Jan Behrends tweeted:

  “Make no mistake: For #Putin it’s not about EU or NATO, it is about his mission to restore Russian empire. No more, no less. #Ukraine is just a stage, NATO is just one irritant. But the ultimate goal is Russian hegemony in Europe.”

  Ukraine expert Peter Dickinson, writing for the Atlantic Council, noted:

  “Putin’s extreme animosity towards Ukraine is shaped by his imperialistic instincts. It is often suggested that Putin wishes to recreate the Soviet Union, but this is actually far from the case. In fact, he is a Russian imperialist who dreams of a revived Czarist Empire and blames the early Soviet authorities for handing over ancestral Russian lands to Ukraine and other Soviet republics.”

  Bulgarian scholar Ivan Krastev agreed:

  “America and Europe aren’t divided on what Mr. Putin wants. For all the speculation about motives, that much is clear: The Kremlin wants a symbolic break from the 1990s, burying the post-Cold War order. That would take the form of a new European security architecture that recognizes Russia’s sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space and rejects the universality of Western values. Rather than the restoration of the Soviet Union, the goal is the recovery of what Mr. Putin regards as historic Russia.”

  Transatlantic security analyst Andrew Michta added that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was:

  “The culmination of almost two decades of policy aimed at reconstructing the Russian empire and bringing Russia back into European politics as one of the principal players empowered to shape the Continent’s future.”

  Writing for the national security blog 1945, Michta elaborated:

  “From Moscow’s perspective the Ukrainian war is in effect the final battle of the Cold War — for Russia a time to reclaim its place on the European chessboard as a great empire, empowered to shape the Continent’s destiny going forward. The West needs to understand and accept that only once Russia is unequivocally defeated in Ukraine will a genuine post-Cold War settlement finally be possible.”

  2. Buffer Zone

  Many analysts attribute the Russian invasion of Ukraine to geopolitics, which attempts to explain the behavior of states through the lens of geography.

  Most of the western part of Russia sits on the Russian Plain, a vast mountain-free area that extends over 4,000,000 square kilometers (1.5 million square miles). Also called the East European Plain, the vast flatland presents Russia with an acute security problem: an enemy army invading from central or eastern Europe would encounter few geographical obstacles to reach the Russian heartland. In other words, Russia, due to its geography, is especially difficult to defend.

  The veteran geopolitical analyst Robert Kaplan wrote that geography is the starting point for understanding everything else about Russia:

  “Russia remains illiberal and autocratic because, unlike Britain and America, it is not an island nation, but a vast continent with few geographical features to protect it from invasion. Putin’s aggression stems ultimately from this fundamental geographical insecurity.”

  Russia’s leaders historically have sought to obtain strategic depth by pushing outward to create buffer zones — territorial barriers that increase the distance and time invaders would encounter to reach Moscow.

  The Russian Empire included the Baltics, Finland and Poland, all of which served as buffers. The Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact — which included Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania — as a vast buffer to protect against potential invaders.

  

  Most of the former Warsaw Pact countries are now members of NATO. That leaves Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, strategically located between Russia and the West, as the only eastern European countries left to serve as Russian buffer states. Some analysts argue that Russia’s perceived need for a buffer is the primary factor in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

  Mark Galeotti, a leading British scholar of Russian power politics, noted that the possession of a buffer zone is intrinsic to Russia’s understanding of great-power status:

  “From Putin’s point of view, he has built so much of his political identity around the notion of making Russia a great power and making it recognized as a great power. When he thinks of great power, he is essentially a 19th century geopolitician. It’s not the power of economic connectivity, or technological innovation, let alone soft power. No. Great power, in good old-fashioned terms, has a sphere of influence, countries whose sovereignty is subordinate to your own.”

  Others believe that the concept of buffer states is obsolete. International security expert Benjamin Denison, for instance, argued that Russia cannot legitimately justify the need for a buffer zone:

  “Once nuclear weapons were invented … buffer states were no longer seen as necessary regardless of geography, as nuclear deterrence worked to ensure the territorial integrity of great powers with nuclear capabilities…. The utility of buffer states and the concerns of geography invariably changed following the nuclear revolution. Without the concern of quick invasions into the homeland of a rival great power, buffer states lose their utility regardless of the geography of the territory….

  “Narrowly defining national interests to geography, and mandating that geography pushes states to replicate past actions throughout history, only fosters inaccurate thinking and forgives Russian land-grabs as natural.”

  3. Ukrainian Independence

  Closely intertwined with theories about empire-building and geopolitics is Putin’s obsession with extinguishing Ukrainian sovereignty. Putin contends that Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and that its independence in August 1991 was a historical mistake. Ukraine, he claims, does not have a right to exist.

  Putin has repeatedly downplayed or negated Ukraine’s right to statehood and sovereignty:

  • In 2008, Putin told William Burns, then the U.S. ambassador to Russia (now director of the CIA): “Don’t you know that Ukraine is not even a real country? Part of it is really East European and part is really Russian.”

  • In July 2021, Putin penned a 7,000-word essay — “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” — in which he expressed contempt for Ukrainian statehood, questioned the legitimacy of Ukraine’s borders and argued that modern-day Ukraine occupies “the lands of historical Russia.” He concluded: “I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.”

  • In February 2022, just three days before he launched his invasion, Putin asserted that Ukraine was a fake state created by Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union:

    “Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia — by separating, severing what is historically Russian land…. Soviet Ukraine is the result of the Bolsheviks’ policy and can be rightfully called ‘Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine.’ He was its creator and architect.”

  Russia scholar Mark Katz, in an essay — “Blame It on Lenin: What Putin Gets Wrong About Ukraine” — argued that Putin should draw lessons from Lenin’s realization that a more accommodating approach toward Ukrainian nationalism would better serve Russia’s long-term interests:

  “Putin cannot escape the problem that Lenin himself had to deal with of how to reconcile non-Russians to being ruled by Russia. The forceful imposition of Russian rule in part — much less all — of Ukraine will not bring about such a reconciliation. For even if Ukrainians cannot resist the forceful imposition of Russian rule over part or all of Ukraine now, Putin’s success in imposing it is only likely to intensify feelings of Ukrainian nationalism and lead it to burst forth again whenever the opportunity arises.”

  Ukraine’s political independence has been accompanied by a long-running feud with Russia over religious allegiance. In January 2019, in what was described as “the biggest rift in Christianity in centuries,” the Orthodox church in Ukraine gained independence (autocephaly) from the Russian church. The Ukrainian church had been under the jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarchate since 1686. Its autonomy dealt a blow to the Russian church, which lost around one-fifth of the 150 million Orthodox Christians under its authority.

  The Ukrainian government claimed that Moscow-backed churches in Ukraine were being used by the Kremlin to spread propaganda and to support Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas region. Putin wants the Ukrainian church to return to Moscow’s orbit, and has warned of “a heavy dispute, if not bloodshed” over any attempts to transfer ownership of church property.

  The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, has declared that Kyiv, where the Orthodox religion began, is comparable in terms of its historic importance to Jerusalem:

  “Ukraine is not on the periphery of our church. We call Kiev ‘the mother of all Russian cities’. For us Kiev is what Jerusalem is for many. Russian Orthodoxy began there, so under no circumstances can we abandon this historical and spiritual relationship. The whole unity of our Local Church is based on these spiritual ties.”

  On March 6, Kirill — a former KGB agent who is known as “Putin’s altar boy” due to his subservience to the Russian leader — publicly endorsed the invasion of Ukraine. In a sermon he repeated Putin’s claims that the Ukrainian government was carrying out a “genocide” of Russians in Ukraine: “For eight years, the suppression, extermination of people has been underway in Donbass. Eight years of suffering and the entire world is silent.”

  German geopolitical analyst Ulrich Speck wrote:

  “For Putin, destroying Ukraine’s independence has become an obsession…. Putin has often said, and even written, that Ukraine is not a separate nation, and should not exist as a sovereign state. It is this fundamental denial that has led Putin to wage this totally senseless war that he cannot win. And that leads us to the problem of making peace: either Ukraine has the right to exist as a nation and a sovereign state, or it hasn’t. Sovereignty is indivisible. Putin denies it, Ukraine defends it. How can you make a compromise about the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state? Impossible. That’s why both sides can only fight on until they win.

  “Normally wars that take place between states are about conflicts they have between them. Yet this is a war about the existence of one state, which is denied by the aggressor. That’s why the usual concepts of peacemaking — finding a compromise — do not apply. If Ukraine continues to exist as a sovereign state, Putin will have lost. He is not interested in territorial gain as such — it’s rather a burden for him. He is only interested in controlling the entire country. Everything else for him is defeat.”

  Ukraine expert Taras Kuzio added:

  “The real cause of today’s crisis is Putin’s quest to return Ukraine to the Russian orbit. For the past eight years, he has used a combination of direct military intervention, cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns, economic pressure, and coercive diplomacy to try and force Ukraine into abandoning its Euro-Atlantic ambitions….

  “Putin’s ultimate objective is Ukraine’s capitulation and the country’s absorption into the Russian sphere of influence. His obsessive pursuit of this goal has already plunged the world into a new Cold War….

  “Nothing less than Ukraine’s return to the Kremlin orbit will satisfy Putin or assuage his fears over the further breakup of Russia’s imperial inheritance. He will not stop until he is stopped. In order to achieve this, the West must become far more robust in responding to Russian imperial aggression, while also expediting Ukraine’s own Euro-Atlantic integration.”

  4. NATO

  This theory holds that Putin invaded Ukraine to prevent it from joining NATO. The Russian president has repeatedly demanded that the West “immediately” guarantee that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO or the European Union.

  A vocal proponent of this viewpoint is the American international relations theorist John Mearsheimer, who, in a controversial essay, “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” argued that the eastward expansion of NATO provoked Putin to act militarily against Ukraine:

  “The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West….

  “Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion.”

  In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Mearsheimer blamed the United States and its European allies for the current conflict:

  “I think all the trouble in this case really started in April 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO.”

  In fact, Putin has not always opposed NATO expansion. Several times he went so far as to say that the eastward expansion of NATO was none of Russia’s concern.

  In March 2000, for instance, Putin, in an interview with the late BBC television presenter David Frost, was asked whether he viewed NATO as a potential partner, rival or enemy. Putin responded:

  “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilized world. So, it is hard for me to visualize NATO as an enemy.”

  In November 2001, in an interview with National Public Radio, Putin was asked if he opposed the admission of the three Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — into NATO. He replied:

  “We of course are not in a position to tell people what to do. We cannot forbid people to make certain choices if they want to increase the security of their nations in a particular way.”

  In May 2002, Putin, when asked about the future of relations between NATO and Ukraine, said matter-of-factly that he did not care one way or the other:

  “I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”

  Putin’s position on NATO expansion radically changed after the 2004 Orange Revolution, which was triggered by Moscow’s attempt to steal Ukraine’s presidential election. A massive pro-democracy uprising ultimately led to the defeat of Putin’s preferred candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, who eventually did become president of Ukraine in 2010 but was ousted in the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution.

  Former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in a recent interview with Radio Free Europe, discussed how Putin’s views about NATO have changed:

  “Mr. Putin has changed over the years. My first meeting took place in 2002…and he was very positive regarding cooperation between Russia and the West. Then, gradually, he changed his mind. And from around 2005 to 2006, he got increasingly negative toward the West. And in 2008, he attacked Georgia…. In 2014, he took Crimea, and now we have seen a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So, he has really changed over the years.

  “I think the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine in 2004 and 2005 contributed to his change of mind. We shouldn’t forget that Vladimir Putin grew up in the KGB. So, his thinking is very much impacted by that past. I think he suffers from paranoia. And he thought that after color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, that the aim [of the West] was to initiate a regime change in the Kremlin — in Moscow — as well. And that’s why he turned against the West.

  “I put the blame entirely on Putin and Russia. Russia is not a victim. We have reached out to Russia several times during history…. First, we approved the NATO Russia Founding Act in 1997…. Next time, it was in 2002, we reached out once again, established something very special, namely the NATO-Russia Council. And in 2010, we decided at a NATO-Russia summit that we would develop a strategic partnership between Russia and NATO. So, time and again, we reached out to Russia.

  “I think we should have done more to deter Putin. Back in 2008, he attacked Georgia, took de facto Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We could have reacted much more determinedly already in that time.”

  In recent years, Putin repeatedly has claimed that the post-Cold War enlargement of NATO poses a threat to Russia, which has been left with no other choice than to defend itself. He also has accused the West of trying to encircle Russia. In fact, of the 14 countries that have borders with Russia, only five are NATO members. The borders of those five countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Poland — are contiguous with only 5% of Russia’s total borders.

  Putin has claimed that NATO broke solemn promises it made in the 1990s that the alliance would not expand to the east. “You promised us in the 1990s that NATO would not move an inch to the east. You brazenly cheated us,” he said in during a press conference in December 2021. Mikhail Gorbachev, then president of the Soviet Union, countered that such promises were never made.

  Putin recently issued three wildly unrealistic demands: NATO must withdraw its forces to its 1997 borders; NATO must not offer membership to other countries, including Finland, Sweden, Moldova or Georgia; NATO must provide written guarantees that Ukraine will never join the alliance.

  Writing for Foreign Affairs, Russian historian Dmitri Trenin, in an essay — “What Putin Really Wants in Ukraine” — argued that Putin wants stop NATO expansion, not to annex more territory:

  “Putin’s actions suggest that his true goal is not to conquer Ukraine and absorb it into Russia but to change the post-Cold War setup in Europe’s east. That setup left Russia as a rule-taker without much say in European security, which was centered on NATO. If he manages to keep NATO out of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, and U.S. intermediate-range missiles out of Europe, he thinks he could repair part of the damage Russia’s security sustained after the Cold War ended. Not coincidentally, that could serve as a useful record to run on in 2024, when Putin would be up for re-election.”

  5. Democracy

  This theory holds that Ukraine, a flourishing democracy, poses an existential threat to Putin’s autocratic model of governance. The continued existence of a Western-aligned, sovereign, free and democratic Ukraine could inspire the Russian people to demand the same.

  Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and Robert Person, a professor at the United States Military Academy, wrote that Putin is terrified of democracy in Ukraine:

  “Over the last thirty years, the salience of the issue [NATO expansion] has risen and fallen not primarily because of the waves of NATO expansion, but due instead to waves of democratic expansion in Eurasia. In a very clear pattern, Moscow’s complaints about NATO spike after democratic breakthroughs….

  “Because the primary threat to Putin and his autocratic regime is democracy, not NATO, that perceived threat would not magically disappear with a moratorium on NATO expansion. Putin would not stop seeking to undermine democracy and sovereignty in Ukraine, Georgia, or the region as a whole if NATO stopped expanding. As long as citizens in free countries exercise their democratic rights to elect their own leaders and set their own course in domestic and foreign politics, Putin will keep them in his crosshairs….

  “The more serious cause of tensions has been a series of democratic breakthroughs and popular protests for freedom throughout the 2000s, what many refer to as the “Color Revolutions.” Putin believes that Russian national interests have been threatened by what he portrays as U.S.-supported coups. After each of them — Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, the Arab Spring in 2011, Russia in 2011-12, and Ukraine in 2013-14 — Putin has pivoted to more hostile policies toward the United States, and then invoked the NATO threat as justification for doing so….

  “Ukrainians who rose up in defense of their freedom were, in Putin’s own assessment, Slavic brethren with close historical, religious, and cultural ties to Russia. If it could happen in Kyiv, why not in Moscow?”

  Ukraine expert Taras Kuzio agrees:

  “Putin remains haunted by the wave of pro-democracy uprisings that swept Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, setting the stage for the subsequent Soviet collapse. He sees Ukraine’s fledgling democracy as a direct challenge to his own authoritarian regime and recognizes that Ukraine’s historical closeness to Russia makes this threat particularly acute.”

  6. Energy

  Ukraine holds the second-biggest known reserves — more than one trillion cubic meters — of natural gas in Europe after Russia. These reserves, under the Black Sea, are concentrated around the Crimean Peninsula. In addition, large deposits of shale gas have been discovered in eastern Ukraine, around Kharkiv and Donetsk.

  In January 2013, Ukraine signed a 50-year, $10 billion deal with Royal Dutch Shell to explore and drill for natural gas in eastern Ukraine. Later that year, Kyiv signed a 50-year, $10 billion shale gas production-sharing agreement with the American energy company Chevron. Shell and Chevron pulled out of those deals after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

  Some analysts believe Putin annexed Crimea to prevent Ukraine from becoming a major oil and gas provider to Europe and thereby challenge Russia’s energy supremacy. Russia, they argue, was also worried that as Europe’s second-largest petrostate, Ukraine would have been granted fast-track membership to the EU and NATO.

  According to this theory, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is aimed at forcing Kyiv to officially acknowledge Crimea as Russian, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states, so that Moscow can legally secure control over the natural resources in these areas.

  7. Water

  On February 24, the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops restored water flow to a strategically important canal linking the Dnieper River to Russian-controlled Crimea. Ukraine blocked the Soviet-era North Crimean Canal, which supplies 85% of Crimea’s water needs, after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014. The water shortages resulted in a massive reduction in agricultural production on the peninsula and forced Russia to spend billions of rubles each year to supply water from the mainland to sustain the Crimean population.

  The water crisis was a major source of tension between Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted that the water supply would not be restored until Russia returns the Crimean Peninsula. Security analyst Polina Vynogradova noted that any resumption of water supply would have amounted to a de facto recognition of Russian authority in Crimea and would have undermined Ukraine’s claim to the peninsula. It would also have weakened Ukrainian leverage over negotiations on Donbas.

  Even if Russian troops eventually withdraw from Ukraine, Russia likely will maintain permanent control over the entire 400-kilometer North Crimean Canal to ensure there are no more disruptions to Crimea’s water supply.

  8. Regime Survival

  This theory holds that the 69-year-old Putin, who has been in power since 2000, seeks perpetual military conflict as a way of remaining popular with the Russian public. Some analysts believe that after public uprisings in Belarus and Kazakhstan, Putin decided to invade Ukraine due to a fear of losing his grip on power.

  In an interview with Politico, Bill Browder, the American businessman who heads up the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, said that Putin feels the need to look strong at all times:

  “I don’t think that this war is about NATO; I don’t think this war is about Ukrainian people or the EU or even about Ukraine; this war is about starting a war in order to stay in power. Putin is a dictator, and he’s a dictator whose intention is to stay in power until the end of his natural life. He said to himself that the writing’s on the wall for him unless he does something dramatic. Putin is just thinking short-term … ‘how do I stay in power from this week to the next? And then next week to the next?'”

  Anders Åslund, a leading specialist on economic policy in Russia and Ukraine, agreed:

  “How to understand Putin’s war in Ukraine. It is not about NATO, EU, USSR or even Ukraine. Putin needs a war to justify his rule & his swiftly increasing domestic repression…. It is really all about Putin, not about neo-imperialism, Russian nationalism or even the KGB.”

  Russia expert Anna Borshchevskaya wrote that the invasion of Ukraine could be the beginning of the end for Putin:

  “Though he is not democratically elected, he worries about public opinion and protests at home, seeing them as threats to retaining his grip on power…. While Putin may have hoped that invading Ukraine would quickly expand Russian territory and help restore the grandeur of the former Russian empire, it could do the opposite.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/15/2022 – 02:00

• 10 Signs The War In Ukraine Is Part Of The Great Reset
  10 Signs The War In Ukraine Is Part Of The Great Reset

  Via WinterOak.org.uk,

  Welcome to the second phase of the Great Reset: war.

  

  While the pandemic acclimatised the world to lockdowns, normalised the acceptance of experimental medications, precipitated the greatest transfer of wealth to corporations by decimating SMEs and adjusted the muscle memory of workforce operations in preparation for a cybernetic future, an additional vector was required to accelerate the economic collapse before nations can ‘Build Back Better.’

  I present below several ways in which the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine is the next catalyst for the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset agenda, facilitated by an interconnected web of global stakeholders and a diffuse network of public-private partnerships.

  1. The war between Russia and Ukraine is already causing unprecedented disruption to global supply chains, exacerbating fuel shortages and inducing chronic levels of inflation.

  

  As geopolitical tensions morph into a protracted conflict between NATO and the Sino-Russia axis, a second contraction may plunge the economy into stagflation.

  In the years ahead, the combination of subpar growth and runaway inflation will force a global economic underclass into micro-work contracts and low-wage jobs in an emerging gig economy.

  Another recession will compound global resource thirst, narrow the scope for self-sufficiency and significantly increase dependence on government subsidies.

  With the immiseration of a significant portion of the world’s labour force looming on the horizon, this may well be a prelude to the introduction of a Universal Basic Income, leading to a highly stratified neo-feudal order.

  Therefore, the World Economic Forum’s ominous prediction that we will ‘own nothing and be happy’ by 2030 seems to be unfolding with horrifying rapidity.

  2. The war’s economic fallout will lead to a dramatic downsizing of the global workforce. 

  

  The architects of the Great Reset have anticipated this trend for a number of years and will exploit this economic turbulence by propelling the role of disruptive technologies to meet global challenges and fundamentally alter traditional business patterns to keep pace with rapid changes in technology.

  Like the pandemic, disaster preparedness in the age of conflict will rest significantly on the willingness to embrace specific technological innovations in the public and private spheres so that future generations can supply the labour demands of the Great Reset.

  A recurring theme in Klaus Schwab’s Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is that groundbreaking technological and scientific innovations will no longer be relegated to the physical world around us but become extensions of ourselves.

  He emphasises the primacy of emerging technologies in a next generation workforce and highlights the urgency to push ahead with plans to digitise several aspects of the global labour force through scalable technology based solutions.

  Those spearheading the Great Reset seek to manage geopolitical risk by creating new markets which revolve around digital innovations, e-strategies, telepresence labour, Artificial Intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, the Internet of Things and the Internet of Bodies.

  The breakneck speed in which AI technologies are being deployed suggest that the optimization of such technologies will initially bear on traditional industries and professions which offer a safety net for hundreds of millions of workers, such as farming, retail, catering, manufacturing and the courier industries.

  However, automation in the form of robots, smart software and machine learning will not be limited to jobs which are routine, repetitive and predictable.

  AI systems are on the verge of wholesale automation of various white collar jobs, particularly in areas which involve information processing and pattern recognition such as accounting, HR and middle management positions.

  Although anticipating future employment trends is no easy task, it’s safe to say that the combined threat of pandemics and wars means the labour force is on the brink of an unprecedented reshuffle with technology reshaping logistics, potentially threatening hundreds of millions of blue and white collar jobs, resulting in the greatest and fastest displacement of jobs in history and foreshadowing a labour market shift which was previously inconceivable.

  While it has long been anticipated that the increased use of technology in the private sector would result in massive job losses, pandemic lockdowns and the coming disruption caused by a war will speed up this process, and many companies will be left with no other option but to lay off staff and replace them with creative technological solutions merely for the survival of their businesses.

  In other words, many of the jobs which will be lost in the years ahead were already moving towards redundancy and are unlikely to be recovered once the dust is settled.

  3. The war has significantly reduced Europe’s reliance on the Russian energy sector and reinforced the centrality of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and ‘net zero‘ emissions which lies at the heart of the Great Reset.

  

  Policymakers marching lockstep with the Great Reset have capitalised on the tough sanctions against Russia by accelerating the shift towards ‘green’ energy and reiterating the importance of decarbonisation as part of the ‘fight against climate change’.

  However, it would be very short-sighted to assume that the Great Reset is ultimately geared towards the equitable distribution of ‘green’ hydrogen and carbon-neutral synthetic fuels replacing petrol & diesel.

  While UN SDGs are crucial to post-pandemic recovery, more importantly, they are fundamental to the makeover of shareholder capitalism which is now being vaunted by the Davos elites as ‘stakeholder capitalism’.

  In economic terms, this refers to a system where governments are no longer the final arbiters of state policies as unelected private corporations become the de facto trustees of society, taking on the direct responsibility to address the world’s social, economic and environmental challenges through macroeconomic cooperation and a multi-stakeholder model of global governance.

  Under such an economic construct, asset holding conglomerates can redirect the flow of global capital by aligning investments with the UN’s SDGs and configuring them as Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) compliant so that new international markets can be built on the disaster and misery of potentially hundreds of millions of people reeling from the economic collapse caused by war.

  Therefore, the war offers a huge impetus for the governments pushing the reset to actively pursue energy independence, shape markets towards ‘green and inclusive growth’ and eventually move populations towards a cap-and-trade system, otherwise known as a carbon credit economy.

  This will centralise power in the hands of stakeholder capitalists under the benevolent guise of reinventing capitalism through fairer and greener means, using deceptive slogans like ‘Build Back Better’ without sacrificing the perpetual growth imperative of capitalism.

  4. Food shortages created by the war will offer a major boon to the synthetic biology industry as the convergence of digital technologies with materials science and biology will radically transform the agricultural sector and encourage the adoption of plant-based and lab-grown alternatives on a global scale. 

  

  Russia and Ukraine are both breadbaskets of the world and critical shortages in grains, fertilisers, vegetable oils and essential foodstuffs will catapult the importance of biotechnology to food security and sustainability and give birth to several imitation meat start-ups similar to ‘Impossible Foods’ which was co-funded by Bill Gates.

  One can therefore expect more government regulation to usher a dramatic overhaul to industrial food production and cultivation, ultimately benefiting agribusiness and biotech investors, since food systems will be redesigned through emerging technologies to grow ‘sustainable’ proteins and CRISPR gene-edited patented crops.

  5. Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT (The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) foreshadows an economic reset which will generate precisely the kind of blowback necessary for corralling large swathes of the global population into a technocratic control grid.

  

  As several economists have opined, weaponizing SWIFT, CHIPS (The Clearing House Interbank Payments System) and the US Dollar against Russia will only spur geopolitical rivals like China to accelerate the process of de-dollarisation.

  The main benefactor of economic sanctions against Russia appears to be China which can reshape the Eurasian market by encouraging member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS to bypass the SWIFT ecosystem and settle cross-border international payments in the Digital Yuan.

  While the demand for cryptocurrencies will see a massive spike, this is likely to encourage many governments to increasingly regulate the sector through public blockchains and enforce a multilateral ban on decentralised cryptocurrencies.

  The shift to crypto could be the dress rehearsal to eventually expedite plans for programmable money overseen by a federal regulator, leading to the greater accretion of power in the hands of a powerful global technocracy and thus sealing our enslavement to financial institutions.

  I believe this war will bring currencies to parity, therefore heralding a new Bretton Woods moment which promises to transform the operation of international banking and macroeconomic cooperation through the future adoption of central bank digital currencies.

  6.  This war marks a major inflection point in the globalist aspiration for a new international rules-based order anchored in Eurasia.

  

  As the ‘father of geopolitics’ Halford Mackinder opined over a century ago, the rise of every global hegemon in the past 500 years has been possible because of dominance over Eurasia. Similarly, their decline has been associated with losing control over that pivotal landmass.

  This causal connection between geography and power has not gone unnoticed by the global network of stakeholders representing the WEF, many of whom have anticipated the transition to a multipolar era and return to great power competition amid America’s receding political and economic influence and a pressing need for what technocrats call smart globalisation.

  While America tries desperately to cling to its superpower status, China’s economic ascent and Russia’s regional ambitions threaten to upend the strategic axial points of Eurasia (Western Europe and Asia Pacific).

  The region in which America previously enjoyed uncontested hegemony is no longer impervious to cracks and we may be witnessing a changing of the guard which dramatically alters the calculus of global force projection.

  Although China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has the potential to unify the world-island (Asia, Africa and Europe) and cause a tectonic shift in the locus of global power, the recent invasion of Ukraine will have far-reaching consequences for China-Europe rail freight.

  The Ukrainian President Zelensky claimed that Ukraine could function as the BRI’s gateway to Europe. Therefore, we cannot ignore China’s huge stake in the recent tensions over Ukraine, nor can we ignore NATO’s underlying ambition to check China’s rise in the region by limiting the sale of Ukrainian assets to China and doing everything in its capacity to thwart The Modern Silk Road.

  As sanctions push Russia towards consolidating bilateral ties with China and fully integrating with the BRI, a Pan-Eurasian trading bloc may be the realignment which forces a shared governance of the global commons and a reset to the age of US exceptionalism.

  7. With speculation mounting over the war’s long term impact on bilateral trade flows between China and Europe, the Russia-Ukraine conflict will catapult Israel – a leading advocate of the Great Reset – to even greater international prominence. 

  

  Israel is a highly attractive BRI market for China and the CCP is acutely aware of Israel’s importance as a strategic outpost connecting the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea through the Gulf of Suez.

  Furthermore, the Chinese government has for many years acknowledged the primacy of Israel as a global technology hub and capitalised on Israel’s innovation capabilities to help meet its own strategic challenges.

  Therefore, Naftali Bennet’s mediation between Moscow and Kiev is likely to factor the instrumental role of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in expanding both China and Israel’s regional and global strategic footprint.

  Israel’s status as among the leading tech hubs of the future and gateway connecting Europe and the Middle East is inextricably tied to the web of physical infrastructures, such as roads, railways, ports and energy pipelines which China has been building over the past decade.

  Already a powerhouse in auto-technologies, robotics and cybersecurity, Israel aspires to be the central nation in the millennial Kingdom and the country’s tech startups are predicted to play a key role in the fourth industrial revolution.

  Strengthening its evolving relationship with China amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis could help propel Israel into a regional hegemon par excellence with a large share of centralised economic and technological power converging in Jerusalem.

  As Israel embarks on efforts to diversify its export markets and investments away from the United States, it begs an important question.

  Is Israel in the formative stages of outsourcing its security interests away from the US and hedging its bets on the Sino-Russia axis?

  8. It is now common knowledge that Digital IDs are a central plank in the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset agenda and are to be streamlined across industries, supply chains and markets as a way of advancing the UN 2030 SDGs and delivering individualised and integrated services in future smart cities.

  

  Many have cottoned on to how such a platform can be used to usher in a global system of technocratic population control and compliance by incorporating humanity into a new corporate value chain where citizens are mined as data commodities for ESG investors and human capital bond markets and assigned a social and climate score based on how well they measure up against the UN SDGs.

  This seamless verification of people and connected devices in smart environments can only take place once our biometrics, health records, finances, education transcripts, consumer habits, carbon footprint and the entire sum of human experiences is stored on an interoperable database to determine our conformity with the UN SDGs, thus forcing a monumental change to our social contract.

  Vaccine passports were initially touted by public-private partnerships as an entry point for Digital IDs. Now that such a logic has run its course, how might the present geopolitical tensions contribute to scaling what is the key node in a new digital ecosystem?

  Ukraine has traditionally been called Europe’s breadbasket and alongside Russia, both nations are major global suppliers of staple grains. Therefore, the war has all the makings of a black swan for commodities and inflation.

  With an economy teetering on the brink of collapse due to a global supply crunch, I believe the resulting economic tremors will trigger wartime emergencies across the world and the public will be told to brace themselves for rationing.

  Once this takes place, the multilateral adoption of Digital IDs which interface with Central Bank Digital Currencies can be touted as the solution to efficiently manage and distribute household rations under an unprecedented state of emergency and exception.

  The Bank of England has already floated the prospect of programmable cash which can only be spent on essentials or goods which an employer or government deem sensible.

  Once the issuer is granted control over how it is spent by the recipient, it will become nigh impossible to function adequately without a Digital ID, which will be required to receive food parcels and obtain a basic means of subsistence. Think UBI (Universal Basic Income).

  If food inflation continues on an upward trajectory with no signs of abating, governments may institute price controls in the form of rationing and ration entries could be logged on blockchain ledgers on the Digital ID to track our carbon footprint and consumptive habits during a national emergency.

  9. Europe is directly in the line of fire once a hybrid war between NATO and the Sino-Russia axis is underway.

  

  It would be remiss to ignore the clear and present danger posed by a cyber attack on banks and critical infrastructure or even a tentative and tactical nuclear exchange with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

  I can’t see how any warring party will not be limited by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction so a thermonuclear fallout is unlikely.

  However, the use of remote access technologies to erase system memory from the SWIFT banking apparatus or Cross-Border Interbank Payment System can potentially render much of the international economy non-operational and send the dollar into a tailspin.

  If an event of such cataclysmic proportions was to occur, it will undoubtedly lead to increasing demands to overhaul cyber security.

  The fallout from such an event could very well establish a new global security protocol according to which citizens must possess a Digital ID as a necessary national security measure.

  One can imagine how accessing the internet or public services in the aftermath of a nationwide cyberattack may require citizens to use a Digital ID to authenticate that their online activities and transactions are from a legitimate and non-malicious source.

  There are few coincidences in politics.

  10. The economic implications of this war will be so disastrous that governments and the public sector will require a significant injection of private capital to address the financing shortfall. 

  

  This will effectively render the traditional separation of powers between central banking institutions and governments obsolete, as the former will be positioned to disproportionately influence the fiscal trajectory of nation states, whose sovereignty will be hollowed out by the wholesale capture of governments by the central banks and hedge funds.

  Therefore, the nation-state model is gradually being upended by a global technocracy, consisting of an unelected consortium of leaders of industry, central banking oligarchs and private financial institutions, most of which are predominantly non-state corporate actors attempting to restructure global governance and enlist themselves in the global decision-making process.

  Therefore, the future of international relations and the social, economic and political transformation which the world is presently undergoing in light of the pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict will not be decided through multilateralism and elected representatives of sovereign states.

  Rather, it will be decided through a network of multi-stakeholder partnerships which are motivated by the politics of expediency and not accountable to any electorate or beholden to any state and for whom concepts like sovereignty and international law are meaningless.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 23:40

• Costco Runs Out Of Emergency Food Kits 
  Costco Runs Out Of Emergency Food Kits 

  Headlines like, “WWIII has likely started already, but we have been slow to recognize it,” from Bill Ackman, and corporate media pushing nuclear war hype and hysteria had sparked unease among American households who hadn’t felt this way since the early days of the virus pandemic when they were caught empty-handed with limited supplies to weather COVID lockdowns. 

  Americans, many of whom have been transformed into preppers in a post-COVID era, are at it again, panic hoarding supplies as they fear Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be the catalyst for the next world war (well, at least they think this way because corporate media is telling them). What’s evident so far is that Russia’s ongoing conflict within Ukraine is disrupting global supply chains and food supplies. People see the writing on the wall as prices soar at gas stations and supermarkets. The conflict overseas is already sending commodity prices sky-high, which may eventually spark shortages. 

  So as Americans unleash their inner prepper. They’re panic hoarding ReadyWise emergency food kits sold at Costco Wholesale Corporation’s brick and mortar stores and or online that at least one variety of the products has already been sold out.

  ReadyWise’s 5,400 serving count of emergency food pallet is “out of stock,” according to Costco’s website. The emergency food kit comes in 36 stackable 5.3-gallon buckets of food that last up to 25-years. 

  

  Looks like Costco has sold out almost all their emergency food, especially the Mountain house branded items. Everything online goes to an error page. Even the $2200-$6000 pallets are sold out. Cold War 2.0 panic is here. pic.twitter.com/9PK6gH8k0s

  — Stalingrad & Poorski (@Stalingrad_Poor) March 14, 2022

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  A customer on the Costco website reviewed the product in early March, days after the invasion of Ukraine, and said, “It never hurts to be prepared. Nice variety of foods, it’s easy to store and the shelf life is unbeatable. And it doesn’t taste bad at all.’

  “Be prepared. Spend the money,” another customer wrote. 

  Since the invasion, search interest for ReadyWise has rocketed above COVID highs. 

  

  Besides food, Americans are frantically searching where to buy potassium iodide in case of nuclear war. 

  

  While food and medicine are essential, panic hoarding ammunition is already underway. 

  

  It never hurts to prepare, considering the fog of war in eastern Europe remains intact, and an end to the conflict is still unknown. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 23:20

• Credit Has Cracked, And Now The CLO Defaults Begin
  Credit Has Cracked, And Now The CLO Defaults Begin

  Last Friday we reported that credit is “cracking”, quoting from the ominous words of BofA strategist Michael Hartnett who chose to describe the bond markets currently, and as we noted, “it is a very ugly picture indeed – for both price… and flows.”

  Since then, credit has only gone from bad to worse, and amid Monday’s rout, junk bonds (HYG) finally took out the psychological level of 80, a level last hit during the depths of the covid crash (just before the Fed stepped in and started buying bonds).

  

  But while the collapse in junk is ominous, the first real casualties in credit took place in Europe, where we just observed the first CLO defaults this year, which as Bloomberg’s Tatiana Darie says, echoing out earlier observations, are “adding to signs of stress in junk-rated credit markets, which remain frozen, and could further spook investors already concerned about the worsening economic outlook.”

  What happened? Three issuers across CLO portfolios were classified as defaulted in 2022 so far, according to Deutsche Bank. That compares to a total of six for the entire year in 2021, and 39 in 2020, the bank’s data show.

  To be sure, while the overall exposure to the CLO asset class is small, at less than 0.03%, and one of the three issuers is based in the U.S., but half way through last year’s count in less than three months, and before any real impact from Ukraine’s war is seen, it undermines the bullish case for CLOs – which are critical to support demand for the leveraged loan market – underpinned by ultra-low defaults and benign forecasts going forward. And yes, it may come as a shock to some but rates in the US are still at zero.

  The defaults also come at a time when leveraged credit is reeling from a plunge in prices, wider spreads and massive outflows from high-yield funds. Primary markets in Europe continue to be shut, with no junk-rated deal in public syndication for about a month now (some loans, like IVC’s EU480m offering, are getting done privately).

  While the broader CLO market has also seen some signs of life – Napier Park Global Capital pricing a deal last week – but coupons for the top-rated and largest part came in at the highest since November and the transaction offered some sweeteners such as shorter non-call and reinvestment periods, according to Darie, a structure used at the start of the pandemic to lure investors and allow managers to refinance quickly when markets recovered.

  Meanwhile, if the market volatility persists and credit continues to take it on the chin, expect many more CLO defaults, which incidentally may be just what bulls need. After all, while the Fed may ignore the crash in stocks, it will have no choice but to intervene once credit, which underpins Biden’s entire fake, stimulus-driven economy, dives next.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 23:15

• Taiwan Will Defend Differently Than Ukraine In Event Of Chinese Invasion: Expert
  Taiwan Will Defend Differently Than Ukraine In Event Of Chinese Invasion: Expert

  Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

  Military strategists worldwide have been analyzing the war in Ukraine, particularly how Ukrainians have been able to stall the military advancement of much powerful Russia using mobile weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles and the Stinger portable air-defense system.

  These strategists are making comparisons to Taiwan, an island that would also be fighting a much more powerful foe, should the Chinese regime take a cue from Russia and invade its democratic neighbor.

  

  However, a China expert in Taiwan pointed out that Ukraine and Taiwan are fundamentally different, given that the former shares a land border with Russia, while the latter is an island that is separated from mainland China by a narrow body of water called Taiwan Strait.

  Ding Shuh-fan, emeritus professor of the Graduate Institute of East Asia Studies at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, told The Epoch Times that if the Taiwanese were using Javelin or Stinger to defend themselves, that would mean the Chinese military was about to land in Taiwan or has already landed, which would not be ideal in terms of defending the island’s sovereignty.

  “What’s best for Taiwan is that their landing forces do not land in Taiwan at all,” Ding said.

  “For example, if Chinese military forces begin to assemble, let’s say, in Fujian, we could potentially fire short-range missiles at their ports, particularly military ports, or strike their landing vessels.” Fujian is a southern Chinese Province that sits direct opposite Taiwan.

  Of course, once the Chinese military starts to advance to the island’s shore, Taiwan would need to rely on Javelin and Stinger, just like the Ukrainians have done, as well as firing short-range missiles at their fighter jets, according to Ding.

  

  Taiwan’s domestically produced corvette class vessels demonstrate their combat readiness during a drill on the seas off the northern city of Keelung on Jan. 7, 2022. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

  The Chinese Communist Party sees Taiwan as a part of its territory even though the island is a de facto independent entity with its own liberal democratic government. In October, Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed that the “reunification” of Taiwan with China would “definitely be realized.”

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fueled speculation that Xi would follow in Putin’s footsteps and decide to invade Taiwan.

  The likely scenario is that China would start an attack against Taiwan by launching a barge of missiles at the island before it takes a brief pause to assess the success of its missile strikes, according to Ding.

  During this short pause, Ding said Taiwan would need to assemble its forces, put together a counter strike to hit back at China’s military installments, including ports, radar stations, and missile launching sites. Ultimately, the goal would be to prevent China from sending out its invasion forces across the Taiwan Strait, he added.

  As such, Ding said Taiwan’s current defense strategy—known either as multidomain deterrence or layered defense—is the right approach to defend Taiwan. He pointed out that Taiwan’s missile density is one of the highest in the world.

  The United States, when approving a potential $100 million sale of equipment and services to Taiwan to boost the island’s Patriot missile defense system in February, said the proposed sale “will help to sustain the recipient’s missile density and ensure readiness for air operations.”

  In May 2019, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, held a press conference explaining the need for the island to further advance its asymmetric warfare capabilities in order to counter China’s military threats. As a result, she said local production of submarines and anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles would speed up.

  Submarines would be a great counter to Chinese naval fleets, Ding said, since they could be positioned at projected paths of invading ships, further reducing the chance of Beijing landing its forces in Taiwan.

  Reservist training is one thing that Taiwan could do to boost its self-defense, Ding said. Another is having companies develop their own defense plan in case their own facilities are hit with Chinese missiles.

  Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has announced that it planned to have 15,000 reservists train under a tougher training program for 14 days at 24 battalions across the island this year, according to Taiwans’ government-run Central News Agency.

  Finally, Taiwan’s self-defense could further improve if more Taiwanese soldiers undergo U.S. military training, according to Ding.

  Tsai acknowledged in 2021 that a small number of U.S. troops were training Taiwanese soldiers in Taiwan.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 23:00

• Just As All Hope Seemed Lost, China Reports Miraculously Good Economic Data
  Just As All Hope Seemed Lost, China Reports Miraculously Good Economic Data

  Going into Tuesday, all hope seemed lost in China.

  First, China reported a whopping 5,154 new covid cases (3,507 new local confirmed Covid cases and 1,647 asymptomatic cases) for Monday, well more than double from the day before, and confirming that the country’s covid troubles – which over the past 48 hours led to the lockdown of Shenzhen and other cities – are only getting worse. So worse, in fact, that questions have emerged: how did China not report more than 100 cases on any one day for two years, and then now – with the Ukraine war raging – Beijing is suddenly locking down key US supply chain arteries.

  For the past two years, China had at most 50-100 new daily covid cases. Now it’s 5000, and it is shutting down key supply chain arteries that feed the US economy.

  So bizarre

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 15, 2022

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  Second, for the second day in a row, the PBOC fixed the yuan more than 100 pips weaker than expected, as the central bank telegraphs it will no longer tolerate a weak currency, relentless capital inflows be damned, as the country remembers that it is after all, an export-driven mercantilist which above all, needs a favorable exchange rate.

  

  Third, one day after Chinese stocks traded in HK suffered their biggest drop since 2008, we are bracing for another major crash:

  • ALIBABA SHARES INDICATED 9.8% LOWER IN HONG KONG
  • MEITUAN SHARES INDICATED 11% LOWER IN HONG KONG

  Elsewhere, China’s CSI 300 Index tuimbled 2.5%, while the Shanghai Composite declined 2.4% and the Hang Seng fell 3.7%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index lost as much as 7.2% soon after open Tuesday, and is now down almost 40% in under a month.

  

  Why? Because contrary to expectations set by the PBOC itself (via its own media mouthpiece), the PBOC decided to keep the MLF rate unchanged despite an intensifying rout in nation’s equities, adding to investor concerns from lockdowns to geopolitical and regulatory risks.

  And then, as even the firmest China believers were getting ready to throw in the towel, moments ago the National Bureau of Statistics reported a trio February economic numbers that were so ridiculously good they were, well… simply ridiculous. To wit:

  • Jan.-Feb. Industrial Output +7.5%, y/y, smashing estimates of +4%, printing above the highest economist forecast (range +3.2% to +5.5%, 24 economists) and far higher than the Ded +4.3%.
  • Jan.-Feb. Retail Sales +6.7% y/y; smashing est. +3%, printing above the highest economist forecast (range +1.5% to +5.5%, 23 economists), and far, far higher than the Dec. +1.7%
  • Jan.-Feb. Fixed-Asset Investment excluding rural households +12.2% y/y; smashing est. +5% and also printing above the highest economist forecast (range +3% to +9%, 29 economists) as well as more than 2x higher than Jan.-Dec. +4.9%

  

  While the above data was the most closely watched, not all the data was flawless:

  • Jan.-Feb. property investment +3.7% y/y vs +4.4% in Jan.-Dec.
  • Jan.-Feb. residential property sales -22.1% y/y vs +5.3% in Jan.-Dec.
  • End- Feb. surveyed jobless rate 5.5% vs 5.1% end-Dec.

  Then there were the tertiary data:

  • China Jan.-Feb. Power Output Rose 4% Y/y to 1314.1b kwh
  • China Feb. Power consumption rises 16.9% Y/Y, to 623.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), the state TV  reports, citing the National Energy Administration.
  • Power output in Jan.-Feb. rose 4% y/y to 1314.1b kwh
  • Crude processing in Jan.-Feb. fell 1.1% y/y to 113.01m tons
  • Crude oil output in Jan.-Feb. rose 4.6% y/y to 33.47m tons
  • Natural gas output in Jan.-Feb. rose 6.7% y/y to 37.2bcm
  • Ethylene output in Jan.-Feb. rose 3.9% y/y to 4.87m tons
  • Coal output in Jan.-Feb. rose 10.3% y/y to 686.6m tons

  China’s apparent oil demand, which includes oil processing volume and net imports of refined oil products, remained stable in the first two months of the year, despite higher prices: China’s apparent oil demand rose 2.89% in January-February from a year earlier, to 13.710m b/d.

  A closer read of the data hints that not all was as strong as indicated: the growth in retail sales was driven by a surge in petroleum and jewelry which saw the highest increase across all categories. That, as Bloomberg notes, could be the impact of price increase, instead of volume.

  Still, the fact that the big 3 were so stellar should placate those who are seeing a collapse (even if nobody actually believes these numbers).

  So why did Beijing report such ridiculous prints? Well, one possible reason is to justify the PBOC’s decision earlier in the session to hold the key, MLF interest rate unchanged instead of cutting it as analysts expected.

  Either that, or to justify what would be a powerful Plunge Protection intervention immediately after the data, and sure enough:

  • *HANG SENG TECH INDEX ERASES LOSS OF AS MUCH AS 7.2%
  • *TENCENT PARES LOSS TO 0.5% FROM AS MUCH AS 8%

  And as goes China, so go US equity futures…

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 22:40

• USAF Issues Solicitation For Development Of "Mayhem" Hypersonic Missile 
  USAF Issues Solicitation For Development Of “Mayhem” Hypersonic Missile 

  The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) published a solicitation for a $334 million hypersonic demonstrator missile contract with proposals by defense companies to be submitted by May and contract award in December. 

  AFRL has remained secretive about its new Mayhem project to develop and demonstrate a large-class air-breathing hypersonic missile. Vendors will receive the proposal requirements package by March 15 and submit offers by May 24. The branch expects to award a contract on December 5. 

  

  The Mayhem program aims to deliver a hypersonic weapon to the military with “strike, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance features.” It says the new missile will have a “standardized payload” and “multiple opportunities to integrate various payloads.” 

  Not much is known about the project. In December, AFRL indicated Mayhem was short for “Hypersonic Multi-mission ISR and Strike.”

  

  “The Mayhem Program is focused on delivering a larger class air-breathing hypersonic system capable of executing multiple missions with a standardized payload interface, providing a significant technological advancement and future capability,” AFRL’s document said in December. 

  “The system goal is to carry payloads five times the mass and double the range of current technology capability systems. The standardized payload interface would create multiple opportunities for various payload integration within the same hypersonic system,” AFRL continued. 

  The missile’s “current technology capability systems” were not published. Details about the missile’s speed remain scant, though hypersonic typically refers to objects traveling faster than Mach 5, or 3,836 mph.

  The U.S. remains in the development phase of its hypersonic weapons and has yet to field one. Meanwhile, Russia and China are quickly fielding hypersonic missiles while the U.S. suffers testing setbacks.  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 22:40

• China, Oil, & The Ukraine War
  China, Oil, & The Ukraine War

  Authored by Peter Zeihan via Zeihan.com,

  Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to sell its oil in Europe and other traditional markets, as a mixture of sanctions, market pressures and consumer choice are shifting against Moscow. It’s not that Russia is barred against selling oil. It’s that shippers, insurers, and dock workers don’t want anything to do with the stuff. So where does it go?

  There is a persistent question – and at times, assumption – that Beijing will step in to buy up whatever crude Russia can’t sell elsewhere.

  Not so fast. 

  The problem is infrastructure. The pipelines that carry oil to Russia’s Pacific loading terminal, and directly into China itself, source their crude from eastern fields. Russia’s western exports are sourced from western fields. There’s precious little in the way of connecting infrastructure between the two–meaning if Russia can’t load tankers in the Baltic and Black seas, there’s little reason to pump it at all. What does this mean for Chinese imports of Russian crude? Probably not what you’d expect…

  At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we asked our readers who were so inclined and able to consider donating toward a cause we thought was important: Feeding America.

  While we still believe strongly in their mission, with recent events in Ukraine we are asking our subscribers to consider supporting a charity focused on relief efforts there. There are many good ones to choose from, but one in particular we are supporting is the Afya Foundation.

  They collect money and health supplies for underserved communities in the world, and have begun delivering non-combat support to refugees and population centers in Ukraine. We hope that those who can, join us.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 22:20

• Foxconn In Talks To Build $9 Billion Factory In Saudi Arabia
  Foxconn In Talks To Build $9 Billion Factory In Saudi Arabia

  Dear liberals: Pretty soon, your iPhone could be assembled in a country where homosexuality is punishable by death, and religious dissidents are sometimes beheaded.

  In what could be a victory for Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s effort to attract tech companies to help diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy away from oil and gas, Foxconn, the Taiwanese consumer tech giant that’s one of Apple’s biggest contractors, has reportedly submitted a proposal to build a $9 billion factory in the Kingdom.

  

  WSJ reports that the kingdom “is reviewing an offer from the company, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, to build a dual-line foundry for surface-mount technology and wafer fabrication in Neom, a tech-focused city-state the kingdom is developing in the desert.”

  For those who aren’t familiar with Neom, here’s what the BBC has to say about the planned futuristic tech-centric city in the desert. The Kingdom plans to use its massive sovereign wealth fund to finance the effort.

  Glow-in-the dark beaches. Billions of trees planted in a country dominated by the desert. Levitating trains. A fake moon. A car-free, carbon-free city built in a straight line over 100 miles long in the desert. These are some of the plans for Neom – a futuristic eco-city that is part of Saudi Arabia’s pivot to go green. But is it all too good to be true?

  Neom claims to be a “blueprint for tomorrow in which humanity progresses without compromise to the health of the planet”. It’s a $500bn (£366bn) project, part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan to wean the country off oil – the industry that made it rich.

  The factory isn’t a done deal – at least not yet. The Saudis are reportedly still conducting due diligence and “benchmarking the offer against others Foxconn has made for similar projects globally”.

  The Saudis are also reportedly in talks with the UAE about potentially building the factory there.

  Foxconn has long been looking to diversify its factory capacity away from China. But Riyadh wants the company to guarantee that it would direct “at least two-thirds of the foundry’s production into Foxconn’s existing supply chain…to ensure there are buyers for its products and the project is ultimately profitable.”

  But if the company meets all the Saudis requirements, the kingdom is prepared to co-invest, while also offering low-interest loans, and other incentives.

  Of course, just because Foxconn is planning to invest, doesn’t mean it will. Let’s not forget how the company supposedly promised to build a large factory in Wisconsin, but ended up with a project that was much smaller than it initially promised.

  The Kingdom has struggled to recruit western businesses for Neom

  Although, as we noted above, we would be curious to see how Apple reacts to Foxconn’s decision to possibly assemble the company’s phones in the kingdom.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 22:00

• The Bond Market Is Screaming Stagflation
  The Bond Market Is Screaming Stagflation

  By DataTrek Research

  Topic #1: Market-based expectations for future US inflation have broken out to new highs in the last 10 days. Using data from the TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) market back to its start in 2003:

  • At present, TIPS are pricing 3.52 percent annual inflation for the next 5 years and 2.94 percent for the next 10 years.
  • Before 2021, the highs for expected inflation were back in March 2005, at 2.94 percent (5 year) and 2.76 pct (10-year).
  • In November 2021, expectations spiked to 3.17 percent (new record for 5 years) and 2.76 (tying the 2005 record for 10 years).

  The chart below shows this history/recent breakout and also compares the 2003 – present timeseries to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation target. In the middle of the chart, we have highlighted the 2011 – mid 2014 period. Recall the crude oil prices were high back then, as they are now, ranging around $100/barrel for over 3 years. Even still, inflation expectations remained around 2 percent because the US economy was recovering only slowly from the Great Recession.

  

  Takeaway: the TIPS market’s inflation expectations are no longer as well anchored around the Fed’s 2 percent level as they have been since 2003. This trend is recent and not only tied to energy prices. Moreover, this month’s breakout is happening as the US economy is near stall speed (Atlanta Fed GDPNow Q1 estimate at 0.5 percent) and geopolitical tensions threaten domestic/global growth. All that makes for an awkward setup going into the FOMC meeting this week. Chair Powell has often cited TIPS inflation expectations being close to 2 percent as a proof point that structural inflation is not a threat to the US economy. For the moment, at least, that is no longer true.

  Topic #2: The latest revisions to Wall Street analysts’ Q1 and Q2 2022 earnings expectations. The data here is courtesy of FactSet’s weekly Earnings Insight report (link below).

  Good news (1): Street estimates for Q1 2022 rose last week for the first time in 5 weeks:

  • The aggregate S&P 500 earnings per share estimate, based on consensus analyst forecasts for the companies in the index, rose to $51.79/share from $51.64/share last week.
  • Estimates had been declining for Q1 since February 4th, when they peaked at $52.06.
  • That may only be a 0.3 percent increase over the last week, but it comes with US stocks under pressure and growing macroeconomic uncertainty. Against that backdrop, seeing estimates rise is reassuring.

  Good news (2): Q2 estimates rose last week and are now at their highs for 2022:

  • Analysts’ estimates for Q2 rose to $55.59/share from $55.44 last week.
  • Q2 estimates are up 0.7 percent since the start of Q4 2021’s earnings reporting season, when they were $55.18/share.

  Bad news (1): both Q1 and Q2 2022 Wall Street earnings estimates imply the companies of the S&P 500 are close to peak earnings power or (perhaps) already past their peak.

  • The S&P earned an actual $55.44/share in Q4 2021.
  • The Street’s current Q1 estimate of $51.79/share is 6.6 percent below that most recent quarter actual.
  • The Q2 2022 estimate of $55.59 within a rounding error (0.3 percent) of Q4 2021.

  Takeaway: without a clear path to sequential earnings growth, which we’ve had since Q3 2020, markets are left to wonder if Q4 2021 really was the peak for US corporate cash flows. That is the fundamental reason the combination of Fed rate policy and geopolitical uncertainty have hit US stocks so hard in 2022. Wall Street analysts are tweaking their models at the margin and printing slightly higher estimates, which is reassuring. But … We’re still a month away from Q1 2022 earnings season, which is a long time to wait given everything else going on at the moment.

  Topic #3: A history of 10-year US Treasury yields and Consumer Price Index inflation. 10-years yield 2.0 percent today. Thursday’s CPI report showed 7.9 percent inflation. That 5.9-point difference between long-term risk-free rates and inflation got us to wondering if such a gap has every occurred before and, if so, when.

  This chart of 10-year yields minus CPI inflation from 1962 to the present gives the answer. The highlights:

  • The only precedents for very wide differences in contemporaneous 10-year yields and inflation readings were after the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks. December 1974 showed a 4.7-point gap (Treasuries at 7.4 percent, CPI +12.1 pct), and June 1980 a 4.5-point gap (Treasuries at 10.0 percent, CPI at 14.5).
  • There were smaller but still noticeable negative readings in July 2008 (-1.5 points) and September 2011 (-1.8 points).
  • The current 5.9-point difference is wider than even those of the 1970s/early 1980s.

  

  Takeaway: very wide gaps between Treasury yields and inflation occur when geopolitical events such as the 1973 Saudi oil embargo or the 1979 Iranian Revolution cause both a spike in energy prices/inflation and a sharp decline in investor confidence. That pushes capital into Treasuries, regardless of their inability to keep pace with potentially high inflation for years into the future. The same situation is occurring now, of course, and in a manner broadly consistent with the 1974/1980 periods.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, here is Goldman looking at the risk that stagflation brings to “balances” or 60/40 portfolios. The outlook is not good.

  In the last cycle US 60/40 portfolios benefited from a structural ‘Goldilocks’ scenario, with falling inflation/real rates boosting valuations and strong profit growth despite relatively weak economic growth. With a less favourable structural growth/inflation mix and less of a tailwind from valuations and profit margins, real returns are likely to be lower in the Post-Pandemic Cycle.

  The risk of a ‘lost decade’ for 60/40 portfolios, i.e., a prolonged period of poor real returns, increases with stagflation. Markets have further repriced risk of stagflation, boosted by the commodities rally due to the Russia/Ukraine crisis – US 10-year breakeven inflation has reached the highest level since the 1990s, while real yields remain near all-time lows, resulting in a similar gap to that in the 1970s (Exhibit 1). This points to little optimism on LT real growth and material concerns on inflation risk.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 21:46

• US Rushes MANPADS To Ukraine, Downplays Risks
  US Rushes MANPADS To Ukraine, Downplays Risks

  Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

  Anti-tank missiles were the centerpiece of western arms shipments to Ukraine earlier in the war. New indications are that the focus is shifting to shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADS), with the US and NATO getting as many as they can into the Ukraine.

  The expectation is that the MANPADS will offer Ukraine substantial anti-aircraft capacity. Shipping a lot of MANPADS into a country is always a danger, because if they end up in the wrong hands they could threaten civilian airliners, and after the wars they tend to go missing into the global black market.

  

  That’s been a problem more than a few times, with the US shipping MANPADS into Afghanistan during the Soviet War, only to lose control of many of them. The most recent concerns were in the NATO regime change in Libya, where Libya’s huge cache of MANPADS were looted and sold across the region.

  Both NATO and the airline industry are largely mum on the threats posed by such missiles. Russian officials are noting that the west is “grossly ignoring” a number of international agreements designed to prevent MANPADS proliferation.

  Senior US officials say its a “risk worth taking,” which is easy to say since the risk of proliferation is chiefly in Europe, and the US has ample experience in ditching responsibility for unintended, albeit easily-predictable, blowback.

  “Frankly, we believe that risk is worth taking right now because the Ukrainians are fighting so skillfully with the tools at their disposal and they’re using them so creatively,” a senior U.S. defense official said on Friday when asked about that danger.

  It seems that the missiles are being used as a replacement for the warplanes Ukraine sought, and which the US feared would be seen as too big of an escalation. The assumption seems to be MANPADS are less of a risk in that regard.

  Video of a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft that managed to make it back to its airbase after being struck by a MANPADS in Ukraine. https://t.co/9WCksYKYx7 pic.twitter.com/eQF0EruplG

  — Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 14, 2022

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  Either way, it’s no secret what NATO is doing, and it sets a precedent where Russia or others might distribute MANPADS in other proxy wars they might want to get involved in.

  Additionally, Russia’s military has said it will strike as “legitimate targets” any inbound arms shipments to Ukraine from foreign countries, which brings up the dangerous scenario of a broader Russia-NATO war being sparked.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 21:40

• "This Could Lead To The Start Of WWIII" – Trump Slams Biden Over Ukraine Conflict
  “This Could Lead To The Start Of WWIII” – Trump Slams Biden Over Ukraine Conflict

  President Trump took the stage Saturday night during a rally in Florence, South Carolina where he warned that the Russian invasion into Ukraine could lead to the start of “World War III”, and proclaimed that the US needs to get its energy workers back to work.

  

  Trump slammed President Biden for his “weakness, cowardice and incompetence”, adding that there is still “a path” for him to “end this tragedy in Ukraine without getting Americans ensnared in a gruesome and very bloody war.”

  “By the way this could lead to World War III. If you think Putin is going to stop, he’s not going to stop. Nobody has ever been tougher on Putin than me. The US must make clear to Putin that he has two choices: that he must accept peace right now or face a push to end reliance on Russian energy.”

  However, to make this possible, the US must first end President Biden’s “war” on American energy.

  “We have to get our energy workers drilling, mining and refining like never before,” Trump said, before congratulating a band of workers standing behind him. 

  Russian President Vladimir Putin “without the money coming in for energy, Russia doesn’t work.”

  As for the weapons the US and its allies have sent to Ukraine, President Trump took credit for sending javelin missiles.

  “They sent blankets…and I sent javelins. That was all sent by me. We didn’t send our soldiers but we sent them a lot of military equipment,” Trump said.

  Trump then turned on AOC and the rest of “the squad”, which he called “AOC plus three”. He mocked them for their climate change alarmism, joking that their “12 years” timeline to stop global warming had shrunk down to seven.

  Trump slammed Biden for last year waiving sanctions on the Russian firm constructing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a move that at the time drew pushback from both Democrats and Republicans. Trump said the administration should take a harder stance on Russia. Biden last month announced sanctions against the company in response to the conflict in Ukraine.

  He also slammed the Biden Administration for turning to dictatorial regimes like Iran and Venezuela for the oil needed to make inflation drop.

  “Biden is crawling around the globe on his knees begging and pleading for mercy from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela.”

  Trump also took a few moments to slam Reps. Liz Cheney and “Cryin” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the two GOP representatives on the Democrat-run Jan. 6 committee.

  Watch Trump’s hour-long speech below:

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 21:20

• Hedge Funds Liquidate Oil Positions At A Near-Record Pace Amid Extreme Volatility
  Hedge Funds Liquidate Oil Positions At A Near-Record Pace Amid Extreme Volatility

  By John Kemp, Senior Energy Market Analyst at Reuters

  Investors slashed bullish bets on oil last week as prices surged to multi-year highs, the economic outlook deteriorated, and extreme volatility made derivatives positions more expensive to maintain. Hedge funds and other money managers sold the equivalent of 142 million barrels in the six most important petroleum-related futures and options contracts in the week to March 8.

  

  Last week’s sales were the 11th largest out of 469 weeks since March 2013 – a 98 %-ile move –  according to records published by ICE Futures Europe and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

  

  Portfolio managers sold Brent (-97 million barrels), European gas oil (-23 million), U.S. gasoline (-13 million) and U.S. diesel (-11 million) and were buyers only of NYMEX and ICE WTI (+2 million).

  The selling was dominated by closure of existing bullish long positions (-114 million barrels) rather than initiation of new bearish short ones (+28 million), consistent with a risk-reducing strategy.

  Funds ended up with a net position in the six contracts of just 588 million barrels (45th percentile for all weeks since 2013) down from a recent peak of 761 million barrels (70th percentile) on Jan. 18. Bullish long positions outnumbered bearish short ones by a ratio of 4.76:1 (61st percentile) down from 6.24 (80th percentile) in mid-January.

  

  In recent weeks, the record backwardation in futures prices, accelerating rise in spot prices, and increasing day-to-day volatility have been signs of a market under extreme stress and likely to reverse course. Soaring oil prices have been part of a broader increase in the price of raw materials, manufactured items and freight charges which has raised the probability of a recession within the next 12 months.

  Reflecting the deteriorating economic outlook and volatility costs, distillate positions were cut to 85 million barrels (67th percentile) last week down from a recent peak of 144 million barrels (85th percentile) five weeks earlier.

  

  Rising volatility is also a symptom of a market becoming less liquid, with both bullish and bearish investors less willing to take on new risk exposures and instead reducing positions until trading becomes calmer.

  Heightened volatility has fed through into more demands for margin from brokers and clearing houses and makes futures and options positions increasingly expensive to maintain, encouraging fund managers to trim positions.

  

  Extreme volatility and rapidly diminishing liquidity is reminiscent of trading conditions in the second quarter of 2008 as oil prices climbed towards a record high in the first half of July before plunging.

  Oil prices are caught between rising supply risks as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the consequent sanctions on the country’s output, and growing demand risks stemming from inflation and a possible recession.

  In this increasingly unstable and chaotic situation, many hedge fund managers have decided it is prudent to realise profits from previous bullish positions and reduce risk exposure until the balance of risks becomes clearer.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 21:00

• China Orders 51 Million Into Lockdown As COVID Numbers Spike
  China Orders 51 Million Into Lockdown As COVID Numbers Spike

  Beijing is learning the hard way that its “COVID Zero” approach toward combating the virus is having serious drawbacks. For example, while the US and Europe continue to roll back their tightening measures, a growing number of Chinese citizens are facing draconian lockdowns similar to the one imposed on Wuhan during the early days of the outbreak two years ago.

  

  According to ABC News, the total number of Chinese citizens under lockdown rose to 51 million on Monday. Beijing has ordered a lockdown covering the entire northeastern province of Jilin, where 24 million people live. What’s more, the southern cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan, with 17.5 million and 10 million, respectively, have both been locked down in recent days.

  China reported 1,437 cases across dozens of cities on Monday. That’s a four-fold increase within the span of a week.

  Although the record number of new cases being reported is testing the feasibility of China’s zero-tolerance approach, there is still no sign that the country’s leadership is thinking about abandoning the policy altogether.

  Authorities announced on Monday that 24 million people in Jilin Province would be forced into lockdown. That number includes the population of the previously locked down city of Changchun. Jilin’s lockdown marks the first province-wide lockdown since that of Wuhan and Hubei in January 2020.

  The lockdown in Shenzhen threatens manufacturing and tech production in a city that’s home to Huawei and Tencent, along with one of the country’s main ports. As we noted earlier, the lockdown in Shenzhen has forced Apple supplier Foxconn to halt production of iPhones, which weighed on Apple shares earlier Monday.

  While the lockdowns were initially given a short-term timeline of a week, authorities can always choose to extend them.

  In keeping with the CCP’s propaganda, Professor Heiwai Tang at Hong Kong University told ABC News that he doesn’t expect these week-long lockdowns to have a significant impact on GDP growth.

  “It seems the lockdowns will be shorter this time with more tracking, which means a short disruption of work and production,” Tang said. “If it ends up lasting for weeks it’s another issue, including inflation risks.”

  Looking back, Professor Michael Song from Hong Kong’s Chinese University estimated that the two-month lockdown in Wuhan lopped 2 percentage points off China’s GDP growth.

  Shanghai-based virologist Zhang Wenhong described the latest outbreak as “the most difficult moment in the past two years” of China’s efforts to stamp out the virus. Shanghai, China’s financial capital, has so far avoided a full-scale lockdown, but has faced some restrictions.

  Many believe the most recent outbreak in mainland China likely traveled across the border from Hong Kong, which has seen case numbers soar over the past few weeks, prompting authorities to impose lockdowns and construct  thousands of makeshift quarantine beds.

  Mandatory quarantines and other strict anti-COVID measures have already taken their toll on the mental health of Chinese citizens: police reported 3 suicide attempts at one quarantine “camp” during the past day as of mid-morning on Monday in the Eastern US.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 20:40

• Shellenberger: Why We Will Save California (And Why Newsom Doesn't Care)
  Shellenberger: Why We Will Save California (And Why Newsom Doesn’t Care)

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

  Like a lot of Californians, I have a full and happy life. My wife and I own a home in the Berkeley Hills from which we enjoy watching the fog roll underneath the Golden Gate bridge, and blanket the bay. Our children are healthy and happy. We enjoy a safe and comfortable living as researchers and writers, seemingly far from the chaos and suffering in California’s downtowns.

  

  But over the last few years, the rising chaos and suffering have increasingly troubled me. In 2018 I ran for governor to make the case for abundant housing to address homelessness. In 2019, I called for a State of Emergency on homelessness and mandatory psychiatric care or rehab for addicts and the mentally ill who break the law. 

  And in 2021, I co-founded a statewide coalition with parents of homeless drug addicts, parents of children killed by fentanyl, and recovering addicts, to advocate for a statewide psychiatric and addiction care system (“Cal-Psych”), a crackdown on open air and online drug markets, and a change from the state’s de facto “camp anywhere” policy to a ban on illegal camping.

  I thought we were making progress. In September, I button-holed Governor Gavin Newsom in San Francisco, and told him about Cal-Psych, explaining that it was a way to centralize psychiatric and addiction care. He told me, “I look forward to talking more about it!” When Joe Rogan asked me in October if I thought Newsom cared, I defended the governor, saying that I thought he did.

  But Newsom has failed to increase housing, refused to fight for universal health care, and has rejected the idea of a statewide psychiatric and addiction care system, choosing instead to double down on the same policies that created the homelessness crisis in the first place

  Today, Gov. @GavinNewsom will characterize his proposal for dealing with mentally ill homeless as “unprecedented”

  In truth, Newsom is proposing to waste more money on a system that HIS MOST SENIOR ADVISOR SAYS CAN’T WORK pic.twitter.com/VK8evvp2fE

  — Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) March 8, 2022

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  As a result, chaos and suffering are increasing nearly everywhere in California, even in small towns. Half of all fires in California’s cities are in homeless encampments, even though the unsheltered homeless are less than 0.005 percent of the state’s population. Firefighters and EMTs revive, at great cost, fentanyl addicts who overdose and nearly die — and then put the poor souls right back on the street again. And violent crime is rising because the police are understaffed and demoralized.

  California spends much more than other states on homelessness and mental illness and yet has worse outcomes. Homelessness increased 31 percent in California, over the last decade, while it declined 18 percent in the rest of the country. Recently, a drug-addicted 16-year-old girl, the age of my daughter, was allegedly raped, repeatedly, before overdosing on fentanyl, in an open drug scene in downtown San Francisco.

  Why won’t Governor Gavin Newsom take action to shut down the open drug scenes, and restore order? And what must be done? 

  Why Newsom Doesn’t Care

  In October, HarperCollins published San Fransicko, which assembles a significant body of evidence to show that what we call “homelessness” results primarily from untreated mental illness and addiction, not poverty and high rents.

  That book, my reporting on Substack, and my video interviews, helped change the national conversation. In mid-December of last year, San Francisco Mayor London Breed called for a crackdown on open air drug dealing and even “tough love.” Shortly after, I was invited to address the city’s Commonwealth Club. 

  But a few days before my Commonwealth Club talk I discovered, and was the first to report, that Mayor London Breed had secretly and illegally created a supervised fentanyl and meth use site in United Nations Plaza in downtown San Francisco.

  The site was part of a new, so-called “Linkage Center,” the centerpiece of the mayor’s plan to supposedly direct homeless addicts to rehab, but the site has only worsened open air drug use, drug dealing, and violent crime, and sent just a handful of people to rehab.

  The bottom line is that San Francisco city government has put the business interests of violent drug dealers above the needs of vulnerable 16 year-old homeless female drug addicts.

  When cities can no longer properly govern themselves, it is the role of the governor to intervene, but instead of using his State of the State address last week to lay out a vision for California to realize its incredible potential, Newsom was dehumanizing, disrespectful, and dishonest, and not just on the issue of homelessness.

  At a time when just nine percent of African American students, and 12 percent of Latino students in Los Angeles public schools are proficient in eighth-grade math, Newsom began by patronizingly praising his appointees for their racial identies, sexual preferences, and immigration status, not their achievements. 

  In his speech, the governor talked tough on forest fires — even though he cut the budget for fighting them, and the area treated for fire prevention declined by half, during his time in office.

  

  Newsom took credit for job growth even though California has a 6.5 percent unemployment rate, which is three percentage points higher than the national average, and three times higher than other states.

  We Californians have the highest income tax, highest gasoline tax, and highest sales tax in the United States, and yet suffer blackouts and abysmal public services. California’s residential electricity prices grew three times faster than they did in the rest of the U.S., in 2021.

  Last summer Newsom issued emergency rules allowing for the burning of dirty diesel fuel to prevent blackouts for 2.5 million people, and yet is moving full-speed ahead with plans to shut down Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which provides reliable, pollution-free power for three million Californians, and whose closure could result in catastrophic blackouts.

  In other words, Newsom gave the speech a presidential candidate would make to Democratic primary voters in Iowa — not the speech a governor who cared about California would make.

  Naturally, Newsom made no mention of the two issues he had campaigned on in 2018, universal health care and adding 500,000 new housing units a year. It’s easy to see why. Health care legislation recently failed due to his lack of care, courage, and clarity. And new annual housing construction has been just one-fifth of what he promised, for the same reasons.

  Nor did Newsom discuss the shocking failure of California’s public schools. We spend more per capita than most other states and yet under half of our public school students are proficient in reading while just one-third are proficient in math. Those are the statistics of a failed state, and a failing civilization.

  Newsom refuses to do what must be done because that requires standing up to the interest groups he believes he needs to become president. “He wants to be on the biggest stage,” confessed a former Newsom aide to The Los Angeles Times. “The obvious what-next for a governor of California is president of the United States.”

  The governor’s political ambitions stand in stark contrast to the gritty realities on the street. While Newsom and his aides were pitching to reporters last week that his State of the State speech would be “upbeat,” the parents of the 16 year-old girl killed by fentanyl dealers were quietly grieving her death.

  Courage To Care

  “We have got to find the courage to care for California.” @ShellenbergerMD on what his message will be to voters as he hits the campaign trail to @NikkiLaurenzo on #InsideCAPolitics pic.twitter.com/nwyIUGzb2Q

  — Inside California Politics (@CAinsider) March 13, 2022

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  The suffering and chaos resulting from California’s vacuum of leadership led me to once again decide to run for governor. I am heartbroken at the humanitarian disaster in the streets, angry that the politicians keep making things worse, and inspired by our vision for saving California.

  It is fair to say that I am an underdog. Newsom defeated last year’s recall election by an astonishing margin: 62 – 38 percent. He has $25 million in the bank. And he is gifted at dividing Californians, and demonizing his opponents, in ways that distract from his failures.

  But I am not a longshot. I would not have decided to run again if I didn’t feel we could come in second place in the open primary election on June 7, proceed to the November 8 general election, and defeat Newsom. By then, I will have won a mandate to implement Cal-Psych and finally solve the homeless crisis which Newsom has, over the last 20 years, made worse. 

  Newsom and the interest groups that control him will no doubt attempt to demonize me with liberal voters, but I have long supported LGBTQ rights, the right of women to make their own decision on abortion, strong gun safety laws, universal health care, decriminalized marijuana and psychedelics for medical and spiritual purposes, and strong action on climate change, alongside more funding for the police, the continued operation of our last nuclear plant, and mandatory treatment of addicts and the untreated mentally ill homeless as an alternative to jail or prison when they break the law.

  Under my leadership, California will deal with the homeless drug addiction and mental illness crisis in a humane and efficient way and give us the momentum to build the societal consensus we need to achieve changes on other, long-delayed reforms around energy, water, and the environment, and schools, housing, and infrastructure. 

  My parents were teachers and my mother a representative of the teachers union. As governor I will work with all parties, including interest groups like the teachers union. But I will not be hostage to them. I will fight for the higher-quality, better scheduled, and more personalized education system our children need. That will require that parents have more choices. But it will also require consequences for the schools that are failing to educate our children

  I believe that most Californians are sick and tired of being divided, whether by Left and Right, or by race and sex, and will support an agenda that brings us together. We need law and order, but we also need psychiatric care. We need more housing, but we also need to protect our quality of life. We need cheap and reliable energy, but we also need to make progress on climate change.

  I am a lifelong Democrat but changed my party affiliation to “No Party Preference” last year out of disgust with both parties. Initial polling show our agenda draws equal numbers of independents, Democrats, and Republicans. As such, not only can not only win, we can create the governing majority California needs.

  None of this will be easy and in fact will be hard. I expect my name to be dragged through the mud, and I don’t expect it to be pleasant. But it’s hard things, not soft ones, that bring out our best, as individuals as as movements. And I am heartened by the overwhelming response from my friends and supporters to my announcement.

  My family and I will be fine, no matter what happens. Indeed, our lives will be more comfortable if we lose than if we win. But the lives of the people suffering around us won’t be fine no matter what. Many more people on the street will die, often in gruesome fashion, unnecessarily.

  In the end, our lives are not our own. All of us, not just Helen, our movement, and me, are being called to serve. With this announcement, we are answering the call. We hope you will, too. 

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 20:20

• Carnage: China Breaks, Apple Cracks Key Support, Yields Soar As Rate Hike Odds Surge
  Carnage: China Breaks, Apple Cracks Key Support, Yields Soar As Rate Hike Odds Surge

  The week started off badly enough with nothing short of epic devastation in China, as stocks listed in Hong Kong had their worst day since the global financial crisis amid concerns over Beijing’s close relationship with Russia, a surge in covid cases leading to a lockdown in Shenzhen, and renewed regulatory risks all of which sparked panic selling.

  The Hang Seng index dropped more than 4%, sliding below 20,000 to the lowest level since 2015…

  

  … as the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index closed down 7.2% on Monday, the biggest drop since November 2008.

  

  Meanwhile, the Hang Sang Tech Index tumbled 11% in its worst decline since the gauge was launched in July 2020, wiping out $2.1 trillion in value since a year-earlier peak, after the southern city of Shenzhen, a key tech hub near Hong Kong, was placed into lockdown to contain rising Covid-19 infections. The broader Hang Seng Index lost 5%.

  

  The US-traded Golden Dragon China index tumbled another 12%, taking its drawdown to -75% from its recent all time high, surpassing the drawdown recorded during the global financial crisis!

  

  Meanwhile, as discussed last night in “All Hell is Breaking Loose in China“, it wasn’t just Chinese stocks that got taken to the woodshed: Chinese property developer junk bonds were true to their name, and issues by such formerly “solid” companies as CIFI and Country Garden cratered to lowest levels in history, both trading about 50 cents on the dollar as China’s housing sector – which warehouses the vast majority of China’s middle class wealth –  is imploding.

  

  Against this cataclysmic background, US futures were initially surprisingly stable, in a rerun of Friday’s hopium trade where traders were expecting some good news out of today’s Ukraine ceasefire negotiations, which however never came. Algos were perhaps also looking at the slide in oil – which had traded recently as a “peace” proxy – and expecting some resolution that would finally short-circuit the surge in commodity costs. And indeed, oil has tumbled almost $30 from its recent highs over $130 to just over $100 today…

  

  … but as the day drew on, it became clear that just like last Friday, there would be no deal, and since the drop in oil was almost entirely due to rising recession fears, stocks resumed their relentless slide.

  

  Meanwhile, a bizarre announcement from Barclays early in the day that the bank would suspend sales and issuance of the VXX ETN led to a furious short squeeze as the key volatility ETN decoupled from its underlying Emini future, and soared higher in the process sparking even more selling from correlation algos, which led to even more upside in the VXX and so on. This particular dislocation will likely persist until Barclays gets a tap on the shoulder as there are countless hedge funds who are short the VXX and will suffer massive losses unless the relationship is normalized.

  

  As a result of the broad riskoff shift, drawdowns across all US equity indexes became even more pronounced, dragging the Russell and Nasdaq deeper into bear market territory, and the S&P now down 13% from its all time highs…

  

  … and while there was carnage everywhere, especially in energy as the YTD best performing sector suffered major losses today, sliding 3% and the day’s worst performer…

  

  … the biggest micro driver was AAPL’s 2.7% plunge, which tumbled to the lowest level since Nov 15 and more importantly, dropped below its key 200DMA critical support for the first time since June 2021 as traders freaked out that the shutdown of the Shenzhen Foxconn factory would lead to a supply chain shock for the world’s biggest company.

  

  Yet despite the widespread carnage, there was none of the traditional flight to safety, because as gold and silver tumbled…

  

  … so did Treasuries with the 10Y yield closing at session highs just shy of 2.15% but more ominously the 5% is right behind and breathing down the benchmark bond’s neck at 2.10%! A few more basis points and the 5s10s will invert confirming what everyone knows: a recession is coming if not already here.

  

  Finally, with the Fed meeting looming in just two days and, instead of pricing in some mercy from Powell, the fed funds market saw even more pain, and now prices in more than 7 rate hikes in 2022 and more than 17% odds of a 50bps rate hike in March in response to what is an inflation tsunami that is only just starting…

  

  … and with it bringing much more pain for stocks in the coming weeks and months.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 20:07

• 1MDB Mastermind Jho Low Looted $1.4 Billion From Goldman-Backed Bond Deals
  1MDB Mastermind Jho Low Looted $1.4 Billion From Goldman-Backed Bond Deals

  The latest news from the trial of Goldman banker Roger Ng revealed how money from 1MDB, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund at the center of one of Southeast Asia’s biggest financial scandals in recent memory, was siphoned off and paid out in the form of bribes. 

  FBI agent Eric Van Dorn said Monday that fugitive financier Jho Low, the mastermind of the 1MDB scheme, allegedly stole more than $1.4 billion.

  Some of the money went to pay off former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who reaped $756 million of the $6.5 billion total raised by Goldman Sachs for the fund, Van Dorn testified, according to Bloomberg.

  Razak was later found guilty during a criminal trial in Malaysia.

  

  Meanwhile, Khadem al-Qubaisi, a former managing director of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Company, better known as Ipic, received $472.8 million for his role in guaranteeing some of 1MDB’s transactions, Van Dorn told the jurors in federal court in Brooklyn.

  Ng is the only Goldman banker to stand trial for the bank’s role in the scandal, which involved Goldman seeding a sovereign wealth fund that was, in reality, a political slush fund, with billions of dollars in money raised by bond offerings backed by Malaysia’s sovereign credit.

  The fund later defaulted on its obligations, exposing the truth: that billions had been looted by Low. It was later revealed by a sprawling DoJ investigation that the money had been spent in irresponsible ways, like on lavish celebrity-filled parties and gifts, and on yachts, and the movie “the Wolf of Wall Street.” Some of the money was also illegally moved into the US and donated to politicians, including former President Barack Obama, seen below playing golf with Razak.

  

  Previously, ex-Goldman banker Tim Leissner, who was also Ng’s boss overseeing the bank’s dealmaking in Southeast Asia, testified for days, revealing a torrent of embarrassing information for Goldman and others.

  Finally, Van Dorn said he tracked how 1MDB money was siphoned off to at least 16 recipients. Ng got $35.1 million siphoned from two of the three bond transactions, while Leissner, who pleaded guilty to fraud in exchange for his cooperation against his former employer, and Ng, received $73.4 million.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 20:00

• Malthusianism, Prometheanism, & The Hyper-Bitcoinized World To Come
  Malthusianism, Prometheanism, & The Hyper-Bitcoinized World To Come

  Via Cathedra.com,

  2021 Letter to Shareholders

  Dear Fellow Shareholders of Cathedra Bitcoin Inc:

  In 1798, a British economist was concerned that the incessant increase in population would cause humanity to run out of food. As a solution, he supported a variety of measures aimed at curbing the rate of population growth (e.g., taxes on food) to improve the living standards for those humans who did survive. The economist in question, Thomas Malthus, was raised in a country house in Surrey, was educated at Jesus College Cambridge, became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1818, and–in simple terms–championed policies designed to limit (or end) human life to prevent this population bomb.

  “Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.”

  – Thomas Malthus, “An Essay on the Principle of Population” (1798)

  Looking back, we can see that such predictions have (fortunately) not come to fruition. The human population has grown ninefold since Malthus penned his infamous piece, “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” Meanwhile, technology has given humanity the ability to channel energy in ways unimaginable to Malthus, allowing us to enjoy levels of prosperity that make the elitist Malthus look like a serf in comparison. Yet we are not without our troubles.

  In response to COVID-19, the last two years have seen an unprecedented degree of government intervention around the world, through mandates as well as record-breaking fiscal and monetary stimulus. Meanwhile, food shortages have visited the developed and developing worlds alike. Housing, asset, and commodity prices are soaring, with even the dubious Consumer Price Index reaching its highest level in four decades in the U.S. And around the world, civil unrest is on the rise.

  We believe the root causes of these issues are quite simple: unsound money and unsound energy infrastructure. In this first annual letter to Cathedra Bitcoin shareholders, we examine the current state of both and discuss how they inform our vision for the future of the company.

  Macro Update: Energy

  The European Energy Crisis

  For the last six months, headlines have been filled with a “European Energy Crisis.” As the global economy surged back to life after 18 months of lockdowns, a perfect storm of events unfolded:

  • over the summer, China increased natural gas imports following a coal shortage, causing power prices to rise in Europe;

  • in September, a wind shortage beset northern Europe, resulting in enormous sums being paid to dispatch other (“dirtier”) forms of generation;

  • reduced natural gas imports from Russia left Europe with historically low natural gas reserves;

  • in December, unusually cold temperatures hit the continent, sending shockwaves through energy markets (even serving as a catalyst for the civil unrest in Kazakhstan); and

  • Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in recent weeks has sent oil and gas prices surging, bringing calls for increased domestic energy production.

  These events have conspired to cause a sharp increase in energy prices around the continent. One is tempted to point to any one of the above as a “black swan event” driven by unforeseeable forces beyond our control (in hindsight, it will be even more tempting to blame this crisis on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine). But in reality, Europe has been systematically dismantling its stable energy infrastructure for over a decade. And unfortunately, they are not alone. Take California, for example: over the last decade, the state has seen energy prices rise 7x more than those in the rest of the U.S., and blackouts have become “almost daily events.”

  If one looks deeper, a far subtler cause reveals itself: misguided policies that subsidize intermittent renewables and shutter stable forms of generation, the net effects of which are energy insecurity and higher energy costs.

  The Real “Energy Transition”

  Beginning in the early 2000s, governments around the world began reorienting energy policy around climate change. These “net-zero” policies push for an “energy transition” away from CO2-emitting energy sources toward 100% “renewable” energy, primarily via subsidies to intermittent wind and solar generation.

  On the surface, these policies seem to have worked. EU power generation from renewables has increased 157% in the last ten years. As a result, in 2020, renewable generation in Europe surpassed that of fossil fuels for the first time, providing 38% of the region’s electricity (vs. fossil fuels’ 37%). And these policies are only accelerating: in July 2021, the EU announced its even more ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, requiring an estimated tripling of wind and solar generation from 547 TWh in 2020 to ~1,500 TWh in 2030.

  These pro-renewables policies have been paired with the abandonment of more stable forms of generation. Coal continues to be pushed out of the generation stack due to its heavy carbon footprint and the rising cost of carbon credits. Additionally, despite the seemingly obvious importance of nuclear energy in a “net-zero” carbon future, regulators have been shutting down nuclear reactors around the world in response to environmentalist movements[1] (a trend that accelerated in the wake of the Fukushima disaster). Germany alone shut down 16 GW of nuclear power since 2011, and plans to retire its last three nuclear power plants this year. With hydro being geography-dependent and long-term energy storage unsolved, natural gas is left as the main  viable form of dispatchable generation. Given self-imposed fracking bans, Europe has no choice but to import natural gas via LNG or pipelines (largely from Russia).

  Returning to California, we see the same dangerous combination of policies. Despite the aforementioned rising electricity costs and grid fragility, the state is decommissioning its last nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon–responsible for ~10% of the state’s electricity–while reasserting goals to achieve “net-zero” by 2045.

  Unfortunately, even if stable forms of generation are not discarded by mandates, renewables subsidies distort market signals. This auxiliary revenue stream of carbon or renewable energy credits allows wind and solar farms to sell power to the grid at negative prices, often driving unsubsidized, baseload generation out of business. The net result? The hollowing out of sound energy infrastructure, which increases both the costs and fragility of the energy system.

  In her book Shorting the Grid, Meredith Angwin warns of a “fatal trifecta” affecting grids around the world: (1) overreliance on renewables, (2) overreliance on natural gas, often used to load-follow renewables, and (3) overreliance on energy imports. When demand outpaces supply, either due to diminished output from renewables or heightened demand (e.g., during a cold snap), grid operators seek to dispatch additional generation. But natural gas and energy imports are both vulnerable to disruptions, as natural gas is typically delivered just-in-time via pipelines and neighboring regions are likely to experience correlated supply or demand shocks (read: weather). This results in more expensive energy (increased demand chasing limited supply) or enforced blackouts (e.g., Texas in February 2021).

  “Grid fragility” may sound like a highly abstract concept, but its real-world consequences are severe. It means industry halting, hospitals losing power, and even access to clean water being threatened. Such effects are so severe that energy-insecure countries tend to rely on more rudimentary forms of energy, including expensive backup diesel generators, to keep the lights on. Robert Bryce has termed this phenomenon the “Iron Law of Electricity”: people, businesses, and governments will do whatever they must to get the electricity they need[2].

  We fear these confused policies are causing an energy transition of the wrong kind–one toward energy insecurity. Its effects are clear in the U.S., where “major electric disturbances and unusual occurrences” on the grid have increased 13x over the last 20 years. Meanwhile, Generac, a leading gas-powered backup generator company, saw 50% growth in sales in 2021 (it’s worth highlighting the contradiction between the stated aims of these “net-zero” policies and their downstream effects).

  A Malthusian Approach to Energy

  Energy insecurity is also expensive. Dependence on intermittent renewables often results in paying top-dollar for energy when it’s needed most. During its September wind shortage, the UK paid GBP 4,000 per MWh to turn on a coal power plant–a clear demonstration that not all megawatt hours are created equal. The quality of energy matters. With renewables, humanity is once again at the mercy of the weather.

  This is the underlying logic of these “net-zero” policies: make energy more expensive so that we use less of it. In fact, economists advising the European Central Bank view rising energy costs (“greenflation”) as a feature, not a bug–a necessary consequence of the energy transition.

  Rising energy prices are a regressive tax on the least well-off in society. We all require energy to survive (heating/cooling, food, water, etc.), regardless of our wealth. These requirements are effectively a fixed cost; the lower one’s income, the greater the percentage of it one spends on energy. There is a point beyond which rising energy costs become unsustainable, sending people to the streets to fight for their survival–as we saw in Kazakhstan after the spike in LPG prices. Researchers estimate that each 1% increase in heating prices causes a 0.06% increase in winter-related deaths, with disproportionate effects in low-income areas.

  “If energy is life, then the lack of energy is death.”

  – Doomberg, “Shooting Oil in a Barrel” (2021)

  Energy is the key input for every other good and service in the economy, and over time accounts for all wealth in an economy. To the extent energy gets more expensive, so does everything else (including and especially food), making society poorer. This is the Malthusian approach to energy. Expensive “green” energy that the elites can afford, while the unwashed masses bear the brunt of those rising costs. Energy for me, but not for thee. We question the political and social sustainability of such an approach.

  Enter Entropy

  Energy’s role is even more fundamental to the economy and human well-being than most understand. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, what is commonly understood as “energy generation” is really just the conversion of energy into a more highly ordered form; it is the reduction of entropy locally by shedding even greater amounts of entropy elsewhere. Despite the universality of this entropy reduction, some energy resources are inherently lower-entropy than others (highly dense nuclear fission vs. low-density wind power). We depend on this entropy reduction to sustain us through the food and energy we need to maintain the order of civilization.

  This entropy reduction is cumulative; without sufficient entropy-reducing energy infrastructure, we cannot maintain our existing order. We cannot create entropy-reducing energy infrastructure without adequate pre-existing infrastructure. And we cannot advance further as a civilization (i.e., create more order) unless we develop even more entropy-reducing infrastructure.

  “We never escape from the need for energy. Whatever the short-term variations might look like, the trend over time is for greater energy use, to deliver and crucially to maintain and replace a human sphere that is progressively further away from thermodynamic equilibrium. There is no point at which you sit down and have a rest.”

  – John Constable, “Energy, Entropy and the Theory of Wealth” (2016)

  There is no free lunch when it comes to energy. If a country’s economy grows while reducing energy consumption, it is only through de-industrialization, exporting its energy footprint to other countries (the same often holds true for carbon emissions). The second law of thermodynamics is indeed a law, the best attested regularity in natural science, not a tentative suggestion: the entropy must go somewhere.

  Unfortunately, distortions caused by our current monetary system have convinced many otherwise, a deception that has had dire consequences.

  Macro Update: Money

  For the last 50 years the world has participated in an unprecedented experiment: a global fiat monetary standard. In 1974, a few years after “Tricky Dick” Nixon rug-pulled the other governments of the world by severing convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold, the U.S. struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to cement the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency: the OPEC nations would agree to sell oil exclusively for U.S. dollars, and the Saudis would receive the protection of the U.S. military in return. This arrangement, which survives to this day, became known as the “Petrodollar system,” and it has had enduring economic, social, and political consequences:

  • securing the dollar’s status as the reserve currency of the world;

  • bidding up U.S. asset prices via petrodollar “recycling;”

  • displacing U.S. manufacturing capabilities and increasing economic inequality between American wage-earners and asset-owners; and

  • contributing to the secular decline in interest rates, causing an accumulation of public- and private-sector debts and distortions in the pricing mechanism for all other assets (typically viewed in relation to the “risk-free rate” of interest on Treasuries).

  In recent years, cracks in the foundation of this system have begun to show. A half-century of irresponsible fiscal and monetary policy has pushed sovereign and private sector debt to the brink of unsustainability and fragilized financial markets. The once steady foreign demand for Treasuries is evaporating, forcing the Fed to begin monetizing U.S. deficits at an increasing rate. The U.S.’s share of global GDP is waning, and the role of the dollar in key trading relationships is diminishing. Even the once-mighty U.S. military—on whose supremacy the entire Petrodollar system was predicated—shows signs of degeneration.

  The U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many of these trends. Through a series of legislative and executive actions in 2020 and 2021, Congress and the Trump and Biden administrations approved nearly $7 trillion of spending on COVID relief, a large majority of which increased the federal deficit. Not to be outdone, the Fed authorized its own emergency measures to the tune of $7 trillion.

  In the nearly two years since these extraordinary actions, the U.S. and the global economy has been defined by record-low interest rates (which is part of the explanation for the interest in subsidized renewables); acute supply chain disruptions (read: shortages) across critical markets; a continuation of the asset price inflation of prior decades; and the highest levels of consumer price inflation in 40 years. This last development—“not-so-transitory” CPI inflation—is perhaps most significant given it represents a departure from economic conditions since the Great Financial Crisis.

  The Fed now faces a predicament. With mounting cries from the public and political officials over the runaway CPI, the pressure is on Jay Powell & Co. to arrest inflation by raising interest rates. But the current state of public and private sector balance sheets complicates matters. As the Fed increases rates, so too does it increase the federal government’s borrowing cost, not to mention that of a private sector which is also saddled with dollar-denominated debt. If corporates are unable to service or refinance their debt, they will be forced to reduce costs, resulting in higher unemployment. Rest assured; rates aren’t going higher for long. Global balance sheets will not allow it.

  This suggests to us that we may be entering a period of financial repression, whereby inflation is allowed to run hot while interest rates remain pinned near zero, producing negative real returns and deleveraging balance sheets over several years. We also find it likely that the Fed will be forced to implement some version of a yield curve control program. Under such a policy, the central bank commits to purchasing as many bonds as necessary to cap the yields of various maturities of Treasuries at certain predetermined levels. There is precedent for a maneuver of this sort: the Fed implemented a version of the policy throughout the 1940s to inflate away the national debt during and after WWII.

  At the end of the long-term debt cycle, the only option is to inflate away the debt and debase the currency. But unlike in the 1940s, citizens, businesses, and governments now have several monetary alternatives available to them. We therefore believe the coming period of structural inflation will hasten a transition to a new monetary standard.

  The Currency Wars Cometh

  The writing is on the wall; the post-Bretton Woods monetary system is in its death throes. The question is not if we will see a paradigm shift away from the present dollar-based monetary order, but when. And the far more interesting question, in our view, is: what will replace it?

  We believe the next global monetary system will be built atop Bitcoin—with bitcoin the asset and Bitcoin the network working together to offer final settlement in a digitally native, fixed-supply reserve currency on politically neutral rails. Bitcoin uniquely enables this value proposition, and game theory and economic incentives will compel nation-states to take notice amid the collapsing monetary order. But it is not without competition.

  Central Bank Digital Currencies

  Bitcoin is the ideological and economic foil to another candidate for heir to the petrodollar: the central bank digital currency (“CBDC”). The retail CBDC—which is the variety most often discussed in policy circles—is a natively digital form of fiat money that is issued, managed, and controlled by the central bank. Their proponents claim CBDCs would enable many of the same benefits as cryptocurrencies—near-instant final settlement, programmability, high availability, etc.—without many of the attendant “disadvantages”—decentralization, untraceability, etc.

  CBDCs open up a whole new design space for monetary authorities, empowering them to implement creative and fine-grained policies which heretofore have been confined to masturbatory thought-experiments in BIS papers (e.g., negative interest rates). They would also allow for all manner of fiscal policies which today are operationally or technically infeasible; one can imagine government-imposed parameters around how and when a given sum of CBDC money is spent, digitally programmed into one’s Fed wallet. A universal basic income program could be effected with a single keystroke.

  In many ways, the CBDC is the perfect Malthusian implement. Their inherent programmability allows for granular, top-down rationing of resources for whatever “greater good” suits the politically powerful. “I’m sorry, sir. Your card has been declined, as you have already exceeded your weekly beef quota. Might we suggest a more environmentally friendly alternative, such as a Bill Gates pea protein patty?” Such a system amounts to highly efficient regulatory capture; citizens are only permitted to spend money on those goods and services favored by The Powers That Be (or the corporate interests that fund them). Expect CBDCs to further distort the pricing mechanism, leading to a variety of market failures (such as the current energy crises). Skeptics of such claims need only be reminded of the U.S. government’s recent history of abusing its power to restrict politically undesirable financial activities.

  It should come as no surprise that the CBDC model is being pioneered by the Chinese Communist Party in the form of a “digital renminbi.” Make no mistake—wherever a CBDC is implemented, it will be weaponized by the State for political ends. In the West, such a system would be readily abused to create a Chinese-style social credit system—but one cloaked in the neo-liberal parlance of “financial inclusion,” “climate justice,” and “anti-money laundering.”

  CBDCs: Coming to A Country Near You?

  We remain cautiously optimistic that the U.S. will forgo implementing this dystopian technology. The U.S. remains among the freest nations in the world, both politically and culturally. A CBDC is wholly incompatible with American values, and we expect millions of Americans would resist the complete usurpation of their financial lives by the State. Additionally, a retail CBDC implemented by the Fed would transfer power from the commercial banks whose interests the Fed was conceived to protect to the federal bureaucracy[3]. And is there any doubt that the U.S. now lacks the state capacity to implement a CBDC, a feat which would require a high degree of technical and operational competence?

  Figure 1: Which Way, Western Man? BTC vs. CBDC

  

  Bitcoin for America

  So, how can the U.S. extend its financial leadership of the 20th century amid the decaying Petrodollar system? The U.S. is already the frontrunner in nearly all things Bitcoin—trading volumes, mining activity, number of hodlers, entrepreneurial and business activity, capital markets activity, etc. We submit that the path of least resistance would be for America to lean into its leadership in the Bitcoin industry and embrace the technology as a privacy-respecting, open-source, free-market, and fundamentally American alternative to the totalitarian CBDC.

  What does “adopting Bitcoin” look like for a country like the U.S.? It is likely some combination of: (i) authorizing bitcoin as legal tender, (ii) removing onerous capital gains tax treatment, (iii) subsidizing or sponsoring mining operations (which could support domestic energy infrastructure, in turn), (iv) purchasing bitcoin as a reserve asset by the Fed and/or Treasury, or (v) making the dollar convertible into bitcoin at a fixed exchange rate.

  We see early signs that such a move by the U.S. may not be so far-fetched. Notably, major American policymakers have already signaled support for bitcoin as an important monetary asset and nascent industry. The “crypto” sector has grown into an important lobby in D.C. and represents a highly engaged, motivated constituency—politicians are taking notice.

  In our estimation, Bitcoin’s economic incentives and congruence with American values make it the leading candidate for U.S. adoption as a successor to the present monetary order. As the current dollar-based system continues to deteriorate, we are excited by the potential for a U.S.-led coalition of freedom loving nations moving to a Bitcoin Standard.

  Money, Energy, and Entropy

  Energy is the fundamental means to reduce entropy in the human sphere, and money is our tool for the direction of energy towards this end. We use money to communicate information about economic production, resolving uncertainty about how scarce resources ought to be employed. And we seek out highly ordered sources of energy to resist the influence of entropy on our bodies and societies.

  In his lecture, “Energy, Entropy and the Theory of Wealth,” John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation observes that all goods and services—and indeed, civilizations—are alike in that they are thermodynamically improbable. All require energy as an input and necessarily create order (i.e., reduce entropy) in the human domain, shifting the local state further away from thermodynamic equilibrium.

  So then, wealth can be understood as a thermodynamically improbable state made possible through human entropy reduction. If material wealth is measured by the goods and services one has at one’s disposal, then wealth creation on a sound monetary standard is the reduction of entropy for others, and one’s wealth is a record of one’s ability to reduce entropy for fellow man.

  Unsound money (of the sort the Malthusians celebrate) increases uncertainty—and therefore, entropy—in economic systems. Active management of the money supply confuses the price signal, reducing the information contained therein and erecting an economic Tower of Babel. Fiat money therefore contributes to malinvestment—entrepreneurial miscalculations which produce the wrong goods and services and increase societal entropy.

  Nowhere is this more apparent than in our energy infrastructure: unsound money has caused malinvestment in unsound sources of generation. As noted above, a half-century of government subsidies and declining interest rates made possible by the Petrodollar system has steered capital towards unreliable renewables that invite greater entropy into the fragile human sphere, dragging us ever closer toward thermodynamic equilibrium (read: civilizational collapse).

  Cathedra Bitcoin Update

  Our macro views on energy and money inform everything we’re doing at Cathedra. Chief among them is the belief that sound money and cheap, abundant, highly ordered energy are the fundamental ingredients to human flourishing. Our company mission is to bring both to humanity, and so lead mankind into a new Renaissance—one led by Bitcoin and the energy revolution we believe it will galvanize. Accordingly, with Cathedra we’ve set out to build a category-defining company at the intersection of bitcoin mining and energy. One which is designed to thrive in the turbulent years of the present energy and monetary transition and in the hyperbitcoinized world we believe is to come.

  In December we announced a change of the company’s name from Fortress Technologies to Cathedra Bitcoin. Our new name reflects our aspirations for the company and for Bitcoin more broadly. The gothic cathedral is a symbol of bold, ambitious, long-term projects; indeed, any single contributor to the monument would likely die before its completion, but contributed nonetheless—because it was a project worth undertaking. So it is with Cathedra, and so it is with Bitcoin.

  The religious connotations of the name “Cathedra” are not lost on us. Rather, they’re an indication of the seriousness with which we regard this mission. Ours is a quest of civilizational importance.

  Our new name also hints at another distinguishing feature of our business: we focus our efforts on Bitcoin, and Bitcoin only. The difference between Bitcoin and other “crypto” networks is one of kind, not degree. Bitcoin is the only meaningfully decentralized network in the “crypto” space, which is why bitcoin the asset will continue to win adoption as the preferred form of digitally native money by the world’s eight billion inhabitants. Bitcoin seeks to destroy the institution of seigniorage once and for all. Your favorite shitcoin creator just wants to capture the seigniorage himself.

  We feel strongly that our long-term mission of delivering sound money and cheap, abundant energy to humanity can be best achieved through a vertically integrated model. In the long-term, Cathedra will develop and/or acquire a portfolio of energy generation assets that leverages the synergies between energy production and bitcoin mining to the advantage of both businesses. In a decade, Cathedra may be as much an energy company as a bitcoin miner.

  Vertical integration will allow us to control our supply chain and rate of expansion to a greater degree, in addition to giving us a cost advantage over our competitors. As a low-cost producer of bitcoin, we will also be positioned to deliver a suite of ancillary products and services to customers in the Bitcoin and energy sectors.

  And we’ve begun making strides toward this goal. Earlier this year, the Cathedra team expanded by three with the hires of Isaac Fithian (Chief Field Operations and Manufacturing Officer), Rete Browning (Chief Technology Officer), and Tom Masiero (Head of Business Development). Each of these gentlemen brings years of experience in developing and deploying mobile bitcoin mining infrastructure in off-grid environments. With this expanded team, we recently began production of proprietary modular datacenters to house the 5,100 bitcoin mining machines we have scheduled for delivery throughout 2022. We’re calling these datacenters “rovers,” a nod to their mobility, embedded automation, and capacity to operate under harsh environmental conditions in remote geographies. The modularity and modest footprint of our rovers will allow us to produce them at a rapid pace and deploy them wherever the cheapest power is found, in both on- and off-grid environments. We are proud to be manufacturing our fleet of rovers entirely in New Hampshire, working with the local business community to bring heavy industry back to the U.S.

  As bitcoin miners, we view ourselves as managers of a portfolio of hash rate. As in the traditional asset management business, diversification can be a powerful asset. Whereas most of the large, publicly traded bitcoin miners are pursuing a similar strategy to one another—developing and/or renting space at hyperscale, on-grid datacenters in which to operate their mining machines—we have optimized our approach to minimize regulatory, market, environmental, or other idiosyncratic risk within our portfolio of hash rate. If one has 90% of one’s hash rate portfolio concentrated in a single on-grid site, 90% of one’s revenue can be shut off by a grid failure or other catastrophic event—an occurrence which is sadly becoming more common, as highlighted in our Energy Update. To our knowledge, Cathedra is the only publicly traded bitcoin miner with both on- and off-grid operations today.

  We increasingly believe that the future of bitcoin mining is off-grid. On-grid deployments are already vulnerable to myriad unique risks today, and we believe their economic proposition will become less attractive over time. As power producers continue to integrate bitcoin mining at the site of generation themselves, large on-grid miners positioned “downstream” in the energy value chain will see their electricity rates rise. Today, “off-grid” describes any arrangement in which a bitcoin miner procures power directly from an energy producer. Popular implementations include stranded and flared natural gas and behind-the-meter hydro and nuclear. In the long-term, we believe the only way to remain competitive will be to vertically integrate down to the energy generation asset.

  Mining bitcoin is a capital-intensive business. To ensure we have access to the capital we’ll require to execute on our vision, we’ve embarked on several capital markets initiatives. In February, Cathedra commenced trading on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol “CBTTF.” This milestone represents a significant upgrade from our prior listing on the OTC Pink Market and should enhance our stock’s accessibility and liquidity for U.S. investors. We intend to list on a U.S. stock exchange in 2022 to further increase the visibility, liquidity, and trading volume in our stock.

  We recently announced that Cathedra secured US$17m in debt financing from NYDIG, a loan secured by bitcoin mining equipment. When it comes to borrowing in fiat to finance assets that produce bitcoin—an asset which appreciates 150%+ per year on average—almost any cost of debt makes sense. We intend to continue using non-dilutive financing in a responsible manner where possible, with a sober appreciation for the risks debt service presents as an additional fixed cost.

  Accumulating a formidable war chest of bitcoin on our corporate balance sheet is a priority for us. If one believes, as we do, that the next global monetary order will be built with Bitcoin at its center, then those companies with the largest bitcoin treasuries will thrive. We will continue to hold as much of our mined bitcoin as possible and may even supplement our mining activities with opportunistic bitcoin purchases on occasion.

  At time of writing, Cathedra has 187 PH/s of hash rate active, and another 534 PH/s of hash rate contracted via purchases of mining machines we expect to be delivered from April through December of this year. Since we replaced the prior management team in September, we have grown Cathedra’s contracted hash rate by more than 300%. And we’re just getting started.

  Conclusion

  We stand today at a crossroads between two divergent movements defined by conflicting visions for the future: Malthusianism and Prometheanism.

  The Malthusians believe progress is zero (or even negative) sum; resources are finite and “degrowth” is the only viable path forward; we ought to judge human action first and foremost by whether it disturbs the natural world. This movement is characterized by totalitarian CBDCs and a desire to make energy more scarce and expensive, so that earth’s resources can be appropriately rationed.

  On the other hand, the Prometheans carry with them a more optimistic vision: progress is positive-sum; human creativity allows us to liberate and employ resources in novel ways, in turn preserving the natural world for our own benefit; and that human flourishing is the moral standard by which we should evaluate human action.

  These are social, cultural, and spiritual choices we are all called to confront.

  “The century will be fought between Malthusians (“resources are finite”; obsessed with overpopulation; scarcity mindset; zero-sum, finite games) and Prometheans (“human imagination is the most valuable natural resource”; abundance mindset; positive sum, infinite games).”

  – Alpha Barry (2020)

  The Malthusian camp wants top-down, centralized management of resources via CBDCs and energy rationing policies. They believe our energy resources are fixed; the only path forward is backward, farming for energy using huge swaths of land controlled by the privileged few. “Industrialization for me but not for thee.” “You’ll own nothing and be happy.” These are the slogans of the Malthusian movement.

  This is not the path that took us to space and lifted billions out of poverty. We, Cathedra, choose the other path. That of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods to benefit humankind.

  We believe in a future of sound money that brings property rights to eight billion humans around the world. A world of beautiful, free cities powered by dense and highly ordered forms of energy generation. Small modular nuclear reactors with load-balancing bitcoin miners (and no seed oils). A future in which technology is employed to improve the human condition–not only for those who walk the earth today, but for generations to come.

  Bitcoin mining is a powerful ally to the Promethean cause. As the energy buyer of last resort, Bitcoin promotes sound money and sound energy infrastructure. No two forces are more fundamental to keeping disorder at bay and advancing human civilization.

  We at Cathedra are not alone; there are other Prometheans working tirelessly to further this vision of a freer, more prosperous tomorrow. Human flourishing is earned, not given. Together, we win.

  Drew Armstrong
  President & Chief Operating Officer

  AJ Scalia
  Chief Executive Officer

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 19:40

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• US Ally Saudi Arabia Just Beheaded 81 People In One Day
  US Ally Saudi Arabia Just Beheaded 81 People In One Day

  At a moment much of the globe and international media has its entire focus on the Russian war in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia on Saturday carried out a mass execution of 81 people for a wide range of what state sources called “terrorism” related crimes. 

  The executed individuals – which is being reported as likely by beheading – were deemed “guilty of committing multiple heinous crimes that left a large number of civilians and law enforcement officers dead,” according to the Saudi Press Agency.

  

  Some of the individuals killed appear to be linked to the ongoing war in neighboring Yemen, which the United Nations has for the past two years labeled as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”. 

  According to The Hill, based on Saudi official sources, “Specific crimes of the individuals included: membership in terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Houthi rebels of Yemen; targeting Saudi residents; traveling to regional conflict zones to join terrorist organizations; targeting members of the Saudi government; killing and maiming law enforcement officers; and targeting police vehicles with land mines.”

  “The Kingdom will continue to take a strict and unwavering stance against terrorism and extremist ideologies that threaten the stability of the entire world,”  the Agency added in announcing the executions.

  Off the radar of most, Saudi Arabia just beheaded 81 people in 1 day

  — Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2) March 12, 2022

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  According to ABC News and other Western press outlets this marks the single largest mass execution ever recorded in the kingdom:

  “Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history,” the report said.

  #Breaking: Foreign backed #Saudi Monarchy commits a massacre against nearly 100 prisoners including dozens of protesters in the largest ever mass execution in the country’s history . #MBS , his father, @MhmdAlissa & @pss_ar are involved in this crime.

  — Ali AlAhmed (@AliAlAhmed_en) March 12, 2022

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  “The number of executed surpassed even the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst-ever militant attack to target the kingdom and Islam’s holiest site,” ABC described of the prior record.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 02:45

• Growing Number Of Countries Identify Cases Of 'Deltacron' Variant
  Growing Number Of Countries Identify Cases Of ‘Deltacron’ Variant

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A growing number of cases of a hybrid COVID-19 variant dubbed “Deltacron” are being identified, including several cases in the United States.

  

  Researchers with Helix, a California-based genomic company, found two cases of COVID-19 infection caused by a hybrid of the Delta and Omicron variants, while researchers in France determined 18 people were infected by the hybrid.

  Cases have also been detected in the Netherlands and Denmark, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

  Delta was the dominant version of COVID-19, in many countries in 2021 but was displaced in most of them by Omicron by the end of the year.

  Experts so far haven’t seen any difference in the characteristics of patients who are infected with the hybrid and haven’t seen any signs that the Deltacron causes more severe cases of COVID-19, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, told reporters in a recent briefing.

  “Unfortunately, we do expect to see recombinants, because this is what viruses do, they change over time,” she said, adding later that, “this pandemic is far from over.”

  In the United States, Helix scientists and collaborators with the University of Washington Medical Center and Thermo Fisher Scientific sequenced 29,719 samples between November 2021 and February 2022 and identified 20 cases where a person was “co-infected” with the Delta and Omicron variants and two additional cases where the infection was pinpointed as being caused by the variant resulting from the recombination of Delta and Omicron.

  “Our study demonstrates the existence of co-infections, the presence of a recombinant population in at least one of these co-infections, and the existence of two infections consisting almost entirely of multiple copies of a recombinant virus. However, the mechanism by which a recombinant virus comes to dominate an infection remains somewhat of a puzzle,” researchers wrote in the study, which was obtained by The Epoch Times prior to publication. It’s scheduled to be published as a preprint on the server medRxiv in the coming days.

  Possibilities include the two infections starting as co-infections before the hybrid virus outcompeted the Delta and Omicron variants, according to the researchers, who were backed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

  In France, a team funded by the government identified three cases infected by the recombinant, following earlier identification of 17 others, the team reported in a preprint study.

  Professor Phillipe Colson, one of the authors, told The Epoch Times in an email that there are too few cases right now “to figure out the epidemiological and clinical features of this hybrid.”

  “We wonder what a large part of an Omicron BA.1 spike (without the N-terminal domain) may change in a Delta genome regarding virus transmissibility and clinical presentation,” he added.

  Scientists in Cyprus were said to initially report the hybrid in January, though some experts said the identified strain appeared to be a result of lab contamination.

  John Moore, a virologist with Cornell University, said he wasn’t sure the more recently reported hybrid was real or not; both the U.S. and French teams said their results are legitimate.

  Regardless, for now, there’s no reason to worry, Moore told The Epoch Times in an email.

  “What’s the point? If it’s not real, it will soon fizzle out. If it is real, what good does worrying about it do? Let’s see what emerges over time, but I need a LOT more than what’s here to be concerned about yet another ‘scariant’ story,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 03/14/2022 – 02:00

• Why Are Leftists And Elitists So Happy About Skyrocketing Gas Prices?
  Why Are Leftists And Elitists So Happy About Skyrocketing Gas Prices?

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  There is a narrative being spread within leftist/socialist circles by media celebrities and White House cronies, and it is this: Paying high prices for oil and gas is actually a GOOD thing.

  But why is it a good thing to these people? How do they benefit?

  

  Spoiler Alert: It has nothing to do with punishing Russia economically.

  As I write this article crude prices have somewhat stabilized around $110-$115 a barrel, which translates to a little over $4 a gallon for gas across most of the country. I don’t expect this to last very long. My guess is that regular gasoline will end up in the $7 to $8 per gallon range before US shale oil roars back and balances out the market. I realize that this is a conservative estimate and perhaps a best case scenario. Gas could go much higher depending on speculation in oil markets as well as continued government interference from the Biden Administration.

  The big secret is that gas prices were already going to inflate to epic highs, the Ukraine event is not a catalyst, it’s just adding a little petro to the house fire. The fact is, there are some people out there that are desperate for prices to go much higher regardless of what happens in Ukraine.

  This past week, late night “comedian” and establishment shill Stephen Colbert declared that he was willing to pay as much as $15 a gallon for gas, because he owns a Tesla (this is the same guy that danced around with walking/talking syringes to promote experimental covid vaccines for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer). To understand elitist clowns like Colbert you have to realize that he is a rather new iteration of the old Operation Mockingbird propaganda model.

  Let’s set aside the prospect that Colbert is a complete idiot who doesn’t seem to grasp that the electricity that charges his Tesla is most likely generated in part or in full by natural gas, oil or coal. The cost of charging up his car is going to inflate right along with normal energy prices. Instead, let’s consider the possibility that Colbert is simply regurgitating a narrative that was assigned to him, just as he has done in the past.

  Decades ago, Americans were fed lies and misinformation primarily by the corporately controlled mainstream media because we used to care about what the MSM had to say. Today, almost no one cares about the MSM and their dismal audience numbers prove that. There are alternative media channels on YouTube and alt-news websites that crush CNN and MSNBC numbers. We dominate them. That said, there are still leftist outlets that get high traffic, and they are primarily comedy shows.

  Colbert still enjoys hefty audience numbers of around 1 million of more viewers per video because this is how younger people have learned to digest their news content – through mediocre comedy. This model was rather successful in the old days of Comedy Central and the Daily Show with John Stewart. I will say that Stewart was at least fair in that he criticized his own side almost as often as he criticized the political right. But, that kind of self examination no longer exists on the left.

  Colbert in particular must have been invited to a gay old time at Bohemian Grove or some other elitist getaway camp because he now acts as if Biden’s arm is halfway up his posterior, controlling him like a sock puppet. His show certainly receives ad revenues from Pfizer considering his parent company CBS has extensive marketing deals with them, but his relationship with the White House is a little less clear. What we do know is that Biden has been very active in attempting to reinforce his already comfortable relationship with social media companies and mainstream journalists; so why not late night talk show hosts also?

  There’s more than a few talking heads out there promoting the “expensive gas is good” idea. There’s a host of politicians and celebrities including the ever obnoxious George Takei of Star Trek fame who claims that paying higher gas prices is worth it if it means doing damage to Putin. Then there’s White House Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who argues that the solution to high gas prices is, once again, for Americans to start buying electric cars and for the government to spend billions in taxpayer dollars to develop fleets of electric buses.

  “Today is about how we can deliver cleaner air, a better climate, affordable transportation, and good jobs all at once…” Buttigieg said. Obviously, none of this is true.

  Biden and many other Democrats have been enthusiastic about high gas prices as if the American people are confusing a win for a loss. Interestingly, only a few years ago in 2019 Democratic governors demanded an end to federal gas taxes to alleviate consumer prices. This was back when gas was only around $3 a gallon nationally. So what changed?

  It should be noted that many of the policies being presented to the American public as solutions to Russian oil sanctions and energy inflation are identical to policies that were part of the Green New Deal, a program designed to completely cut off the US from oil using carbon controls and carbon taxation. Isn’t it convenient that the Russian/Ukraine crisis has facilitated a vehicle for such policies to be implemented?

  There’s a few problems, though.

  For one, Russian oil only makes up around 3% to 4% of US crude imports. The media and the White House have attempted to misrepresent the percentage by adding in “refined products” from Russia to boost the numbers as high as 8%. This is false. In fact, Russian crude is a tiny portion of foreign oil imports to the US.

  This means that cutting Russian oil exports to the US has NOTHING to do with rising prices. The two things are unrelated in terms of supply and demand. Celebrities like Stephen Colbert and George Takei look doubly stupid because sanctions not only don’t hurt the Russians, they also don’t explain why prices are so high in America.

  Biden’s electric car initiatives are strange in light of the fact that inflation is already straining people’s pocketbooks yet the government is suggesting those same struggling Americans buy $50,000 to $100,000 vehicles. None of this actually addresses the root causes of the inflation we face. Rather, Biden and leftists seem to be saying “We aren’t interested in fixing the problem, you are just going to have to adapt in the ways we want you to adapt…”

  Clearly, the establishment does not want the public to question the real triggers for the inflationary disaster we are witnessing. This is illustrated very well in an article I found by CBS declaring that any suggestions that high oil prices are somehow tied to Biden’s electric car program is “conspiracy theory” related to QAnon.

  This is bizarre. For one, there really aren’t many people out there suggesting that high oil prices are only about forcing people to buy electric cars (and CBS gives no proof of this narrative). That said, I live in the world of conspiracy reality, not conspiracy “theory.” What I do see on a regular basis are people pointing out that gas inflation and overall inflation started LONG before Russia invaded Ukraine; it’s just that now Biden has a scapegoat to blame high prices on while also instituting Green New Deal actions.

  Joe Biden and his shameless press secretary Jen Psaki have consistently argued that Putin is the primary cause of inflationary pressures, but inflation in the US hit a 40 year high as early as December of last year; even the World Economic Forum admits this.

  CBS and other corporate media outlets seem to be aware of the truth and the complaints that are about to spread across the country and they are attempting to preempt the unrest by calling anyone that questions the narrative a “crazy tinfoil hatter.”

  Here are the facts:

  The US Dollar is not only the world reserve currency, it is also the global petro-currency. Meaning, almost all oil to this point has been bought and sold using dollars.

  When the dollar faces aggressive inflation and devaluation, one of the very first signals or warning signs is higher oil prices. As the dollar fails, oil prices will spike. This can sometimes be mitigated by a flood of supply on the market as we saw under Trump (the US was a net exporter of oil only a couple of year ago), but the bottom line is that eventually dollar devaluation wins and oil goes higher. This warning signal is a problem for the establishment because they don’t want the public to realize that dollar devaluation is the issue. If the public knew that, then the public would realize that the establishment elites are the cause.

  In turn, the elites and the Biden Admin are using the Ukraine war as a distraction to divert blame. Russian oil sanctions have little to no bearing on US oil supplies, but massive fiat printing of dollars by the Federal Reserve does.

  The central bank has created tens of trillions of dollars from thin air since the credit crash of 2008 in order to hold the US economy back from complete deflationary collapse. But this was always a stop-gap and the Fed and the establishment knew that the resulting inflation would eventually strike, it was only a matter of time.

  In 2020 alone, the Federal Reserve created $6 trillion of new money supply in the wake of foolish and unnecessary nationwide covid shutdowns. This in combination with the destabilization in markets caused by the response to the pandemic is leading to expanding inflationary pressures. THIS IS A FACT. It is not covid. It is not Russia. The cause of inflation is and always will be dollar printing by the Fed. PERIOD. Everything else is peripheral to the primary culprit.

  Beyond the advantage of using Russia as a smokescreen to hide their culpability for destructive inflation, the establishment is also very interested in a carbon control agenda. These same elites have been calling for higher gas prices for years. Why? Because higher gas prices would force the public to accept the Green New Deal agenda as the only alternative. Carbon controls mean governments would be able to micro-manage every aspect of business, manufacturing, trade, even the way we function in our homes or the number of children we are allowed to have.

  For those that actually believe in global warming nonsense posited by leftists and government paid researchers, I would remind them that even the NOAA admits that in the past century temperatures have risen a mere 1 Degree Celsius.That’s right, just one degree in over a hundred years. Gee, that’s terrifying. Where do I sign my life and freedoms away? I don’t want to have to deal with a more thorough tan.

  Furthermore, there is no hard scientific proof whatsoever that this 1 degree increase was caused by carbon emissions. None. Zip. Zero. There are plenty of rigged experiments and rigged data that have been exposed in the past, but nothing concrete to show any correlation between carbon and rising temps. (I’ll give you a hint of what has the most influence on Earth’s temperatures – It’s the size of one million Earths, it’s on fire, and you can often see it hovering above us in the sky).

  Carbon emissions policies serve no practical purpose but they do serve a nefarious purpose as a means to dictate the lives of the average citizen on a micro level.

  It is perhaps not coincidental that puppets like Stephen Colbert and other leftists have suggested that $15 is a fair price for gasoline. Independent studies by groups like the Institute for Energy Research show that Green New Deal measures including carbon taxes would ultimately result in gas spiking to around $13 per gallon. Add in some market speculation and prices would probably plateau around $15. But hey, if prices are already hitting historic highs because of inflation and war, then why not go along with carbon restrictions as well? No one will be able to afford the cost of driving anywhere anyway. See how that works?

  To summarize, the elites are happy about rising oil prices today because first, they now have a perfect scapegoat for the disasters inflation will reap; disasters they are responsible for. And second, they now have a backdoor way to introduce their carbon agenda, starting with forced public dependency on expensive and less efficient green technologies and slowly progressing towards total carbon restrictions.

  Average leftists are happy about rising gas prices because they ignorantly believe that sanctions on  Russian oil hurt Putin.  They also ignorantly believe in global warming and they don’t realize how drastically our standard of living will be reduced in the name of carbon dictatorship. In other words, this isn’t a conspiracy to force people to buy electric cars; most people can’t afford a Tesla anyway. But it is a conspiracy to undermine our prosperity and our freedoms through inflationary crisis as well as green energy mandates. Leftists have no understanding of this. They are happy because they are dumb.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 23:45

• Massive Fire Rocks Major Grocery Logistics Center In Taiwan
  Massive Fire Rocks Major Grocery Logistics Center In Taiwan

  A massive fire has broken out at a northern Taiwan logistics center for the 8th largest retailer in the world.

  

  According to Taiwan News (citing CNA), officials in the northern Taiwan city of Taoyuan received a report early Monday of a massive blaze at the warehouse in the city’s Yangmei District at the Carrefour Logistics Center.

  73 firefighters, 23 fire trucks, 8 tanker trucks and 4 ambulances were dispatched to the scene, where according to reports, nobody has been trapped in the facility.

  According to the fire department, the fire appears to have started on the first floor of the two-story structure. There are no hazardous items believed to be inside.

  The entire facility is currently engulfed in flames, and smoke can be seen billowing into the sky from several kilometers away. An investigation into the cause of the fire and damage assessment are currently underway. –Taiwan News

  Carrefour, a French multinational that emphasizes in hypermarkets, confirmed that a fire had broken out, but all personnel were immediately evacuated and there were no injuries.

  With pundits speculating that Taiwan could be the next geopolitical hotspot after Ukraine – for various obvious reasons – any local accidents will prompt heightened interest whether foul play may be involved.

  Photos via Taiwan News from various sources:

  

  

  

  

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 23:35

• "Media Isn't Warning You" That US Careening Towards Food Crisis 
  “Media Isn’t Warning You” That US Careening Towards Food Crisis 

  Two weeks after the Russia-Ukraine crisis began, the world is quickly moving toward a food crisis that could affect millions of people. A spillover of the crisis could soon spark agricultural mayhem in the US. 

  The curtailment of agricultural exports from Russia and Ukraine will have dramatic knock-on effects on global food supplies. Both countries are known as the ‘breadbasket of the world’ and are responsible for a quarter of the international wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally. Another major problem is access to fertilizers, as Russia has banned exports of the nutrients. 

  

  It’s not whether or not there will be a food crisis. It’s how big that crisis will be. 

  We’ve already noted a handful of emerging market countries to monitor as the Russian invasion is choking off grain exports to them and causing prices to rise, which may result in social unrest. Even in the Western world, agricultural markets have not been immune, and higher prices have stung consumers.  

  A tweet from Douglas Karr, the founder of the businesses blog Martech Zone, made the point the “media isn’t even warning you” a food crisis in America is emerging. 

  Karr said he spoke with numerous folks in the food industry who said farmers in the South and Midwest are having trouble procuring fertilizer to grow crops ahead of planting season. He said farmers in the “Midwest are switching,” likely referring to crops that need fewer nutrients because they “can’t get nitrogen nor fertilizer.”

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Convo with farm today:
  – Meat processors booked out a year because stockpiling beef.
  – Farmers in South can’t get fertilizer for crops now.
  – Farmers in Midwest are switching, can’t get nitrogen nor fertilizer.
  Buckle up, folks! The media isn’t even warning you. #economy

  — Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr) March 11, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the global food system was strained. Snarled supply chains and adverse weather conditions in top growing regions of the world resulted in low crop yields and rising prices. The supply shock of Ukraine will amplify the crisis as the UN warned global food prices could jump 8%-20% from here (prices are already at record highs). 

  

  Responding to Karr’s viral tweet, some people said they were buying a freezer to panic hoard food supplies as the worst food crisis has yet to come. 

  “Likely getting a 2nd chest freezer soon and stuffing it with meats/frozen vegetables/etc. Also, it looks like “preppers” who were dismissed or made fun of last decade are about to be set on being right,” one person said. 

  Another person said, “Read this and then understand why in the last 6 months several publications have been grooming us to accept eating bugs. All of this was planned. Buy a 2nd freezer, and stock it. Soon.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 23:15

• Covid, Weak Credit Spark Talk Of China Rate Cut
  Covid, Weak Credit Spark Talk Of China Rate Cut

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and analyst

  Three things we learned last week:

  1. China’s worst Covid outbreak since the early days of the pandemic and disappointing bank lending data add pressure for further policy easing. Domestic infections topped 1,000 a day, prompting a lockdown of a city of 9 million people in the northeast. The outbreak has increased challenges for the government to reach its “about 5.5%” growth target this year. Apple supplier Foxconn is halting operations at its Shenzhen sites, one of which produces iPhones, in response to a government-imposed lockdown on the tech hub city.

  On Friday, credit data came in well below expectations, underscoring the growth drag from Covid and the housing slowdown. Long-term household borrowing – a proxy for mortgage loans – fell for the first time ever. The data led some economists, including those at Citigroup, to expect a cut in the medium-term lending facility rate on March 15. If delivered, it would sharpen the policy divergence with most other central banks, as the Fed is expected to raise rates this week.

  
   
  2. The risk of being delisted from American exchanges triggered a record slump among U.S.-traded Chinese stocks. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index lost 18% last week, surpassing the previous record slump during the financial crisis in 2008. The move came after the SEC identified five Chinese companies that could be kicked off the exchanges, if they fail to open their books to U.S. auditors as required by a new law. While considered a routine procedure to implement the law passed in December 2020, the move nonetheless rattled investors who have already been unnerved by rising geopolitical risks.

  

  So how does an investor hedge the risk? Morgan Stanley advised clients to go long those ADRs eligible for a Hong Kong listing and short those that are unqualified, and with high foreign ownership.

  3. Negative sentiment toward Chinese assets finally penetrated the strong yuan. The offshore yuan weakened 0.5% on Friday, the worst day in six weeks. The currency has weakened past its 50-day moving average and is on track toward the 100-DMA. Further spread of the virus – possibly leading to factory closures and port disruptions – could cloud China’s export outlook and add pressure to the yuan selloff.

  To be clear, any depreciation is likely to be limited. Friday’s credit data showed that foreign-currency deposits onshore surged to a record, suggesting that the domestic market is still awash with dollars.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 22:59

• New Technologies Can Help Achieve Biden's Ambitious Cancer Goal
  New Technologies Can Help Achieve Biden’s Ambitious Cancer Goal

  Authored by Amy Israel via RealClear Science (emphasis ours),

  President Biden has reinvigorated his cancer moonshot initiative with an ambitious goal of halving deaths in 25 years. Meeting that target will require substantial new commitments – not only from the U.S. government, but also from public and private partners around the world. With healthcare systems still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, smart deployment of new technologies in cancer care can help budgets go farther while closing access gaps and improving patient experiences.

  

  Hypofractionated radiation treatment (HRT) is a great example of how technology is transforming the fight against cancer. This method improves upon conventional treatment by concentrating larger doses of cancer-killing therapy in fewer sessions. Although HRT was first used more than a century ago, it wasn’t sustainable because of the damage caused to surrounding tissues. Thanks to tremendous advancements in radiation technology since then, especially in the last decade or so, HRT has become an accepted practical and cost-effective approach.

  Compared to conventional radiation treatment, HRT allows healthcare professionals to achieve the same result for patients with fewer treatment sessions using fewer resources, and at about half the cost. New and more efficient cancer innovations like HRT can create a “leapfrogging” effect with substantial gains for patients throughout the world. It is already helping to simplify and speed treatment in the U.S. and other high-income countries as well, generating substantial cost savings in infrastructure and human resources. If HRT were widely implemented in Africa, the potential savings over seven years would be $1.1 billion for breast cancer and $606 million for prostate cancer.

  Even with these kinds of technological advancements, the dwindling supply of trained pathologists poses a major challenge to achieving the Biden’s goal. This is a universal problem, and it’s only growing as aging populations increase the demand for cancer care. Even before the pandemic, countries such as Canada and the UK were sounding the alarm over the shortage of pathologists, warning that it was directly responsible for delays in cancer diagnoses.

  It is imperative that plans to invest in health care “future proofing” address the need for more pathologists and invest wisely in ways to augment pathology services. That means incorporating new imaging technologies backed by high-powered AI that can bridge the gap by reading pathology imaging, providing expert insights and helping eliminate errors even when pathologists are not available in some locations. And critically, pathologists need training on how to work with these technologies to optimize their use.

  Even in high-income countries, geographic accessibility to experts is a problem. According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, 32 million Americans live in a county without a pathologist. Urban counties have 20 times more oncologists per square mile than rural counties. Virtual tumor boards are helping to solve this problem, bringing together multidisciplinary teams to help local physicians assess patient cases and develop treatment plans. Consultations can be made with physicians all over the world through secure online sharing of digital images and charts, and live video conferences. This approach to care has also been shown to reduce travel time for patients while potentially improving adherence. For physicians, it enables valuable networking across clinical centers with different types of expertise.

  President Biden’s moonshot is as ambitious as it is significant. To meaningfully improve the lives of cancer patients, we must harness the leapfrogging opportunities created by improving technology and scientific advancements. Robust, interoperable data sets that can feed and enhance machine learning are needed at the policy level. This starts with training and education across the health care sector to build the necessary skills in digital technology and data science. And we need to establish clear and consistent regulatory guidance for safeguarding patient privacy.

  Putting these policies into practice will enable leapfrogging in cancer care, just as it has for finance, technology and other industries. The cancer moonshot spotlights the need to reinvigorate the global fight against cancer. We can achieve its ambitious goal if we work together and efficiently use all available technologies and resources at hand.

  Amy Israel is Vice President and Global Head, Oncology Policy & Healthcare Systems at Novartis.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 22:25

• Meanwhile In China, All Hell Is Breaking Loose
  Meanwhile In China, All Hell Is Breaking Loose

  With war raging across the world’s bread basket, risk of World War 3 the highest it has been since the Cuban missile crisis, commodities hitting new all time highs every single day, inflation (even the watered down CPI version) set to hit 10% in a few months, and the Fed rushing to hike rates so high it slams the US into a pre-scripted recession (as it somehow hopes to make a “soft landing” even as fed funds futures signal a hard landing and at least 50 bps of rate cuts after the burst of hiking is over later this year), it is easy to forget that China is still around.

  So here is a vivid remind that not only has nothing been fixed in the country that single-handedly pulled the world out of depression during the GFC, but that things are going from bad to much worse.

  1.  China on brink of biggest Covid-19 crisis since Wuhan as cases surge

  China is scrambling to address its most severe Covid-19 outbreak in two years, reporting soaring cases in a fresh wave that has seen the country tweak its zero-Covid policy by allowing rapid antigen tests for public use. After topping 1,000 for two days in a row, new locally transmitted cases surged to more than 3,100, this time driven by a spike in symptomatic infections, the National Health Commission reported on Sunday. It came as 16 provinces reported new coronavirus infections, as did the four megacities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing.

  As a result of the latest covid breakout, China’s government has shut down the city of Shenzhen, a city of 17.5 million people known as China’s Silicon Valley, and is restricting access to Shanghai by suspending bus services. All businesses except those that supply food, fuel and other necessities were ordered to close or work from home. That includes Foxconn, Apple’s Chinese slaves:

  • FOXCONN SUSPENDS OUTPUT AT CHINA HQ, IPHONE SITE IN SHENZHEN

  And since the port of Shenzhen – one of the world’s busiest container post is now also locked down, expect a fresh round of cascading chaos in Transpacific supply chains, just in time to join the snarled Transatlantic supply chains as the Ukraine war cripples all global seaborne traffic.

  

  2. Chinese stocks are crashing

  The Hang Seng tech index has plunged 61% from its peak last year. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index of U.S.-traded stocks has fared even worse, down 68%, and with another bad day or two, the peak-to-trough decline could surpass its 72% crash in the 2008 global financial crisis. Meanwhile, in the US, Chinese ADRs collapsed 10% in a single day on Friday, the worst selloff since 2008, after the SEC listed 5 Chinese companies at risk of delisting should they refuse to show their books to American auditors, stoking panic every ADR will eventually be booted out. “The market is very panicky,” Paul Pang at Pegasus Fund Managers Ltd., who has sold almost all his stake in Alibaba Group, told Bloomberg. “Sanctions against China are not impossible, if China refuses to take sides on the war in Ukraine. Tech shares are among those risky names exposed in the crossfires in the rising Sino-U.S. tensions.”

  Fear of a fresh regulatory crackdown by Beijing has escalated lately as policy makers proposed more curbs on online games. Earnings results so far have been unable to ease any worry about the growth outlook amid weakening consumer demand in China. The Hang Seng Tech Index is the one of the world’s worst-performing tech gauges since the war in Ukraine broke out and has dropped 17% in March, on course for its biggest monthly drop ever.

  

  “We can’t see any rebound signals at the present,” said Yan Kaiwen, analyst at China Fortune Securities. The market is concerned about inflation because of the higher prices for oil and other commodities, which will have a negative impact on the global economy, he said.

  3. Chinese bonds are crashing

  While nothing new to those who have been following the collapse in the Chinese junk bond market – closely linked to China’s property sector – China credit stress reached new extremes in the offshore, USD market, where average junk yields rose above 25% meaning the primary market won’t function properly anytime soon. Contagion has transformed stronger property developers into risky bets. Luxury property developer Shimao Group, which was once considered a bellwether for China’s safer builders, has been slashed deep into junk from investment grade in a matter of months. The firm has been cut to triple C territory by Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. Logan Group has also been downgraded on undisclosed debt and governance worries. Cracks are also showing up in China’s government bond market. Yields on the 10-year sovereign note rose to 2.86%, the highest this year, as investors pointed to capital outflows.

  

  4. China’s property sector is (still) crashing

  China’s property industry has been rocked by at least 14 defaults by developers since authorities began cracking down on excessive borrowing and speculation in the housing market in 2020 which led to a historic default by China Evergrande. While policy makers are now signaling greater tolerance for selective relief by encouraging home buying in lower-tier cities, cutting mortgage rates and allowing more bank loans for developers, there are few signs this is helping boost sales. Unfortunately, these new measures have yet to bear fruit, as China’s biggest developers are seeing home sales crater this year amid a market that is effectively frozen.

  

  Home sales tumbled during the first two months of this year. China Vanke, the nation’s second-biggest developer by sales, saw a decline of 44%. At Country Garden Holdings Co., whose dollar bonds are at close to record lows, sales fell 24%. Even state-run China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. saw them slump 48%.

  While more adjustments are expected after the National People’s Congress taking place through this week, there are concerns of an “unstoppable downward spiral” according to Nomura International HK analysts. “We become increasingly worried whether the policy changes will be effective and timely enough to prevent property sales from a further correction” in the first half of this year, analysts Jizhou Dong and Stella Guo wrote in a note late February.

   5. China Credit Collapses

  February credit data was weaker thank expected after mortgage lending fell for the first time in 15 years. After a record January, China’s credit expansion slowed in February as a long holiday and the slumping housing market meant people and companies borrowed less. Banks lent 1.2 trillion yuan ($194 billion) in the month, down from 4 trillion yuan in January and less than in February last year. A key indicator of home mortgages declined for the first time in at least 15 years despite efforts by the central bank and other financial institutions to boost borrowing by cutting rates and lowering down payments.

  

  Newly increased medium and long-term loans to non-financial companies fell to 505 billion from 1.1 trillion yuan a year ago, indicating companies were also reluctant to borrow and invest.  The weak data came despite provinces selling special bonds, a key source of infrastructure funding, at a faster pace in February than in previous years.

  “It’s a pretty bad set of data,” said Zhou Hao, senior emerging markets economist at Commerzbank AG. “There’s a lack of growth driver, and the real economy’s demand is weak,” he said, arguing that “the PBOC will have to cut rates early if it wants to do so” as inflation and capital outflow pressures will start to limit its space later in the year, he said.

  6. Didi crashes

  Didi halts plans for a HK IPO. Chinese regulators aren’t yet satisfied with the security of its sensitive user data. The stock plunged 44% in US trading on Friday, its biggest one-day drop ever.

  

  7. ESG blues

  Norway’s $1.3 Trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest, snubs Chinese sportswear stock Li Ning due to concerns over its ties to Xinjiang. Will other “green” funds follow in ditching their Chinese investments? “Norway sovereign fund’s offloading Li Ning is triggering some worries about the attitude over Chinese and Hong Kong stocks in the future,” said Castor Pang, head of research at Core Pacific Yamaichi. The news on Wednesday sent China’s CSI 300 Index tumbling for its sixth day of declines — the longest losing run since March 2020, and the Hang Seng Index finished at its lowest since July 2016 – and only a late day intervention by the National Team avoided an even worse rout. 

  The CSI 300 has lost 27% from a peak about a year ago, fueled by a slump in China’s property market and Covid-zero policy. Sentiment soured further on Wednesday as Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund announced its exclusion of Li Ning Co. due to the risk that the sportswear maker contributes to serious human rights violations in Xinjiang. The move stoked worries about a potential retreat of other long-term investors. Li Ning plunged 9%.

  
   

  8. China Doubles Yuan Trading Band for Ruble

  The PBOC will double the yuan trading band for the ruble amid signs of distressed liquidity as banks back away from making markets. According to Bloomberg, the currency pair will be allowed to trade 10% around the fixing rate to meet demand for market development from March 11, the China Foreign Exchange Trade System said in a statement. That compares with a previous limit of 5%. The change shows how global financial institutions are attempting to cope with the ruble’s volatility, as Russia is increasingly cut off from markets after it invaded Ukraine. The yuan hit a record high against the ruble last week, with some Chinese banks suspending trading of the currency pair.

  The 10% limit compares with 5% for most of the onshore yuan’s foreign exchange pairs. The last time China widened the trading band for a foreign currency was in 2014, when it doubled the permitted range for dollar-yuan to 2%. “It is the policy measure in response to volatile RUB trading,” said Ken Cheung, Asia FX strategist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. “The measure is to give market markers the ability to set the price and improve the RUB/CNY trading liquidity.”

  

  The volatility has led to waning interest to trade the currency pair, with the gap between the bid-ask price hitting a record 197 pips Wednesday. The gap narrowed to 106 pips after the latest announcement. The yuan bought 13.6 ruble on Feb. 25 in China’s onshore spot market. Total bilateral trade between the two countries was valued at $112 billion in 2020. Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin only last month signed a series of deals to boost Russian supply of gas, oil and wheat.

  9. Foreigners dump Chinese bonds in record amounts

  Foreign investors reduced their holdings of Chinese government bonds by the most ever last month. Overseas investors sold a net 35 billion yuan ($5.5 billion) of Chinese government bonds in February, marking the largest monthly cut on record and the first reduction since March 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Their holdings fell to 2.48 trillion yuan from a record 2.52 trillion in January.

  

  The bond liquidation spurred talk that some may have come from Russia as sanctions from the U.S. and European Union cut off the Russian central bank’s access to much of its $643 billion in foreign reserves. As of June, China’s yuan accounted for 13% of those reserves, according to the central bank data. Analysts at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group estimated that Russia’s central bank and sovereign wealth fund probably own a combined $140 billion of Chinese bonds.

  China’s narrowing yield premium over U.S. bonds, a result of diverging monetary policies, has also eroded the allure of the Chinese securities. At about 2.8%, yields on 10-year Chinese bonds are about 105 basis points higher than Treasuries, compared with a gap of more than 220 basis points at the end of 2020.

  10. GDP on verge of contraction

  In response to weaker consumption and an adverse impact on supply chains, as China doubles down on Covid-zero amid Omicron, Morgan Stanley has cut China’s Q1 GDP by 60bps, to zero growth QoQ, and cut full-year GDP by 20bps, to 5.1%. It will cut more.

  

  11. China to easing aggressively

  As a result of all this relentless pain, the China Securities Journal, a mouthpiece for the PBOC and the place where Beijing leaks trial balloons on what is to come, says PBOC may cut RRR and interest rates to stabilize growth. A loose monetary policy is currently required to support growth, the report said echoing what we have been predicting since mid-2021. China is still expected to cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio and interest rates further to stabilize economic growth despite looming U.S. Fed rate hike, China Securities Journal said in the the front-page report Monday, citing analysts. A further cut in RRR and interest rates may have already been placed on the agenda of China’s central bank.

  This begs the question: how long can US and China monetary policy diverge, with the former hiking and the latter cutting, before something terminally breaks. One thing is certain: for China to achieve its target of around 5.5% growth this year, with the property market slumping, coronavirus infections rapidly increasing, inflation still high and export demand threatened by the effects of the war in Europe, only a massive monetary stimulus will prevent China from falling into a catastrophic recession. It’s why Premier Li Keqiang told reporters Friday that achieving the growth goal won’t be easy. He also told them he is quitting this year; the two are linked…

  h/t Bloomberg’s Sofia Horta e Costa

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 22:07

• Children In China Diagnosed With Leukemia After Taking Chinese Vaccines
  Children In China Diagnosed With Leukemia After Taking Chinese Vaccines

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

  After receiving her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, Li Jun’s 4-year-old developed a fever and coughs, which quickly subsided after intravenous therapy at the hospital. But after the second shot, the father could tell something was wrong.

  

  Swelling appeared around his daughter’s eyes and did not go away. For weeks, the girl complained about pains on her legs, where bruises started to emerge seemingly out of nowhere. In January, a few weeks after the second dose, the 4-year-old was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

  “My baby was perfectly healthy before the vaccine dose,” Li (an alias), from China’s north-central Gansu Province, told The Epoch Times. “I took her for a health check. Everything was normal.”

  He is among hundreds of Chinese that belong to a social media group claiming to be suffering from or have a household member suffering from leukemia, developed after taking Chinese vaccines. Eight of them confirmed the situation when reached by The Epoch Times. Names of the interviewees have been withheld to protect their safety.

  The leukemia cases span across different age groups from all parts of China. But Li and others particularly pointed to a rise in patients from the younger age group in the last few months, coinciding with the regime’s push to inoculate children between 3 and 11 years old beginning last October.

  Li’s daughter had her first injection in mid-November under the request of her kindergarten. She is now undergoing chemotherapy at the Lanzhou No. 2 People’s Hospital where at least 20 children are being treated for similar symptoms, most of them between the age of 3 and 8, according to Li.

  “Our doctor from the hospital told us that since November, the children coming to their hematology division to treat leukemia have doubled the previous years’ number and they are having a shortage of beds,” he said.

  Li claimed that at least eight children from Suzhou district, where he lives, have died recently from leukemia.

  The hospital’s hematology division could not be immediately reached for comment.

  National Pressure

  Roughly 84.4 million children between the 3-11 age group have been vaccinated as of Nov. 13, according to latest figures from China’s National Health Commission, accounting for more than half of the population in that age bracket.

  There had been some resistance from Chinese parents when the campaign to vaccinate children first rolled out. They expressed concern about the lack of data about the effects of Chinese vaccines on young people. The vaccines are supplied by two Chinese drugmakers, Sinopharm and Sinovac, which carry an efficacy rate of 79 percent and 50.4 percent, respectively, based on available data from trials conducted on adults.

  There’s limited information about the health effects of these vaccines on children, and the World Health Organization said in late November that it has not approved the two vaccines for emergency use on the underaged.

  

  But parents who were reluctant to vaccinate their children have faced pressure to comply. Some said they lost work bonuses or were given a talk by their supervisors. In other cases, their children faced punishment varying from losing honors or even getting barred from attending school, as in the case of Wang Long’s 10-year-old son.

  “The school told us last year to take him for vaccination on such and such date, or he can’t go to class,” Wang, from eastern China’s Shandong Province, told The Epoch Times.

  The boy received his second dose on Dec. 4. A month later, he began experiencing fatigue and low fever. He is now at Shandong University Qilu Hospital, being treated for acute leukemia, diagnosed on Jan. 18.

  Censorship

  On WeChat, the all-in-one Chinese social media platform, Li has come to know over 500 patients or their family members sharing the same predicament.

  The local disease control center, when called by Li and others, had promised an investigation. But these probes invariably ended with the officials declaring the leukemia cases as “coincidental” and thus unrelated to the vaccines.

  The authorities said the same in 2013, following the deaths of over a dozen toddlers after Hepatitis B jabs.

  But Li and others in a similar situation are far from being convinced.

  “I dare say they didn’t do any verification but only went through the motions,” said Li.

  Li suspects that authorities are giving him the runaround. The officials told him a panel of experts would start an investigation within his province, but when he called the provincial level health agency, they disavowed any knowledge, saying reports of these cases had never reached them.

  Li and others seeking scrutiny of this issue also stand little chance to get their voices heard in the vast Chinese censorship machinery that constantly filters out anything deemed harmful to the communist regime’s interests.

  “The information gets blocked the instant we try to post something online. You can’t send it out,” said Li.

  When China’s two top political bodies met last week for its most important annual gathering in what Beijing called the “Two Sessions,” Li pitched in the WeChat group the idea of petitioning in the capital to get the authorities’ attention.

  That message drew the authorities’ notice immediately.

  “The police called us one by one,” said Li. “They said we have made things up and ordered us to withdraw from the chat group.”

  The group was soon disbanded. An information sheet containing details of over 200 leukemia patients, filled out by members of the group, is no longer accessible.

  According to Li, there are signs indicating that authorities are well aware of this issue. Doctors, when receiving patients presenting with similar symptoms, would first ask them if they had taken the vaccine, he said, citing information he learned from the WeChat group.

  “Got it, they would say, and that’s the end of it,” he said of the doctors’ questioning.

  Li got the same reaction when calling the hotline for Chinese state broadcaster CCTV in the hopes of getting media exposure.

  “As soon as we said the children had taken COVID-19 vaccine, they asked me if she had gotten leukemia. They knew,” said Li. “They said that they got too many calls because of this.”

  

  Desperation

  The cost for treatment is estimated at around 400,000 to 500,000 yuan ($63,093 to $78,867), more than 20 times the average annual income.

  Wang, whose 10-year-old was diagnosed with leukemia, is the sole breadwinner for his family and is already under strain making mortgage repayments. He received about only 1,000 yuan ($157) through the state social assistance program to help pay for his son’s treatment.

  “I stayed at the hospital until 4 a.m. the night before,” said Wang, adding that the crushing news has quite “broken” the boy’s mother.

  “Had he inherited it from the family, we’d accept it as our lot,” Wang said. “But he got sick because of the vaccine. I just can’t reconcile it.”

  Li, meanwhile, has been borrowing money from his relatives for the hospital fees. Some of the money trickles in in bills of 20 and 30 yuan, the equivalent of a few dollars, he said.

  Li has heard no response from officials or the media.

  His friend who works at the local health commission overseeing the distribution of vaccines has told him to not put much hope in the matter.

  “The officials knew that you could get leukemia, but the ‘arm is no match for the thigh,’” the friend told him, referring to a Chinese metaphor. “This is a national issue.”

  The Health Commission of Lanzhou City, the Health Commission of Gansu Province, the Gansu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Lanzhou Disease Prevention and Control Center, the Jiuquan City Disease Prevention and Control Center, Sinopharm, and Sinovac did not answer multiple calls for comment.

  The National Health Commission, Sinopharm, and Sinovac did not immediately respond to email queries from The Epoch Times.

  Gu Xiaohua contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 21:45

• Historic Market Dislocations In 35 Charts
  Historic Market Dislocations In 35 Charts

  Amid the unprecedented market turmoil, Deutsche Bank’s head of thematic research Jim Reid looks at some of the dislocations and extremes that the current Russia/Ukraine crisis has thrown up. In particular, Ried looks at commodities, rates and equities, as well as the dilemma that central banks find themselves in given high inflation and how loose policy is right now.

  Let’s start with energy dislocations

  The amount of backwardation in WTI futures contracts (1st contract versus 6th contract, left chart) is at an all-time high in dollar terms, showing how dislocated oil prices are over the near term. When looking from a ratio basis (on the right), the 1st contract is 20% more expensive than the 6th and not quite as extreme but still the highest for 20 years.

  

  European natural gas prices have also shot higher, and backwardation has taken hold. However both the EUR and ratio difference between the 1st and 6th TZT contract are not as drastic as oil and not as dramatic as in December, suggesting the market now believes ultra high price pressures are here to stay.

  

  Gas prices are extraordinary relative to anything seen in the past whereas oil is only at the upper end of historical range in real terms

  

  According to DB chief equity strategist, Binky Chadha, oil is way above fair value implied by dollar and global growth. Oil prices typically trade +/- 30% around fair value. The current premium is over 90%.

  

  There have been some extraordinary commodity moves in recent days/weeks. Nickel trading was suspended after 250% intra-day move over 2-days on margin calls, short squeeze and supply concerns

  

  Oil has been a big driver of inflation expectations over the last decade… Will this latest commodity shock start to impact long-run inflation expectations.

  

  Despite fears that a restriction of gas supplies will lead to greater coal usage, carbon prices have dropped as large open-interest in put options at €60-€80 has evaporated, a potential signal of profit taking. It’s created a big dislocation to the rest of the commodity complex

  

  Wheat saw the largest weekly increase on record w/e March 4th. Over three times largest previous week in 60 years

  

  However wheat spike hardly shows up in long-term real adjusted price… over time production techniques become more and more efficient which has driven the price down for such a renewable commodity.

  

  Next, we look at more marketwide VaR shocks:

  The week ending March 4th saw largest move higher in commodity index on record

  

  The US CPI number on Feb 10th saw a huge VAR shock at the front end of US treasury curve.

  

  … However three weeks later 10yr Bunds saw a huge VAR shock in the opposite direction… volatility in rates is immense

  

  US rates volatility has increased to its highest levels since the GFC. This is seen in the cost of buying options that expire in the next 3-months on 10- year USD swap rates.

  

  Similarly, the US MOVE Index (US implied vol of 1-month treasury options) is also at the highest since GFC outside of initial Covid shock.

  

  Ten-year bund breakevens have seen their biggest ever move and now at the highest since data started

  

  Egypt 5yr CDS has seen a huge spike to all time highs partly due to the commodity spike and worries about the impact on tourism

  

  Focusing on the European financial sector, we find that some European assets trading at previous break up risk levels:

  10yr Bund ASW traded at all time low on March 4th. Previous lows were either in deep recessions or at a time of Euro existential crises.

  

  German 10yr Real yields using breakevens at extremes… breakevens at ATH while bunds have been back in negative territory in recent days.

  

  European equity volatility only higher in 00-02 dotcom bust, GFC, Greek default, EU Sovereign crisis and Covid

  

  European banks seen one of the biggest 20-day declines on record… most of the move in line with bunds but in recent days the decoupling has grown as bund yields have climbed back up.

  

  With all these dislocations, Reid asks “is the equity market telling us that a recession is imminent?” Let’s see: the S&P 500 is pricing a big fall in ISM to mid-40s (i.e. recession) whether you use tech dominated index or the equal-weight one.

  

  This takes us to some valuations observations: are EU,EM and US small cap equities very cheap vs S&P 500? According to Reid, European equities very cheap to US now… with or without mega-cap growth and tech

  

  EM equities also very cheap to the US now

  

  In US small caps are back close to the Covid extremes versus S&P 500

  

  Which brings us to the central bank dilemma: Current Fed policy is the loosest ever outside of the WWII period… and policy looks extraordinarily extreme

  

  The Covid M2 spike has taken us well beyond pre-covid trend. Note again that GFC period saw no such spike…. Back then banks, consumers were aggressively de-levering and governments soon moved to austerity… very different this time with helicopter money and no delevering.

  

  Are Fed policy moves still mispriced? The war might mean huge swings in expectations or risks of policy errors in both directions

  

  Unfortunately the Fed is about to start a tightening cycle with the 2s10s at close to the flattest its ever been at this point… doesn’t bode well for the duration of the cycle… however not embarking on a hiking cycle could be worse longer term in terms of embedding inflation in the economy…

  

  3y1y – 1y1y OIS rates are at their lowest in a decade. That is, markets are pricing the Fed funds rate to be 36bps higher from 2023-2024 than 2025- 2026. Markets are expecting the Fed to have to quickly cut rates shortly after the hiking cycle begins, which looks like a hard landing.

  

  US inflation is already broad based

  

  The Fed also has to deal with the highest house price growth on record outside of two post WWII years

  

  Which brings us to what may be our favorite chart: as DB’s Jim Reid notes, every Fed hiking cycle in the fiat high debt era has led to some kind of financial crisis somewhere across the world

  

  Confirming that the Fed is hiking to purposefully spark a recession – if not depression – in order to destroy enough commodities demand, consumer sentiment gap between present and expected conditions at extremes and suggesting a recession is imminent…

  

  The ECB has almost always been pro-cyclical in terms of energy prices… can they justify easing on lower energy prices in 2014 and not tightening due to higher energy in 2022.

  

  Finally, DB notes that typically flights to liquidity force issuers to pay higher rates for unsecured funding, at both term and overnight tenors. But this time, the cost of 3m funding has spiked while overnight funding rates have been flat, suggesting there are dislocations in filtering the glut of USD in the system to borrowers.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 21:15

• 2.8 Million Fowl (Mostly Chickens & Turkeys) Have Died In The First Month Of America's Raging New Bird Flu Pandemic
  2.8 Million Fowl (Mostly Chickens & Turkeys) Have Died In The First Month Of America’s Raging New Bird Flu Pandemic

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  On top of everything else, now a highly pathogenic avian influenza pandemic is ripping across the United States, and it has already resulted in the deaths of almost 2.8 million birds.  Most of the birds that have died have been chickens or turkeys.  And since this was just in the very first month of the pandemic, there is no telling how bad it could eventually become.  What will the eventual death toll look like?  Will it be in the tens of millions?  That is definitely a possibility.  And what would happen if the bird flu mutates into a version that spreads easily among humans?  We might want to start thinking about that, because that is possible too.

  

  I knew that the bird flu outbreak was bad, but I didn’t know that it had gotten this bad.  The following comes from a prominent farming website…

  With new outbreaks in Iowa and Missouri, nearly 2.8 million birds — almost entirely chickens and turkeys — have died in one month due to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the Agriculture Department said on Monday. The viral disease has been identified in 23 poultry farms and backyard flocks in a dozen states since February 8, when the first report of “high path” bird flu in a domestic flock was reported.

  2.8 million dead birds in just one month.

  Will next month be even worse?

  And the number of states that have detected bird flu has actually gone up since that article came out.  Nebraska just became the 13th state to detect a positive case of HPAI.

  To me, one of the most alarming things is that this flu just keeps hitting more commercial flocks.  On Monday, officials announced that a commercial flock of turkeys in northwest Iowa had been affected…

  Officials announced Monday that they have identified bird flu in a commercial flock of 50,000 turkeys in northwest Iowa, the state’s second case of a virus that has been identified in multiple U.S. states.

  Iowa agriculture officials and the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the case in Buena Vista County, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the case identified March 1 in a backyard flock of 42 ducks and chickens in Pottawattamie County.

  When one bird in a flock tests positive, all of the birds have to be put down.

  That is how authorities try to contain the disease.

  But it just keeps popping up in widely diverse places.  Just check out what has taken place within the past few days…

  In the past few days officials have identified the virus on a southeast Missouri farm with 240,000 broiler chickens, a commercial mixed species flock in southeastern South Dakota and an egg-laying hen operation in northeast Maryland.

  This is truly a nightmare.

  And we just learned that the H5N1 strain has been detected at yet another poultry farm in Delaware…

  Another Delaware poultry farm has identified the highly pathogenic avian influenza strain among their population, according to Delaware Department of Agriculture officials.

  According to officials, a pullet operation in New Castle County identified the H5N1 strain following federal laboratory testing.

  All of the chickens at that facility were rapidly “depopulated”, and officials are assuring us that no infected birds will enter the food system…

  It is the first time since 2004 that avian influenza was identified in an area broiler farm, officials with the Delmarva Chicken Association (DCA) said Wednesday. All affected premises have been quarantines, and birds are being or have been depopulated to prevent spread. Birds from affected flocks will not be distributed to the food system, officials said.

  At this point, this pandemic is not just limited to one geographic area.

  There have been lots of cases on the east coast, and there have been cases as far west as Nebraska and South Dakota.

  Basically, the area that has been affected already covers about half the nation, and we are just one month into this new plague.

  Let us hope that it stays just in birds, because if it jumps to humans we are going to have a real disaster on our hands.

  Since 1997, bird flu has had about a 50 percent death rate in humans…

  From 1997 to now, more than 880 people worldwide were infected, with approximately a 50% case fatality proportion. That includes 20 cases and seven deaths in Hong Kong between 1997 and 2003.

  The good news is that the strains that are circulating around the globe right now do not spread easily to humans.

  But just like COVID, bird flu is mutating all the time.

  And scientists have warned us that it could eventually mutate into a strain that does spread easily among humans.

  Late last year, two people in China died after catching a strain of the bird flu known as H5N6…

  China has reported to more H5N6 avian flu infections in humans, both fatal in people who were sick in November and died in early December, Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said in a statement today.

  The patients are a 12-year-old girl and a 79-year-old man, both from the city of Liuzhou in Guangxi province. They had both been at a live-poultry market before they got sick and started experiencing symptoms 1 day apart from each other, suggesting that they might be family members. The girl and the man died 1 day apart, the man on Dec 3 and the girl on Dec 4.

  Personally, I have always been more concerned about H5N1, but the truth is that if any strain were to begin spreading like wildfire among humans the death toll would be catastrophic.

  But even if this bird flu pandemic stays only in birds, we are going to lose millions upon millions of chickens and turkeys at a time when food prices have already been soaring into the stratosphere.

  The global food crisis that we have been warned about is already here, and so this new plague has come at a really, really bad time.

  We continue to be hit by one thing after another, and it seems like each new day brings even more bad news.

  If you enjoy eating chicken or turkey, I would stock up now, because prices are only going to go higher from here.

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 20:45

• Minnesota Non-Profit Set Up To Feed Children Accused Of Massive Fraud And Misappropriating "Tens Of Millions Of Dollars"
  Minnesota Non-Profit Set Up To Feed Children Accused Of Massive Fraud And Misappropriating “Tens Of Millions Of Dollars”

  A non-profit organization called “Feeding our Future (FOF)” was stopped in its tracks this week by the FBI after using millions of federal dollars meant for child nutrition to instead buy “numerous vehicles” and 14 properties, according to the Bureau. 

  FBI Special Agent Travis Wilmer wrote in an affidavit this week: “The companies and their owners received tens of millions of dollars in federal funds for use in providing nutritious meals to underprivileged children and adults. Almost none of this money was used to feed children. Instead, the participants in the scheme misappropriated the money and used it to purchase real estate, cars and other luxury items.”

  FOF received $307,000 in federal funds in 2018, according to a report by Just The News.

  The organization’s website says: “We are driven by a single goal; making participation in the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program safe and easy for our community partners. We ensure programs are easily able to receive funding to purchase nutritious meals and snacks.”

  It reported $42.7 million and $197 million in “meals disbursed” in 2020 and 2021, respectively. 

  The FOF was caught after the Minnesota Department of Education noticed reporting deficiencies and a “drastic increase of meals” that the organization couldn’t explain. The MDE then reported them to the USDA Office of the Inspector General in October 2020.

  

  But then FOF sued the MDE for not processing more than 50 applications for payments – and won. 

  In mid 2021, authorities were already investigating the FOF. Despite searches of “a dozen” properties linked to the investigation in 2022, no arrests were made. 

  The investigation reportedly ensnared Abdi Nur Salah, former senior policy aid at the office of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who co-purchased a south Minneapolis apartment building with money “traceable to the fraud and money laundering scheme”, according to the report. 

  There were 14 properties tied to the alleged fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

  The FBI said in January 2022: “To date, the conspirators have stolen millions of dollars in federal funds. The scheme is ongoing.”

  The Sahan Journal also reported that people tied to FOF donated to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s office:

  Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s office says her campaign has donated to local food shelves the thousands of dollars in contributions it received from men alleged in FBI search warrants to have committed fraud against a federal program to feed children. 

  In early 2021, two men named in recently unsealed search warrant affidavits donated a total of $5,400 to Omar’s campaign. The FBI affidavits list Ahmed Ghedi and Abdihakim Ahmed as associates of Safari Restaurant and Event Center. Both allegedly controlled shell companies that received $1.1 million in federal child nutrition money from a co-owner of Safari Restaurant. The two men separately helped two others buy a $2.8 million mansion in Minneapolis with child nutrition money to use as an office building, the FBI alleges. 

  Ahmed donated $2,700 to Omar’s campaign on February 23 and Abdihakim gave the same amount to her on March 31. Federal prosecutors have not charged Ahmed or Abdihakim, nor anybody else named in the search warrants, with any crimes. 

  Sen. Roger Chamberlain, concluded: “It’s simply outrageous that nearly $200 million of money provided to feed children in need was abused in this way. With resources precious, it’s imperative government agencies ensure every dollar is going to programs with robust track records so we can know not a single dime is wasted.”

  FOF Director Aimee Bock has denied any wrongdoing.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 20:15

• Bitcoin Slides Ahead Of EU Vote Which Could "Practically" Ban Key Digital Currencies
  Bitcoin Slides Ahead Of EU Vote Which Could “Practically” Ban Key Digital Currencies

  Cryptocurrencies stumbled on Sunday evening after trading rangebound for the past two days, following a delayed market realization, and reaction, that on Monday, the European parliamentary committee will vote on a new regulatory framework for crypto assets, which according to Bloomberg could accelerate passage of a measure that industry executives say could “practically ban key digital currencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum in Europe.”

  Crypto-assets issued and/or traded in the EU “shall be subject to minimum environmental sustainability standards and set up and maintain a phased rollout plan to ensure compliance” with those requirements, according to the final draft for the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) law, the EU’s sweeping legislative package for governing digital assets, that was seen by Bloomberg News. The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee will vote on the bill on Monday, and in an unexpected twist, the draft law contains a late addition that looks to limit the use of cryptocurrencies powered by an energy-intensive computing process known as proof-of-work.

  Commenting ahead of the vote, Jake Chervinsky, head of policy the Blockchain Association said that “the MiCA situation is worse for crypto than anything in the USA. Tomorrow, the European Parliament votes on “environmental sustainability standards” that look like a pretext for a Bitcoin ban.”

  The MiCA situation is worse for crypto than anything in the USA. Tomorrow, the European Parliament votes on “environmental sustainability standards” that look like a pretext for a Bitcoin ban.

  If it passes, it can be undone in the next phase of the EU process, but it’s very bad. https://t.co/AW1ATE0tqU

  — Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) March 13, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  As Bloomberg points out, the reference to minimum sustainability as well as rollout requirements, appear to be last-minute changes introduced to curb, or ban, the use of digital currencies working on a so-called “proof-of-work” consensus mechanism, for instance Bitcoin and Ethereum (at least until the rollout of Ethereum 2.0 which is proof of stake). An earlier draft didn’t mention a proof-of-work protocol concept, EU parlamentarian and crypto-expert Stefan Berger of Germany’s Christian Democratic Party said in a Tweet early last week.

  CoinDesk reported yesterday that the provision in question requires all crypto assets to be subject to the EU’s “minimum environmental sustainability standards with respect to their consensus mechanism used for validating transactions, before being issued, offered or admitted to trading in the Union.”

  For cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether, that are already being traded in the EU, the rule proposes a phase-out plan to shift their consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to other methods that use less energy, like proof-of-stake. Although there are plans to move ethereum to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, i.e., Ethereum 2.0, such an option is not available for bitcoin.

  Proof of work is one of the main consensus mechanism governing the Bitcoin blockchain. Energy-intensive Bitcoin miners contribute computer power to the network, which secures and processes the blockchain, and are rewarded in Bitcoin for their contribution.

  A previous version of the law proposed the prohibition of proof-of-work crypto in the EU starting in January 2025. The provision was later dropped following criticism from crypto advocates, before the modified version made it back into the latest draft.

  Stefan Berger, the EU parliamentarian charged with overseeing the content and progress of the MiCA framework, has been trying to reach a compromise over restricting proof-of-work.  Berger also said at the time that he does not feel MiCA is the place for settling technological or energy-related rules because the framework’s goal is to regulate crypto as assets. Once parliament decides on the draft, it will move on to a trilogue, which is a formal round of negotiations between the European commission, council and parliament.

  “The Greens and Socialists, as you can imagine, are criticizing the proof-of-work concept and criticizing the energy use, saying that bitcoin needs more energy than the Netherlands,” Berger said in an interview with CoinDesk in February, referring to the political parties pushing the energy argument.

  Furious over whether the new, tougher draft law would be a de-facto ban of Bitcoin, industry executives took their concerns to Twitter on Saturday.

  “We at Ledger will always defend freedom and self-custody, particularly in our backyard. We are calling on you all to contact your Member of European Parliament and let them know that you oppose a Bitcoin ban in Europe,” Chief Executive Pascal Gaulthier of Ledger, one of the world’s largest crypto wallet providers said on his Twitter account.

  We at Ledger will always defend freedom and self-custody, particularly in our backyard.
  We are calling on you all to contact your Member of European Parliament and let them know that you oppose a Bitcoin ban in Europe: https://t.co/KXsEfi468i https://t.co/yZlaRZ97Aa

  — Pascal Gauthier (@_pgauthier) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor chimed in that “the only settled method to create digital property is via Proof-of-Work. Non-energy based crypto approaches like Proof-of-Stake must be deemed to be securities until proven otherwise. Banning digital property would be a trillion dollar mistake.”

  The only settled method to create digital property is via Proof-of-Work. Non-energy based crypto approaches like Proof-of-Stake must be deemed to be securities until proven otherwise. Banning digital property would be a trillion dollar mistake.https://t.co/h8FTGaGJKi

  — Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “Since there is no way #bitcoin can & will implement a rollout plan out of POW, it would affect #BTC as well,” said Patrick Hansen, head of strategy for crypto wallet firm Unstoppable Finance, on Twitter.

  “Extremely high stakes vote in the EU. That such a proposal made it this far is extraordinarily concerning and unlikely to stand up to practical reality,” said Jeremy Allaire, founder of Circle Pay, on Twitter.

  The good news for crypto bulls is that according to CoinDesk, which cites people familiar with the matter that although the vote remains a close call, a small majority of committee members may vote against the measure. If so, the selloff on Sunday night is merely the latest successful attempt at shaking out the weak holders.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 19:52

• What Joe Biden's Executive Order On Digital Assets Really Means
  What Joe Biden’s Executive Order On Digital Assets Really Means

  One River Asset Management’s Head of Research, Marcel Kasumovich, wrote about the improtant of Biden’s Executive Order on the future of digital asset infrastructure and innovation. His note is reproduced below.

  This week, your inbox is likely overflowing with two observations – President Biden’s Executive Order on digital assets and the positive price response to what was supposed to be old news. It was as though digital assets exhaled a sigh of relief with the release of the Order. And it went further than expected. The Order is the first-ever ‘whole-of-government approach,’ with broad goals of supporting digital asset innovation, guarding consumer protections, ensuring financial stability, and playing a leading role in international finance. It resets the tone around digital assets – agencies will work together to integrate new technologies into the mainstream. We see four key points of emphasis.

  First, the US wants to be the global leader in digital asset innovation. This is similar to the embrace of the internet in the 1990s, where US technologies eventually proliferated throughout the global economy. Yes, it happened more slowly than technologists would have liked back then too. Congress first started working with an electronic mail system in 1993, and internet laws only began in 1996 (here). For those working on the technology, the years of wait surely felt like a lifetime. Yet, arguments of bad operators dominating the internet seem like a lifetime ago. Digital assets are at a similar policy inflection point to the 1990s internet.

  Like the internet back then, policy is now focused on the benefits of new technologies with a watchful eye on risks. Access to affordable financial services featured prominently in the Executive Order. It is important not to minimize the scale of the opportunity. Think global. Billions of people around the world are unbanked or underbanked. India is an extreme example. Two-thirds of India’s population is rural and only 31% have internet access (here). That’s 649 million people who will be brought on-line. That’s 649 million people whose first formal banking experience will almost surely be digital. The reach of US technology leadership, as with the internet, is global. It can unlock a revolution in digital banking.

  Second, digital currencies are being driven by US national interests. The potential for a US central bank digital currency (CBDC) is deemed urgent by the Order. However, the focus is a bit more subtle, attentive to assessing “the technology infrastructure and capacity needs for a potential US CBDC,” (emphasis added). Our judgment here is simple – US national interests are tied to both the infrastructure used to operate digital assets and the US dollar as a reserve currency in the global financial system

  What does this mean in practical terms? Well, the Order sounds the starting gun of an infrastructure footrace. The Federal Reserve entered the 24x7x365 settlement competition in 2019 when it started the development of FedNow (here). But the digital asset ecosystem has a huge lead that it is unlikely to relinquish. For one, protocols such as Ethereum are inherently interoperable around the world, unlike FedNow. Further, decentralized protocols are attracting development talent with a record 4,000+ Ethereum developers in December 2021 (here). Finally, the US dollar is already in a digital leadership position with two of the top five digital assets by market capitalization being US dollar stablecoin. The digital infrastructure “rails” are built, Ethereum and Bitcoin are in a leadership position, and policy will embrace them (eventually).

  Third, the focus on strategic financial stability is telling of the desire to integrate digital into the mainstream. The Financial Stability Oversight Council, the highest body on stability matters, is charged with the task of mitigating systemic risk. This will be critically important in the context of the banking system. Instantaneous and final settlement is foreign to current financial intermediation that is built to accommodate error. “Fat finger” trades are final in digital. Consequently, native digital asset operators have designed technology systems that focus on pre-trade risk management. And those accustomed to operating in the digital arena have internalized the importance of precision.

  Of course, the underlying technologies demonstrate remarkable resilience. Bitcoin has been functional 99.99% of the time since January 3, 2009, with 3,285 consecutive days of operating without interruption. Newer decentralized financial protocol, using assets like bitcoin and ether as collateral have guarded against financial stability risks via overcollateralization and ruthless mathematical formulas, and thereby ensuring any investor taking leverage solely bears the risk. This will require a huge shift in the mindset of traditional markets, where investors connect negative price performance to systemic risk. The digital financial system will greatly enhance stability and resiliency of the ecosystem.

  Finally, the devil is always in the details – we are now closer to a single digital regulator. Even if there were not a single regulator formally recognized, the whole-government approach makes it clear that regulatory entities will be cooperative in their approach. The Order provides political cover for entities to reframe and rethink their positions. Again, it is useful to put this in the historical context of the internet. The first “internet law” passed was the Telecommunications Act in 1996 (here). It was the first major change in telecommunications law since 1962. We are at a similar stage with digital assets. The Automated Clearing House (ACH) was the last major innovation in payments in the 1970s (here). It’s time for digital.

  Make no mistake, the regulatory environment will change with the legal structure of trading activity in the digital era. Great efforts are being made to provide lawmakers with clear frameworks on these issues. Testimony from Alesia Haas to the US House Committee on Financial Services is notable (here). Figure 1 illustrates the current, cumbersome legal web involved in a trading transaction that requires the current layers of regulation.

  

  Figure 2 shows the future of finance – minimalist by comparison with only five simple nodes. The regulatory boxes required in Figure 1 are just not applicable to Figure 2; the efficiency gains of embracing digital will be tremendous.

  

  The Order puts to rest the debate about whether and where digital will fit into the future of finance. Digital technologies are set to play a leading role. The mandate is unequivocal. It is not to say that everyone and everything in digital will win. To the contrary, the message is more about embracing the technologies for the strategic betterment of America than accepting the current state of play in areas like decentralized finance. Digital asset technologies are transformative in how we transfer value. It has the potential to level the playing field in all markets as the lines between traditional and native-digital assets become blurred alongside a broadening of tokenization. We welcome the strategic initiatives.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 19:45

• City Of Fresno Duped Out Of $400,000 In African Email Scam
  City Of Fresno Duped Out Of $400,000 In African Email Scam

  Today in “government allocating your taxpayer dollars” news…

  The city of Fresno, Calif. has reportedly fallen victim to an email phishing scam, costing the city (and its taxpayers) a whopping $400,000.

  The scam was based in Africa and took place in 2020. The city is accused of not telling the city council or the public, according to a new article from the Fresno Bee. 

  “Former Mayor Lee Brand’s administration failed to disclose the loss,” the report says. Additionally, the Fresno City Attorney’s Office rejected a public records request by The Bee regarding the fraud in December 2021.

  

  The city told The Bee that “no records were located”, but the news outlet was still able to obtain emails that existed prior to the request.

  The report says that the fraud was disguised as “as an invoice from a subcontractor working on the construction of the new southeast Fresno police station”. 

  Placed on legitimate looking letterhead, only the account numbers on the invoice had been changed. Money was then transferred electronically by a city staffer to the fraudulent account.

  Email scams have evolved in recent years to include vendor email compromise (VEC) scams, the report says. 

  As was the case in Frenso, the Bee reported that “in a typical vendor email attack, scammers create fake invoices that look exactly like a real vendor’s, but they change the bank account information so that when a payment is issued, the money ends up in the scammer’s account.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 19:15

• Morgan Stanley Lists Three Ways The World Will Respond As Sanctions Threaten The Dollar's Dominance
  Morgan Stanley Lists Three Ways The World Will Respond As Sanctions Threaten The Dollar’s Dominance

  Last week, former NY Fed staffer Zoltan Pozsar sparked a shockwave across Wall Street when in his latest research piece, he suggested that as a result of the Ukraine war, which has resulted in a “commodity collateral” crisis (and which is quickly transforming into an old-school liquidity crisis), China’s PBOC will soon emerge as a dominant central bank and as the commodity-backed yuan ascends to a position of power, the world’s reserve currency, the dollar, would lose much of its global clout leading to even higher inflation across the western world:

  This crisis is not like anything we have seen since President Nixon took the U.S. dollar off gold in 1971 – the end of the era of commodity-based money. When this crisis (and war) is over, the U.S. dollar should be much weaker and, on the flipside, the renminbi much stronger, backed by a basket of commodities. From the Bretton Woods era backed by gold bullion, to Bretton Woods II backed by inside money (Treasuries with un-hedgeable confiscation risks), to Bretton Woods III backed by outside money (gold bullion and other commodities). After this war is over, “money” will never be the same again… and Bitcoin (if it still exists then) will probably benefit from all this.

  Of course, not everyone agreed with this radical view, with Rabobank’s in-house geostrategist Michael Every among the most vocal critics of Pozsar’s take. Over the weekend, another skeptic emerged, this time the global head of FX EM at Morgan Stanley, James Lord who in the bank’s Sunday Start (available to pro subs) note asks “Have Sanctions Undermined the Dollar’s Dominance?” and answers: no… but only for now, and warns that over the long run it is likely that Pozsar’s dour view will be validated, as the act of sanctioning Russia and expelling it from the western financial system “likely calls into question the idea of a risk-free asset that underpins central bank FX reserves in general, and not just specifically for the dollar and US government-backed securities.”

  Assuming that there is a risk that all foreign authorities could potentially freeze the sovereign assets of another country – as has now happened – what are the implications? Lord sees at least three: i) Identifying the safest asset; ii) political alliances will be critical (“To put the dollar’s dominance in the international financial system at serious risk, would-be challengers of the system would need to build strategic alliances with other large economies”), and iii) Onshoring foreign exchange assets (Pozsar’s “outside money”).

  The Morgan Stanley strategist also notes that one way of doing this “is to buy physical gold and store it safely within the home jurisdiction.”

  The same could be said of other FX assets, as reserve managers will certainly have access to printed USD, EUR or CNY banknotes if they are stored in vaults at home, though there could be practical challenges in making large transactions in that scenario.

  The other key beneficiary of Russia’s shocking financial expulsion – as Zoltan correctly noted – is the yuan, as Lord explains:

  … there will be reserve diversification, and we continue to believe that the share of the Chinese yuan in global FX reserves could reach 5-10% by 2030 at the expense of other reserve currencies. If some states are exploring alternative payment systems to SWIFT or looking to pursue greater bilateral trade in domestic currencies, the economic sanctions levied against Russia could act as an accelerant.

  Yet while the countdown to the dollar’s demise may have been indeed started, Morgan Stanley does not see anything actionable for a long time as “recent actions don’t undermine the dollar as the safest global reserve asset, and it is likely to remain the dominant global currency for the foreseeable future.”

  Read his full note below.

   

  Ever since the US and its allies announced their intention to freeze the Central Bank of Russia’s foreign currency (FX) reserves, market practitioners have been quick to argue that this would likely accelerate a shift away from a US dollar-based international financial system. It is easy to understand why: Other central banks may now worry that their FX reserves are not as safe as they once thought and start to diversify away from the dollar.

  Yet, despite frequent calls for the end of the dollar-based international financial system over the last couple of decades, the dollar remains overwhelmingly the world’s dominant reserve currency and pre-eminent safe-haven asset, with its advantage over others only slipping moderately over the last 20 years. Could the step of sanctioning the FX reserves of a central bank the size of Russia’s be a tipping point?

  The willingness of the US authorities to freeze the supposedly liquid, safe and accessible deposits and securities of a foreign state certainly raises many questions for reserve managers, sovereign wealth funds and perhaps even some private investors. One is likely to be: Could my FX assets be frozen too?

  We also need to remember that the US is not acting alone. Europe, Canada, the UK and Japan have joined in freezing the CBR’s reserve assets. So, an equally valid question is: Could any foreign authority potentially freeze my assets?

  If the answer is ‘yes’, that likely calls into question the idea of a risk-free asset that underpins central bank FX reserves in general, and not just specifically for the dollar and US government-backed securities.

  If there is a risk that all foreign authorities could potentially freeze the sovereign assets of another country, what are the implications? We see at least three.

  • Identifying the safest asset: Reserve managers and sovereign wealth fund investors will need to take a view on where they can find the safest assets and not just safe assets, as the concept of the latter may have been seriously impaired. But the dollar and US government-backed securities may still be the safest assets, since the latest sanctions against the CBR involve a broad range of government authorities acting in concert.
  • Political alliances could be key: These sanctions demonstrate that international relations between different states can play an important role in the safety of reserve assets. While the dollar might be a safe asset for strong allies of the US, its adversaries could see things differently. To put the dollar’s dominance in the international financial system at serious risk, would-be challengers of the system would need to build strategic alliances with other large economies.
  • Onshoring foreign exchange assets: Recent sanctions have crystallized the fact that there is a big difference between an FX deposit in a foreign bank account under the jurisdiction of a foreign government and an FX deposit that you physically own on your home ground. While both might be considered ‘cash’, they are not equivalent in accessibility or safety. So, another upshot might be that reserve managers bring foreign exchange assets onshore.

  One way of doing this is to buy physical gold and store it safely within the home jurisdiction. The same could be said of other FX assets, as reserve managers will certainly have access to printed USD, EUR or CNY banknotes if they are stored in vaults at home, though there could be practical challenges in making large transactions in that scenario.

  Reserve diversification still likely: Our long-standing view has been that there will be reserve diversification, and we continue to believe that the share of the Chinese yuan in global FX reserves could reach 5-10% by 2030 at the expense of other reserve currencies.

  To the extent that SWIFT and reserve asset sanctions levied by other authorities around the world encourage some states to explore alternative payment systems such as China’s CIPS or pursue greater bilateral trade in domestic currencies, recent events are likely to act as an accelerator of a shift to a ‘multipolar world.’

  But it is not clear that recent actions have undermined the idea of USD as the safest global reserve asset and it may well remain the dominant global currency for some time to come, albeit at slightly lower levels than before.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 18:45

• Solar Storm To Strike Earth Sunday As Northern Lights To Dazzle Night Sky 
  Solar Storm To Strike Earth Sunday As Northern Lights To Dazzle Night Sky 

  A large solar flare triggered a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that is expected to hit the Earth’s magnetic field Sunday evening and into the early morning hours of Monday. 

  NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) issued a “G2 (Moderate) geomagnetic storm watch” after a CME ejected from the Sun towards Earth on early Friday. The space weather event could produce geomagnetic storms impacting the 55th parallel north region. Countries affected include parts of Germany, Denmark, Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the US (Alaska), Canada, Ireland, and the UK. 

  

  Areas on the 55th parallel north may experience communication disruptions, power grid fluctuations, and, of course, auroras could light up the night sky. Auroras could be visible as low as the US’s Upper Midwest and Northeast. 

  

  Space weather observer SolarHam first detected the “moderate solar flare measuring M2.2” on Friday “around AR 2964 in the southwest quadrant” of the Sun. They said this is “the 9th strongest flare of Solar Cycle 25 in terms of peak X-Ray flux.” 

  

  Beyond today’s geomagnetic storm threat, Sunspot Cycle 25 has already begun and is expected to be an active one could be terrible news for the digital economy as disruptions sparked by solar flares create economic damage.

  Last month, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink lost 40 satellites after a geomagnetic storm knocked them out of orbit. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 18:15

• Grains Cheatsheet, Part 2: Don't Follow The 'Record Crop' Trap
  Grains Cheatsheet, Part 2: Don’t Follow The ‘Record Crop’ Trap

  Part 2 out of 3 in a weekly miniseries, by Macro Ops Substack,

  Part 1 can be found here.

  A Thing On Volatility

  Grains volatility goes up when prices are high, and volatility goes down when prices are low. It’s the opposite behavior to stocks. When grain prices go up it doesn’t mean good things for the economy. There are production concerns. The market thinks that the harvest won’t be enough to fit everybody´s needs. Prices rise and volatility climbs until the uncertainty is resolved.

  The Carry-Over Explained

  The carry-over is the remaining supply from the previous year plus current year production, plus imports, minus demand. 

  Previous Year Supply + Current Year Production + Imports – Demand = Carry-Over

  The carry-over is the link between futures prices and different crop years.

  What Is The Stocks-To- Use Ratio?

  Stocks to Use Ratio is a really important indicator for the grains market. It measures how much grain is left as carry-over relative to its use (demand).

  If last year’s production of Soybeans was 100 tons, and the demand was 90 tons, that means that the carry-over from the year was 10 tons. The stock to use ratio would be: 10/90 or 11.11%. So in the case of a bad crop the next year, there will be still 11% of the total demand already accounted for. 

  Following this example, if the next year’s production rises to 110 tons and demand stays the same (90 tons), we will have a 20 ton surplus. The carry-over will be the 10 tons that we had on stock plus the new surplus.

  Our new stock to use ratio will look like this 30/90 or 33.33%. There are more than enough Soybeans to go around for everybody who wants them. 

  Now let’s say in the third year it´s a completely different story. China´s GDP keeps growing, more people join the middle class and have bigger incomes so they start eating more meat. China’s meat producers need grain feed for their cows, so the demand for Soybeans rises to 100 tons.

  At the same time, El Niño decides is a good time to play with the American Farmers… this year crop production falls to 75 tons due to poor weather conditions.

  So in year 3 we have a shortage of 25 tons. To meet the shortfall the savings from year 1 and 2 are consumed. The total carry now drops to 5 tons (30 in savings minus the 25 shortage). 

  Now the stock to use ratio looks like this… 5/100 or 5.00%. The ratio captures the relationship between 3 variables: Supply, Demand, and Inventories.

  Supply could be growing, but if Demand is also growing at the same rate they should offset each other. The stock to use ratio should stay the same.

  If Demand grows faster or there’s a production issue, the ratio will fall. (Less stock per unit of demand).

  If Demands falls or supply grows faster, the ratio will increase. (More stock per unit of demand).

  Stocks-To-Use Ratio And Volatility

  This ratio should not be used to simply predict price. (Sadly, It ain´t that easy). But it’s a great tool to predict volatility. 

  When the ratio goes up volatility goes down. There´s enough grain for everybody and people aren’t worried about shortage shocks. 

  If the ratio goes down, volatility goes up. People fear a grain shortage and price action turns wild.

  Don’t Follow The RECORD CROP Trap:

  Everybody likes to scream New Record! And Biggest Crop Ever!

  Check how this will affect the Stocks to Use Ratio, and you will have a better sense of the impact this crop will have on the market and ultimately price.

  It doesn’t mean anything for traders if farmers produce their biggest corn crop ever but demand from China follows the same growth rate. The effects should offset each other and price probably will remain the same.

  Nevertheless, Kudos to the farmers! Their hard work and effort will earn them more income from record output.

  USDA The “FED” of Grains Markets

  The data from the USDA is important… REALLY important. They work as a benchmark and a reference for the entire market, from farmers, to grains processors, to commodity hedge funds. Everybody checks their releases.

  Here are some key reports:

  WASDE

  On the second week of every month the USDA releases it´s WASDE report. (World Agricultural Supply and Demand). Here you will find the Balance Sheet, which has all information you need to know regarding Supply, Demand and Inventories from the most important Countries.

  Please notice that not all WASDE are equally important, some are more than others, and this has to do with the planting season. The USDA does a first forecast and adjusts it when needed from month to month until harvest time. 

  Their forecasts are usually very accurate.

  Prospective Planting Report

  This one is released on the last day of May. It’s a producer survey, and it tries to forecast how many acres of Corn, and how many acres of Soybeans they will plant.

  It’s important to understand that this report expresses the ​Intentions ​of the Producers, so the crops aren’t on the ground yet.

  Acreage Report

  This report shows the effective distribution of acres between Corn and Soybeans. It is released in June. If farmers decided to change their mind during planting season, you will find that the numbers on this report are different from the ones in the Prospective Planting report.  

  USDA is the benchmark but be aware of consensus.

  Alongside the USDA forecasts, there are a number of private reports who try to do the same, and they are fairly accurate too.

  But sometimes USDA numbers will differ greatly from the consensus of the private reports.

  When this happens a shock in prices usually occurs. 

  Story time: In 2016 USDA had a forecast for the Corn Yield of 175 bushels per acre. This was a record yield, and implies a really big crop. The biggest American Corn crop the world has ever seen actually.

  With such an abundant amount of Corn prices SHOULD go lower right?

  Well, the consensus of the market was that USDA was overestimating its yield numbers, and the crop should be smaller than what the USDA predicted. Around 170 was the private yield forecast. The price reaction to this situation was that Corn Futures went UP instead of down after the USDA report was released. 

  Fast-forward a couple of months later, and guess what the final yield was? Yup, 175… Old USDA had it right all along.

  Please notice that I’m not suggesting to trade the consensus side. That would be equally as bad as blindly trading the USDA numbers.

  All I’m trying to say is that you should know what the benchmark is. Check if the consensus agrees or diverts from the benchmark, and then focus on price reaction. You will need to develop your price action skills sharply! That will help you more on the long run than just memorizing fundamental data.

  Don’t Fall For The Most Accurate Forecast Trap

  Our last point should tell you a thing or two about forecast reports. If you are a TRADER your focus must be on PRICE, period.

  If you’re an analyst who is getting paid a salary to come up with a forecast, then yes, you should commit yourself to be as accurate as humanly possible.

  But if you want to trade grains and be profitable, you shouldn’t pay that close attention to the actual yield number. You must look for the benchmark and the consensus, that´s it. (Benchmark=USDA Consensus=Private Reports)

  As a Trader it just doesn’t matter if your forecast of a number is correct. You want to be right on price! So don’t waste your energy trying to forecast where supply or demand is going to be. Focus on market expectations, price reaction and trade accordingly. Play The Player! 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 17:45

• Schiff: Gold Neared Record Highs This Week… And It's Not Just Russia
  Schiff: Gold Neared Record Highs This Week… And It’s Not Just Russia

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  Gold pushed above $2,000 an ounce on Tuesday and made a run at the all-time record high. The yellow metal was up $54 on the day, closing at $2,052 despite some selling after it nudged the all-time high.

  

  Some of this is clearly safe-haven buying due to the situation in Russia, and a lot of analysts think gold will fall back to earth once that situation resolves. But Peter Schiff doesn’t think so. In his podcast, he explains why gold would be going up even if Russia never invaded Ukraine.

  Gold stocks have lagged behind the rally in physical metal. Peter said this indicates that a lot of investors don’t think this gold rally will hold.

  Gold is going up, as it should go up. But because of this event, you have people who think, well, that’s the only reason gold’s going up.”

  And at some point, the situation in Ukraine will resolve.

  A lot of people think, well, as soon as this thing gets resolved, the price of gold is going to crash, and so I’m not going to buy these gold stocks based on a temporarily inflated gold price. … If you think the gold price is going to crash once we have some type of resolution of this Russia situation, you are reluctant to pay up for these gold stocks.”

  But Peter said he doesn’t think an end to the Russia-Ukraine war is bearish for gold. He did concede that the price of gold would likely drop on the day we get news that the war is resolved and sanctions are lifted. But Peter said it won’t stay down.

  Before too long, whether it’s a matter of days or maybe a matter of weeks, gold will make a new high. Because gold is going up regardless of what goes on with Russia and Ukraine.”

  Keep in mind, gold was on an upward trajectory before the Russian invasion. The Fed was on the cusp of raising rates, so higher interest rates were already factored into the price. The US economy was already in the process of rolling over. Just look at the January trade deficit. It set another record high.

  The US economy is extremely weak. We are hemorrhaging red ink with these massive deficits. These deficits would have been weighing down the dollar.”

  In fact, the dollar was falling prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war has driven safe-haven buying into the dollar over the last couple of weeks. This is actually a headwind for gold.

  The gold market was already looking behind the rate-hike mountain into the rate-cutting valley because after the Fed finished the rate hike cycle, which I think was going to be a very truncated cycle — it may have even ended before it began because even the tiniest of pins would prick this bubble. And as the US economy moved into recession, the Fed would reverse course, cut rates, return to QE, and I think the gold market already started to factor that in. And so, since the Russia situation has now caused this safe-haven rally into the dollar – the dollar index now at 99 – that is a headwind for gold. Had the dollar index continued to fall, that would have been more bullish for the price of gold.”

  Also prior to the invasion, there was a major rotation out of US stocks into European stocks. In a rotation out of momentum into value, Europe had a lot of those value stocks. That was putting even more pressure on the dollar. Meanwhile, we were also seeing a movement into commodities, including gold and silver. So the situation was generally bullish for gold prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  Peter said the Russia-Ukraine situation is “just a bunch of noise.”

  The real story is one of inflation. And the inflation story is getting bleaker and bleaker for America and other countries, and brighter and brighter for gold.”

  Think about how much the landscape has changed for gold in a bullish direction. Today, we have $125 oil, food prices are skyrocketing, the NASDAQ is in a bear market.

  So now, whatever investors were penciling in as far as how many hikes the Fed was going to make, or how quickly or by how much the Fed’s balance sheet was going to shrink, they’ve had to refigure those numbers. They’ve had to cross out some of the rate hikes that they had penciled in or erase them. The same thing with QE. Clearly, whatever you thought the Fed was going to do, they’re going to do less of it given what’s going on right now.”

  We may get one-and-done with rate hikes. And the Fed may not even start shrinking the balance sheet. This is bullish for gold with or without the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

  In this podcast, Peter also talks about the stock market, the price of oil and bitcoin.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/13/2022 – 17:15

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• Fiat Currencies Are Going To "Fail Spectacularly": Lawrence Lepard
  Fiat Currencies Are Going To “Fail Spectacularly”: Lawrence Lepard

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  Friend of Fringe Finance Lawrence Lepard released his most recent investor letter a few weeks ago with his updated take on the monetary miasma spreading across the globe.

  Larry had joined me for several interviews last year and I believe him to truly be one of the muted voices that the investing community would be better off for considering. He’s the type of voice that gets little coverage in the mainstream media, which, in my opinion, makes him someone worth listening to twice as closely.

  

  Larry was kind enough to allow me to share his thoughts heading into 2022.

  Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Larry predicted that a “crack up boom” could be on its way and also offered his take on gold, inflation, monetary policy, bitcoin, fiscal policy, the ongoing supply chain crunch, and much, much more. That analysis is included.

  Now, the invasion of Ukraine has helped catalyze a number of his predicted scenarios.

  Here are several Fringe Finance excerpts from Larry’s thoughts on the Ukraine invasion and the markets heading into 2022, from prior to the invasion.

  Russia Invading Ukraine Has Caused A ‘Monetary Earthquake’

  What just happened in the last two weeks is enormously important and misunderstood by many investors.

  The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the corresponding Western sanctions and seizure of Russian FX reserves are nothing short of a monetary earthquake. The last comparable event was Nixon’s abandonment of the gold standard in 1971. 

  Russia, with the backing and support of China, just told the world that it is no longer going to sell its oil, gas and wheat for Western currencies which are programmed to debase. 

  The West in its response just said to all countries around the world: “If you have foreign exchange reserves, held in our system, they are no longer safe if we disagree with your politics.” 

  

  It is similar to what the Canadians did when they moved to seize the bank accounts of Canadians who had demonstrated support for the truckers without due process of law.

  Both of these political moves are blatant advertisements for what I call “non state controlled money without counterparty risk”, like gold and bitcoin. If governments can weaponize their money when they do not like what you are doing, what is the natural defense?

  Gold Will Rip Higher Because Of What Russia Is Doing

  The US Dollar has been the reserve currency of the world since WW II and the Bretton Woods agreement. This has given the US an enormous advantage and subsidy from the rest of the world because everyone else needs to produce goods and services to obtain dollars and the US can simply produce dollars at no cost by printing them.   

  Putin is now cast in the role of Charles de Gaulle who complained about the “exorbitant privilege” of the US with its dollar hegemony. As we all know, de Gaulle demanded gold in exchange for France’s US dollar FX surpluses and this outflow forced Nixon to close the gold window.   

  

  Recall that post this event, gold went from $35 per ounce to $800 per ounce (23x).  Russia’s move will lead to a similar move in favor of gold. Putin could see that the US fiscal and monetary situation was becoming untenable and he decided to use this to create an existential threat to the US and the world financial system. 

  He undoubtedly knows that the West has artificially suppressed the price of gold and that is why he has been building his gold reserves steadily for the past 20 years.

  

  Putin just shot “King Dollar” in the head. 

  We can see it in the financial markets, as the price of everything commodity related is going up relentlessly in dollar terms. 

  Russia is long commodities, long gold and doesn’t need fiat currency. His debt to GDP ratio is low and taxes are low. If the world financial markets collapse on a relative basis, the position of Russia will be improved significantly. This is what I believe he is playing for. If investors do not recognize this they will be caught wrong footed as I believe many are today.

  The implications for investors are quite clear. None of us own enough gold, real assets or commodities. Fiat currencies are going to fail spectacularly, and soon, in my opinion.

  Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Larry predicted that a “crack up boom” could be on its way and also offered his take on gold, inflation, monetary policy, bitcoin, fiscal policy, the ongoing supply chain crunch, and much, much more.

  Now, the invasion of Ukraine has likely catalyzed a number of his scenarios.

  A Crack Up Boom Could Be Coming

  The bottom line is that the monetary system is exhibiting many of the early characteristics of a crack-up boom.

  A crack-up boom is the crash of the credit and monetary system due to continual credit expansion and price increases that cannot be sustained long-term. 

  In the face of excessive credit expansion, consumers’ inflation expectations accelerate to the point that money becomes worthless and the economic system crashes. 

  Wow, does that sound familiar? “Real resource crunch” – do we have any shortages in commodities or labor? Well, ask the people in Europe who are worried about their costs for electricity, natural gas and heating oil this winter. Or, how about the labor shortages that we are seeing develop everywhere? How about the shortages of goods that are backed up in ships off the California coast? Supply chain issues have been blamed on COVID and government officials have, until recently, tried to spin the resulting inflation as transitory. 

  Certainly some of the current rip-roaring inflation could abate as supply chain delivery times improve (left chart below) which may permit PMI Input / Output prices to soften (right chart below): But to date there is little evidence of abatement.

  

  But perhaps there is also something else going on.

  Labor and product supply shortages can easily lead to further price increases and there is the potential for a vicious “cost-push” spiral upward. Eventually businesses may not be able to operate and business failures begin to occur. (They cannot get the necessary inputs, or properly price their goods and services). When highly levered businesses fail, the destruction of credit and demand soon follow.

  Historically, the Government response is to print more in a vain attempt to prevent failures – as if money printing could produce goods and services. 

  We are seeing some of this in our personal observations. We know of builders who cannot get needed supplies to build houses. One builder in Las Vegas reported that his cost of building a house went up 40% LAST QUARTER. We know of an interior designer who cannot source products (furniture delivery times of 6 months plus) and so his business is likely to fail.

  We are concerned that if inflationary expectations continue to grow, the path to a crack up will become clear. We believe that inflation expectations will continue to grow as this present inflation is “cost-push” rather than the more temporary “demand-pull” form of inflation. 

  ---

  Today’s blog post has been published without a paywall because I believe the content to be far too important. However, if you have the means and would like to support my work by subscribing, I’d be happy to offer you 22% off to become a subscriber in 2022: Get 22% off forever

  ---

  While we may not be on the precipice of a Crack Up Boom (yet), the probabilities of it occurring have certainly increased. We believe investors must begin to consider the “tail risk” that all confidence could be lost in our current monetary system. 

  When price signals are so distorted that markets no longer function, the only possible outcome is total collapse of the market structure. We believe that the US Treasury and Federal Reserve see these risks and that is why they are trying hard to control Government spending, and are accelerating the pace of tapering the extraordinary QE that was initiated in March 2020 when Jerome Powell vowed to do whatever it takes to keep the markets functioning (the Third Fed Mandate). 

  So, just how probable is a crack up boom? Sometimes it is easier to see these things visually. The US stock market below:

  

  And the Venezuelan Stock market just before its currency became worthless as a result of hyperinflation:

  

  The important driver here is inflationary expectations. Note the earlier quote on Crack Up Booms, “consumers’ inflation expectations accelerate to the point that money becomes worthless”. This is the major point of the Austrian School Economists: when individuals discover that not only is inflation occurring, but it is the policy of government, and that inflation cannot and will not be reversed. Then there becomes a rush to substitute their store of value savings of the inflated fiat money with stores of value that are of more limited supply and will hold value for the future.

  This is Gresham’s Law: bad money drives out good. If people perceive that the money is becoming worthless they will spend it as quickly as possible on any tangible good before prices rise further. 

  We are not at or near that point yet, but inflation awareness and inflation expectations are growing.

  Here are some of Larry’s additional observations about 2021:

  • The last time an inflation print came in at 7.0% (June 1982), 10-year Treasury yields exceeded 14%. Ten-year yields ended 2021 at 1.51%, with inflation-adjusted “real” yields deeply into negative territory. (-5.49%) 

  • Producer Price Index (PPI) was up 13.3% in November y-o-y (highest since 1980). The Bloomberg Commodities Index jumped 27.1% in 2021. 

  • The S&P hit over 70 new all-time highs, ending the year up 27%. Off the March 2020 low, the S&P is now up 113% and trading at 21.2x forward P/Ex, near its March 2000 peak P/Ex.

  • The 2021 federal fiscal deficit reached $2.77 TN, with a historic $5.9 TN two-year shortfall (28% of GDP). The federal deficit was $3.1T in fiscal 2020 (September year-end). Recall that US Federal Tax Revenues totaled $3.86T in 2021. Budget deficit was 42% of total fiscal spending. 

  • The Fed’s balance sheet inflated an astonishing $5.015 TN, or 135%, in the 120 weeks since QE was restarted in September 2019. Federal Reserve Assets have now inflated nearly 10x since the mortgage finance Bubble collapse. [went from $0.907T at Sept. 2008 to $8.766T today]

  •  In the same time frame (2008-2021) the US CPI gauge of inflation went from 211.4 to 278.9 or an increase of 31.9% (annual average 2.2%). If inflation is a monetary phenomenon (we believe it is) there is a lot of catching up to be done as CPI increases to reflect money supply growth.

  • During the same time frame (2008-2021) M2 (Money supply) went from $8.2T to $21.4T, growth of 161%, or annualized growth of over 7.7%. 

    o Notably, M2 growth since March 2020 has been 38.6%, a sharp acceleration above trend.∙ The monthly U.S. Goods Trade Deficit ballooned to a record $98 billion in November vs. a two decade average $56bn.

  Larry echoed the sentiments of Doug Noland when opining on inflation in 2021:

  Books will be written chronicling 2021. I’ll boil an extraordinary year’s developments down to a few simple words: “Things Ran Wild”. COVID ran wild. Monetary inflation ran wild. Inflation, in general, ran completely wild. Speculation and asset inflation ran really wild. More insidiously, mal-investment and inequality turned wilder. Bucking the trend, confidence in Washington policymaking ran – into a wall.

  M2 “money” supply inflated another $2.478 TN (12 months through November) to a record $21.437 TN – with egregious two-year growth of $6.185 TN, or 40.6%. Bank Deposits surged $1.957 TN over the past year (12.1%), with two-year growth of $4.812 TN (36%). Money Fund Assets rose another $408 billion y-o-y, or 9.5%, to $4.70 TN. The myth that QE effects remain well contained within Treasury and securities markets has been debunked. 

  And took to pointing out analysis by Trey Reik on gold:

  Between 3/31/20 and 12/31/21, the Fed grew its balance sheet $3.503 trillion (66.67%). During this time span, the S&P 500 appreciated 84.41% while spot gold increased just 15.98%.

  We find it bewildering that even though gold has been maligned for “not doing better” while stocks soared during 2021’s QE and inflation, now that the Fed is telegraphing tightening, consensus is equally confident that equity markets are well prepared and will power-through on the back of strong earnings, but gold will surely suffer. 

  Watching The Fed

  In March 2020, COVID erupted and the US Stock and Bond markets began to plunge. In a period of just 23 days, the S&P 500 Index plunged 35% from its high in late February to a low on March 23rd.

  At the same time, something very unusual happened in the US Treasury bond market. In the early part of the stock sell off, government bond prices rallied and yields declined as selling stock investors sought safety in US Treasuries. This was normal. But then suddenly, 10 year US Treasury bonds sold off hard too and the treasury yield went from 39 bps to 126 bps in a period of just 7 days! The Fed meeting minutes from that period discussed that for a brief period the US Treasury bond market went “no bid”. This led to Fed Chairman Jay Powell’s announcement on March 15, 2020 to cut the discount rate to effectively zero, resume quantitative easing and expand swap lines. 

  This was the Fed’s worst nightmare. If the market for US Treasury securities fails, the entire world financial system collapses. What transpired from there was another chapter of the long standing “Fed Put” that was initially written by Greenspan and then enthusiastically renewed by Bernanke, Yellen and now Powell. Originally the put only protected equities but at the base of the entire financial system is the so called “risk free” US Treasury bond.

  The put now clearly includes the US Treasury bond. Additionally, we have seen the Fed and financial commentators discuss an additional mandate: “maintaining orderly markets”. Powell has explicitly said that the Fed will take “whatever action is necessary” to maintain orderly markets which we believe is now a Third Fed Mandate, behind stable prices and full employment. In extremis, the Fed will print as much money as is necessary, perhaps a nearly infinite amount. 

  The stock and bond markets have taken the recent Fed “hawkish” policy shift in stride. Yes, there is still tons of liquidity in the system, but also, we believe investors realize that Powell will execute another “pivot” when the market stumbles. Perhaps investors are willing to front run the next episode of money printing. Thus the market behavior which looks like a “crack up boom” is actually rational if you know that the Fed can never stop printing. 

  Recently, to the Fed’s credit (and to preserve their credibility), Chairman Powell admitted that it is turning out that inflation is not transitory. Thus, they have announced that they will accelerate the tapering of QE which began slowly a few months ago.

  ---

  Today’s blog post has been published without a paywall because I believe the content to be far too important. However, if you have the means and would like to support my work by subscribing, I’d be happy to offer you 22% off to become a subscriber in 2022: Get 22% off forever

  ---

  At the current proposed rate they will not be purchasing any bonds in April of 2022. Furthermore, they have also indicated that taking interest rates off the zero bound in 2022 and the consensus dot plot is that the Fed Funds rate will go to 0.75% via three quarter point hikes this year. Now, whether the markets can handle this withdrawal of monetary stimulus appears to be an open question. [QTR: In the past few weeks, since this letter, inflation has continued, most recently at a 7.5% clip and investment banks are predicting up to 9 or 10 rate hikes for 2022].

  In a system that is dependent upon the supply of new money and credit growing at an ever accelerating rate, it is merely a matter of time until the next crisis erupts and the Fed is forced to reverse course again. Hopefully for them, by that time inflation will have abated a bit and so we will start the next inflationary episode off a lower base.

  We fear that, as Luke Gromen said, that in trying to control the economy the Fed thinks they have a thermostat when it may be more akin to an on/off switch on a nuclear reactor! 

  Interestingly, given the Repo markets enhancements by the Fed, it’s possible the Taper of QE is irrelevant. As a former Federal Reserve Open Markets Senior Trader Joseph Wang points out: 

  There is still $1 trillion in Fed liquidity that will gradually flow into the private sector after QE stops. A large chunk of liquidity created by QE over the past two years never entered the banking system, but instead sat first in the Treasury’s Fed account and later in the RRP Facility. In the coming months Treasury will restart bill issuance and draw those funds out of the RRP into the TGA, and then spend those funds into the banking sector. Over time that will leave the banking sector with about $1T more in reserves, and the non-banks with a $1T more in deposits. If the past is any guide, that suggests more portfolio rebalancing where banks will purchase more Treasuries and non-banks more risk assets.

  Why Soft Gold And Bitcoin Prices?

  Gold and Bitcoin, analog and digital sound money, respectively, are the two monetary fire alarms in our system.

  Gold began 2020 at $1,550. It is at $1,830 at year end 2021, appreciation of 18%. Bitcoin began 2020 at $8,000 per coin. It closed 2021 at $47,000, appreciation of 487%.

  As we have discussed in the past, we believe the price of gold is heavily suppressed through the futures markets and the issuance of paper claims on gold. Bitcoin does not suffer from this problem yet, although there is a $20B futures market in Bitcoin.

  Bitcoin’s total market value is $966B and it trades approximately $25B of value per day in on chain transactions. We do not believe the futures market is a big factor in Bitcoin price discovery….yet. But there is no doubt that the leveraged Bitcoin exchanges and their growth have had an impact on prices. Still, Bitcoin is the monetary debasement fire alarm which is working. 

  Both the Bitcoin and gold prices are somewhat soft at present. Gold is 11% below its recent all-time high. Bitcoin is 40% below its recent all-time high. We believe this is occurring because the market is reacting to the threat of less monetary accommodation.

  And while we concede that the Fed is trying to slow down the printing (sort of), as stated above we do not believe that in the intermediate term they can stop in any sort of meaningful way.

  The prescient words of Richard Russell apply here: INFLATE OR DIE. 

  Our friend and Austrian based investor Ronnie Stoeferle recently posted this missive on Twitter which serves as a good reminder of how history often rhymes: 

  “Two years ago gold bugs ran wild as the price of gold rose nearly six times. But since cresting two years ago it has steadily declined, almost by half, putting the gold bugs in flight. The most recent advisory from a leading Wall Street firm suggests .that the price will continue to drift downward, and may ultimately settle 40% below current levels. The sharply reduced rates of inflation combined with resurgence of other, more economically productive investments, such as stocks, real estate and bank savings have combined to eliminate gold’s allure. Although the American economy has reduced its rate of recovery, it is on a firm expansionary course.” 

  – New York Times, August 1976 

  And as our friend Brien Lundin, CEO of the New Orleans Investment Conference points out:

  “Gold bottomed in early September 1976, but really took off when the Treasury began gold auctions in ’78. This overt manipulation for covert reasons was a desperation move that ironically fueled another 8x rise in the gold price!”

  History often rhymes indeed, in this case in terms of an inflationary decade like the 1970s and the reaction of hard money assets. 

  ---

  About Larry Lepard

  Larry manages the EMA GARP Fund, a Boston based investment management firm. Their strategy is focused on providing “Monetary Debasement Insurance”. He has 38 years experience and an MBA from Harvard Business School. On Twitter he is @LawrenceLepard Managing Partner and, via email, he is llepard@ema2.com

  ---

  Disclaimer: QTR is long various gold and silver miners and have both long and short exposure to the market through equities and derivatives. I have no position in Larry’s funds. Larry is a subscriber to Fringe Finance and has been on my podcast. The excerpts from Larry’s letter, above, shall not be construed as an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to sell, any securities or services. Any such offering may only be made at the time a qualified investor receives from EMA formal materials describing an offering plus related subscription documentation. There is no guarantee the Fund’s investment strategy will be successful. Investing involves risk, and an investment in the Fund could lose money. The strategy is also subject to the following risks: Currency Risk, Non-US Investment Risks, Issuer Specific Risk.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 22:30

• Iraq Kurdish Capital Struck By Missiles Launched From Outside The Country
  Iraq Kurdish Capital Struck By Missiles Launched From Outside The Country

  Update (2130ET): Initial reports that missiles ‘struck’ the US Embassy in Erbil, Iraq have been downgraded.

  A dozen ballistic missiles launched from outside the country did hit the northern Kurdish regional capital on Sunday – however there were no casualties, and no parties have claimed responsibility.

  According to Reuters, a US State Department spokesperson called it an “outrageous attack,” however no Americans were hurt – nor was there any damage to US government facilities in Erbil.

  U.S. forces stationed at Erbil’s international airport complex have in the past come under fire from rocket and drone attacks that U.S. officials blame on Iran-aligned militia groups, but no such attacks have occurred for several months. -Reuters

  Kurdish officials did not reveal where the missiles struck – however a spokesperson for regional authorities said there were no flight interruptions at Erbil airport, according to the report.

  *  *  *

  The US consulate in Erbil, Iraq has been hit with multiple missiles, which has been attributed to Iran in early, yet unconfirmed reports. Sky News Arabia reports that the consulate, located in Kurdistan, was hit. No casualties have been reported, a US official told Reuters.

  #erbil #explosion pic.twitter.com/bMffdC9b84

  — Rawchi (@Rawchihasan) March 12, 2022

  FATAH 110 MISSILES EN ROUTE FROM TABRIZ, IRAN TOWARDS US CONSULATE IN ERBIL IRAQ
  pic.twitter.com/wad9T8MEEA

  — The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Fateh 110s impacting Erbil pic.twitter.com/dg3C5lgcCY

  — OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  According to BBC journalist Shabnam Shabani, “The governor of Erbil, Omed Khoshnaw, stated that multiple missiles fell in the area, saying it was unclear whether the target was the US consulate or the airport in the city. According to INA, five explosions were heard in the attack.”

  “The governor of Erbil, Omed Khoshnaw, stated that multiple missiles fell in the area, saying it was unclear whether the target was the US consulate or the airport in the city. According to INA, five explosions were heard in the attack.”

  — Shabnam Shabani (@ShabnamShabani) March 12, 2022 

  BREAKING – Missile attack on Erbil was launched from OUTSIDE Iraq, 12 ballistic missiles fired, Iraqi state media says, quoting anti-terrorism forces in Kurdistan – Reuters

  — Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) March 13, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Another journalist, José Miguel Sardo, reports that the Kurdistan News Channel appears to have also been targeted.

  #Iraq #Latest Kurdistan News Channel seems to have been one of the targets of tonight’s explosions in #Erbil https://t.co/V1o9iDWwJ8

  — José Miguel Sardo (@jmsardo) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  MAP BREAK

  Erbil, Iraq pic.twitter.com/zagwNq2IWQ

  — Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  It is being reported right now that a number of missiles were fired towards the US consulate in Erbil in northwestern Iraq on Saturday night.pic.twitter.com/TQwmkWFsKr

  — David Yankovich (@DavidYankovich) March 12, 2022

  The governor of Erbil, Omed Khoshnaw, stated that multiple missiles fell in the area, saying it was unclear whether the target was the US consulate or the airport in the city. According to INA, five explosions were heard in the attack. –Jerusalem Post

  geolocation of a video showing missiles launched from Khasabad https://t.co/vChFIzfNcX https://t.co/gShLvpArI0 pic.twitter.com/iDWucRCdeM

  — Samir (@obretix) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  RUMINT that Fateh-110 ballistic missiles were utilized to hit U.S. targets in Erbil, Iraq. Footage is circulating of missiles reportedly over Iran. pic.twitter.com/PIHX1qukJH

  — Global: MilitaryInfo (@Global_Mil_Info) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  On Friday we noted that the Iran nuclear talks had been abruptly suspended. As the WSJ wrote at the time; “The Iran nuclear talks broke off Friday with no agreement, imperiling negotiations… After weeks of round-the-clock negotiations in Vienna, the breakoff in talks significantly raises the prospect that efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal may fail.”

  And then there’s this;

  4 days ago: https://t.co/bG7C1vbbZe

  — Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Previous #IRGC attacks against U.S. targets in #Syria & #Iraq have drawn U.S. retaliation — normally in the form of striking isolated, unmanned #PMU targets.

  That minimalist response has rarely deterred #Iran though — and tonight seems far more significant.

  — Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  If early reports are confirmed and Iran indeed attacked the US Consulate, we think it’s safe to assume the talks are over. Needless to say, oil is going to have an interesting day on Monday.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 21:31

• South Korea Elects Conservative Anti-North Hawk As President
  South Korea Elects Conservative Anti-North Hawk As President

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  On Thursday, South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to take a firmer stance on North Korea and rebuild Seoul’s military alliance with Washington. 

  South Koreans went to the polls and elected Yoon on Wednesday, and he will take office in May. During his campaign, Yoon accused outgoing President Moon Jae-in, a strong proponent of peaceful reunification with North Korea, of being “submissive” to Pyongyang and Beijing.

  

  As the US has become more focused on countering China, Washington is looking to Seoul to help. Yoon is expected to take a harder line on China and signaled that he was ready to be involved in the US’s efforts to strengthen alliances in the region as part of its strategy against Beijing.

  “I’ll rebuild the South Korea-US alliance. I’ll [make] it a strategic comprehensive alliance while sharing key values like liberal democracy, a market economy, and human rights,” Yoon said at a press conference.

  “I’ll establish a strong military capacity to completely deter any provocation,” Yoon said. “I’ll firmly deal with illicit, unreasonable behavior by North Korea in a principled manner, though I’ll always leave open the door for South-North talks.”

  The Associated Press described of this particularly “bitter” election contest:

  Yoon, who ran on the ticket of the main opposition People Power Party, previously served as Moon’s prosecutor general. But he left the Moon government and joined the opposition last year after high-profile infighting over his investigations of some of Moon’s allies.

  Wednesday’s election was largely a two-way showdown between Yoon and liberal governing party candidate Lee Jae-myung. The two spent months slamming, mocking and demonizing each other in one of the most bitter political campaigns in recent memory, aggravating the country’s already severe domestic division.

  ▪ FOREIGN MEDIA COVERAGE OF YOON’S VICTORY

  Major news outlets around the world cover Yoon’s victory in S. Korea’s presidential race#President_elect #YoonSukyeol #SouthKorea

  Arirang News ▶ https://t.co/mVDEocNgm0
  News Center ▶ https://t.co/mZQ2egcQgF pic.twitter.com/qmWWO5psZA

  — Arirang News (@arirangtvnews) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  So far, the Biden administration hasn’t done much to try to engage with North Korea. Biden officials say they’re ready for dialogue with Pyongyang but have made no offers for sanctions relief to get the North Koreans to come to the table and are now ramping up sanctions in response to recent missile tests.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 21:30

• Stoltenberg Says Ukraine's NATO Membership Was Never "Imminent" Or "On The Agenda"
  Stoltenberg Says Ukraine’s NATO Membership Was Never “Imminent” Or “On The Agenda”

  There may be some confusion within the top echelons of US power as to whether Ukraine is in NATO:

  So our precious @VP believes #Ukraine is in the #NATO? Tell her to come tf home. pic.twitter.com/riRu8esiRo

  — Kimberly Klacik (@kimKBaltimore) March 12, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  There shouldn’t be: as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday, Ukraine’s NATO membership was never “imminent” and will not be on the agenda in the near future. Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, the NATO chief said that “it has been clear for a long time that membership for Ukraine was not something that was imminent, not something which is relevant in the near future.” he said.

  Stoltenberg emphasized that Ukraine has the right to pursue NATO membership and the organization respects every nation’s choice. Nonetheless, it’s up to the 30 NATO allies to decide whether Ukraine is ready for membership, he said according to the Epoch Times.

  Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership plays a critical role in the Russia-Ukraine war.

  In February 2019, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a constitutional amendment committing the country to become a member of NATO and the European Union after the parliament passed the bill. Poroshenko told the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine days after he signed the amendment that joining NATO was a guarantee of security for Ukraine.

  On the Russian side, Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia needs to lay down “red lines” to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, saying that Ukraine’s growing ties with the alliance could make it a launchpad for NATO missiles targeted at Russia.

  However, the NATO allies were shy about clarifying their stance on letting Ukraine join NATO, though it was clearly not on their agenda before Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. As the war intensified and caused millions of people to flee Ukraine, some NATO leaders started to admit that Ukraine’s membership is not on the agenda and voice objection to membership for the former Soviet Union country openly.

  German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on March 4 that Ukraine’s NATO membership “will not take place.”

  “I also made it clear in Moscow and in my visit that this option [Ukraine’s membership of NATO] is not on the table and will not take place,” he said during an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF.

  “I said publicly that we all know that Ukraine’s NATO membership is not on the alliance’s agenda today,” he added. “That was understood by the American president, that [was] also understood by the French president.”

  Scholz said he shares Russian President Vladimir Putin’s security concern and clarified to Putin that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO.

  “The Russians were worried about the control issue of their security. [Putin was worried] that NATO has a military setup and rockets in Ukraine targeting Russian territory. That is why we tried to make it clear that this will not occur,” he elaborated.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 20:30

• India Is Mulling Rupee-Ruble Payments System For Trade With Russia
  India Is Mulling Rupee-Ruble Payments System For Trade With Russia

  Authored by Jerri-Lynn Scofield via NakedCapitalism.com,

  India is discussing how to set up a rupee-ruble payment mechanism to enable it to trade with Russia, to circumvent the U.S. sanctions regime.

  

  India abstained from voting on the March United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution demanding an end to Russian offensive in Ukraine (General Assembly resolution demands end to Russian offensive in Ukraine).

  Since its Independence, India has tried to steer a neutral course between the U.S. and Russia (and previously, the USSR). During the 1950s, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a prime architect behind the Non-Aligned Movement, under which developing countries tried to pursue their national interests without binding themselves to either the U.S. or Soviet bloc.  India, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia were mainstays of that movement, which today includes 120 member states, 18 observer states, and 10 international organisations.

  Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, India developed closer relations with the United States. Most recently, under prime minister Narendra Modi, India’s policy tilted even more decisively in a pro-U.S. direction. Modi and Trump shared a strong affinity, and Modi even travelled to the U.S, to host massive rallies intended to galvanize Indian Americans in support of Trump. See this BBC account for further details, What did the Trump-Modi ‘bromance’ achieve?

  During the last several months, several considerations have prompted the Modi government to rethink the wisdom of putting all its eggs in the U.S. basket. Instead, India is returning to a more balanced approach, assessing its national interests vis-a-vis those of other countries and acting accordingly.

  Two developments this summer caused India to question the reliability and integrity of the U.S. as an ally.

  The first was the manner of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, which had External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar wondering about the value of U.S. security guarantees. Washington’s Ukraine policy is only increasing those misgivings. The United States was willing to push Ukraine to take actions that many – including Henry Kissinger, George Kennan, and Noam Chomsky – warned Russia couldn’t abide. But then when the shooting started, the United States wasn’t willing to get in line of fire.

  And in the second, in September, the U.S. stunned many when it announced a new Australia/United Kingdom/United States security grouping (AUKUS), as part of which Australia would receive American nuclear submarines. Prior to the new arrangement, the Quad –comprised of the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan – was the principal counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific (see this Council on Foreign Relations summary, The Quad in the Indo-Pacific: What to Know).

  This AUKUS announcement caused consternation both in France and India. Australia cancelled a $37 billion deal with a French company to supply diesel -powered submarines, prompting French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, according to the BBC,  Aukus: French minister condemns US and Australia ‘lies’ over security pact to accuse the three countries of “duplicity, a major breach of trust and contempt”..” The United States has consistently told India that it couldn’t share sensitive nuclear submarine technology, according to the South China Morning Post, Aukus fallout: for years, US told India it couldn’t share nuclear submarine technology. ‘And now this …’). In the wake of the AUKUS development, France and India have strengthened their bilateral ties, with more of the same expected.

  Another reason India must tread carefully arises from its past military procurement policy. Since the early 1970s, India has purchased much of its armaments from Russia. Although as part of its tilt towards Washington, India has in recent yearsdecreased its reliance on Russian arms, “Today, 60% of India’s military hardware inventory is from Russia or the former Soviet Union and the bulk of India’s license-based defense manufacturing comes from Russia,” according to Defense News, India braces for sanctions on Russia to delay weapons programs, deliveries. This makes India dependent on Russia for the supply of spare parts. Shunning Russia would mean India must find new sources of armaments.

  The realization of the shakiness of U.S security guarantees means that India is rethinking the state of its relations with China. Although the two countries have gone to war since Independence, their bilateral relationship has not always been hostile. Now that the value of U.S. security guarantees is being more openly questioned, one option for India is to try and ensure that its bilateral relations with China don’t deteriorate to the point of outright hostility again. That the two countries are becoming more closely bound is true, at least on the economic level, with the latest bilateral trade figures showing imports from China increasing by 30% over 2019 (to $97.5 billion) and exports climbing by 30% over 2019 (to 28.1billion). according to The Hindu, India-China trade crossed $125 bn in 2021.

  China (1.4 billion) and India (1.38 billion) together account  for more than a quarter of the world’s 7.9 billion people, so anything that dials down bilateral tensions is to be encouraged.

  To Be Non-Aligned on Russia Policy Implies India Finding Trade Workaround

  The U.S. led economic sanctions regime against Russia is inevitably porous to some degree. Not all Russian banks have been excluded from SWIFT. Crimping Russia’s ability to spend dollars doesn’t shut off its ability to trade with willing partners. India appears to be one such partner. Despite loud squawking in the U.S. Congress about its failure to support the UN Russia resolution, India appears to be banking that the Biden administration won’t impose sanctions on India (for more on that sound and fury, see this Times of  India account, Biden officials bat for India amid criticism of New Delhi’s stand on Russia-Ukraine spat).

  The bilateral relationship between the United States and India the two countries has changed significantly since the 1960s, when then-prime minister Indira Gandhi was forced to muzzle her criticisms of U.S. bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in order to secure necessary U.S. food grains after a savage drought. Per the Indian Express,  Swallowing the humiliation:

  Many of us still have hurtful memories of the mid-’60s when, after two successive years of savage drought, India desperately needed American wheat under the US Public Law 480 on rupee payment — and at relatively low prices because the country had no foreign exchange to buy food in the world market. Indira Gandhi had just become prime minister and chose to go to Washington on an official visit. Lyndon Johnson gave her a gushing welcome and responded to the food problem confronting her effusively, promising as many as 10 million tons of PL480 wheat. However, at an early stage the transaction turned sour.

  Infuriated by India’s criticism of American bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong in the course of the Vietnam War, the irascible Texan put food shipments on such a tight leash that India literally lived from ship to mouth. With every morsel we swallowed a little humiliation. When told that the Indians were saying exactly the same thing as the UN Secretary-General and the Pope were, Johnson had retorted: “The Pope and the Secretary-General do not need our wheat.” Many in India started demanding that we should say no to American wheat. Sensibly, Indira Gandhi said nothing. Privately, she told some confidants: “If food imports stop, these ladies and gentlemen won’t suffer. Only the poor would starve.”

  Back to the present. Permit me to quote extensively from this Hindustan Times account,  Panel to scrutinise impact of Russia sanctions on India’s economy:

  A top interministerial panel has been formed to scrutinise a barrage of economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and their likely impacts on India’s economy, an official familiar with the development said.

  As the Ukraine conflict deepens, India has stepped up efforts to secure critical imports from Russia, particularly potassium chloride (popularly known as muriate of potash), a key fertiliser, and sunflower (edible) oil.

  Led by economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth, the high-level panel also includes top bureaucrats of the ministries of food and consumer affairs, fertilisers, commerce, external affairs, agriculture and petroleum.

  The panel is scouring for avenues to set up a rupee-ruble bilateral payment system to escape a wave of unprecedented sanctions on Russia, which have crippled the former Soviet state’s financial system.

  “Official talks with Russians will be needed to set up an alternative payment mechanism but the government will be given various options after a comprehensive review of the sanctions,” the official cited above said, requesting anonymity.

  India fears disruption to supplies of murate of potash ahead of its main summer-sown kharif season could hobble its farm sector, which is a major source of income for half of the country’s population.

  The war has caused oil prices to skyrocket and the rupee has hit a record low. Note that India still has a number of state-owned backs that could be used to implement any arrangements that might be devised. A private bank might be vulnerable to sanctions. Per the Hindustan Times:

  The Russia-Ukraine conflict has already begun hurting Asia’s third-largest economy, which had only started to revive after a pandemic-induced recession in 2020-21. On Monday, the rupee sunk to a record low to 76.9, falling 1% against the dollar as oil prices soared.

  At least $400 million of payments and receivables by Indian exporters to Russia are now stranded because the sanctions have cut off Russia’s ability to transact in dollars, the currency for international payments. Russian banks have been severed from a global payments highway known as SWIFT.

  The panel has representatives from the Reserve Bank of India, which is looking to designate a smaller Indian bank with minimal exposure to dollar or euro transactions, where a Russian bank could open an account because the sanctions don’t prohibit a rupee-ruble exchange system, the official said.

  India had successfully used a similar payment system to pay for oil imports from Iran when that country faced sanctions from the West. At that time, the UCO Bank was set up as the main payment gateway.

  An alternate mechanism for payments, however, is not easy to set up. While the idea is that a Russian bank will set up a so-called “vostro account” in an Indian bank and both countries will deposit a certain amount to guarantee for payments to importers and exporters, determining the rupee-ruble exchange rate will be a key challenge.

  “One reason is that even if a rupee-ruble exchange rate is pegged to the dollar for determining a notional exchange rate, we must keep in mind that the value of ruble is continuously sliding vis-a-vis the dollar,” said Amarendra Patil, a trade economist who formerly taught at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

  “This could make the payment system ineffective because of continuous erosion of one of the two currencies (ruble),” he added.

  There is urgency to agree viable arrangements, as planting season is – or will soon be – underway, and farmers need fertiliser. Per The Hindustan Times:

  The government, which last week reviewed stocks of fertilisers, is scouting for alternative suppliers to fill the fertiliser gap at prices similar to those charged by Russians.

  According to official data, 11-11.5% of total imports of edible oils and fertilisers are sourced from Russia-Ukraine region. The two countries also account for over 90% of sunflower oil imports. Within a basket of fertilisers India imports, Russia accounts for over 17% of MOP (muriate of potash) and 60% of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium).

  “In response, the government is identifying alternate supply sources for both edible oils and fertiliser, although these will be expensive,” said Sonal Varma, an analyst with Nomura Holdings, a global financial advisory and securities firm, in a research note.

  There are of course precedents for similar arrangements. In fact, India and the USSR set up one such arrangement during the 1950s, according to
  S Murlidharan writing in Northlines, Crisis as an opportunity: Rupee-Rouble trade should become template to break US hegemony:

  The rupee-rouble exchange is not new. In 1953 Indo-Soviet trade agreement contemplated all payments in settlement of imports and exports between the two nations being made in INR. But this arrangement was dropped in 2005 when it resulted in Russia being saddled with enormous quantity of INR what with India being the net importer. However, the two nations once again embraced rupee payment for Russian export of S-400 Triumf air defence system in 2019 with the deal being for US 5.2 to 5,6 billion to escape sanctions by the US under its Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). INR-Rial agreement with Iran similarly was to escape the American ire but had to be abandoned when the Trump administration extended the bar on its currency being used to a complete bar on import of oil itself from the Gulf nation.

  The two governments are keen on INR-Rouble trade and the nuts and bolts of the arrangement would be announced soon hopefully. Indian exporters are in a quandary with Rouble testing new low every day. How to fix the price is the issue. Trade cannot come to a screeching halt. Russia’s deputy chief of mission Roman Babushkin was quoted in news report three years ago saying that there had been a five-fold increase in payments in national currencies from about 6 percent to over 30 percent now. There should be no let up in this healthy trend except that war has queered the pitch with steep devaluation of the Rouble; thus calling for negotiations in a spirit of give and take to neutralise partially Russian currency’s devaluation on the back of war and the Western boycott.

  By institutionalizing INR-Rouble trade we would be sending a strong signal that the US dollar need not be invincible and unavoidable in international trade and payments. If more and more such agreements are signed between nation states, the world could well one day break free at least partially from the vice-like grip of the greenback on fortunes of other nations.

  The Indo-Russian initiative should by no means be construed as acquiescence by India in the Russian expansionism and condonation of its warmongering. Rather it should be seen as pursuit of enlightened self-interest, both short-term and long-term.

  Within India, there’s broad political support for pulling away from Modi’s previous policy of tightening ties with the U.S. The strongest criticisms – actually, denunciations – of U.S. policy I’ve seen in any mainstream English language television broadcasts are coming from India’s Republic TV.  I’ve found myself tuning in each evening to the nightly debates refereed by BJP mouthpiece Arnab Goswami.  Refereed is the right word, as these debates generate lots of shouting. An appearance on Arnab Live is not for the faint-hearted – nor, for that matter, is watching these slugfests. Goswami intervenes actively in the debate; he minces no words. And rest assured, he wouldn’t say anything that’s not consistent with the general contours of current Modi policy. If you’d told me a year ago that I would find myself tuning into a nightly Goswami broadcast, I would have told you you were mad.

  But, here we are.

  *  *  *

  Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 19:30

• Goldman Cuts S&P Target To 4,700 In Second Downgrade Of Past Month, Warns Of "Recession Downside" To 3,600
  Goldman Cuts S&P Target To 4,700 In Second Downgrade Of Past Month, Warns Of “Recession Downside” To 3,600

  On February 12, when Goldman’s permabullish chief equity strategist David Kostin finally capitulated and cut his year-end S&P price target from 5,100 to 4,900, we said that “in addition to his baseline, Kostin considers three alternative scenarios.

  • If inflation remains high and prompts continued Fed hiking that lifts the terminal funds rate well beyond the market and our economists’ estimates, we expect thecost of equity would rise on net and the S&P 500 would decline by 12% to 3900.
  • Alternatively, if inflation recedes by more than expected this year and results in fewer Fed hikes, we expect the cost of equity would fall and the S&P 500 would riseby 24% to 5500.
  • Finally, if the US economy tips into a recession –a question which Goldman’s investors have increasingly been asking –the typical 24% recession peak-to-trough price decline would reduce the S&P 500 to 3600.

  And gave readers a spoiler alert: “the right scenario will be #3, but before we get there expect another 200 point S&P target in one month, and then another, and then another…”

  We were off by a few hours because on March 11, just shy of one month later, Kostin did precisely what we said he would and late on Friday, the bank cut its year-end 2022 S&P 500 target for the second time in a month, from 4900 to 4700, which the bank cheerfully informs its clients is still a 10% upside from current levels.

  

  Why? Because “a surge in commodity prices and a weaker outlook for US and global economic growth lead us to lower our EPS estimates.” It is shocking that in early February, weeks after we said that “The Market Is Starting To Think Recession“, Goldman had yet to grasp that global economic growth was slowing or that with commodities already soaring there would be stagflationary hell to pay.

  Well, better late than never, especially for the market’s biggest cheerleaders (behind JPMorgan of course, because to this day, Marko Kolanovic keeps tells his clients to BTFD which they would if they still had any money left to BTFD).

  So what is Goldman’s new base case? As Kostin explains, “our new 2022 EPS estimate of $221 reflects 5% year/year growth compared with our prior estimate of 8% growth to $226. Our forecast 2023 earnings growth rate remains unchanged at 6% but the EPS level is trimmed to $233 (from $240). A 12% upward revision to Energy sector EPS partially offsets headwinds to profits in other sectors from decelerating consumer spending and increased input cost pressures. Excluding Energy, we expect S&P 500 EPS will grow by just 2% in 2022 vs. 6% for consensus.”

  And since Goldman will trim its ex-energy EPS forecast in another month or so, we are now officially in an earning recession, aside from the one sector that benefits from commodity hyperinflation which unfortunately also pushes the economy into stagflation.

  So if Goldman is taking the axe to its earnings forecast, how does it cut its S&P target by just 200 points? Simple: somehow, Goldman thinks that in a year when the Fed is expected to hike “six or seven” times” in hopes of pushing the economy straight into recession, a view which we first voiced back in January and which has since become consensus…

  Goldman: “inflation risks—rather than improving growth expectations—have driven the recent hawkish pivot,”

  Translation: the Fed is i) either hiking into a stagflation or ii) hiking with hopes of creating a recession

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 15, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  …. that PE multiples will magically rise! To wit: “our 4700 target embeds an expectation that the forward P/E multiple will rebound from 19x today to 20x by year-end as the Equity Risk Premium (ERP) compresses. Our year-end 2022 implied absolute valuation represents a 5% P/E decline from the 21x multiple at the start of 2022. In our base case, real yields climb from recent lows but remain negative through 2022 despite Fed tightening.”

  

  At the same time, Kostin believes that decelerating growth and inflation and reduced political uncertainty should compress the ERP from today’s elevated level. According to Goldman, the current 620 bps gap between the S&P 500 earnings yield and the real 10-year US Treasury yield is the widest since March 2020 and matches levels in 4Q 2018, underscoring the potential value opportunity in US stocks if the growth outlook improves. Of course, if it does not improve as the US economy slides into a stagflationary recession as Goldman will admit as its base case in about 3 months, well… oops.

  So while Goldman’s traditional optimism has been dramatically neutered in the past month, it is still present although not even Goldman can see itself predicting an imminent bounce in stocks, and as Kostin notes, “because we expect the various sources of current investor uncertainty will take time to be resolved, most of the equity upside should come later in 2022. Our 3- and 6-month S&P 500 targets are 4300 and 4400, respectively.“

  But what if they don’t get resolved. Well, one day after Goldman said recession odds for the next year have risen to 20-35% (we, on the other hand, believe that they remain at 100% for the current year), Kostin grudgingly raises the odds of a recession even higher and writes that “the current S&P 500 index level of 4260 suggests roughly a 40% likelihood of a downside recessionary case” adding that “investors have recently expressed concerns that the US economy might tip into recession, leading to much lower EPS and valuations.”

  In such a “recession” scenario, which Goldman does not anticipate yet diligently models out for right after it hits, the bank expects reduced earnings and valuation multiples would cause the S&P 500 to decline by 15% to 3600, in line with the median historical peak-to-trough price decline of 24% around past recessions. Here, unlike above, Goldman is less excited to note that this represent a 15% drop from current levels and is probably sufficient to trigger the Fed’s put.

  However, were the US economy to avoid recession, Goldman is quick to note that 10%+ S&P 500 corrections such as this one typically represent good buying opportunities, with a median subsequent 12-month return of 15% (if the recession is confirmed however, it’s an entirely different matter .

  

  Alas, the market does not see things quite as cheerfully as Goldman, and as stocks continue to slide, so does liquidity and positioning: as we have repeatedly noted in past weeks…

  Checking in on liquidity: <4MM to move ES 1 tick pic.twitter.com/rBtoteblXP

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 28, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  … extremely low levels of equity market liquidity have amplified the impact of widespread investor selling, and Goldman’s US Equity Sentiment Indicator, which combines nine measures of positioning across institutional and retail investors, has fallen into negative territory “but remains above levels that have generally marked the bottoms of large market drawdowns during the past several years.” In other words, there is more selling to come.

  

  Amid poor market liquidity, highly liquid stocks have underperformed less liquid peers, as is typically the case during market sell-offs and periods of tightening financial conditions, as investors dump what they can – something they will continue doing for a while.

  

  Finally, in addition to turning more bearish, Goldman is also rebalancing its liquidity baskets, to help those who wish to trade out of most liquid stocks, which just happen to be the most popular ones…

  

  … and into the least liquid ones.

  

  The full Goldman report is available to pro subs in the usual place.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 19:00

• JP Morgan Hires Ex-Jailbirds As Staffing Shortage Worsens
  JP Morgan Hires Ex-Jailbirds As Staffing Shortage Worsens

  As JP Morgan and the other major Wall Street banks struggle to hire enough personnel, Insider reports that the banks are now turning to an unlikely place: the largest bank in the US has hired thousands of people with criminal records and hundreds with disabilities like autism, Brian Lamb, JPMorgan’s global head of diversity, equity, and inclusion revealed during an interview on Thursday. In total, the bank employees more than 200K people around the world.

  

  But right now, the company is “tapping into the talent pools that have historically been left behind,” Lamb said. This includes people who have formerly been incarcerated, who typically have a more difficult time getting hired.

  As we noted early last month, the US had 4.6 million job openings according to the latest data released in February. Looking at the details, job openings increased in several industries with largest increases in accommodation and food services (+133,000), information (+40,000), and nondurable goods manufacturing and state and local government education (+31,000 each). Job openings decreased in finance and insurance (-89,000) and in wholesale trade (-48,000).

  

  The pandemic gave rise to what has been dubbed the Great Resignation. Millions of workers have quit their jobs for myriad reasons, including stagnant wages, inadequate flexibility, a desire to switch careers, and shifting childcare needs. McDonald’s in particular has been hit hard, as the pandemic inspired a phenomenon called the ‘Great Resignation’, as more workers opted to arre

  JP Morgan says it’s pulling out all the stops to combat the labor shortage that’s affecting many US businesses. That includes casting ‘a wider net’ and hiring people that have historically had difficulty finding employment.

  Here’s more from Lamb’s interview:

  Contending with the labor shortage — which has seen masses of Americans walk off the job and made it more difficult for employers to hire — “is going to require unconventional approaches,” Lamb said. Job seekers no longer need to answer questions about their criminal backgrounds on the bank’s initial applications, he said. 

  The company is “tapping into the talent pools that have historically been left behind,” Lamb said. Formerly incarcerated people often have a more difficult time getting hired.

  Fortunately for JPM, there are plenty of experienced shoplifters and oh other ex-con’s running around the Big Apple. But unfortunately,  they seem to already appreciate the work they’re doing.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 18:00

• Why Sanctions Don't Work, And Why They Mostly Hurt Ordinary People
  Why Sanctions Don’t Work, And Why They Mostly Hurt Ordinary People

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  The United States and its Western European allies have in recent days repeatedly increased economic sanctions against not only the Russian regime, but against millions of ordinary Russians.

  It has done this by cutting much of Russian trade and Russian finance out of international markets. Moody’s and S&P Global have both downgraded Russia’s credit rating. The US has frozen Russian reserves and cut many Russian banks off from SWIFT, the international banking communications system. Europe is planning on big cuts to its purchases of natural gas from Russia. The US is mulling a stop on all purchases of Russian crude. The ruble has fallen to a record low against the dollar. Russia is at risk of defaulting on its foreign debts for the first time in more than a century. Many of the sanctions appear targeted at only certain wealthy Russians, but these moves greatly increase perceptions of geopolitical risk for anyone with Russian investments or investments connected to Russia. That means many investors and corporations will “voluntarily” cut back their activities in Russia to reduce risk and because they figure they might be targeted next. Ground-up pressure is mounting also: corporations like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are being pressured to close their operations—and thus lay off all their workers—in Russia. This means a real decline in overall investment in Russia far beyond just some Russian banks and oligarchs.

  The trickle-down effect to ordinary Russians will be immense. Purchasing power, incomes, and employment will be significantly impacted, and many Russians will suffer serious setbacks to their standards of living. The Russian ruling class will be affected too, but given they live much further from subsistence levels, they’ll fare much better overall.

  And yet if history is any guide, the sanctions won’t work to get the Russian military out of Ukraine or to achieve regime change in Russia.

  

  The Political Logic of Sanctions

  The idea behind sanctions has long been to make the population suffer so that “the people” will revolt against the ruling regime and force it to cease the policies that the sanction-imposing regimes find objectionable.

  In many cases, the stated goal is regime change. It’s essentially the same philosophy behind Allied efforts to bomb German civilians during World War II: it was assumed the bombing would ruin civilians’ morale and lead to domestic demands that Berlin surrender.

  Economic sanctions are less despicable than bombers targeting civilians, of course, but they are also likely less effective. Instead of convincing the domestic population to abandon their own regime, foreign attacks on civilians—whether military or economic—often cause the domestic population to double down on their opposition to foreign powers.

  Nationalism Trumps Economic Interests

  When it comes to economic sanctions, there are several reasons that sanctions fail to achieve stated ends.

  First of all, sanctions will fail unless there is near universal cooperation from other states. In the case of the American embargo of Cuba, for instance, few other states cooperated, which meant the Cuban state and the Cuban population could obtain resources from many sources other than the United States. US-led sanctions against Iran, on the other hand, have been more successful because a large number of key trading states have cooperated with the sanctions.

  The situation with Russia sanctions are likely to be somewhere between Cuba and Iran. While several key Western states like the US and the UK have taken a hard line against Russia, many other sizable states have been reluctant to impose similar sanctions.

  Germany, for example, has refused to impose sanctions in the near term, noting that Germany—as well as much of Europe—cannot meet its energy needs without first making time-consuming changes in energy policy and industrial output. Several key medium-sized states have shied away from a hard line on sanctions as well. India, for instance, has refused to void a weapons agreement with Russia. Mexico has stated it will not impose sanctions, and Brazil states it is seeking out a neutral position.

  Most importantly, China has not cooperated with US-led sanction efforts, and China stands to benefit from sanctions imposed by other states. While China has not yet signaled outright support for Moscow, it nonetheless abstained in the UN vote condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is likely less than what Moscow hoped for, but Russia can likely count on China as a willing buyer of Russian oil and other resources. After all, China has been uncooperative with US-led sanctions in Iran, and has been a significant buyer of Iranian oil. China is likely to strike similar deals with Russia. Moreover, if Russia faces a restricted number of buyers for oil, this gives Beijing more leverage in obtaining Russian resources at a discount.

  So long as Russia can continue to trade with sizable states like China, Mexico, Brazil, and possibly India, Russia will not face the sort of isolation the US hopes to impose.

  A second reason that sanctions fail is that nationalism—a potent force among most populations—tends to impel sanctioned populations to support the regime when they are threatened.

  As Robert Keohane has noted, even in noncrisis situations, nationalism can be a general source of strength for a state, since nationalism can unify populations behind the regime. Moreover, as John Mearsheimer shows in The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities: “Nationalism is an enormously powerful political ideology…. There is no question that liberalism and nationalism can coexist, but when they clash, nationalism almost always wins.”

  That is, in crisis situations, we can often expect even disgruntled liberal reformers to defer to nationalistic impulses over liberal ones, further strengthening national opposition to sanctions imposed from the outside. 

  To see the plausibility of our claims, we need look no further than the United States, which has long been remarkably safe from any realistic threat of foreign conquest. Yet even in the United States, it doesn’t take much in terms of foreign aggression to convince the population to unite in support of the regime. Certainly, the regime has rarely enjoyed more support than in the wake of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Were some foreign power—say, China—to attempt to coerce Americans to commit to regime change through economic sanctions, it’s hard to imagine this would produce much support for the foreign power in the US. 

  Similarly, US sanctions have not exactly invigorated pro-American or antiregime efforts in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, or any other state where the US sought to bring about domestic political change through sanctions. 

  There are few cases where sanctions might have worked; however, the two go-to examples of this—i.e., Iraq and Serbia—are cases where where economic sanctions were accompanied by overwhelming military force or plausible threats of it. Needless to say, that’s a very specific type of sanction, and has little to do with a conflict involving a nuclear power like Russia.

  Sanctions might also bring undesirable side effects. As Richard Haass at the Brookings Institution shows:

  Trying to compel others to join a sanctions effort by threatening secondary sanctions against third parties unwilling to sanction the target can cause serious harm to a variety of U.S. foreign policy interests. This is what happened when sanctions were introduced against overseas firms who violated the terms of U.S. legislation affecting Cuba, Iran, and Libya. This threat may have had some deterrent effect on the willingness of certain individuals to enter into proscribed business activities, but at the price of increasing anti-American sentiment…. Sanctions increased the economic distress on Haiti, triggering a dangerous and expensive exodus of people from Haiti to the United States. In the former Yugoslavia, the arms embargo weakened the Bosnian (Muslim) side given the fact that Bosnia’s Serbs and Croats had larger stores of military supplies and greater access to additional supplies from outside sources. Military sanctions against Pakistan increased its reliance on a nuclear option, both because the sanctions cut off Islamabad’s access to U.S. weaponry and by weakening Pakistani confidence in American reliability.

  And finally, even if sanctions “worked,” that would be insufficient to justify their use. They are, after all, a type of protectionism on steroids and that requires sanctioning American individuals and American firms that run afoul of these government regulations—many of them difficult for Americans to navigate legally.

  Yet sanctions remain popular because they placate the voters who insist “we” must “do something,” and government officials are more than happy to engage in policies that grow state power and can be used to reward friends of the regime.

  But having the regime “do something” is a dangerous game, and if the voters want to signal their virtuous opposition to perceived foreign enemies, the voters can always take action on their own. If Americans don’t like Russian goods and services, they’re free to boycott these goods, just as Americans boycotted British goods during the Revolution. But embracing yet more federal power in the name of teaching foreign regimes a lesson tends to harm ordinary people in many ways few can anticipate, while also potentially placing many Americans in legal jeopardy. And all of this will be done, no less, with little hope of success.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 17:30

• Russia Threatens Attack On NATO Weapons Shipments To Ukraine: "Legitimate Targets"
  Russia Threatens Attack On NATO Weapons Shipments To Ukraine: “Legitimate Targets”

  Setting the stage for a potential major escalation with Western and NATO powers, the Kremlin warned on Saturday that the Russian military is prepared to target Western arms shipments that are continuing to pour into Ukraine. Russia’s Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov said on state TV that Washington had been informed in the last days that Moscow will see weapons supply convoys entering Ukraine as “legitimate targets”. 

  “We warned the United States that the orchestrated pumping of weapons from a number of countries is not just a dangerous move, it is a move that turns these convoys into legitimate targets,” Ryabkov said in the remarks, which served as a severe warning to the West.

  

  He added that Russia has formally warned “about the consequences of the thoughtless transfer to Ukraine of weapons like man-portable air defense systems, anti-tank missile systems and so on.” He added that from Moscow’s point of view, the US administration has failed to take these warnings seriously.

  Weeks prior the lead-up to Russia’s Feb.24 invasion of Ukraine, the US Embassy in Kiev had tweeted photographs anytime a major arms shipment arrived. The US authorized Baltic allies in the transfer of Javelin anti-tanks missiles to supply Ukrainian forces; at the same time, the UK had sent many rounds of transport plane-loads of munitions and weapons systems. 

  It’s also believed that supplies Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are being ramped up. The fresh Russian warning also comes following the US-Poland MiG-29 fiasco. Warsaw had prematurely offered to give all off its MiGs to the US so that they could be flown into Ukraine from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

  The Biden admin said the offer was a “surprise” while the Pentagon flat-out rejected the plan, saying that the risk would be too high of bringing NATO into direct conflict with Russian forces, given that the planes would have to enter Ukraine from the West, risking an aerial engagement incident. 

  #Ukraine: Another gift from NATO; UA forces training with newly delivered RPG-76 Komar single-use RPG, made in Poland in great quantities during the Cold War.

  Though these aren’t very effective against modern Russian MBT, they would still work against structures & light armour. pic.twitter.com/yjycel94uJ

  — 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 12, 2022

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  Recent battlefield videos have appeared to confirm that in many instances invading Russian tanks and armored vehicles are being destroyed and disabled by West-supplied Javelin and other anti-armor missiles that are in the hands of Ukraine’s military.

  Without doubt the Kremlin is blaming the West for these attacks, given they are taking place with NATO-supplied advanced weapons.

  JAVELIN in first cut. Notice the Turret blown off – by design. Notice also the Russian rifles (INFANTRY) do not attack the firing point to suppress add fires but keep running the opposite direction. Not good. @cspanwj @gregkellyusa pic.twitter.com/EZbcbhLfi1

  — Bill Badey (@10903) March 11, 2022

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  In some instances entire Russian convoys appear to scramble when under ambush in narrow corridors, as is seen in the above video has gained much media attention in the past two days. 

  Washington has actually been supplying Ukraine’s military with the “tank busting” Javelin for many years now, and this has also included training local forces on how to use them effectively. Ahead of the conflict, Moscow had long warned that his was a huge provocation, and announced a “red line” regarding NATO military infrastructure being extended into Ukraine. The Russians apparently took the increased Western arms shipments as signal for impending NATO military expansion there.

  It’s likely that any new and current West-supplied shipments into Ukraine are occurring through covert means, especially now that Russia has in effect declared ‘open season’ on any external weapons convoys.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 16:44

• Idiocracy: CDC Lowers Expectations For Child Development, Raising New Questions for Parents
  Idiocracy: CDC Lowers Expectations For Child Development, Raising New Questions for Parents

  Authored by Shanxi Omoniyi via RealClear Education (emphasis ours),

  The CDC has changed its list of children’s developmental milestones for infants and young children, marking the first update of its kind since 2004.

  

  The move has generally been portrayed in the media as a positive adjustment, with claims that it provides clearer benchmarks and can help identify developmental delays early.

  However, the update essentially moves the milestones later and later – following a similar trend in academic standards across the nation.

  Is this something to be celebrated, or is it one more example of lowering standards?

  The supposed reasoning behind the update is that the earlier milestones used only 50th percentile data, which means that only half of the children were expected to reach them at a specific age.

  The updated checklist moves milestones back so that 75 percent of children should reach them at a given age. One news report claims it’s necessary for “eliminating unnecessary confusion and alarm while ensuring children who need additional evaluation and resources are properly identified.”

  What the article doesn’t highlight, however, is that the changes effectively move developmental milestones to older ages.

  An article from the American Academy of Pediatrics details the changes. In short, one-third of the original milestones were moved to different ages, and of those moved, just over two-thirds were moved to an older age.

  In other words, the CDC is shifting developmental goalposts later and later for infants and young children. 

  One reason for moving the developmental goalposts may be the learning loss resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Jaclyn Theek, a clinic director and speech-language pathologist at the Florida-based Speech and Learning Institute, has raised the alarm over the increase in babies and toddlers she is seeing with speech delays.

  “We’ve seen a 364% patient increase in patient referrals of babies and toddlers from pediatricians and parents,” she said.

  Before the pandemic, only 5% of patients were babies and toddlers, she told reporters. Now it’s 20% of her patients, with parents calling it “COVID-delayed.”

  Theek says the widespread use of face masks could be affecting children’s speech development, as babies start learning how to read lips as young as 8 months old.

  “There’s no research out there yet saying that this could be causing speech and language delays. But, most definitely, I’m sure it’s a factor,” she said. “It’s very important that kids do see your face to learn, so they’re watching your mouth.”

  Other detrimental effects on children have included a decrease in academic performance after widespread remote and virtual learning options, which tend to hurt minority and low-income students hardest.

  Even before the pandemic, however, the U.S. educational system was easing academic standards, often to the detriment of students: Just one example is Virginia, where the reading scores of fourth- and eighth-grade students dropped after the state loosened academic standards and accountability.

  Even the Washington Post argued that easing these standards did not help children.

  “Some critical (Standards of Learning) tests, such as fifth-grade writing, were eliminated; score standards were adopted that made it easier for students to pass; and changes in accreditation regulations let schools off the hook for their failures,” the newspaper’s editorial team wrote.

  Instead of constantly adjusting developmental milestones and academic standards, parents and educators should question what’s causing this downward shift in the first place.

  Earlier critics of the U.S. educational system such as John Taylor Gatto predicted schools would never achieve the successful education of students without changing their current approach.

  “No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes,” he said in a 1990 speech where he accepted the New York City Teacher of the Year award. “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders.”

  Gatto said in his speech that U.S. students ranked “at the bottom of nineteen industrial nations in reading, writing and arithmetic.”

  Today’s rankings aren’t much better. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) released a lackluster report in 2018, with the U.S. ranking roughly the same – in the middle of the pack – for all countries tested.

  “The trend lines of United States’ mean performance in reading since 2000, mathematics since 2003 and science since 2006 are stable, with no significant improvement or decline,” the report concluded.

  When viewed against the broader sweep of human history, the academic standards now in use are substantially lower than what was required in 20th-century American schools (this 1912 eighth-grade exam serves as an interesting example).

  For too long parents have counted on so-called “expert institutions” such as the CDC and public schools to help us raise our children. However, current events have started exposing important flaws and concerns within the educational system.

  Thankfully for many children, alternatives exist to the current public educational situation – including the choice to homeschool. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that parents are better equipped to handle their children’s education than they may have previously thought.

  One of these parents is Tera Thomas, who withdrew her children to homeschool in Virginia after schooling went virtual in response to the pandemic.

  “You just are kind of at the mercy of whatever they’re choosing to do – ‘one size fits all,’” she said of her experience in the public schools.

  Thomas chose to continue homeschooling even after in-person learning resumed.

  “We wanted there to be more value in their education, more individualized (attention), more freedom to explore and do things,” she said.

  Like Thomas, an increasing number of parents are opting out of public education with its continually changing developmental and academic goalposts.

  Instead of closing our eyes to the problems facing our students, let’s choose to address them and raise the next generation of mature, responsible citizens who not only thrive, but also excel in the real world – long after their schooling has ended.

  Shanxi Omoniyi is a staff writer for The Lion and serves as Online Content Director at Midwest Parent Educators.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 16:30

• Americans Panic Hoard Ammo In Wake Of Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
  Americans Panic Hoard Ammo In Wake Of Russian Invasion Of Ukraine

  Ever since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Americans have panic hoarded all types of ammunition, according to a top US online gun retailer. 

  “A recent surge in consumer demand for small arms ammunition – the onset of which perfectly coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022,” AMMO, Inc., a US-based ammunition and components manufacturer, said in a press release Friday. 

  Los Angeles-based Ammo reports between Feb. 24 and Mar. 10 that revenues surged 166%, and transactions are up 110% over the previous two weeks. Website traffic for the period is up 59%. 

  

  Customers in Texas, Florida, and Washington bought the most ammunition by volume. They mainly bought 9mm and 5.56×45. Here’s the complete list of the top ten states for ammunition sales for the period. 

  

  “We noted a similar surge in demand for ammunition during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Alex Horsman, marketing manager for Ammo. 

  “As neoconservatives and the mainstream media both began calling for American intervention in the Russian invasion, wary firearm enthusiasts sensed that the products they need to enjoy their favorite hobby could soon become scarce.

  “Many Americans predict that a war effort would significantly limit the amount of ammunition available to consumers. Others fear that the Biden administration, via executive fiat, will somehow limit private sales of ammunition under the pretext that those products must be shipped overseas in support of the Ukrainian resistance.” 

  Across the Mid-Atlantic area, Maryland-based gun shop The Machine Gun Nest notes that the conflict overseas has sparked buying interest for AR platform weapons and increased ammo sales in-store and on their online e-commerce shop. 

  “We have definitely seen a major surge in ammo sales here in the mid-Atlantic region. The war in Ukraine certainly sparked interest in the US, particularly among gun owners, who feel that the Ukrainian people are a testament to the absolute necessity of an armed population. 

  “We have seen sales of 9mm & 5.56mm skyrocket, with some customers purchasing as many as 20,000 rounds at a time. We’ve also seen increased demand for Russian ammo, with 7.62×39 and 5.45×39 seeing increased demand. The Biden Administration blocked the importation of Russian ammunition with sanctions in the fall of 2021, and the war has certainly added to the demand for these imports that are slowly drying up.” 

  Taking a look at ammo prices via ammo tracking website Ammo Prices Now, they report 9mm prices are steady near 30 cents a round on Saturday. However, 5.56 has jumped 23% since the invasion, from .44 cents to .55 cents. 

  

  Also, internet searches for 5.56 ammo jumped to the highest level since January 2021, when people were panic buying guns and ammo due to the summer of social unrest in 2020. 

  

  The firearms market has since “cooled significantly from the height of the pandemic surge,” according to Smith & Wesson Brands Inc.

  However, with a larger pool of gun owners since the pandemic and corporate media feeding people wartime propaganda, another round of gun buying could be underway. Maybe this time around, people will be panic hoard larger caliber weapons because of war threats. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 16:00

• California, Home Of Happiness?
  California, Home Of Happiness?

  Four of the eight highest-ranked U.S. cities in terms of overall happiness are situated in California.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As Statista’s Florian Zandt details below, according to an analysis by WalletHub, only one city not located on the United States’ west coast managed to break into the top 3 last year.

  The city in question is Columbia, Maryland, which ranks second on WalletHub’s index of the 182 happiest U.S. cities. When looking at the individual scores for each of the three dimensions analyzed, the picture portrayed changes quite a bit. For example, Columbia is ranked as one of the worst cities when it comes to income and employment, a category encompassing poverty rates, job satisfaction, job security, weekly work hours or underemployment rate, but ranks fifth and third in terms of emotional and physical well-being and community and environment, respectively.

  The top city in the latter category, which includes separation and divorce rate, hate crime incidence and leisure time spent per day, is Casper, Wyoming, coming in 79th place overall.

  Fremont, on the other hand, is not only the number one happiest city in the U.S. according to WalletHub, but also scored top marks in the well-being category, which takes into consideration issues like depression and suicide rates, adequate sleep, sports participation and food insecurity.

  We have only one question: if everyone in California is so ‘happy’, why are we seeing record numbers exiting the state and birth rates plummeting?

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 16:00

• Ron Paul: Is Putin the New Coronavirus?
  Ron Paul: Is Putin the New Coronavirus?

  Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute,

  President Biden’s “maskless” State of the Union signifies the near-end of the COVID tyranny we have lived under for the past two years. Fortunately for Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve, the Ukraine-Russia conflict is replacing COVID as a ready-made excuse for their failures and a justification for expanding their power.

  

  Even before politicians began declaring the end of the pandemic, polls showed that rising prices were the people’s top concern – particularly the increase in gas prices. Since Russia is one of the world’s leading energy producers, sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as Germany’s decision (made under pressure from the US) to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, provide a convenient excuse for rising gas prices. This is the case even though the US, citing the “instability” in world energy markets created by the Russian-Ukraine conflict, has yet to officially ban imports of Russian oil.

  The Federal Reserve has been planning several interest rate increases this year, even though some fear that rate increases could decrease growth and increase unemployment. The Russian crisis allows the Fed to either postpone rate increases or blame Russia for any unemployment that accompanies the rate increases. Either way, the Fed can use the crisis to deflect attention away from its responsibility for our economic problems. As of now, it appears the Fed will go through with at least a modest rate increase this month, but because of the Ukraine crisis, the increase will be smaller than previously expected.

  The Ukraine crisis also provides an excuse for Congress to do what Congress does best: increase federal spending. President Biden has requested Congress provide an additional $10 billion in emergency military aid to Ukraine. Congress will likely quickly approve the President’s request. This will not likely be the last time Congress rushes billions of “emergency” money to Ukraine.

  It is also certain that lobbyists for the military-industrial-complex are already “explaining” to a very receptive Capitol Hill audience why the Ukraine crisis justifies increasing the military budget to “counter the threats” from Russia, China, and whoever else can serve as a convenient boogeyman. It is unlikely there will be much resistance in Congress to a further increase, even though the US already spends more than the combined defense budgets of the next nine biggest spending countries.

  Over the past two years, many leading Internet companies did the government’s bidding by “de-platforming” anyone who expressed skepticism of vaccines or promoted alternative treatments — even when they presented evidence to support their claims. These companies are once again helping the government by de-platforming those who question, or are suspected of questioning, the official narrative regarding Ukraine. Yet these companies’ concerns with “fake news” have not led them to stop people from sharing widely debunked stories supporting the US-backed Ukrainian government.

  The lockdown and mandates did more harm than the coronavirus itself. They were based on lies promoted by the government and its allies in the “private” sector.

  Yet too many Americans refuse to even question the US government’s claims regarding the Ukraine crisis or question whether Russia is really responsible for our economic problems as opposed to a spendthrift Congress, successive spendthrift Presidents, and an out-of-control Federal Reserve. The only way to stop authoritarians from using crises like these to grow their power is to make enough people understand a simple truth: authoritarian politicians will always lie to the people to protect and increase their own power.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 15:30

• Biggest Commodity Trading Houses In The West Continue To Buy Russian Oil And Gas
  Biggest Commodity Trading Houses In The West Continue To Buy Russian Oil And Gas

  Despite headline-grabbing maneuvers by the big western oil giants (Shell, BP, Exxon-Mobil etc.) to simply walk away from certain Russian projects, commodity traders like Trafigura, Vitol and Glencore have all loaded cargos of oil, gas and fuel onto tankers at Russian ports, which is just the latest evidence that the west can’t simply go without Russia’s commodity wealth (as Chinese analysts have explained, Russia is one of the richest countries in the world when it comes to natural commodity wealth). And it’s not just industrial commodities: the Middle East and Africa depend on exports of Russian wheat.

  

  This commodity might is why Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Poszar proclaimed this week that the new international financial order, which he called “Bretton Woods III” will be based around commodities and the currencies of the countries that export them.

  It’s also why the big commodities trading houses that we mentioned above have no plans to stop buying Russian oil or gas, as the Times of London explains.

  Trafigura, Vitol and Glencore have all loaded cargos of oil products on to tankers in Russian ports this week, even as Russia’s attacks on Ukraine intensified, shipping data shows.

  The commodities traders have come under less scrutiny over their ties with Russia than the oil majors and have not made any commitments to stop buying Russian oil.

  And even Shell, BP and the majors will continue to buy commodities from Russia, as they have already promised.

  Shell is contracted to buy liquefied natural gas from Russian projects until 2035 and has given no timescale for its planned “phased withdrawal” from this. BP has pledged to quit its stake in Rosneft, the Kremlin-backed oil company, but is contracted to buy fuel from Rosneft in Germany and has said only that it is “reviewing” its commitments.

  This might seem like a contradiction after the Biden Administration announced on Tuesday that Americans would face an immediate ban on new contracts for Russian oil, with a 45-day grace period for buyers to see out existing deals. The UK has made similar assurances as Ukraine has called for a global embargo on buyers of Russian oil and gas.

  But the big commodity trading houses likely have contracts to continue buying Russian oil and gas for years, or even decades, hence. There’s plenty of data to show that their Russian business has continued uninterrupted.

  Many western companies have stopped buying oil and oil products from Russia voluntarily, but analysis of shipping data by SourceMaterial, an investigative journalism organisation, shows that commodities trading houses are still doing business there.

  On Wednesday, an Indian-registered tanker, the JAG Laxmi, was docked at Taman in Russia on the Black Sea to take on a cargo of vacuum gas oil, a petroleum by-product. The tanker is understood to have been chartered by Trafigura and the cargo supplied by Rosneft.

  At another Russian Black Sea port, Tuapse, Glencore was due this week to load a charter vessel, the Gulf Coral, with 60,000 tonnes of naphtha, the raw material for solvents, also from Rosneft. A similar Glencore cargo left Tuapse earlier in the week.

  To be sure, there’s no evidence to suggest that the three commodity trading houses have violated any sanctions.

  SourceMaterial’s data also shows that since the February 24 invasion Vitol loaded or was due to load seven cargos of oil products including diesel, naphtha and liquid petroleum gas, some of them from Rosneft. Vitol’s cargos alone are estimated to be worth nearly $100 million.

  There is no suggestion that the three traders have broken sanctions, but the disclosures highlight the extent of continued energy trade with Russia even as many companies in other sectors make immediate moves to cut ties.

  Spokespeople for all three firms told the Times that they weren’t in violation of any sanctions, and that they were continuing to abide by contracts signed long before the invasion of Ukraine began.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 15:00

• FBI Whistleblower Raises Questions About Pipe Bombs Set Near DNC, RNC Headquarters: Lawmaker
  FBI Whistleblower Raises Questions About Pipe Bombs Set Near DNC, RNC Headquarters: Lawmaker

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Ohio Republican lawmaker Jim Jordan said he has requested a briefing with the FBI after a whistleblower allegedly disclosed information regarding the bureau’s investigation into pipe bombs planted near the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington the night before the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.

  

  Jordan, who is ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said he sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on March 9 after a senior FBI special agent came forward with information regarding an “unusual” request from the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

  “According to the special agent, on February 7, 2022—over a year after the placement of the bombs—the FBI’s Washington Field Office asked FBI field offices to canvass all confidential human sources nationwide for information about the individual and the crime,” Jordan said in his letter.

  “In part, the message asked that the canvass ‘include sources reporting on all [types of] threats’ because the suspect’s ‘motive and ideology remain unknown.’”

  Jordan said that the special agent had described the request as “unusual” because it “was transmitted more than a year after the FBI had begun the investigation, and it raises questions about the progress and extent of the FBI’s investigation.”

  The FBI began investigating the incident after an unknown individual dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, gloves, and a mask placed two pipe bombs in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. on Jan. 5, 2021.

  

  Both the FBI and other law enforcement entities say one bomb was placed in an alley behind the Republican National Committee (RNC) headquarters, located at 310 First Street Southeast. The other was left near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), located at 430 South Capitol Street Southeast #3.

  Some of the components in the bombs included 1×8-inch threaded galvanized pipes, a kitchen timer, and homemade black powder, according to officials.

  While both of the bomb threats were neutralized by authorities, the devices triggered the evacuation of the U.S. Capitol and nearby buildings when they were found on the afternoon of Jan. 6, officials said.

  In his letter to the FBI Director, Jordan said that in addition to the disclosure from the whistleblower, the House Judiciary Committee had learned that the FBI had failed to “sufficiently answer questions” posed by Rep. Bill Posey, a Florida Republican, in September 2021.

  Those questions regarded the status of the FBI’s investigation and requested a briefing on the matter, and Posey cited concerns for his office’s safety as well as the safety of “the residences of many Members of Congress, and for the public at large.”

  “The FBI, however, has not fully responded to Rep. Posey’s request, explaining that it was exclusively providing information to the partisan Democrat-led Select Committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021,” Jordan said.

  Jordan said the FBI’s decision to provide information on a partisan basis “further erodes public confidence in the FBI’s senior leadership.” He requested the FBI briefing take place “as soon as possible” but no later than March 23.

  The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI for comment.

  The FBI has offered members of the public a reward of $100,000 if the information they provide leads to the identification of the person responsible for planting the bombs.

  “Identifying the perpetrator of this attempted attack remains a priority for the FBI’s Washington Field Office and our partners at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Capitol Police; and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department,” the bureau said in a September 2021 statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 14:30

• White House Holds 'Briefing' For TikTok Creators On Ukraine: "Like A Kindergarten News Conference"
  White House Holds ‘Briefing’ For TikTok Creators On Ukraine: “Like A Kindergarten News Conference”

  Not The Onion: there’s a war in Europe, a massive refugee crisis of well over 2.5 million leaving Ukraine, global markets in chaos, soaring energy prices amid rising inflation, talk of avoiding World War 3… and the White House is busy giving a “briefing” to TikTok influencers, as in the popular Chinese app…

  “The White House on Thursday briefed around 30 social media creators covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to multiple media reports,” The Hill writes. “The briefing was led by White House National Security Council special adviser for communications Matt Miller and press secretary Jen Psaki. News of the briefing was first reported by the Washington Post.”

  

  A White House statement indicated that since so many young people get their news via TikTok and other major social media platforms, it’s important to make sure the most prominent influencers are getting their info “from an authoritative source”. 

  As cited in The Hill, the statement said:

  “this is a critically important avenue in the way the American public is finding out about the latest” and they wanted to make sure the influencers had the “latest information from an authoritative source.”

  And to be expected some of the content which resulted from the briefing reads like it’s straight out of a State Department script…

  Ukrainian American TikTok creator Aaron Parnas, who has 1.2 million followers on TikTok, tweeted on Friday that “I still cannot believe how blessed I am to have had the opportunity to attend a White House briefing yesterday to be armed with accurate information about how America is helping Ukraine and our European allies.”

  One TikTok creator was cited in media reports as parroting the Biden admin line after the briefing that the anti-Russia “sanctions are working” – though we’re scratching our heads trying to determine what they’ve actually deterred in terms of the Russian invasion.

  But it looks like at least one of the individuals in attendance mocked the event. He described it as like a briefing prepared for kindergarteners. Apparently there were a few actual serious questions floated, and avoided…

  However, Jules Suzdaltsev, a Ukrainian-born journalist with a popular TikTok page, told the Washington Post that he believes the administration avoided tough questions. He said, “The enthusiasm of the call felt like a kindergarten news conference.”

  This is one of the TikTok stars that the White House invited on a zoom call to get briefed on Ukraine.

  Her channel, which is just hundreds of videos of her dancing, is definitely the first place I would go to get Biden approved news on the war 🤡

  The adults are back in charge. pic.twitter.com/yzxiPOsZ22

  — Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) March 11, 2022

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  It’s not the first time the White House and Press Secretary Jen Psaki have been subject of widespread mockery and scorn over such carefully choreographed attempts at propagandizing the youth.

  It was false statements like this that not only conditioned millions of American liberals to hate Russia and Russians as if it were the Cold War, but also caused *2/3 of Democrats to believe* that “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President.” https://t.co/bbeus5HI2b

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 11, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Last August there was the infamous video of a ‘TikTok star’ parading around the White House as part of a message to get people vaccinated. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 14:00

• Phoenix's Tent City Expands To Nearly 1,000 As Housing Affordability Crisis Worsens 
  Phoenix’s Tent City Expands To Nearly 1,000 As Housing Affordability Crisis Worsens 

  A massive homeless encampment in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, known as the “Zone,” raises eyebrows as the shelter’s population swells to more than 900 people. 

  The Zone is located on 9th Avenue, Jackson Street, 13th Avenue, and Jefferson Street in Phoenix, down the street from the Arizona State Capitol complex. 

  

  Vice News points out, “the camp more than doubling in size over two years may be a testament to how bad Phoenix’s housing crisis has become.” 

  “People say, ‘Are you surprised?’ And I say, ‘No, not really, because all of the housing forces in Phoenix and Maricopa County have been working against us for years,'” said Human Services Campus Executive Director Amy Schwabenlender, who works in the Zone. 

  “We’ve had ongoing population increases in Phoenix and Maricopa County. We haven’t had housing production at all income levels keep up and meet that increase in population,” Schwabenlender said. 

  According to Schwabenlender, the tent city had a population of 200 people last summer. By the end of 2021, the population climbed to 500, then 700, and in the last three weeks, the number jumped to 900 unsheltered people. The rapid increase coincides with a massive boom in Arizona’s residential real estate market, where rents and housing prices skyrocketed during the virus pandemic, thanks to rock bottom interest rates and low inventory. 

  Phoenix home prices up 32.5% Y/Y in Dec. pic.twitter.com/jdOwlLgVkw

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 22, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Home prices in the metro area have soared above 2008 levels. 

  

  “With rising rents and lack of affordable housing—which was a crisis a few years ago and still is—we’re going to continue to see rises in homelessness,” the shelter’s CEO Lisa Glow said. 

  It’s not clear how everyone living at the downtown Phoenix encampment got there. But data is expected to show a rise in first-time homelessness in Maricopa County over the pandemic, according to Glow. More people becoming homeless for the first time could be indicative of greater housing affordability issues in the county, rather than showing that the same people are cycling in and out of shelters and camps. – Vice 

  The growing number of unsheltered people in the Zone’ Bidenville’ is the second-largest encampment in the US. The first is Skid Row in the Downtown liberal paradise of Los Angeles, with an approximate stable population of around 4,200 to 8,000. Some people in skid row live like kings (read: here). 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 14:00

• The Only Non-Totalitarian Solution To Resource Scarcity: Decentralized Degrowth
  The Only Non-Totalitarian Solution To Resource Scarcity: Decentralized Degrowth

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  Totalitarian-imposed-inequality is the only possible path of centralized Degrowth: 10,000 for me, one for you, unless you disobey, and then you get zero.

  

  The fantasy is that everything will soon be super-abundant and cheap again because creating money out of thin air creates demand out of thin air and supply will always magically appear if there is demand. The reality is super-abundant and cheap is gone for good. Demand doesn’t create new supply by magic; if the supply is gone, then demand has no magical power to conjure supply out of thin air.

  The other fantasy is that there will always be a cheap substitute for whatever’s been depleted. If the oil is depleted in one place, there’s still plenty to extract in Timbukthree. Or we’ll replace oil with electricity generated by high-tech paint on our roofs, and we’ll replace all those thousands of giant airliners using jet fuel with little, slow electric aircraft–nothing will change except we’ll continue to have more of everything.

  The reality is the current global economy is a Landfill Economy that glorifies waste as growth. The faster shoddy goods fail and are taken to the Landfill and replaced with a new one, the higher our “growth.” The greater the waste, friction and fraud, the greater the “growth.”

  There is an sane alternative to this insanity. It’s called Degrowth. Degrowth is the English translation of decroissance, a French word coined in 1976 to describe a philosophy that has expanded into a global movement from 1977 to the present. The root meaning is decline, which refers to both the economy and the state. The core thesis of my new book and the degrowth movement is the global economy based on permanent expansion of consumption is unsustainable due to physical and cost limits: infinite growth on a finite planet is not possible.

  The problem is the current global economic system is optimized for permanent expansion, as the consensus holds that without permanent expansion, the world will fall into the abyss of depression and the conflicts that arise from widespread economic hardship.

  What the consensus conveniently ignores is the world has changed in the past 90 years of fast-rising consumption. The human population was much smaller in 1930 and per capita consumption was a fraction of current consumption of energy and resources. Recoverable resources are no longer abundant, and humanity’s vast consumption of hydrocarbons has had planetary consequences.

  The degrowth movement holds that this obsession with permanent growth is not just unrealistic, it is destructive to society, as every aspect of everyday life has been oriented to the goal of expanding consumption. This tyranny of growth has distilled all of human endeavor into measures of growth such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while ignoring the costs and risks of this absurd tyranny of infinite growth or we all die.

  In practical terms, Degrowth means:

  1) Doing more–much more–with much less by eliminating unproductive waste, friction, fraud and speculative skimming

  2) Incentivizing radically improving efficiencies and productivity: doing more with less capital, resources and labor

  3) Decentralizing capital and agency down to local levels of problem-solving and production of essentials

  4) Eliminating the :Landfill Economy of shoddy goods and services and planned obsolescence

  5) Deglobalizing and definancializing our economy and our daily lives to improve adaptability, flexibility and innovation in service not of highly concentrated wealth in the hands of the few but of the well-being of the many.

  The billionaire’s toadies in the World Economic Forum (WEF) have promoted a centralized, totalitarian version of Degrowth that leaves the wealth and power in the hands of the few while imprisoning the rest of us in a new-fangled Gulag. It’s called The Great Reset. The glossy The Great Reset PR is a packaged set of superficial happy stories about climate change, the 4th Industrial Revolution, blah blah blah which studiously avoids mentioning the most important feature of The Great Reset:

  The billionaires get to enjoy their $100 million yachts, private jets and heavily guarded compounds while the rest of us toil as serfs on the plantations of the wealthiest few. The The Great Reset PR tagline is “You’ll own nothing and be a happy serf!” or something like that.

  As for serfs who try to escape the plantation–no bread for you. The core of The Great Reset is a system of social control and punishment that would make totalitarian dictators everywhere weep with envy.

  Totalitarian imposed inequality is the only possible path of centralized Degrowth: 10,000 for me, one for you, unless you disobey, and then you get zero.

  The alternative is decentralized Degrowth that resets the system’s incentives from waste, friction, fraud and the dominance of centralized inequality to a locally controlled sustainability. I’ve prepared a roadmap to such a system. Maybe somebody else has a better one, but we have to start somewhere. Here’s mine: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States. You don’t have to buy the book; the first section is free.

  There is a solution that works for everyone except those with the $100 million yachts, jets and compounds and their WEF toadies: decentralized degrowth. Maybe the billionaires will have to squander fewer resources and the WEF toadies will have to learn to do something other than kiss billionaire’s derrieres. Oh, boo-hoo. How cruel and awful that the rest of us might actually have a say and some capital.

  Charles Hugh Smith on The Great Reset Agenda (42 minutes, with Richard Bonugli)

  *  *  *

  My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $8.95, print $20). If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 13:30

• Israeli PM Bennett Pushed Zelensky To "Surrender" To Russia: Ukraine Official
  Israeli PM Bennett Pushed Zelensky To “Surrender” To Russia: Ukraine Official

  Submitted by Blue Apples

  Almost without fail, diplomatic efforts diffusing conflicts that the Prime Minister of Israel becomes involved in center around the resurgence of hostilities in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. However, the Ukraine-Russia conflict has become center stage for the highest profile diplomatic engagement of the post-Netanyahu era thus far.

  Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett surprised the international community last week when it was revealed that he had taken an clandestine trip to Moscow in order to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an apparent peacemaking effort. According to sources, Bennett had apprised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesky and French President Emmanuel Macron of his trip to Moscow before it had become public knowledge. After 3 hours of deliberations in the Kremlin, Bennett then traveled to Germany to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war among other issues.

  Bennett’s coincided with on-going ceasefire talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in the last couple of weeks. The confluence of those diplomatic engagements resulted in the first tangible offer from Russia to conclude the conflict when Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declared that Putin offered to end the war if Ukraine if they fulfilled 4 conditions. According to Peskov, the terms offered by Putin were

  1. the end of any military action against Russia,
  2. recognition of Crimea as Russian territory,
  3. the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics, and
  4. amending Ukraine’s constitution to solidify their standing as a neutral state serving as a buffer between Russia and NATO member states in eastern Europe.

  Ukraine and the international community balked at Putin’s supposed olive branch, citing the enormous secession of territory to Russia as being unfathomable. In the days of continued bloodshed since the initial peace terms were put on the table, Bennett has surprisingly departed from the sentiment echoed by that international response. According to the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and Ukrainian sources, the Israeli Prime Minister spoke with Zelensky again on Tuesday and advised the Ukrainian President to agree to the terms offered by Putin. The Prime Minister’s Office denied the claim.

  Sources breaking this news from Ukraine stated that Bennett initiated the phone call with Zelensky in which he pleaded for him, saying “If I were you,  would think about the lives of my people and take the offer.”

  Zelensky did not take well to the proposal, responding with a brief “I hear you.”  Ukrainian officials offered no other immediate insight into what Zelensky said to Bennett. Zelensky and his inner circle characterized Bennett’s advice as directing Ukraine to surrender, to which they all resoundingly agreed would not happen. Those same officials believe that Putin’s terms were just the first step toward his greater ambitions to seize more territory from Ukraine.

  

  “Bennett has proposed that we surrender,” the senior Ukrainian official tells the Hebrew news sites. “We have no intention of doing so. We know that Putin’s proposal is just the beginning.”

  The report says that Israel has also asked that Ukraine cease its requests for Israeli military or defense assistance, as this could hinder Jerusalem’s efforts to mediate and maintain neutrality.

  Bennett’s call to Zelensky marks a departure from the previously amicable relationship between the leaders. Following the suggestion of the Israeli Prime Minister, Ukrainian officials changed their tone to go on the offensive against Bennett by criticizing his role as a mediator. “We don’t need a mailbox,” said one official. “We have enough of those. If Bennett wants to be neutral and mediate, we would expect to see him appoint someone to work on it day and night and try to get a compromise.”

  The fallout between Bennett and Zelensky comes on the heels of a meeting between Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yvgeni Kornichuk and Knesset Chairman Mickey Levi scheduled for next Tuesday. The crux of their meeting is to agree to a speech to the Knesset from Zelensky to be conducted virtually in the same manner he recently addressed the US Senate. Israel is the first state that Ukraine has engaged with in the interest of diplomacy with Russia that hasn’t wholly echoed the sentiments held by NATO member states. Given the integral importance of Israel on the global stage, their position certainly advances Russia’s efforts to conclude the war on their terms. This unforeseen development comes at a particularly perilous time when Russia has been overtaken by a stranglehold of sanctions imposed by western states.

  In response, Russia had looked eastward to China and India, among others, to forge closer ties in an effort to mitigate the impact of those sanctions. Surprisingly, Israel has entered into that fold following Bennett’s most recent discussion with Zelensky in a manner that evidently took the Ukrainian President by complete surprise. Zelensky likely isn’t alone with that reaction, as Israeli’s position certainly marks a watershed moment in which the Ukraine-allied axis is forced to adjust its calculus as it is confronted with a reality in which support for Russia is greater than previously expected.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/12/2022 – 13:09

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• CCP Seeks New Global Order At 'Expense Of All Others': US Admiral
  CCP Seeks New Global Order At ‘Expense Of All Others’: US Admiral

  Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engaged in a whole-of-society effort to undermine the rules-based international order and to promote its own brand of authoritarianism, according to U.S. military and political leaders.

  “The People’s Republic of China is the most consequential strategic competitor that the United States has faced,” said Admiral John Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

  “They are executing a dedicated campaign that utilizes all forms of national power in an attempt to uproot the rules-based international order to the benefit of themselves and at the expense of all others.”

  

  Aquilino delivered the testimony to the House Armed Services Committee during a March 9 hearing on national security challenges in the Indo-Pacific.

  Committee Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) affirmed Aquilino’s sentiments and said that the CCP was the greatest threat to the United States’ continued global leadership.

  He said that American leadership was working to secure global peace, but that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping appeared determined to seek conflict.

  “China is without question the country most capable of competing with the U.S. in terms of their economic strength, in terms of their growing military strength, [and] in terms of their global reach,” Smith said.

  “We all want a world where China and the U.S. peacefully coexist and that is what we are working towards,” Smith said. “But over the course of the last decade at least, it has become clear that President Xi and China intend something more combative than that.”

  Smith said that the United States would need to do a better job of convincing the nations of the world that following CCP authoritarianism would not end in their favor. To this end, he said that the United States would work to balance peace in east Asia through cooperation with regional partners.

  The hearing follows the release of the annual Threat Assessment released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which found China to be the number one threat to the United States in 2022.

  Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told the committee that the United States would remain focused on the Indo-Pacific region as its strategic priority, settling uncertainty over whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would draw the U.S. focus to Europe.

  “The Indo-Pacific is the Department’s priority theater,” Ratner said.

  “We are committed to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region, where all nations, large and small, are secure in their sovereignty, and can pursue economic opportunity, resolve disputes without coercion, and exercise the freedoms of navigation and overflight consistent with an open and stable international order.”

  Ratner condemned the CCP’s “support for Russian aggression,” and said that the United States’ competition with China throughout the century would define international politics and shape the global order.

  “Strategic competition with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will be a defining feature of the 21st century and our collective efforts over the next decade will determine whether Beijing succeeds in undermining the rules and norms that have benefited the Indo-Pacific region and the world for decades,” Ratner said.

  To curb the malign influence of the CCP throughout the Indo-Pacific, Ratner said that it was necessary to strengthen regional networks.

  He called the United States’ network of alliances and partnership one of its “greatest strengths,” and said that its defense strategy would continue to focus on developing relationship will allies and partners throughout Asia to increase prosperity and defend against authoritarianism.

  “Our approach aims to build a broader security architecture in the Indo-Pacific region that can sustain a free and open order and deter aggression,” Ratner said.

  “We are focused on strengthening our military position over the long-term through deepening cooperation with our allies and partners in terms of planning, operations, and greater collaboration on capability development.”

  To that end, Ratner said that the United States was strengthening its capabilities and improving interoperability with regional allies and partners including Japan, Australia, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Timor-Leste.

  “The United States’ ability to pursue common security and economic goals with like-minded nations is a cornerstone of our success,” Ratner said.

  Ratner highlighted several examples of CCP aggression throughout the Indo-Pacific, including the use of Chinese maritime militia to encroach upon the sea borders of its neighbors, the use of its army to push the effective northern border of India inward, and the ongoing campaign of intimidation by its air forces against Taiwan.

  To that end, Ratner said that a broad and bipartisan consensus had been reached that the United States ought to commit its focus to the Indo-Pacific and the continued competition with the CCP.

  “[A] powerful bipartisan consensus has emerged around the China challenge and the need for the United States to refocus its time, energy, and resources on the Indo-Pacific region,” Ratner said.

  “The reservoir of support for this approach is broad and deep, and we should continue working together to preserve this bipartisanship that is central to our ability to compete effectively in the region.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 23:40

•  62-Mile-High-Club? NASA To Study Sex-In-Space, Crucial To Life On Mars
   62-Mile-High-Club? NASA To Study Sex-In-Space, Crucial To Life On Mars

  Several scientists are pushing NASA to launch studies on sex in space as the human race prepares for off-world settlements on the moon and Mars in the coming decades, Mic reports.

  A team of Canadian academics recently published a research note titled “The Case for Space Sexology.” They argued the space agency should study whether humans can safely reproduce in outer space.

  

  “No research has explored intimate relationships, nor the human experience of sexual functions and wellbeing, in space or space analogs, or how any of this can affect crew performance,” Simon Dubé, a psychologist from Concordia University, told Mic.

  The move towards deep space and colonizing Mars, as Elon Musk hopes to do by 2050, should include a deep discussion about sex in space. The studies must include love, sex, and intimate relationships and impacts on human life in zero gravity as it would take seven months for astronauts to get to Mars. For years, the effects of microgravity on the human body have been studied extensively, but sex has been ignored. 

  “We are primarily concerned with ensuring crew members’ health and safety in space for long periods of time,” a NASA representative told Mic. 

  “Should a future need for more in-depth study on reproductive health in space be identified, NASA would take the appropriate steps.” But, they added, “we are not currently seeking proposals or considering a dedicated field or project office on this topic.”

  Physicist and astronomer John Millis, Ph.D., told BuzzFeed that a male erection would be “challenging in space, though it could still technically be possible, adding similar issues might affect female astronauts.”

  “Vaginal wetness could be an issue as the fluid-like sweat and tears – will tend to pool at the location of secretion in the absence of gravity. This wouldn’t inhibit arousal necessarily, but I imagine it would be uncomfortable or unpleasant,” Millis added.

  With the creation of private space organizations, like Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, it might be easier than ever for the space agency to study sex in space. Even a ‘quickie’ could be examined on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spacecraft. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 23:20

• Joe Biden’s Electric Car Plans Support The World’s Worst Humanitarian Abuses
  Joe Biden’s Electric Car Plans Support The World’s Worst Humanitarian Abuses

  Authored by Tom Harris via RealClear Energy (emphasis ours),

  In his State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish “a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.” In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power today’s EVs are obtained.

  

  To obtain a reasonable amount of power per pound of battery weight, EV manufacturers generally use various forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, so named because the battery’s positive electrode, called the cathode, is largely made up of the highly reactive metal lithium (Li). To keep the cathode stable when a battery is not in use, the lithium is combined in a metal oxide matrix, with different manufacturers using different combinations of metals.

  Most EV manufacturers combine lithium with nickel, cobalt and manganese to create a Li-Ni-Mn-Co oxide matrix to form the cathode. Tesla substitutes aluminum (Al) for the manganese, yielding a Li-Ni-Co-Al oxide matrix for the cathode on their batteries. Tesla maintains that their formulae is more cost-effective as less cobalt is required.

  In all cases, the negative electrode, called the anode, in an EV battery is composed mostly of graphite.

  To support the huge EV expansion being promoted by Biden, we will need immense quantities of the materials needed to manufacture EV batteries, for example, lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, manganese and aluminum. Let’s consider the sources of just three of these substances—lithium, cobalt and graphite—to see where the human rights issues arise.

  In a normal 1,000-pound Li-ion EV battery, there is about 25 pounds of lithium. Since lithium brines typically contain less than 0.1% lithium, about 25,000 pounds of brines are needed to get the 25 pounds of pure lithium. This is mainly extracted from Tibet and the highlands of Argentina-Bolivia-Chile (according to the U.S. Geological Survey, 58% of the world’s lithium reserves are found in Chile) known as the “lithium triangle.” Lithium production in Tibet results in dead, toxic fish, and carcasses of cows and yaks floating down the Liqi River. The Ganzizhou Rongda Li mine in Tibet has thoroughly poisoned this river.

  Similarly, native peoples in the lithium triangle face contaminated streams needed for human consumption, livestock watering, irrigation systems with mountains left desolate over discarded salt from the lithium brining process. A report titled, “COMMODITIES AT A GLANCE Special issue on strategic battery raw materials” issued in 2020 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development explained: 

  “Indigenous communities that have lived in the Andean region of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina for centuries must contend with miners for access to communal land and water. The mining industry depends on a large amount of groundwater in one of the driest desert regions in the world to pump out brines from drilled wells. Some estimates show that approximately 1.9 million litres of water is needed to produce a tonne of lithium. In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, lithium and other mining activities consumed 65 per cent of the region’s water. That is having a big impact on local farmers – who grow quinoa and herd llamas – in an area where some communities already must get water driven in from elsewhere.”

  A 1,000-pound Li-ion EV battery typically also contains about 30 pounds of cobalt. Cobalt ore grades average about 0.1%, so we need to process almost 30,000 pounds of ore to get 30 pounds of cobalt. With 50% of the world’s cobalt reserves, the Democratic Republic of Congo contributes almost two-thirds of global cobalt production. This is causing immense humanitarian abuses. Congo has at least 40,000 children—some as young as 4-years old—working with their parents for less than $2 a day. They are exposed to multiple psychological violations and abuse as well as significant physical risks. Engineer and energy consultant Ronald Stein and Todd Royal, an independent public policy consultant focusing on the geopolitical implications of energy, go into more details in their book Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping citizens understand the environmental and humanity abuses that support ‘clean’ energy”:

  “Cave-in’s, constant exposure to toxic, radioactive water, dust, and dangerous air loaded with cobalt, lead, and uranium with other heavy metals breathed into lungs day-after-day so western citizens can feel good about their Tesla or wind turbine. Cobalt ore is sent to China since one of the larger mines in the Congo is Chinese-owned Congo Dongfang International Mining Company.”

  A 1,000-pound EV battery also has 110 pounds of graphite. At 10% concentration, 1,100 pounds of ore must be processed for each battery. China is now producing about 70% of the global supply of natural graphite. Villagers living near graphite companies in provinces in Northeast China complain of “sparkling night air,” crop damage, homes and belongings covered in soot and polluted drinking water.

  In his State of the Union address, Biden spoke of promoting “environmental justice” and “expanding fairness.” The president said, “I will be honest with you, as I’ve always promised.”

  Biden must now be honest about electric vehicles. They grossly violate basic environmental justice principles and are anything but fair to the poor of the world who suffer and die so that wealthy western elites can virtue signal with their electric vehicles.

  Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 23:00

• Russia Threatens To Leave US Astronaut And Abandon Space Station 
  Russia Threatens To Leave US Astronaut And Abandon Space Station 

  Two decades of space cooperation between the U.S. and Russia could be coming to an end after the U.S. and its allies imposed crippling sanctions on the country. The Russian government announced Friday that it might abandon a U.S. astronaut set to return to Earth. 

  

  Fox News reports that the Russian Space Agency head, Dmitry Rogozin, has “threatened to leave” U.S. astronaut Mark Vande Hei aboard the International Space Station (ISS), who is scheduled to return to Earth on a Russian spacecraft by the end of the month. 

  JUST IN: Russia threatens to abandon ‘American Astronaut’ in spacepic.twitter.com/ybTrf8TR8e

  — Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) March 11, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “Rogozin posted a threatening video on social media casting doubt over the astronaut’s safety. He also warned that without the help from Russia to move the ISS away from space junk, the station would crash into the U.S.,” reports the Express. 

  Relations in space are souring as the U.S. and its Western allies hammer Russia’s economy with devastating sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. This angered Moscow so much that they threatened to deorbit the ISS last month. 

  Former U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly recently told ABC News that Russia’s threat to the safety of Americans on ISS is “not really based on reality.” 

  “We do have the ability to control the orbit of the space station independent of the Russian space agency, so I don’t really see that happening,” Kelly said. 

  Even if the Russians were to abandon the U.S. astronaut and ISS altogether, Elon Musk has suggested his space company SpaceX could keep the ISS from deorbiting and even shuttle astronauts and cargo to and from Earth. 

  Vande Hei holds the record for longest space flight (at 355 days). It remains to be seen in three weeks if the Russians will allow him to board the spacecraft bound for Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts. If not, maybe Musk can send a rocket with a Dragon capsule to the ISS. 

  Things are so bad between the U.S. and Russia that Rogozin ordered flags of the U.S. and its allies to be removed off Russian rockets.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 22:40

• Escobar: Cutting Through the Fog Masking 'A New Page In The Art Of War'
  Escobar: Cutting Through the Fog Masking ‘A New Page In The Art Of War’

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  The non-government in Kiev is simply not allowed by the Empire to negotiate anything.

  

  By now what we may call a Triple Threat has been established as the catalyst anticipating the launch of Operation Z.

  1. Ukraine developing nuclear weapons. Zelensky himself hinted at it in the Munich Security Conference.

  2. U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine. Confirmed, tersely, by none other than the Sinister Cookie Distributor neocon wife in the uber-neocon Kaganate of Nulands, who described them as “biological research facilities”. ”

  3. An imminent attack on Donbass with massive civilian deaths. It could have been in March, according to documents seized by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Or even in late February, according to SVR intelligence, which was monitoring the line of contact on a minute-by-minute basis. This is what eventually prompted Operation Z as a Russian version of R2P (“Responsibility to Protect”).

  So after years of CIA-instigated shouts of “conspiracy theory!” and less than zero “fact checkers” activity, it turns out “it was all happening in Ukraine”, as divine messenger Maria Zakharova once again pointed out: “We have found your own products. We have found your biological material.”

  The first-class investigative work of Dilyana Gaytandzhieva on Pentagon bioweapons was fully vindicated.

  Based on documents received from Ukrainian biolab employees, the Russian ModD revealed that research with samples of bat coronavirus, among other experiments, were conducted in a Pentagon-funded biolab.

  The purpose of all this research – which included another Pentagon project to study the transfer of pathogens by wild birds migrating between Ukraine and Russia and other neighboring countries – was “to create a mechanism for the covert spread of deadly pathogens.”

  In trademark pysop mode, everything was turned upside down by the United States government: those evil Russkies could take control of biological samples, so any “accident” involving biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine would have to be blamed on Russia.

  The White House, in yet another flagrant display of unredeemable stupidity, accused Russia of “false claims” and China of “endorsing this propaganda”.

  Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came up with the adult perspective: “The whole world will be interested to know what exactly the American bio-laboratories in Ukraine were doing.”

  Down on the ground

  Meanwhile, defying the fog of war while being targeted by Kiev’s free distribution of weapons without any measure of control, civilians on the path of Operation Z confirmed over and over again that Azov neo-Nazis prevent them from escaping encircled towns and villages. These Banderastan fanatics are the shock troops transforming Ukraine into a large Idlib – according to His Master’s Voice’s plan.

  Neo-Nazis are doing exactly what ISIS/Daesh did in Syria: hiding behind civilians taken as hostages. Azov are the white clones of ISIS/Daesh. After all they learned their tactics from the same masters.

  They will be bolstered by a fresh contingent of 450 fighters just arrived from – where else – Idlib, including lots of non-Syrians from Europe and the Maghreb. Most though are al-Qaedites and members of the Syrian branch of the Turkestan Islamic Party. Their transit point: the Syria-Turkish border, a smuggling free-for-all.

  As it stands, the most detailed macro-view of how strategic Operation Z is developing has been outlined here.  The inestimable Andrei Martyanov describes it as a “combined arms police operation”: a delicate crossover between formation-level warfare (“combined arms”) and a police operation to arrest and/or destroy criminals (the full extent of “demilitarization” and “denazification”).

  For an undiluted, down and dirty, eye to the ground perspective (translated into English), it’s hard to beat Russian military man

  Alexander Dubrovsky. He stresses how the objectives of the operation are “strategy and tactics”; and proceeding with haste is out of the question in this “completely new page in the art of war.”

  Cutting through the fog, no one could realistically expect any breakthrough out of the meeting between Foreign Ministers Lavrov and Kuleba on the sidelines of the Diplomatic Forum in Antalya – as much as Turkey may have played a constructive role.

  The non-government in Kiev is simply not allowed by the Empire to negotiate anything. The only tactic in town is stalling. Operation Z – or “the war” – could be stopped with a simple phone call from the Comedian in Kiev.

  Lavrov at least was quite explicit on some key issues. Russia does not want war; never used oil and gas as a weapon; and wants Ukraine to be neutral.

  The West, Lavrov added, refuses to understand the concept of “indivisibility of security”; those who supply Ukraine with weapons and send mercenaries should understand “they’re responsible for their actions”; and referring to the hysterical sanctions swamp, he stressed, “we will do everything to no longer depend on the West in any strategic sectors of our life.”

  It’s quite enlightening to juxtapose Lavrov with clueless NATOstan “analysts”, totally ignorant of Eurasia and pontificating about “a new ideological conflict between irredentist tyrannies and liberal democracies”. It’s about sovereignty, stupid – not ideology.

  NATOstan of course is incapable of understanding the process of Nazification of Ukraine – the key theme of any serious political/cultural/sociological analysis. It’s not an accident that the list of nations supporting the neoNazi-infested collapsed government in Kiev happens to largely coincide with the list of nations that refused to vote in favor of the UN resolution condemning the rehabilitation of Nazism.

  In historical terms, these “analysts” might learn something by reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard. Bulgakov considered Ukraine as an avowedly reductionist version of “the steppe”: culturally barren, not capable of creating anything, destined to barbaric destruction. It’s important to remember that when Ukraine attempted to constitute itself as a state in 1918-1920, cultural and industrial centers such as Odessa, Kherson, Nikolaev, Kharkov, Luhansk had never been Ukrainian. And western Ukraine for a long while was part of Poland.

  All aboard the Eurasian train

  On the economic front, the dogs of hybrid war bark while the Eurasia integration caravan marches on – with the Empire irretrievably being pushed outside of the Eurasian landmass.

  In a phone call prior to the Lavrov-Kuleba meeting in Antalya, President Erdogan suggested to Putin setting up a trading mechanism in gold and also rubles, yuan and Turkish lira to beat the Western sanction hysteria. The source is Abdulkadir Selvi, very close to Erdogan. No Russia-China official comment yet.

  The key fact is that Russia, China, and for that matter the entire Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – responsible for at least 30% of global GDP and the bulk of the Eurasian market – don’t need the West at all.

  As Peter Koenig, a former senior economist at the World Bank points out, “Western GDP has a different basis, with blown out of proportion services, whereas the GDP of the SCO and the Global South is production-based. A huge difference when one looks at the backing of currencies: in the West there is literally none. Eastern currencies are mostly backed by national economies, especially in China and soon in Russia too. That leads to self-sufficiency, and no longer reliance on the West.”

  In the larger geopolitical spectrum, the non-stop war of attrition by the Empire against Russia with Ukraine as a pawn is a war against the New Silk Roads; Maidan in 2014 took place only a few months after the launching of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), then OBOR (One Belt, One Road) in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. It’s also a war on the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership. In sum: it’s an all-out war on Eurasia integration.

  And that bring us to the key aspect of BRI: Eurasia rail/road connectivity – between China and the EU and with one corridor traversing Russia. The coordinated NATOstan sanction hysteria is not only against Russia, but also against China.

  For the Beltway, BRI is beyond anathema: it’s almost like the Beast of the Apocalypse. As a response, the West even has concocted puny schemes such as the American B3W (“Build Back Better World) and the EU’s Global Gateway. Their impact, so far, does not even qualify as negligible.

  Ukraine in itself is not a problem for BRI; traffic is only 2% of eastbound China-Europe freight trains. But Russia is another story.

  According to Feng Xubin, Vice Chairman of the China-Europe Railway Express Transportation Coordination Committee, the freight settlement system between China and Russia may be in trouble: “At present, freight is denominated in dollars […] If the West cuts off Russia’s intermediate settlement channel in the international financial system, it means that the settlement system for freight charges between China and Russia will not be able to proceed normally.”

  From the EU’s point of view, trade interruptions are not exactly a good deal. China-EU freight traffic increased over 100% last year.

  For instance, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are co-financing a 67 km high-speed rail stretch from Istanbul to the Bulgarian border.

  Sanctions on Russia will definitely affect the trans-Eurasia supply chain – on transportation, ports, insurance, communications. Yet quite a few sanctions may be revised later on, as the EU itself starts to feel the pain.

  China will have an abundance of Plan Bs. The key northern BRI corridor remains China-Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus-EU, but there is a possible detour via the Caspian, in Aktau in Kazakhstan. There will be extra incentive to fully link the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway with the Turkish grid. And there will be extra movement in the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), with Baku connecting to the Iranian Caspian Sea coast and by rail to ultra-strategic Chabahar port.

  So we may be heading towards extra impetus for BRI’s multimodal southern corridor – bypassing Russia: that means a boost for Turkey, the Caucasus and the Caspian. And no losses for China. As for Russia, even if this re-routing may last for a while, it’s not such a big deal. After all from now on Russia will be developing intensive trade towards the east and south of Eurasia, and not towards the sanctioning West.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 22:20

• Mapped: Where America's Truckers Live, By State
  Mapped: Where America’s Truckers Live, By State

  In 2021, the U.S. imported $2.8 trillion worth of goods.

  This incredible quantity of goods – along with much of what is produced domestically – is handled by the country’s 1.8 million truckers, which represents the 14th most common occupation nationally.

  To see how these truckers are distributed across the nation, Visual Captalist’s Marcus Lu has visualized data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to create two separate heat maps.

  Key Findings from the Data

  The relative density of each state’s truckers is measured by their location quotient.

  This represents the ratio of truckers in a state compared to the national average (both as a % of total employment). For example, if truckers made up 10% of a state’s employment, and the national average was 2%, the location quotient for that state would be 5.

  

  There are four states with a location quotient of two or more: Arkansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Iowa. This means that their trucker workforce (as a % of total employment) is at least double the national average.

  On the other hand, California and New York have some of the lowest location quotients in the country. Trucking companies have been competing fiercely to attract drivers in these areas, but with limited success.

  At a time when the whole American population is aging, truck drivers tend to be older than average. The work is stressful, lonely, exhausting and long plagued by a pay system that can make drivers feel they can’t get ahead of the game.

  – LOS ANGELES TIMES

  To entice more young people to enter the industry, New York recently created a truck driver training program for 18-20 year olds. Some have voiced their concerns about safety, though few alternatives exist. In October 2021, the American Trucking Association (ATA) announced that the national driver shortage had reached a record-breaking 80,000.

  A Different Perspective

  The location quotient is an effective measure because it controls for the differences in each state’s population. Seeing the raw data, though, can still add useful perspective.

  The following image shows the number of trucker’s in each state. As a reminder, the national total is 1.8 million.

  

  With these numbers, we can gain a more practical understanding of the location quotient. For instance, California has the second highest number of truckers, but it’s dwarfed by the state’s massive population of 40 million.

  Occupation Outlook

  The BLS expects employment of truck drivers to grow by 6% from 2020 to 2030, which is close to the national average for all jobs. Based on total employment of 1.8 million, this would translate to 108,000 new openings.

  Whether these openings will be filled is an entirely different story.

  In the American Trucking Association’s latest report, analysts estimate that the industry will need to recruit 1 million drivers just to replace retiring drivers, or those that leave voluntarily.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 22:00

• DuckDuckGo Updates Search Engine, Will Penalize Sites 'Associated With Disinformation'
  DuckDuckGo Updates Search Engine, Will Penalize Sites ‘Associated With Disinformation’

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The search engine DuckDuckGo has begun penalizing sites linked to “Russian disinformation” amid the Russia–Ukraine war, according to the company’s CEO.

  “Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create,” Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO, wrote on social media.

  “At DuckDuckGo, we’ve been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation,” he added.

  

  DuckDuckGo is also placing boxes with information at the top of the search results page “to highlight quality information for rapidly unfolding topics,” Weinberg added.

  In addition to down-ranking sites associated with disinformation, we also often place news modules and information boxes at the top of DuckDuckGo search results (where they are seen and clicked the most) to highlight quality information for rapidly unfolding topics.

  — Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  DuckDuckGo’s mission is to make simple privacy protection accessible to all. Privacy is a human right and transcends politics, which is why about 100 million people around the world use DuckDuckGo. (We don’t have an exact count since we don’t track people.)

  — Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  DuckDuckGo is an alternative to Google that has been growing in popularity in recent years in part because it doesn’t track users. Weinberg has in the past promised “unbiased results” as part of his pitch to people to switch from Google.

  Some users quickly questioned the CEO’s update, including Tom Fitton, president of the Judicial Watch nonprofit.

  DuckDuckGo, “contrary to its implicit promises to the contrary, is now in the censorship business,” he wrote on Twitter. “Are there any search engines that respect users?”

  .@DuckDuckGo, contrary to its implicit promises to the contrary, is now in the censorship business. Are there any search engines that respect users? https://t.co/uUvzKhI5YQ

  — Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) March 10, 2022

  “Today, you are removing Russian disinformation Tomorrow you will be removing genuine protests,” another user wrote. 

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Disinformation like the Russian bounty story? Or that drone strike that killed kids? Or Jussie Smollette? Or the Covington kids hoax?

  — Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  I understand your good intentions but not interfering like Google does to pick what’s disinformation and what’s not is why people use your product. Without that freedom you’re just baby Google. Please rethink this.

  — Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Agreed. There should be an emergency executive/board meeting in response to this and a 180 degree reversal.

  — Larry Sanger (@lsanger) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  DuckDuckGo did not respond to a request for comment.

  

  Weinberg later responded to some of the critics.

  “Search engines by definition try to put more relevant content higher and less relevant content lower—that’s not censorship, it’s search ranking relevancy,” he said.

  Google has been placing Russian state media posts lower on its results since 2017.

  “We don’t want to ban the sites. That’s not how we operate. I am strongly not in favor of censorship. I am very strongly in favor of ranking. It’s what we do,” Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, said at the time.

  Russia Today, one of the outlets, pushed back then, saying, “His colleagues admitted three weeks ago that RT did not violate any rules of the platform.”

  Google also suspended selling online advertising in Russia in early March.

  Around the same time, Katie McInnis, a senior public policy manager for DuckDuckGo, told a congressional panel that the company suspended its relationship with Yandex, a Russian search engine.

  “In light of Russia’s assault on democracy and Ukraine, we have paused our relationship with Yandex,” McInnis told the House Committee on Energy & Commerce. “The index was used to provide traditional links, meaning non-news links, in Russia and Turkey.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 21:40

• North Korea Rebuilds Nuclear Testing Site After 2018 Collapse
  North Korea Rebuilds Nuclear Testing Site After 2018 Collapse

  Following the flurry of recent North Korean nuclear missile tests (the rogue state has launched at least 9 ICBMs so far this year), South Korea has reportedly detected signs that its neighbor to the north is rebuilding some of the nuclear test-site tunnels that collapsed back in 2018 (killing an undisclosed number of North Korean workers), as North Korea is believed to be paving the way for more ICBM tests, according to Reuters.

  North Korea symbolically destroyed the test site at Punggye-ri back in 2018. It destroyed the tunnels after a collapse late in the prior year likely rendered them unusable. The decision to blow up the tunnel was seen as part of a diplomatic rapproachment with the south.

  The confirmation from South Korea comes just days after private satellites picked up evidence of activity at the site, according to the BBC.

  

  But now that NK is rebuilding tunnels at the nuclear test site, it’s raising questions about whether the regime of Kim Jong Un plans to start testing the weapons again.

  North Korea hasn’t tested a nuclear weapon, or its longest range intercontinental ballistic missiles, since 2017.  But it has said it could resume such testing now that denuclearization talks with the US have stalled. North Korea also appears to have blown up tunnels at its only nuclear test site in a move to reduce regional tensions.

  The report came after the National Security Council said on Sunday it was paying particularly close attention to Punggye-ri and the main nuclear reactor site at Yongbyon.

  “Activity to restore part of the tunnels at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site that were destroyed on May 24, 2018 has been detected,” South Korea’s military said in a statement.

  It didn’t elaborate any further on the type of activity detected.

  International monitors have also said that North Korea’s nuclear reactor facility at Yongbyon appear to be in full swing.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 21:20

• Democrat Spending Bill Contains 'Serious Expansion of Federal Gun Control': Gun Rights Group
  Democrat Spending Bill Contains ‘Serious Expansion of Federal Gun Control’: Gun Rights Group

  Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Democrats’ $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package, unveiled early Wednesday, includes provisions that constitute “a serious expansion of federal gun control” according to the National Association for Gun Rights.

  

  Specifically, the omnibus bill includes the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

  Though there is bipartisan consensus that violence against women is bad—more limited forms of the bill have passed through bipartisan votes since the first draft was introduced in 1994—more recent forms of the legislation have been controversial with Republicans for provisions relating to gun ownership.

  Due to continued efforts by Democrats to include gun control measures in the legislation, the bill was last passed into law in 2013, and has faced steep opposition from pro-Second Amendment Republicans since then.

  Currently, almost all firearm sales require a background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Purchasers who are tagged as having a criminal background barring them from possessing a firearm are tagged in the system and are not allowed to carry out the purchase.

  However, VAWA takes this system much further.

  Under its provisions, the attorney general is required “to issue a notice to State, local, or Tribal law enforcement and prosecutors if an individual has attempted to purchase a firearm and been denied pursuant to the national instant criminal background check system.”

  In other words, an attempt to buy a firearm while legally barred from owning one can be met with criminal investigation.

  In a statement, the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) warned that this system is dangerous.

  “Over 95 percent of all NICS denials are false positives, which means all local and state police would be required to investigate law-abiding citizens when they’re wrongly and unconstitutionally denied the right to purchase a firearm,” NAGR said.

  “Make no mistake—the NICS denial reporting embedded inside the Violence Against Women Act constitutes a serious expansion of federal gun control,” said Dudley Brown, president of the NAGR. “Not only does it rapidly expand federal gun control policy, it would actually endanger women, not keep them safe.”

  Brown also argued that women would be hurt by the bill, which could deny them the right to get a firearm while allowing their abusers to slide past the system.

  “Quite literally we will find ourselves in a situation where law-abiding women who need to arm themselves for self-defense get wrongfully denied a firearm purchase when the National Instant Check System wrongly flags them, and then find themselves being investigated by the cops for doing nothing wrong,” Brown said.

  “Meanwhile their abusers will be able to come after them knowing they’re likely to be unarmed. This is truly sickening expansion of gun control and it should be opposed by every pro-gun Member of Congress.”

  Gun Owners of America (GOA), another Second Amendment advocacy group, agreed.

  “The inclusion of the VAWA gun control provisions is a blatant attempt to restrict the Second Amendment and override [Second Amendment] sanctuary state laws,” Aidan Johnston, GOA’s Director of Federal Affairs, told the Epoch Times. “Even worse, anti-gun Democrats have circumvented typical congressional procedures to sneak this gun control through in the middle of the night on a spending bill.”

  The draft of VAWA included in the omnibus bill is less expansive than other forms of the same legislation has been.

  Proponents of gun control have long pushed for federal law to close the so-called “boyfriend loophole.” Though domestic abusers are prohibited from possessing a firearm arm if they were married to the person they abused, many state and federal laws do not extend the same prohibition to unmarried couples.

  To close this loophole, some Democrats and gun control groups have called for federal law to prohibit unmarried domestic abusers as well as those who are or were married to the person they abused.

  The omnibus bill’s draft of VAWA would not do so, as the measure has faced criticism from gun rights advocacy groups in the past.

  In a February statement on the latest draft of VAWA Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a proponent of the bill, admitted that the bill “is not perfect,” but insisted that it would strengthen “existing programs to support survivors and to prevent and to respond to domestic violence, and that’s dating violence and sexual assault and stalking.”

  After a draft of the bill closing the “boyfriend loophole” passed the House in 2021—later to fail in the Senate—the Brady Campaign, a gun control advocacy group, applauded the bill, saying it contained “common-sense solutions” and showed “the clear need to stop violence against women.”

  Though this draft of the bill is somewhat less expansive than previous drafts have been, it could endanger the omnibus package in the Senate, where a bill must achieve at least 60-votes to end debate before it can go to a simple majority floor vote. If at least 41 senators oppose the measure, the bill would fail in the Senate, potentially sending Democrats scrambling to beat the deadline for a government shutdown set to begin late on Friday.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 21:00

• Russia Soars Past Iran & Syria To Become World's 'Most-Sanctioned' Country
  Russia Soars Past Iran & Syria To Become World’s ‘Most-Sanctioned’ Country

  In the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has become the most-sanctioned country in the world with 5,581 sanctions currently in place. Between its recognition of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states on February 22 and March 8, the number of sanctions against Russian individuals and entities imposed by the U.S., the EU and select countries like Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Japan more than doubled when compared to the period prior.

  As Statista’s Florian Zandt shows in the chart below, based on data aggregated by Castellum.AI, Putin’s invasion has pushed Russia past one of the United States’ biggest nemeses in Western Asia.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Iran was by far the most-sanctioned state in history with 3,616 active sanctions by the U.S., the UN, the EU and countries like Australia, Canada, India and Israel. The relationship between the latter and the Islamic Republic has been especially fraught, with disputes surrounding Iran’s atomic arsenal and its general hostile stance towards Israel threatening to escalate on a regular basis.

  A majority of the sanctions imposed on Syria, which ranks third on Castellum.AI’s list, stem from the events surrounding the Syrian civil war starting in 2011. Following civil unrest in connection with the Arab Spring movement, clashes between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and an unlikely coalition of foreign and domestic actors often opposed on key issues led to a humanitarian crisis and the internal and foreign displacement of more than half of Syria’s 22 million inhabitants over the years.

  Leading the current round of sanctions against Russia are Switzerland, the EU and France with 568, 516 and 512 restrictions, respectively. The overwhelming majority of those sanctions target individuals, with only 366 of the 2,827 sanctions geared towards entities. Not included in these figures are sectoral sanctions like general trade embargos placed on gas or oil. On top of the sanctions put in place by nation-states and governing bodies, over 300 companies have either partially or completely withdrawn from the Russian market according to researchers at the Yale School of Management, among them industry heavyweights like Adidas, Google, Disney, Exxon or Volkswagen.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 20:40

• The Next Terror Wave Looms
  The Next Terror Wave Looms

  Authored by Emily Estelle via RealClear World (emphasis ours),

  As the world focuses on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and others worry that China will copy Putin’s playbook in Taiwan, the next terror wave against the U.S. is looming.

  

  For a United States that is only prepared for a one-front war, this is more bad news. Salafi-jihadist terrorists are still gunning for us, and the measures meant to contain them are falling apart.

  The decision to retreat ignominiously from Afghanistan assumed, per President Joe Biden’s promises, that the U.S. would somehow sustain an “over the horizon” counterterrorism pressure. This means keeping the ability to strike terrorist targets, despite not having boots on the ground. This capability is required to keep the country from becoming a haven for Salafi-jihadist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State. But as many predicted, it is not viable. Were the Salafi-jihadist movement’s gains confined solely to Afghanistan, the problem might not be so grave. Instead, these groups are embedding themselves anywhere in the world they can find a governance gap. Salafi-jihadist groups are now active in more than 20 African countries.

  Crises in Africa

  A worrisome crisis is unfolding in Africa. Militaries have launched successful coups in five countries and attempted them in at least four others since 2020. Ethiopia, home to Africa’s second-largest population, has gone from hope to catastrophe in just four years. This level of turmoil is highly unusual for the continent, contrary to the perceptions held by many Americans.

  Slowly but surely, these crises in governance are eating away at the existing system, which, though imperfect, has denied terrorist groups the space they need to operate. The most dramatic change is in Mali, where since 2013 French troops have led counterterrorism missions that now include European, UN, and regional personnel. Mali’s junta, which took power through coups in 2020 and 2021, has pushed back on international and regional pressure to hold elections, recently ousting the French ambassador and curtailing French and European operations in the regions targeted by jihadists. French forces will now reposition from Mali to neighboring countries within six months, taking a European special operations task force with them. This will remove many capabilities that enable regional and UN forces to fight back against militants linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Mali and neighboring regions. Neither the Malian government, nor the Russian mercenaries it hired for regime security, will backfill the counterterrorism mission.

  Political crises are also relieving the pressure against terrorist groups in East Africa. On Feb. 15, the president of Djibouti, home to the U.S. military’s only permanent military base on the continent, reportedly fended off an attempted coup by senior military officers. Meanwhile, political turmoil in Somalia and a pullback of U.S. support have allowed al Shabaab, al Qaeda’s premier affiliate in East Africa, to expand since 2021. The government of Ethiopia — a regional giant with a key counterterrorism role — faces a real risk of collapse. Meanwhile, terrorists are steadily expanding in Eastern Africa, striking Uganda’s capital and entrenching themselves in Mozambique.

  Better policy is not enough

  Many argue that counterterrorism missions are deeply flawed. Structural challenges and missteps doomed the French mission in Mali. Corruption undermines the U.S. effort to train an effective counterterrorism force in Somalia. There are many such examples. Counterterrorism missions have short-term effects: disrupting leadership, recapturing terrain, and preventing groups from coordinating larger attacks locally or transnationally. But military victories only buy time to solve the harder problem — closing the governance gaps that allow Salafi-jihadist insurgencies to form and reform. Kinetic counterterrorism efforts at best do little to improve governance, and at worse reinforce the bad actors who caused the problem in the first place.

  Recognizing the need for better counterterrorism policy does not justify lifting pressure with no alternative in place. History shows that giving Salafi-jihadists more freedom of action will only stoke the terror threat by allowing globally minded jihadists to plan, gain capabilities, and amass resources. For example, al Qaeda’s branches in Yemen and Somalia have both jumped from regional to global threats by pivoting local skills and personnel to attempt attacks on international aviation. Salafi-jihadists will not content themselves with their local victories, but will interpret success as justification to launch new offensives on their enemies near and far.

  The United States is headed for a fortress policy that ignores supposedly minor problems overseas, instead of waking up to the growing threat of proliferating Salafi-jihadist groups and other destabilizing trends including the spread of Russian mercenaries and an ever-more aggressive Chinese outreach in Africa.

  It is imperative that the United States wake up to the crisis of governance in Africa, and look for sustainable solutions to contain, and ultimately roll back, the terror threat. All it takes is one successful terrorist attack on the homeland to drive Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping off the front pages. We cannot afford to forget the Salafi-jihadists. They have certainly not forgotten us.

  Emily Estelle is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the research manager of AEI’s Critical Threats Project. The views expressed are the author’s own.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 20:20

• Democrats Would Lose Control Of Congress If Election Were Held Today, New Polls Show
  Democrats Would Lose Control Of Congress If Election Were Held Today, New Polls Show

  The latest polls out of Washington show that President Biden and his fellow Democrats are continuing to lose ground to the Republicans despite the president’s first State of the Union Address and his recent ban on Russian oil imports.

  According to WSJ’s lastest poll numbers, just 42% of Americans said they approved of President Biden’s performance in office, which was virtually unchanged from the previous WSJ poll in mid-November. That’s also roughly in line with the Real Clear Politics average, which we’ll get to later.

  

  But on the question of who would win control of Congress in November if the vote were held today, the Republicans have a commanding lead at 46% to the Democrats 41% of respondents.

  The president and his fellow Democrats are losing ground on other issues as well.  Take COVID for example: a 16-percentage-point Democratic edge on which party would best handle the pandemic was down to 11 points, while a 9-percentage-point lead on education-related issues had fallen to just 5 percentage points.

  On the issue of responsible stewardship for middle-class families, the 5-point advantage that Democrats enjoyed just four months ago has evaporated to zero.

  Voters also gave Democrats poor marks for handling inflation and the economy, which 50% cited as the top issue they want the federal government to address. The Ukraine conflict was No. 2, with 25% of voters saying it was most important.

  Inflation is also an issue where President Biden has seen his popularity erode. A majority of voters, 63%, said they disapproved of Biden’s handling of rising costs on everything from oil to consumer goods. It was the worst rating for Biden among six policy issues addressed in the poll.

  More voters said that Republicans had a better plan to improve the economy, 45% to 37%, even though Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the party’s leaders in each chamber, have advanced few specific economic-policy proposals they would pursue if they controlled Congress.

  However, the Real Clear Politics aggregate of all the major polls shows President Biden’s headline approval rating has rebounded from its sub-40 percentage point lows.

  Headline approval now stands at roughly 42.8%.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 20:00

• Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Is 'Crime Against Humanity,' Has To End Soon: Trump
  Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Is ‘Crime Against Humanity,’ Has To End Soon: Trump

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Former President Donald Trump said on March 10 that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “truly is a crime against humanity” that “never would have happened” if he were still in office.

  Trump made the comments during an interview with Fox News on Thursday night where he also took a swipe at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

  “I’m looking at these scenes on television of things that are happening, and nobody can believe them,” Trump told host Sean Hannity. “So something has to happen, Sean. This can’t continue. This … truly is a crime against humanity. This is something that has to end, and it has to end soon.

  “The problem with Putin, he’s got a very big ego, and if he ends now in most forms, if he ends now, it’s going to look like a big loss for him. Even if he takes a little extra territory. I’ll tell you, Sean, it’s a little hard for Ukraine also, because they are actually doing well, and they would like to see if they could have our country back, but also, what are they getting? They are getting all of these cities, look like they’re almost completely bombed to the ground,” Trump continued.

  Trump also maintained that there was “no chance that this would ever happen” if he were still president, referring to the invasion of Ukraine, adding that during his time in office he had had a “very strong conversation with president Putin and he understood,” before declining to go into details about the alleged conversation.

  “I know him well [Putin] and this is not something that was going to happen but let’s see what happens, let’s watch,” Trump said.

  He also took aim at the Biden administration’s “horrible” and “incompetent” withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as sky-high inflation and the ongoing migrant crisis in the United States.

  “The way that they got out of Afghanistan looked like a complete surrender, and I’ll tell you that Putin was watching … bad things started to happen and they [Putin and other world leaders including Kim Jong-un] no longer respect our country, and that’s how this [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] came about.

  Trump said he has been watching the “horrible” things taking place in Ukraine, and said they “never should have happened” and it’s a “sad situation” adding that president Putin “doesn’t seem to be the same Putin that I was dealing with” but that “he wouldn’t have changed if I was dealing with him.”

  The former U.S. president also touted the “tremendous amounts of equipment” his administration provided to Ukraine “so that they could defend themselves.”

  When asked by Hannity if his administration would offer to provide fighter jets to Ukraine from Poland, Trump responded that he would have done things “a lot different” than the Biden administration has.

  Poland’s government has called on NATO allies to send jets to U.S. bases which can then be transferred to Ukraine after Ukrainian officials stated that receiving them would help tremendously against the Russian invasion, which began on Feb. 24.

  However, U.S. Department of Defense’s spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington earlier this week that the United States won’t act on a proposal from Poland to take fighter jets from the ally and transfer them to Ukraine due to concerns that the Kremlin would view the move as “escalatory.”

  “The intelligence community has assessed the transfer of MiG-29s to Ukraine may be mistaken as escalatory, and could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” Kirby said, adding that based on the assessment, the military assesses the transfer as “high-risk” and will not carry it out.

  Trump’s comments come shortly after the International Criminal Court said it has launched an investigation into allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide committed in Ukraine.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 19:40

• American Police Have So Much Gear That They're Sending It To Ukraine
  American Police Have So Much Gear That They’re Sending It To Ukraine

  American police departments have so much extra tactical gear that they’re sending it to Ukraine to help the country’s mostly non-professional military fight back against the much more well-equipped Russian military. It’s also worth noting that Ukraine’s annual defense budget is smaller than that of the NYPD.

  

  According to Vice, law enforcement agencies in several states have announced in recent days that they’re donating dozens of pieces of body armor, such as ballistic helmets and vests. Some of the departments and their respective local partners—one of which is a top defense contractor with contracts from both the American and Ukrainian governments. contracts—say the donations will be distributed to the Ukrainian military.

  State law enforcement agencies in Colorado and Vermont both announced Wednesday that they were donating defensive equipment to Ukraine: it was a “coordinating an effort to donate used and expired body-armor vests to military units in Ukraine.” What’s more, the Vermont State Police also encouraged members of the public to donate their own body armor as long as it’s rated Level III or higher by the Department of Justice’s research arm (meaning it’s capable of protecting against some rifle rounds).

  Moving on, one Colorado PD descried the equipment it would be donating, claiming it had aged beyond its recommended life-cycle.

  The Colorado Department of Public Safety said it was donating more than 80 sets of body armor and 750 helmets, and that it was accepting donations from other law enforcement agencies in the state. “This is equipment that we are no longer able to use because it is beyond life cycle, or in some cases it may have been replaced or upgraded by some equipment that maybe better fits our needs or is safer,” Colorado DPS spokesperson Patricia Billinger told local station KARE9.

  The police in Sarasota, Fla. released a message to social media sharing their plans.

  A Message from Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman. pic.twitter.com/JcY9QHqGOg

  — SarasotaSheriff (@SarasotaSheriff) March 3, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  One small town in central PA said it’s donating bullet-proof vests.

  In Pennsylvania, the Falls Township Police Department, which has 53 sworn officers and is situated about 40 minutes north of Philadelphia, is sending 52 ballistic vests, including 15 “military-grade” vests capable of stopping rifle bullets, although they’re no longer under warranty, according to Falls Township police chief Nelson E. Whitney II.

  “We took 45 vests from the back [of the department’s evidence facility],” Whitney said. “I looked through my basement, and I found a couple I had from over the years, and other officers did the same.”

  Even Yonkers is getting in on the donations, which are being led – at least in their region – by organizers out of Westchester.

  “The war in Ukraine is bearing down unbelievable tragedy upon the Ukrainian people, and the Yonkers Police stands united with them,” Yonkers police commissioner John J. Mueller said in a statement accompanying a press release announcing the donation. “It is our hope that this donation helps in the defense of their homeland.”

  One department decided to send gear at the behest of the wife of one of its officers.

  The department decided to coordinate donations after a request from one of their officers whose wife is Ukrainian and still had family there. The Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center in nearby Jenkintown, is coordinating the donations and flying supplies from the U.S. to Poland every day, according to Whitney.

  The Biden Administration solicited donations from departments across the country earlier this week. And at least some of the material being distributed might otherwise have been destroyed if it weren’t for Ukraine.

  One sheriff claimed in an announcement that the federal government, including the Department of Defense and State Department, were soliciting donations for Ukraine from state and local law enforcement.Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman announced last week that his department would send more than 340 expired ballistics helmets that would otherwise be destroyed to a Pentagon contractor, which would then send them to Ukraine..

  “Many of our Department of Defense (DOD) and State Department contacts have asked the law enforcement community for equipment to help the Ukrainian people push back against this violence and protect their citizens,” Hoffman said on Twitter.

  Of course, some American police departments have too much on their plate to justify sending arms to Ukraine. The Portland Police Department, for example.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 19:20

• Sperry: Ukraine Worked With Democrats Against Trump In 2016 To Stop Putin — And It Backfired Badly
  Sperry: Ukraine Worked With Democrats Against Trump In 2016 To Stop Putin — And It Backfired Badly

  Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations,

  Six years ago, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country, the Ukrainians bet that a Hillary Clinton presidency would offer better protection from Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though he had invaded Crimea during the Obama-Biden administration, whose Russian policies Clinton vowed to continue.

  

  Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened in the 2016 race to help Clinton and hurt  Donald Trump in a sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation that’s been largely ignored by the press. The improper, if not illegal, operation was run chiefly out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, where officials worked hand-in-glove with a Ukrainian-American activist and Clinton campaign operative to attack the Trump campaign. The Obama White House was also deeply involved in an effort to groom their own favored leader in Ukraine and then work with his government to dig up dirt on – and even investigate — their political rival.

  Ukrainian and Democratic operatives also huddled with American journalists to spread damaging information on Trump and his advisers – including allegations of illicit Russian-tied payments that, though later proved false, forced the resignation of his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The embassy actually weighed a plan to get Congress to investigate Manafort and Trump and stage hearings in the run-up to the election.

  As it worked behind the scenes to undermine Trump, Ukraine also tried to kneecap him publicly. Ukraine’s ambassador took the extraordinary step of attacking Trump in an Op-Ed article published in The Hill, an influential U.S. Capitol newspaper, while other top Ukrainian officials slammed the GOP candidate on social media.

  

  At first glance, it was a bad bet as Trump upset Clinton. But by the end of his first year in office, Trump had supplied Ukrainians what the Obama administration refused to give them: tank-busting Javelin missiles and other lethal weapons to defend themselves against Russian incursions. Putin never invaded on Trump’s watch. Instead, he launched an all-out invasion during another Democratic administration – one now led by President Biden, Barack Obama’s former Vice President, whose Secretary of State last year alarmed Putin by testifying, “We support Ukraine’s membership in NATO.” Biden boasted he’d go “toe to toe” with Putin, but that didn’t happen as the autocrat amassed tanks along Ukraine’s border in response to the NATO overtures.

  The Ukrainian mischief is part of Special Counsel John Durham’s broader inquiry – now a full-blown criminal investigation with grand jury indictments – into efforts to falsely target Trump as a Kremlin conspirator in 2016 and beyond.

  Sources say Durham has interviewed several Ukrainians, but it’s not likely the public will find out exactly what he’s learned about the extent of Ukraine’s meddling in the election until he releases his final report, which sources say could be several months away.

  In the meantime, a comprehensive account of documented Ukrainian collusion – including efforts to assist the FBI in its 2016 probe of Manafort – is pieced together here for the first time. It draws from an archive of previously unreported records generated from a secret Federal Election Commission investigation of the Democratic National Committee that includes never-before-reviewed sworn affidavits, depositions, contracts, emails, text messages, legal findings and other documents from the case. RealClearInvestigations also examined diplomatic call transcripts, White House visitor logs, lobbying disclosure forms, congressional reports and closed-door congressional testimony, as well as information revealed by Ukrainian and Democratic officials in social media postings, podcasts and books.

  2014: Prelude to Collusion

  

  The coordination between Ukrainian and Democratic officials can be traced back at least to January 2014. It was then when top Obama diplomats – many of whom now hold top posts in the Biden administration – began engineering regime change in Kiev, eventually installing a Ukrainian leader they could control.

  On Jan. 27, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt phoned Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at her home in Washington to discuss picking opposition leaders to check the power of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whom they believed was too cozy with Putin. “We’ve got to do something to make it stick together,” Pyatt said of a planned coalition government, adding that they needed “somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing.”

  Nuland responded that Biden’s security adviser Jake Sullivan had just told her that the vice president – who was acting as Obama’s point man in Ukraine – would give his blessing to the deal. “Biden’s willing,” she said. But they agreed they had to “move fast” and bypass the European Union. “Fuck the EU,” Nuland told the ambassador, according to a leaked transcript of their call.

  

  Nuland’s role in the political maneuvering was not limited to phone calls. She traveled to Kiev and helped organize street demonstrations against Yanukovych, even handing out sandwiches to protesters. In effect, Obama officials greased a revolution. Within months, Yanukovych was exiled and replaced by Petro Poroshenko, who would later do Biden’s bidding – including firing a prosecutor investigating his son Hunter. Poroshenko would also later support Clinton’s White House bid after Biden decided not to run, citing the death of his older son Beau.

  The U.S. meddling resulted in the installation of an anti-Putin government next door to Russia. A furious Putin viewed the interference as an attempted coup and soon marched into Crimea.

  Nuland is now Biden’s undersecretary of state and Sullivan serves as his national security adviser.

  Whispering in their ear at the time was a fiery pro-Ukraine activist and old Clinton hand, Alexandra “Ali” Chalupa. A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, Chalupa informally advised the State Department and White House in early 2014. She organized multiple meetings between Ukraine experts and the National Security Council to push for Yanukovych’s ouster and economic sanctions against Putin.

  In the NSC briefings, Chalupa also agitated against longtime attorney-lobbyist Manafort, who at the time was an American consultant for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which she viewed as a cat’s paw of Putin. She warned that Manafort worked for Putin’s interests and posed a national security threat.

  At the same time, Chalupa worked closely with then-Vice President Biden’s team, setting up conference calls with his staff and Ukrainians.

  Another influential adviser at the time was former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who provided Nuland with written reports on the Ukrainian crisis and Russia that echoed Chalupa’s warnings. Nuland treated them as classified intelligence, and between the spring of 2014 and early 2016, she received some 120 reports on Ukraine and Russia from Steele.

  2015: The Move Against Manafort Commences

  

  In April 2015, the DNC hired Chalupa as a $5,000-a-month consultant, according to a copy of her contract, which ran through the 2016 election cycle. (Years earlier, Chalupa had worked full-time for the DNC as part of the senior leadership team advising Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.) After Trump threw his hat in the ring in June 2015, Chalupa grew concerned that Manafort was or would be involved with his campaign since Manafort had known Trump for decades and lived in Trump Tower. She expressed her concerns to top DNC officials and “the DNC asked me to do a hit on Trump,” according to a transcript of a 2019 interview on her sister’s podcast. (Andrea Chalupa, who describes herself as a journalist, boasted in a November 2016 tweet: “My sister led Trump/Russia research at DNC.”)

  Chalupa began encouraging journalists both in America and Ukraine to dig into Manafort’s dealings in Ukraine and expose his alleged Russian connections. She fed unsubstantiated rumors, tips and leads to the Washington Post and New York Times, as well as CNN, speaking to reporters on background so a DNC operative wouldn’t be sourced.

  “I spent many, many hours working with reporters on background, directing them to contacts and sources, and giving them information,” Chalupa said.

  But no reporter worked closer with her than Yahoo News correspondent Michael Isikoff. He even accompanied her to the Ukrainian Embassy, where they brainstormed attacks on Manafort and Trump, according to FEC case files.

  Chalupa was also sounding alarm bells in the White House. In November 2015, for example, she set up a White House meeting between a Ukrainian delegation including Ukraine Ambassador Valeriy Chaly and NSC advisers – among them Eric Ciaramella, a young CIA analyst on loan to the White House who later would play a significant role as anonymous “whistleblower” in Trump’s first impeachment. In addition to Putin’s aggression, the group discussed the alleged security threat from Manafort. Chalupa was back in the White House in December. All told, she would visit the Obama White House at least 27 times, Secret Service logs show, including attending at least one event with the president in 2016.

  

  January 2016: High-Level Meetings With Ukrainians in the White House

  On Jan. 12, 2016 – almost a month before the first GOP primary – Chalupa told top DNC official Lindsey Reynolds she was seeing strong indications that Putin was trying to steal the 2016 election for Trump. Emails also show that she promised to lead an effort to expose Manafort – whom Trump would not officially hire as his campaign chairman until May – and link him and Trump to the Russian government. That same day, Chalupa visited the White House.

  A week later, Obama officials gathered with Ukrainian officials traveling from Kiev in the White House for a series of senior-level meetings to, among other things, discuss reviving a long-closed investigation into payments to American consultants working for the Party of Regions, according to Senate documents. The FBI had investigated Manafort in 2014 but no charges resulted.

  One of the attendees, Ukrainian Embassy political officer Andrii Telizhenko, recalled Justice Department officials asking investigators with Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU, if they could help find fresh evidence of party payments to such U.S. figures. (Three years later, Democrats would impeach Trump for allegedly asking Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political rival, Joe Biden.)

  The Obama administration’s enforcement agencies leaned on their Ukrainian counterparts to investigate Manafort, shifting resources from an investigation of a corrupt Ukrainian energy oligarch who paid Biden’s son hundreds of thousands of dollars through his gas company, Burisma.

  “Obama’s NSC hosted Ukrainian officials and told them to stop investigating Hunter Biden and start investigating Paul Manafort,” said a former senior NSC official who has seen notes and emails generated from the meetings and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

  Suddenly, the FBI reopened its Manafort investigation. “In January 2016, the FBI initiated a money laundering and tax evasion investigation of Manafort predicated on his activities as a political consultant to members of the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian politicians,” according to a report by the Justice Department’s watchdog.

  The White House summit with Ukrainian officials ran for three days, ending on Jan. 21, according to a copy of the agenda stamped with the Justice Department logo. It was organized and hosted by Ciaramella and his colleague Liz Zentos from the NSC. Other U.S. officials included Justice prosecutors and FBI agents, as well as State Department diplomats. The Ukrainian delegation included Artem Sytnyk, the head of NABU, and other Ukrainian prosecutors.

  Ciaramella was a CIA detailee to the White House occupying the NSC’s Ukraine desk in 2015 and 2016. In that role, Ciaramella met face-to-face with top Ukrainian officials and provided policy advice to Biden through the then-vice president’s security adviser Michael Carpenter. He also worked with Nuland and Chalupa.Ciaramella was carried over to the Trump White House. As RealClearInvestigations first reported, he would later anonymously blow the whistle on Trump asking Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to help “get to the bottom of” Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election, a phone call that triggered Trump’s first impeachment by a Democrat-controlled House. Ciaramella’s former NSC colleague Alexander Vindman leaked the call to him. Vindman, a Ukrainian-American, is also aligned with Chalupa. (Vindman is now back in the news for his demands that the United States provide more active military support to Ukraine and his insistence that Trump shares great blame for the war.)

  

  February 2016: Obama White House-Ukraine Coordination Intensifies

  On Feb. 2, two weeks after the White House meetings, Secret Service logs reveal that Ciaramella met in the White House with officials from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, which would later provide the FBI highly sensitive bank records on Manafort. (In addition, a senior FinCEN adviser illegally leaked thousands of the confidential Manafort records to the media.)

  On Feb. 9, less than a month after the White House summit, Telizhenko, who worked for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, met with Zentos of the NSC at a Cosi sandwich shop in Washington, according to emails obtained by the Senate. It’s not known what they discussed. In addition, on Feb. 23, the two emailed about setting up another meeting the following day. “OK if I bring my colleague Eric, who works on Ukraine with me?” Zentos asked Telizhenko, apparently referring to Ciaramella. In the emails, they discussed the U.S. primary elections, among other things.

  

  Telizhenko would later testify that Ambassador Chaly had ordered him then to “start an investigation [into the Trump campaign] within the embassy just on my own to find out with my contacts if there’s any Russian connection that we can report back.” He suspects the Ambassador delivered that report to Chalupa and the DNC. Chalupa visited the White House on Feb. 22, entrance records show, just days before the second meeting Telizhenko had planned with Zentos.

  March 2016: Chalupa Engineers Manafort Messaging Assault With Ukrainians

  

  On March 3, Zentos and Telizhenko planned to meet again, this time at a Washington bar called The Exchange. According to their email, Zentos wrote, “I’ll see if my colleague Eric is up for joining.” The pair also met the next day at Swing’s coffee house in Washington. After the meeting, Telizhenko emailed Zentos seeking a meeting with senior Obama NSC official Charlie Kupchan, an old Clinton hand who was Ciaramella’s boss on the Russia/Ukraine desk. Kupchan is an outspoken critic of Trump who has made remarks suggesting what countries “can do to stop him” and “protect the international institutions we’ve built .” Zentos and Telizhenko also met on March 10, patronizing the Cosi coffee shop again.

  On March 24, 2016, four days before the Trump campaign announced that it had hired Manafort, Chalupa met at the Ukrainian Embassy with Ambassador Chaly and his political counselor Oksana Shulyar, where they shared their concerns about Manafort, according to Politico.

  When news broke on March 28 that Manafort was joining the Trump campaign, Chalupa could hardly contain herself. “This is huge,” she texted senior DNC officials. “This is everything to take out Trump.”

  She immediately began circulating anti-Manafort memos, warning the DNC of the “threat” he posed of Russian influence. The next day, March 29, she briefed the DNC communications team about Manafort. They, in turn, hatched a plan to reach out to the Ukrainian Embassy to get President Porochenko to make an on-camera denouncement of Manafort and feed the footage to ABC News, where former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos works as a top anchor. On March 30, Chalupa fired off an email to Shulyar, her contact at the Ukrainian Embassy:

  “There is a very good chance that President Poroshenko may receive a question from the press during his visit about the recent New York Times article saying that Donald Trump hired Paul Manafort as an adviser to his campaign and whether President Poroshenko is concerned about this considering Trump is the likely Republican nominee and given Paul Manafort’s meddling in Ukraine over the past couple of decades,” Chalupa wrote. “It is important President Poroshenko is prepared to address this question should it come up. In a manner that exposes Paul Manafort for the problems he continues to cause Ukraine.”

  Within minutes of sending the email, Chalupa wrote the DNC’s communications director Luis Miranda, “The ambassador has the messaging.”

  Then she reached out to a friend in Congress, Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, about holding hearings to paint Manafort as a pro-Kremlin villain.

  April 2016: Chalupa Solicits Ukrainian Dirt on Trump, His Campaign, and Manafort

  

  American presidential campaigns aren’t supposed to work with foreign governments to dig up dirt on their political opponents. Geneva Convention rules bar diplomats from becoming entangled in their host country’s political affairs, particularly elections. There are also federal laws banning foreign nationals from engaging in operations to influence or interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes. In 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals on charges of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government for that purpose.

  But just weeks after Manafort was hired by the Trump campaign, the Ukrainian Embassy appeared to be working with the Clinton campaign to torpedo him and the campaign.

  Emails reveal that Chalupa and Shulyar, a top aide to Ambassador Chaly, agreed to meet for coffee on April 7, 2016, at Kafe Leopold, a restaurant near the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. (Chalupa had paid a visit to the White House just three days earlier.) One of the purposes of the meeting, according to FEC case files, was to discuss Manafort and the danger he allegedly posed. They were joined at the café by Telizhenko, who said he was working on a “big story” on Manafort and Trump with the Wall Street Journal.

  In a sworn 2019 deposition taken by the FEC, Telizhenko alleged that Chalupa solicited “dirt” on Trump, Manafort, and the Trump campaign during the meeting. Telizhenko also testified that Chalupa told him that her goal was “basically [to] use this information and have a committee hearing under Marcy Kaptur, congresswoman from Ohio, in Congress in September and take him off the elections.”

  Telizhenko later approached Ambassador Chaly about the DNC representative’s overtures and he responded: “Yes. And I know that this is happening. You should work with her.”

  After speaking with Chaly, Telizhenko claims that he went back to Shulyar who instructed him to help Chalupa. “I went to Oksana and said, ‘Like what are we doing?’” he testified. ” And she told me, ‘You have to work with Chalupa. And any information you have, you give it to me, I’ll give it to her, then we’ll pass it on later to anybody else we are coordinating with.’”

  Less than a week later, on April 13, Telizhenko met again with White House official Zentos, email records reveal.

  Telizhenko said he resigned the next month because of concerns regarding his embassy’s work with Chalupa and the Clinton team.

  In her sworn account of the meeting, Chalupa acknowledged discussing Manafort and the “national security problem” he allegedly presented, but denied asking the embassy for help researching him. She allowed that she “could have mentioned the congressional investigation … that I had talked to Marcy Kaptur,” but maintained she couldn’t recall trying to enlist the embassy in the effort.

  Shulyar, however, clearly recalls that Chalupa sought the embassy’s help warning the public about Manafort – including pitching stories to the press and lobbying Congress, according to a 2020 written statement to the FEC. An “idea floated by Alexandra Chalupa was that we approach a co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus to initiate a congressional hearing on Paul Manafort,” Shulyar said, though she denied the embassy acted on the idea.

  Around the same time, two Ukrainian lawmakers – Olga Bielkova and Pavlo Rizanenko – visited the U.S. and met with journalists, as well as a former State Department official with close ties to Sen. John McCain – David Kramer of the McCain Institute. Kramer would later leak the entire Steele dossier to the media. The meeting was arranged by major Clinton Foundation donor Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch who lobbied Clinton when she was Obama’s secretary of state. Bielkova was also connected to the Clinton Foundation, having once managed a Clinton Global Initiative program for Ukrainian college students.

  While Clinton was at Foggy Bottom from 2009 to 2013, Ukrainians gave more money – at least $10 million, including more than $8 million from Pinchuk – to the Clinton Foundation than any other nationality including Saudi Arabians. Pinchuk’s donation was a down payment on an astounding $29 million pledge.

  On April 12, 2016, Bielkova also attended a meeting with Ciaramella and his NSC colleague Zentos, head of the Eastern Europe desk, according to lobbying disclosure records.

  In late April, Chalupa helped organize a Ukrainian-American protest against Manafort in his Connecticut hometown. Activists shouted for Trump to fire Manafort, whom they called “Putin’s Trojan Horse,” while holding signs that read: “Shame on Putin, Shame on Manafort, Shame on Trump” and “Putin, Hands Off the U.S. Election.” Chalupa also organized social media campaigns against Manafort and Trump, including one that encouraged activists to share the Twitter hashtags: “#TrumpPutin” and “#Treasonous Trump.”

  Also that month, Chalupa reached out to Yahoo News reporter Isikoff to pitch a hit piece on Manafort. She connected him with a delegation of Ukrainian journalists visiting D.C. Isikoff would later be used by Steele to spread falsehoods from his dossier.

  May-June 2016: Manafort Dirt Spreads

  In a May 3 email, Chalupa alerted DNC communications director Luis Miranda and DNC opposition research director Lauren Dillion that there was “a lot more [dirt on Manafort] coming down the pipe[sic].”

  Chalupa told them the dirt has “a big Trump component” and would “hit in the next few weeks.” It’s not clear if she was referring to the notorious “black ledger” smear against Manafort, who was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, but a story about it was brewing at the time.

  On May 30, Nellie Ohr, an opposition researcher for the Clinton-retained firm Fusion GPS, emailed her husband, Bruce Ohr, a top official at the Justice Department who would become a prime disseminator of the Steele dossier within the government, and two federal prosecutors to alert them to an article indicating NABU had suddenly discovered documents allegedly showing Manafort receiving illicit payments.

  Amid the flurry of anti-Manafort activity, Zentos met again with Telizhenko on May 4, records show. And Chalupa visited the White House for a meeting on May 13.

  Chalupa paid another visit to the White House on June 14, Secret Service logs show. On June 17, Ciaramella held a White House meeting with Nuland and Pyatt of the State Department to discuss undisclosed Ukrainian matters.

  In late June, the FBI signed an evidence-sharing agreement with NABU, less than two months before the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency released what it claimed was explosive new evidence on Manafort.

  July 2016: Ukrainian Officials Attack Trump Publicly

  Chalupa continued to pow-wow with the Ukrainian Embassy and got so cozy with officials there that they offered her a position, which she declined, as an “embedded consultant” in the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  That same month, high-ranking Ukrainian officials openly insulted Trump on social media in an unusual departure from normal diplomacy.

  For instance, Ukraine Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov tweeted that Trump was a “clown” who was “an even bigger danger to the U.S. than terrorism.” In another July post, he called Trump “dangerous for Ukraine.” And on Facebook, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk warned that Trump had “challenged the very values of the free world.”

  (After Trump upset Clinton, Avakov and other officials tried to delete their statements from their social network accounts, saying that they had been wrong and had rushed to conclusions.)

  “It was clear that they were supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy,” Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Artemenko told Politico. “They did everything from organizing meetings with the Clinton team to publicly supporting her to criticizing Trump.”

  While attending the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, Chalupa spread the scurrilous rumor that Manafort was the mastermind behind the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and that he “stole” her and other Democrats’ emails. She later told her sister’s podcast that she had reported her conspiracy theory to the FBI, eventually sitting down and meeting with agents in September to spin her tale of supposed espionage (the Senate has asked the FBI for copies of her interview summaries, known as FD-302s). Chalupa also prepared a report for the FBI, as well as members of Congress, detailing her Russiagate conspiracy theories, which Mueller later found no evidence to support.

  In addition, Chalupa helped spread a false narrative that Trump removed a reference to providing arms to Kiev from the Republican platform at the party’s convention earlier that month. Internal platform committee documents show the Ukraine plank could not have been weakened as claimed, because the “lethal” weapons language had never been part of the GOP platform. The final language actually strengthened the platform by pledging direct assistance not just to the country of Ukraine, but to its military in its struggle against Russian-backed forces.

  August-September 2016: The Phony Manafort Ledger Leaks 

  

  In another attempt to influence the 2016 election, Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko leaked to the U.S. media what he claimed was evidence of a secret handwritten ledger showing Manafort had received millions in cash from Yanukovych’s party under the table. He claimed that 22 pages of the alleged ledger, which contained line items written by hand, had mysteriously appeared in his parliament mailbox earlier that year. Leshchenko would not identify the sender. A fuller copy of the same document showed up later on the doorstep of a Ukrainian intelligence official who passed it to NABU, which shared it with FBI agents stationed in Kiev. Leshchenko and NABU officials held press conferences declaring the document was “proof” of Manafort corruption and demanding he be “interrogated.”

  The Clinton campaign seized on the story. In an Aug. 14 statement, campaign manager Robby Mook stated: “We have learned of more troubling connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine.” He demanded Trump “disclose campaign chair Paul Manafort’s and all other campaign employees’ and advisers’ ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities.”

  But there was a big hole in the story. Though Manafort was a consultant to Yanukovych’s party, he was paid by wire, not in cash, casting serious doubt on the ledger’s authenticity. Another problem: the ledger was alleged to have been kept at party headquarters, but rioters had destroyed the building in a 2014 fire.

  Leshchenko admitted that he had a political agenda. He told The Financial Times at the time that he went public with the ledger because “a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy.” He added that most of Ukraine’s politicians are “on Hillary Clinton’s side.”

  Leshchenko also happened to be “a source for Fusion GPS,” as Nellie Ohr confirmed under questioning during a 2019 closed-door House hearing, according to a declassified transcript. Fusion was a paid agent of the Clinton campaign, which gave the private opposition-research firm more than $1 million to gin up connections between Trump and Russia. Fusion hired Steele to compile a series of “intelligence” memos known as the dossier. As a former MI6 operative, Steele gave the allegations a sheen of credibility.

  FBI counterintelligence veteran Mark Wauck said the dossier and the black ledger both appear to have originated with Fusion GPS, which laundered it through foreigners who hated Trump – Steele and Leshchenko.

  “The ledger and the dossier are both Fusion hit jobs,” Wauck said. “The two items shared a common origin: the Hillary campaign’s oppo research shop.”

  In an August 2016 memo written for Fusion GPS, “The Demise of Trump’s Campaign Manager Paul Manafort,” Steele claimed he had corroborated Leshchenko’s charges through his anonymous Kremlin sources, who turned out to be nothing more than beer buddies of his primary source collector, Igor Danchenko, a Russian immigrant with a string of arrests in the U.S. for public intoxication, as RealClearInvestigations first reported. Danchenko had worked for the Brookings Institution, a Democratic think tank in Washington that Durham has subpoenaed in connection to its own role in Russiagate. Danchenko was indicted last year by Special Counsel Durham for lying about his sources, including one he completely made up, as RCI reported.

  “YANUKOVYCH had confided in PUTIN that he did authorize and order substantial kick-back payments to MANAFORT as alleged,” Steele claimed in the unsubstantiated report, citing “a well-placed Russian figure” with knowledge of a “meeting between PUTIN and YANUKOVYCH” allegedly “held in secret” on Aug. 15. As a paid informant, Steele had long reported to the FBI about alleged corruption involving Yanukovych.

  The FBI used his Clinton-funded dossier as a basis to obtain warrants to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page, including the false claim that Page acted as an intermediary between Russian leadership and Manafort in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” that included sidelining Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue. Steele also falsely claimed that Page had helped draft the RNC platform statement to be more sympathetic to Russia’s interests by eliminating language about providing weapons to Ukraine, according to a report by the Department of Justice’s watchdog. In fact, Page was not involved in the GOP platform. The misinformation came from Danchenko’s fictional source.

  Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson worked closely with the New York Times on the Manafort ledger story. In his book, “Crime in Progress,” Simpson boasts of introducing Leshchenko to the Times as a source, who ended up providing the paper some of the dubious ledger records. On Aug. 19, Manafort stepped down from the Trump campaign the day after the Times reported what it had been fed by the anti-Trump operatives.

  In effect, Ukrainian government officials tried to help Clinton and undermine Trump by disseminating documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and telling the American media they were investigating the matter.

  In 2018, a Ukrainian court ruled that Leshchenko and NABU’s Sytnyk illegally interfered in the 2016 U.S. election by publicizing the black ledger. Among the evidence was a recording of Sytnyk saying the agency released the ledger to help Clinton’s campaign – “I helped her,” Sytnyk is recorded boasting. But the damage was done. The Ukrainians, along with Chalupa and the Clinton camp, achieved their goal of undermining the Trump campaign by prompting Manafort’s ouster though they never proved he was colluding with the Russians. Neither did Special Counsel Mueller. In fact, Mueller did not use the ledger to prosecute Manafort after a key witness for the prosecution told him it was fabricated. “Mueller ended up dropping it like a hot potato,” Wauck said. 

  Ukraine’s neutrality in the election was also called into further question that September, when Porochenko met with Clinton during a stop in New York. He never met with Trump, who appeared to get the cold shoulder from the Ukrainian leader. In statements following Trump’s surprise victory over Clinton in November, Ukraine’s embassy has denied interfering in the election and insisted that Chalupa was acting on her own.

  Epilogue

  After Trump won the election in spite of her efforts to sabotage him, Chalupa predicted: “Under President Trump, the Kremlin could likely invade U.S. allies in Europe without U.S. opposition.”

  Not only did Russia not invade Europe “under Trump,” it didn’t even invade Ukraine. Rather, the invasion came under Biden, whose campaign Chalupa supported. Yet she continues to blame Trump. Recent tweets show a still-obsessed Chalupa has not dialed back her extremist views about Trump or Manafort, whom she believes should be prosecuted for “treason.”

  In a Feb. 28 post on Twitter, for example, Chalupa claimed that Putin installed “a puppet regime in the U.S. with the help of Paul Manafort.” The previous day, she tweeted, “We had a Putin installed Trump presidency.” A day before that, she wrote: “Now would be a good time to release the Putin-Trump treason calls.”

  And on Feb. 25, Chalupa tweeted another wild conspiracy theory: “It’s important to note that Putin’s imperial aspirations are of a global criminal empire, as we saw when he installed Donald J. Trump president and tried to turn the U.S. into a Russian satellite state.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 19:00

• Putin Spokesman Says Russian Economy in 'Shock'
  Putin Spokesman Says Russian Economy in ‘Shock’

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Russian government officials on Thursday said its economy is in “shock” after heavy sanctions and after a number of Western corporations pulled out of the country in recent days after the Ukraine conflict.

  “Our economy is experiencing a shock impact now and there are negative consequences; they will be minimized,” top Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

  Peskov, who himself is facing sanctions from the European Union and the United States, again said that while the situation is turbulent, Moscow can take measures to stabilize the country’s economy. He didn’t elaborate.

  “This is absolutely unprecedented. The economic war that has started against our country has never taken place before. So it is very hard to forecast anything,” he remarked.

  On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced the United States would ban all Russian oil imports, raising the likelihood of soaring gas prices domestically, over the Ukraine war. And on Wednesday, the European Union announced that it would expand its sanctions on both Russia and Belarus.

  Washington’s European allies are, however, more dependent on Russian oil and gas and have held back from sanctioning it.

  French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told an energy conference it was imperative the economic fallout from the Ukraine war must not lead to 1970s-style stagflation—a combination of high inflation and low growth.

  More than 160 Russians, including oligarchs and politicians, as well as the Belarussian banking sector, were sanctioned by the EU, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

  The E.U.’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told the European Parliament that the new package included travel bans and asset freezes on some 100 Russians at different levels of government.

  Several multinational corporations also said they would pull out of Russia in recent days. On Wednesday, Sony’s Playstation and Nintendo said they would cut ties.

  “Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) joins the global community in calling for peace in Ukraine,” Sony said. “To support humanitarian aid, Sony Group Corporation announced a $2 million donation to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the international NGO, Save the Children, to support the victims of this tragedy.”

  And a Nintendo spokesperson said it would suspend all products to Russia “for the foreseeable future” due to “considerable volatility surrounding the logistics of shipping and distributing physical goods.”

  Before that, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and General Electric said they would pull out of Russia—at least temporarily—including shuttering brick-and-mortar locations.

  Reuters contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 18:40

• Juror No. 50 Pleads The Fifth, Is Granted Immunity In Maxwell Trial
  Juror No. 50 Pleads The Fifth, Is Granted Immunity In Maxwell Trial

  Authored by Dave Paone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Juror No. 50, who’s at the center of a possible mistrial in the Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking case, appeared in federal court earlier this week where he pleaded the Fifth Amendment – the constitutional right to refuse to answer questions in order to avoid incriminating himself.

  

  U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan, who presided over the case in December, granted him immunity from prosecution with the exception of perjury.

  “You need to answer my questions today and you need to answer truthfully,” she instructed the juror, who chose not to disclose his actual name.

  Soon after the jury’s Dec. 29 guilty verdict on five of six counts of sex trafficking of a minor, Juror No. 50 stated publicly he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and had made this known to his fellow jurors during deliberations.

  At the center of the issue is the questionnaire potential jurors filled out prior to selection.

  Juror No. 50 did not accurately answer questions relating to his childhood, sexual abuse at the hands of a stepbrother and his friend, prompting Maxwell’s defense to push for a new trial.

  Nathan read the pertinent questions with his responses, which were written on Nov.4, 2021, the first day he reported for jury duty.

  Juror No. 50 selected “no” to the first question that referred to sexual abuse, asking if he, a friend, or a family member had ever been a victim of it.

  ‘I was Super Distracted’

  “Is ‘no’ an accurate answer to that question?” Nathan asked him.

  “No, it is not,” he replied and said the accurate answer is “yes.”

  Juror No. 50 repeatedly cited the reasons for his incorrect answers.

  One was he was sidetracked while filling out the questionnaire.

  “At this point, I was super distracted,” he said and described sitting at the table at the spot where others were piling their completed paperwork and asking questions.

  “I felt rushed only because of all the commotion going on in front of me,” he said.

  A second was with the “sheer volume” of potential jurors, he didn’t anticipate being chosen.

  “I never thought I’d be one of the 12,” he said.

  Showed Remorse for Lack of Focus

  The third reason was he didn’t consider himself a victim, so he breezed by the questions pertaining to victimhood.

  Some of the questions referring to sexual abuse had boxes to check, that included “self” and “family and friends.”

  Juror No. 50 stated multiple times, that in his haste, he never noticed the “self” boxes.

  He showed remorse for his lack of focus calling it “one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life.” He said he did not intentionally give an incorrect answer.

  “I skimmed. I didn’t read everything,” he said and described the questionnaire as “a pretty thick packet.”

  Juror No. 50 also said several times that had he answered the questions accurately, he would still have been a fair and impartial juror and would have still have had the ability to render a fair and just verdict based on the evidence submitted at trial.

  It was during a post-trial interview with a reporter when Juror No. 50 learned about the importance of his inaccurate answers.

  “Did I just mess something up entirely?” he asked himself.

  Juror No. 50 took on lawyers in January with Todd A. Spodek, of Spodek Law Group in Manhattan.

  Pleading the Fifth came as no surprise, as Spodek sent a letter to Nathan on March 1, alerting the court to his client’s decision to do so.

  Juror No. 50 and Nathan looked directly at each other when speaking and he often replied with “yes, your honor,” and “no, your honor.”

  Maxwell, who was present in the courtroom, was tried on trafficking minors for the sexual abuse of her employer Jeffrey Epstein.

  Nathan gave both sets of attorneys the deadline of March 15 to file briefs regarding what they propose next.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 18:20

• China's No. 2 Leader Li Keqiang Announces Plans To Step Down
  China’s No. 2 Leader Li Keqiang Announces Plans To Step Down

  As President Xi prepares to formally accept a third term as the PROC’s paramount political leader in November (marking the first time since Mao that a Chinese leader would have served for such a long time), it looks like the Politburo has found another more appropriate sacrifice: China’s Premier Li Keqiang will step down, according to an announcement made Friday during an important annual CCP news conference.

  

  Of course, somebody important needs to take the fall for the country’s shocking slowdown in GDP growth, which contracted to just 4 percentage points, as we first reported back in January. And it’s not just GDP: all of China’s constituent economic indicators appear to be sliding as well.

  

  Although President Xi wields tremendous power by leading the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party along with the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee, which are more exclusive leadership groups organized around the chairman, who typically wields supreme executive power. The premier, meanwhile, leads the State Council, a key administrative body to which all the various cabinet-level department heads report.

  “You said this year is the last year in the current term of the Chinese government,” Li, 66, told reporters at the National People’s Congress in Beijing. “This year is also the last year in my premiership.”

  Friday’s press briefing shouldn’t be confused with the twice-a-decade Communist Party congress that’s set to take place during the second half of this year. During the meeting, where top party posts will be reshuffled, the Congress is expected to vote for President Xi to remain in power for a third five-year term, something that would break the precedent of Chinese post-Mao leaders only serving for a maximum of two five year terms.

  While Xi is widely expected to stay on, Chinese authorities have yet to comment publicly on his plans. Li said he had confidence in Xi’s ability to continue leading the Chinese people.

  “I’m confident that under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee, with comrade Xi Jinping at its core, with strong support of various sectors, and especially with the joint hard work of the Chinese people across the country, China’s economy will be able to overcome difficulties,” Li said. “We will be able to achieve all the major goals and tasks for economic and social development set for the whole year and lay a due, solid foundation for the development of the country in the future.”

  However, even if he gives up his premiership, Li could still hold on to another important position. Li also serves as the No. 2 member of the Politburo’s supreme Standing Committee, a position he is young enough to retain even as he abandons his posting as premier, which is indisputably the No. 2 position in Chinese government.

  Until Li’s promotion in 2012, the No. 2 party position was held by then-NPC Chairman Wu Bangguo while the No. 3 position was occupied by then-Premier Wen Jiabao.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 18:00

• Biden Blames Inflation On Putin, Big Oil And The Pandemic
  Biden Blames Inflation On Putin, Big Oil And The Pandemic

  Friday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that Democrats have ‘lost ground’ over key issues – primarily inflation and the economy, which 50% cited as a top issue.

  A majority of voters, 63%, said they disapproved of Mr. Biden’s handling of rising costs, the president’s worst rating on six policy issues surveyed in the poll. Meanwhile, 47% of voters said Republicans were better able to handle inflation, compared with 30% who preferred Democrats. –WSJ

  “The mood of the country hasn’t gotten any better since the last poll. In fact, it’s gotten a little worse,” said John Anzalone, the lead pollster in Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign whose firm conducted the survey for the Journal.

  The devastating poll comes as the White House has spent the better part of the last week rebranding inflation as the “Putin price hike“:

  

  And so, just hours later while speaking with House Democrats at their member retreat in Philadelphia, Biden laid out his case on Friday for why inflation isn’t his fault. Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin, big oil, and the pandemic are the culprits.

  “Here are the facts. Democrats didn’t cause this problem, Vladimir Putin did,” Biden said.

  Watch (entire speech here)

  Biden also blamed oil companies and their executives because they “don’t want to pump more oil, although they have every capacity to do so. Nothing is slowing them up,” he said in response to criticism that his administration’s canceling of the KeystoneXL pipeline and Executive Order stopping new oilfield leases is to blame. The administration has repeatedly said that the industry has 9,000 approved leases they can tap into at any time.

  “I’m SICK of this stuff!”

  Joe Biden is furious that Americans blame inflation on his government spending. pic.twitter.com/quRxB2lfvA

  — Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 11, 2022

  BIDEN: “The oil companies and the executives, they don’t want to pump more oil, although they have every capacity to do so. Nothing is slowing them up.” pic.twitter.com/JKccKB6a4G

  — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 11, 2022

  Except, that’s not quite true…

  President Biden’s remarks earlier today. And goodness, I don’t know even where to start… 🤥🤥🤥 Even accepting he misspoke (instead of “by” he meant “from”), US oil output was ~11m bd when he took office. Using the 9.7m bd Feb 2021 level, hit by the freeze, is deeply misleading pic.twitter.com/DajAh219vl

  — Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) March 11, 2022

  Let’s review the Biden administration’s explanations for inflation over the course of the last year:

  

  Who could have seen this coming?

  THE PROPHET!
  pic.twitter.com/X813Vt5hqb

  — The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) March 11, 2022

  On Thursday, Fox News‘ Peter Doocy asked White House spox Jen Psaki “Are you guys going to just start blaming Putin for everything until the midterms?”

  To which Psaki responded: “Well, we’ve seen the price of gas go up at least $.75 since…Putin lined up troops[.]”

  Doocy 🔥🔥: “inflation goes up today. The President’s statement blames the #PutinPriceHike. Are you guys going to just start blaming Putin for everything until the midterms?”

  Psaki: “Well, we’ve seen the price of gas go up at least $.75 since…Putin lined up troops[.]” pic.twitter.com/WcmfcQDSWL

  — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 10, 2022

  Except… if all of this is the fault of Putin and big oil, how does the Biden administration explain this? Couldn’t have been Democratic admin responses to the pandemic – right?

  

  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 17:20

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• Whitehead: The Rise Of Global Fascism And The End Of The World As We Know It
  Whitehead: The Rise Of Global Fascism And The End Of The World As We Know It

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “This is the way the world ends

  Not with a bang but a whimper.”

  – “The Hollow Men,” T.S. Eliot

  Barely three years into the 2020s, and we seem to be living out the prophesies of the Book of Revelation with its dire warnings about plague, poverty, hatred and war.

  Just as the government hysteria over the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be dying down, new threats have arisen to occupy our attention and fuel our fears: food shortages, spiking inflation, rocketing gas prices, and a Ukraine-Russia conflict that threatens to bring about a world war.

  

  Is this the end of the world as we know it? Or is this the beginning of the end of the world?

  Will the world end with a bang or will it end, as T.S. Eliot concludes, with a whimper?

  Robert Frost, torn between a vision of the world ending in fire (the hot flame of violence, anger and greed) or ice (the cold burn of hatred), suggests that either would suffice to do the job.

  And then there’s the Polish-American poet Czeslaw Milosz, who envisioned the day the world ends as a day like any other: “Those who expected lightning and thunder are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, as long as the bumblebee visits a rose, as long as rosy infants are born, no one believes it is happening now… There will be no other end of the world.”

  In Milosz’ words can be found a distant echo of a warning issued by Bertram Gross in his book Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America:

  “Anyone looking for black shirts, mass parties, or men on horseback will miss the telltale clues of creeping fascism. In any First World country of advanced capitalism, the new fascism will be colored by national and cultural heritage, ethnic and religious composition, formal political structure, and geopolitical environment… In America, it would be supermodern and multi-ethnic-as American as Madison Avenue, executive luncheons, credit cards, and apple pie. It would be fascism with a smile. As a warning against its cosmetic facade, subtle manipulation, and velvet gloves, I call it friendly fascism. What scares me most is its subtle appeal. I am worried by those who fail to remember-or have never learned -that Big Business-Big Government partnerships, backed up by other elements, were the central facts behind the power structures of old fascism in the days of Mussolini, Hitler, and the Japanese empire builders.”

  Look beyond the drum-pounding distractions of war and the fear-inducing tactics of the Deep State, and consider the long-term ramifications of the so-called sanctions being levied against Russia right now: not just the governmental sanctions, but the corporate lockdowns.

  As CBS News reports, “Car shipments were paused. Beer stopped flowing. McDonald’s shut down sales of Big Macs. Cargo ships dropped port calls and oil companies cut their pipelines. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is leading some of the world’s best known brands—from Apple to Disney and Ikea—to abruptly exit a country that’s become a global outcast.”

  This is shunning on a global scale.

  Some companies, as Fortune reports, have gone above and beyond what was required by government sanctions. For instance, “major oil companies, including Exxon, BP, and Shell, ended joint investment projects with Russian oil companies. Major retailers, including H&M, Nike, Ikea, and TJX, have shut down Russian sales and closed stores. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express shut down global services in Russia… Boeing cut off support for Russian airlines and closed its offices in Moscow, while Delta ended its Russian code-sharing arrangement… FedEx and UPS shut services to Russia. Apple, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft all have taken significant action to combat Russian aggression and disinformation.”

  “You basically have Russia becoming a commercial pariah,” confirmed economist Mary Lovely. “Pretty much no company, no multinational, wants to be caught on the wrong side of U.S. and Western sanctions.”

  Russia’s military aggression has paved the way for a show of force by a punitive Big Business-Big Government power alliance that, until recently, had been exerting itself on a smaller scale to sanction individuals whose behavior was deemed to be hateful, discriminatory, conspiratorial or anti-government.

  There’s no going back from here.

  This may well be the end of the world as we know it.

  This particular apocalypse is the fallout from a silent coup that has given the Corporate State a taste for punitive power and an understanding of the ease with which it can use that power to manipulate, control and direct the world governments.

  For good or bad, it will change the way we navigate the world, redrawing the boundaries of our world (and our freedoms) and altering the playing field faster than we can keep up.

  This new world order—a global world order—made up of international government agencies and corporations owes its existence in large part to the U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top-secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations.

  This powerful international cabal, let’s call it the Global Deep State, is just as real as the corporatized, militarized, industrialized American Deep State, and it poses just as great a threat to our rights as individuals under the U.S. Constitution, if not greater.

  We’ve been inching closer to this global world order for the past several decades, but COVID-19, which saw governmental and corporate interests become even more closely intertwined, shifted this transformation into high gear.

  Now, in the face of Russia’s aggression, fascism is about to become a global menace.

  Given all that we know about the U.S. government—that it treats its citizens like faceless statistics and economic units to be bought, sold, bartered, traded, and tracked; that it repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn; and that it wages wars for profit, jails its own people for profit, and has no qualms about spreading its reign of terror abroad—it is not a stretch to suggest that the government has been overtaken by a power elite that do not have our best interests at heart.

  Indeed, to anyone who’s been paying attention to the goings-on in the world, it is increasingly obvious that we’re already under a new world order, and it is being brought to you by the Global-Industrial Deep State.

  It remains unclear whether the American Deep State (“a national-security apparatus that holds sway even over the elected leaders notionally in charge of it”) answers to the Global Deep State, or whether the Global Deep State merely empowers the American Deep State. However, there is no denying the extent to which they are intricately and symbiotically enmeshed and interlocked.

  Consider the extent to which our lives and liberties are impacted by this international convergence of governmental and profit-driven corporate interests in the surveillance state, the military industrial complex, the private prison industry, the intelligence sector, the security sector, the technology sector, the telecommunications sector, the transportation sector, the pharmaceutical industry and, most recently, by the pharmaceutical-health sector.

  All of these sectors are dominated by mega-corporations operating on a global scale and working through government channels to increase their profit margins. The profit-driven policies of these global corporate giants influence everything from legislative policies to economics to environmental issues to medical care.

  On almost every front, whether it’s the war on drugs, or the sale of weapons, or regulating immigration, or establishing prisons, or advancing technology, or fighting a pandemic, if there is a profit to be made and power to be amassed, you can bet that the government and its global partners have already struck a deal that puts the American people on the losing end of the bargain.

  We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.

  The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished.

  In its place is a shadow government—a corporatized, militarized, entrenched global bureaucracy—that is fully operational and is not only running the country but is about to take over the world.

  Given the trajectory and dramatic expansion, globalization and merger of governmental and corporate powers, we’re not going to recognize this country (or the rest of the world) 20 years from now.

  It’s taken less than a generation for our freedoms to be eroded and the Global Deep State’s structure to be erected, expanded and entrenched.

  Yet mark my words: the U.S. government will not save us from the chains of the Global Deep State.

  The current or future occupant of the White House will not save us.

  For that matter, anarchy, violence and incivility will not save us.

  Unfortunately, the government’s divide and conquer tactics are working like a charm.

  Despite the laundry list of grievances that should unite “we the people” in common cause against the government, the nation is more divided than ever by politics, by socio-economics, by race, by religion, and by every other distinction that serves to highlight our differences.

  The real and manufactured events of recent years—the pandemic, invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have all conjoined to create an environment in which “we the people” are more divided, more distrustful, and fearful of each other.

  What we have failed to realize is that in the eyes of the government, we’re all the same.

  When the government and its Global-Industrial Deep State partners in the New World Order crack down, we’ll all suffer.

  If there is to be any hope of freeing ourselves, it rests—as it always has—at the local level, with you and your fellow citizens taking part in grassroots activism, which takes a trickle-up approach to governmental reform by implementing change at the local level.

  One of the most important contributions an individual citizen can make is to become actively involved in local community affairs, politics and legal battles. As the adage goes, “Think globally, act locally.”

  America was meant to be primarily a system of local governments, which is a far cry from the colossal federal bureaucracy we have today. Yet if our freedoms are to be restored, understanding what is transpiring practically in your own backyard—in one’s home, neighborhood, school district, town council—and taking action at that local level must be the starting point.

  Responding to unmet local needs and reacting to injustices is what grassroots activism is all about. Attend local city council meetings, speak up at town hall meetings, organize protests and letter-writing campaigns, employ “militant nonviolent resistance” and civil disobedience, which Martin Luther King Jr. used to great effect through the use of sit-ins, boycotts and marches.

  And then, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if there is any means left to us for thwarting the government in its relentless march towards outright dictatorship, it may rest with the power of communities and local governments to invalidate governmental and corporate laws, tactics and policies that are illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/11/2022 – 00:00

• These Are The 50 Minerals Critical To US Security
  These Are The 50 Minerals Critical To US Security

  The U.S. aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 as part of its commitment to tackling climate change, but might be lacking the critical minerals needed to achieve its goals.

  The American green economy will rely on renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, along with the electrification of transportation. However, local production of the raw materials necessary to produce these technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, is lacking. Understandably, this has raised concerns in Washington.

  In the graphic below, based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti lists all of the minerals that the government has deemed critical to both the economic and national security of the United States.

  What are Critical Minerals?

  A critical mineral is defined as a non-fuel material considered vital for the economic well-being of the world’s major and emerging economies, whose supply may be at risk. This can be due to geological scarcity, geopolitical issues, trade policy, or other factors.

  In 2018, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a list of 35 critical minerals. The new list, released in February 2022, contains 15 more commodities.

  Much of the increase in the new list is the result of splitting the rare earth elements and platinum group elements into individual entries rather than including them as “mineral groups.” In addition, the 2022 list of critical minerals adds nickel and zinc to the list while removing helium, potash, rhenium, and strontium.

  

  The challenge for the U.S. is that the local production of these raw materials is extremely limited.

  For instance, in 2021 there was only one operating nickel mine in the country, the Eagle mine in Michigan. The facility ships its concentrates abroad for refining and is scheduled to close in 2025. Likewise, the country only hosted one lithium mine, the Silver Peak Mine in Nevada.

  At the same time, most of the country’s supply of critical minerals depends on countries that have historically competed with America.

  China’s Dominance in Minerals

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, China is the single largest supply source of mineral commodities for the United States.

  Cesium, a critical metal used in a wide range of manufacturing, is one example. There are only three pegmatite mines in the world that can produce cesium, and all were controlled by Chinese companies in 2021.

  Furthermore, China refines nearly 90% of the world’s rare earths. Despite the name, these elements are abundant on the Earth’s crust and make up the majority of listed critical minerals. They are essential for a variety of products like EVs, advanced ceramics, computers, smartphones, wind turbines, monitors, and fiber optics.

  After China, the next largest source of mineral commodities to the United States has been Canada, which provided the United States with 16 different elements in 2021.

  The Rising Demand for Critical Minerals

  As the world’s clean energy transitions gather pace, demand for critical minerals is expected to grow quickly.

  According to the International Energy Association, the rise of low-carbon power generation is projected to triple mineral demand from this sector by 2040.

  The shift to a sustainable economy is important, and consequently, securing the critical minerals necessary for it is just as vital.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 23:40

• By Enforcing Sanctions On Russia, SWIFT May Commit Suicide
  By Enforcing Sanctions On Russia, SWIFT May Commit Suicide

  Authored by Michael Maharrey via Libertarian Institute/Tenth Amendment Center

  The government of the United States has intervened militarily in other countries for decades, against the council of founders like George Washington who advised America should “observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.”

  But the U.S. doesn’t only project power across the globe through its massive military. It also weaponizes the U.S. dollar, using its economic dominance and its privilege as the issuer of the reserve currency as a carrot-stick tool of foreign policy. The U.S. government showers billions of dollars in foreign aid to “friends.” On the other hand, “enemies” can find themselves locked out of SWIFT, the global financial system that the U.S. effectively controls using the dollar.

  

  SWIFT stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The system enables financial institutions to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized environment. Since the dollar serves as the world reserve currency, SWIFT facilitates the international dollar system. SWIFT and dollar dominance give the U.S. a great deal of leverage over other countries.

  The U.S. has used the system as a stick before. In 2014 and 2015, the Obama administration blocked several Russian banks from SWIFT as relations between the two countries deteriorated. Under Trump, the U.S. threatened to lock China out of the dollar system if it failed to follow U.N. sanctions on North Korea. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin threatened this economic nuclear option during a conference broadcast on CNBC.

  “If China doesn’t follow these sanctions, we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the U.S. and international dollar system, and that’s quite meaningful.”

  Locking a country completely out of SWIFT would effectively cut it off economically from the world. But there would also be consequences that ripple through other economies. For instance, a member of the Russian parliament warned locking his country completely out of SWIFT would halt the flow of goods into Europe.

  If Russia is disconnected from SWIFT, then we will not receive [foreign] currency, but buyers, European countries in the first place, will not receive our goods — oil, gas, metals and other important components.”

  Given America’s history of using sanctions as a foreign policy tool, Russia wasn’t unprepared for the move. In fact, A number of countries that know they could easily find themselves in the crosshairs have taken steps to limit their dependence on the dollar and have even been working to establish alternative payment systems. This includes Russia, China and Iran.

  Russia developed its own payment system for internal use several years ago. According to the Central Bank of Russia, 416 Russian companies and government organizations had joined the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) as of September 2018. A growing number of central banks have also been buying gold as a way to diversify their holdings away from the greenback.

  The European Union is imposing additional sanctions that would target 160 Russian leaders and prominent figures — including oligarchs.

  The new sanctions extending to Belarus, which include reduced access to the SWIFT banking system. @NBCNews

  — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Before ending its purchase program at the onset of the COVID pandemic, Russia was the biggest central bank buyer of gold. The Central Bank of Russia bought $4.3 billion worth of the yellow metal between June 2019 and June 2020. And the Russians were buying gold long before that. The Central Bank of Russia bought gold every month from March 2015. According to Bloomberg, “Russia spent more than $40 billion building a war chest of gold over the past five years, making it the world’s biggest buyer.”

  Meanwhile, the Russian central bank was aggressively divesting itself of US Treasuries. Russia sold off nearly half of its US debt in April 2018 alone, dumping $47.4 billion of its $96.1 billion in U.S. Treasuries. It’s not just America’s “enemies” who are worried about the U.S. abusing its economic power. Her friends are also wary, as they should be.

  After Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal,  the EU announced the creation of a special payment channel to circumvent U.S. economic sanctions and facilitate trade with Iran. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini made the announcement after a meeting with foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran. She said the new payment channel would allow companies to preserve oil and other business deals with Iran.

  This underscores a risk to the U.S. sanction policies could also have long-run consequences, eventually undermining the dollar as the world reserve currency. Economic analyst Peter Schiff warned that other countries are watching how the U.S handles its power as the issuer of the global reserve currency during the Russian-Ukraine war.

  China is looking on thinking, well, Russia is doing something America doesn’t want. They’re getting sanctioned. What if we do something that America doesn’t want? We get sanctioned. They pull the dollar out from under us. Let’s get out from under the dollar on our own. Let’s not leave this weapon in the hands of the U.S. that can be turned against us at any time.”

  If enough countries abandon the dollar, the value of the U.S. currency would collapse and create economic chaos here at home. The de-dollarization of the world economy would likely perpetuate a currency crisis in the United States. Practically speaking, it would likely lead to hyperinflation.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. government should be wary of throwing its economic weight around too glibly. It isn’t the only country with an economic nuclear option. China ranks as the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt. If the Chinese were to dump a significant amount of U.S. Treasuries, it would collapse the bond market and make it impossible for the U.S. to finance its massive debt.

  America’s undeclared wars have cost trillions of dollars. And economic sanctions are an act of war. Most people view economic sanctions as an acceptable alternative to military force. But economic warfare also comes at a cost. It’s typically not the sanctioned government that suffers. It’s the innocent people living in that country that must cope with shortages and increasing prices.

  As James Madison said, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.”

  War always comes at a steep cost—whether military or economic.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 23:20

• Parachuting Spiders To Invade East Coast, Study Finds
  Parachuting Spiders To Invade East Coast, Study Finds

  The University of Georgia announced a new invasive bright yellow, blue-black, and red spider is preparing to spread from Georgia “through most of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S.” this spring. The spider is the size of a child’s hand and will parachute through the air and travel by wind.

  Large and scary-looking Joro spiders, potentially millions of them, are expected to use their silk to carry them up and down the East Coast as early as May in a technique called “ballooning,” according to UGA Today, a publication by the University of Georgia.

  

  The spiders were first discovered in Georgia in 2013 and have learned to adapt to harsh climates to survive colder weather. Their northward invasion will be terrifying, but one should not fret because their fangs are often not large enough to puncture human skin.

  

  “People should try to learn to live with them,” Andy Davis, a corresponding author of the study and a research scientist in the Odum School of Ecology, told UGA Today.

  “The way I see it, there’s no point in excess cruelty where it’s not needed,” added Benjamin Frick, co-author of the study and an undergraduate researcher in the School of Ecology. “You have people with saltwater guns shooting them out of the trees and things like that, and that’s really just unnecessary.”

  The spider can grow about 3 inches long and appear menacing. Unlike Cicadas, these spiders could be sticking around, sort of like stink bugs and murder hornets. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 23:00

• SCOTUS Must Clarify Confusions Surrounding Religious Liberty
  SCOTUS Must Clarify Confusions Surrounding Religious Liberty

  Authored by Adam Carrington via RealClear PublicAffairs (emphasis ours),

  Our law remains frustratingly confused on the issue of religious liberty. When the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a right to marriage for same-sex couples in Obergefell v. Hodges, it opened up many questions regarding how this new right would interact with those already in existence. In particular, what does protecting this right mean for respecting religious liberty?  

  

  For years, the court refused cases that could bring some potential clarity on this point – cases involving businesses seeking not to service same-sex weddings. The one case it did take, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, left the most important questions undecided.  

  Recently, however, the court added a religious liberty case to next year’s docket. This case concerns a website design company wishing not to provide its services for same-sex weddings. It signals that the court might now begin to give some judicial definition to the thorny questions that remain shrouded in Obergefell’s shadow.  

  In particular, the court will tackle how religious liberty relates to free speech. Taking up this issue may seem odd. The Constitution already contains religious provisions to address claims such as this one, namely, the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. Why turn, then, to the Free Speech Clause, which says nothing specifically about religion? 

  The court turned to this question because litigants have been doing so. Litigants have done so because the courts have afforded much greater protection to free speech claims than to free exercise ones. While recent decisions show some signs of closing that gap, overall, free speech claims do much better in court than claims involving religious liberty.  

  At the same time, whether the litigants communicate views about the mid-terms or the veracity of the Bible, speech is speech. Moreover, cases such as the one the court just took focus on what exactly speech is.  

  That statement, again, may seem silly, the ravings of someone who has lost common sense. Speech concerns the spoken word, uttered to communicate. We may add the written word here, too, just to be careful and fill in our definition. All other actions a person takes are not speech.  

  Yet, the Supreme Court long ago said that the Free Speech Clause protected more than speaking or writing words. Persons communicate opinions through a variety of gestures. We wear bands or ribbons, fly flags or burn them, all to communicate political, social, and religious opinions. 

  Where, then, do we draw the line between “expressive action” and simple actions? This point has haunted other cases the court has refused to take, such as whether taking photographs at a wedding expressed approval of that wedding. In Masterpiece Cakeshop, the court passed on deciding whether baking a cake for a wedding also celebrated that ceremony.  

  The court hopefully will begin to address some, if not all, of these issues when they hear the new case.

  We as a political community need to do so as well. We need to make sure we draw clear lines between religious liberty and the rights of gay persons; otherwise, these rights will be at stake. We must adequately show how far religious claims can extend to free speech; otherwise, how we read the Constitution will be at stake. And we must establish a clear distinction between speech and action, lest we turn every deed into expression and, consequently, every action into a political or social statement.

  The Supreme Court should seek to clarify these issues. Nothing less than liberty is at stake.  

  Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 22:40

• One Step Closer To Stagflation: Goldman Slashes 2022 GDP Forecast To 1.75%, Sees 35% Odds Of Recession
  One Step Closer To Stagflation: Goldman Slashes 2022 GDP Forecast To 1.75%, Sees 35% Odds Of Recession

  Back in October, when Goldman revised its 2022 GDP estimate from an euphoric 3.6% to a still euphoric 3.3%, we said that this assessment was dead wrong, as it was predicted on the overly optimistic assumption that the US consumer would remain solid thanks to generous spending of “excess savings” (the biggest lie about the post-covid recovery is that US society ended up with over $2 trillion in excess savings, when in reality it was just a handful of ultra rich that benefited from government generosity) which would never materialize. Instead we said that “the contribution to consumption from excess savings will end up being far smaller than most Wall Street strategists predict (since the propensity of the top 1% to spend their savings which are instead invested in the market, is far less than the broader population).” As a result, we also told readers to “expect even more aggressive cuts to GDP growth in coming quarters – from both Goldman and its peers – even as inflation continues to rise, cementing a painful period of non-transitory stagflation for the US as the mid-term elections approach.“

  Well fast forward to today, when on Thursday night the vampire squid just confirmed we were right – again – when unleashed its most draconian GDP cut yet, saying when it – again – downgraded its US GDP forecast “to reflect higher oil prices and other drags on growth related to the war in Ukraine”, or said otherwise, to reflect the woeful state of the US consumer which it was completely wrong about 5 months ago and is now blaming it on, who else, Vladimir Putin.

  Of course, Goldman can’t admit that its entire bullish case was wrong from the beginning so instead it blames it on exogenous factors, the same factors which we have been saying for the past 6 months are pushing the US in a stagflationary recession (if not depression) as a result of dismal monetary, fiscal and energy policy, whose dire outcomes were merely precipitated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  According to Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius, “oil and commodity prices have risen sharply since Russia invaded Ukraine. Our commodity strategists’ near-term crude oil and agricultural commodity forecasts imply an effective 0.7% drag on real disposable income that will weigh on spending in 2022.”

  

  Goldman, which earlier today noted that global financial conditions are suddenly the tightest they have been in the past decade as a result of soaring commodity prices and interest rates, also expects “modest drags on growth from further tightening of financial conditions, lower consumer sentiment, and slower growth in Europe, and see additional downside risks if shortages of key metals constrain US production.”

  

  As a result, Goldman slashes its GDP growth forecast as follows:

  • Q1 2022 to +0.5% vs 1.0% previously
  • Q2 2022 to +1.5% vs 2.5% previously
  • Q3 2022 to +2.5% vs 2.5% previously
  • Q4 2022 to +2.5% vs 2.0% previously

  

  Compare this to what Goldman predicted in October:

  • Q1 2022 to 4.5 vs 5.0% previously
  • Q2 2022 to 4% vs 4.5% previously
  • Q3 2022 to  3% vs 3.5% previously
  • Q4 2022 to 1.75% vs. 1.5% previously

  In other words, in 5 months Goldman has gone from 5.0% in Q1 to 0.5%. And that’s why Goldman’s economists are millionaires. Alternatively you could have simply read the following article we published at around the same time, “The Fed Just Started The Countdown To The Next Recession: Here’s When It Will Strike“, to know what is really going to happen.

  As for the full year, the bank is lowering its 2022 real GDP growth forecast to +1.75% on a Q4/Q4 basis vs. +2.0% previously, and 1 percent below the consensus of 2.7%. Compared to the bank’s 2022 GDP forecast in October, it just around 50% off the 3.3% GDP forecast then, and when we said this number will collapse precipitously. Once again, we were right and Goldman was wrong.

  And finally, while Goldman still won’t admit what is patently obvious to anyone, namely that a stagflationary recession will be here in a few months, when both Q1 and Q2 GDP print negative as CPI prints double digits, the bank at least breaches the topic of recession probability, and for the first time says that it now “sees the risk that the US enters a recession during the next year as broadly in line with the 20-35% odds currently implied by models based on the slope of the yield curve.”

  For the record, we see odds that the US enters recession this year at 100%. And once that happens, the Fed will go all in…

  

  Admitting that its forecast will be overly optimistic yet again, the bank concedes that “even after these downgrades, we still see risks around our growth forecast as skewed to the downside, particularly if sanctions escalate or if oil prices rise even further, for example, to the $175/bbl price target our commodity strategists see as possible if supply losses reach 4mb/d. Additionally, we have not assumed any growth hit due to metal shortages since — aside from palladium — only a small share of US commodity demand is met by Russian exports. However, if supply chain disruptions lead to challenges in sourcing key metals and other inputs that constrain production (as has already occurred for some European automakers), the negative growth impact could be more substantial.”

  Reading between the lines, it appears that Goldman agrees with our “recession assured” call, a call we have absolute certain in after Janet Yellen said she sees none.

  *YELLEN: I DON’T EXPECT A RECESSION IN THE U.S.

  Recession secured

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 10, 2022

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  Finally, Goldman also nudged up its year-end unemployment rate forecast to 3.5% (vs. 3.4% previously) to reflect “the worse growth outlook, but still expect healthy job gains in 2022 despite fairly weak GDP growth due to strong labor demand.” Here too, we disagree, and see double digit unemployment once the recession transforms into a global depression.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 22:20

• WHO Told Ukraine To Destroy 'High-Threat Pathogens' In Labs To Prevent Disease Spread
  WHO Told Ukraine To Destroy ‘High-Threat Pathogens’ In Labs To Prevent Disease Spread

  The World Health Organization advised Ukraine to destroy ‘high-threat pathogens’ in the country’s public health laboratories in order to prevent “any potential spills” that might infect the population during the Russian invasion, Reuters reports.

  

  “As part of this work, WHO has strongly recommended to the Ministry of Health in Ukraine and other responsible bodies to destroy high-threat pathogens to prevent any potential spills,” said the UN agency.

  The report comes after a tense back-and-forth between US and Russian officials over “dangerous” biolabs in the country – with Russia, and then China, accusing the US military of involvement in Ukraine’s biolabs.

  On Wednesday, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova repeated a longstanding claim that the United States operates a biowarfare lab in Ukraine, an accusation that has been repeatedly denied by Washington and Kyiv.

  Zakharova said that documents unearthed by Russian forces in Ukraine showed “an emergency attempt to erase evidence of military biological programmes” by destroying lab samples. -Reuters

  The US has denied the allegations – issuing (among other things) a Thursday statement that “The United States does not have chemical or biological weapons labs in Ukraine,” adding that America “does not develop or possess chemical and biological weapons anywhere.”

  FACT: The United States does not have chemical and biological weapons labs in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/cB9ZrH8vCo

  — Department of State (@StateDept) March 10, 2022

  On Tuesday, US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland acknowledged that Ukraine “has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of. So we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.”

  Nuland’s answer made clear that whatever is inside Ukraine’s biolabs is a serious concern, however it should be noted that there’s no public evidence of bioweapons, nor did the WHO statement make reference to biowarfare – which is a separate issue from whether the laboratories contained, or contain, dangerous pathogens which could be used in a bioweapon. 

  In response to Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova’s Wednesday claim that the US is operating a biowarfare lab in Ukraine, a Ukrainian presidential spokesperson said: “Ukraine strictly denies any such allegation.”

  The UN Security Council will convene on Friday at Russia’s request to discuss the claims.

  Tucker Carlson & @ggreenwald Discuss Victoria Nuland’s Testimony About “Biological Research Facilities” In Ukraine

  Tucker: “It’s fair to ask what have they been doing in Ukraine?” pic.twitter.com/ECIaJQQp7D

  — The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) March 11, 2022

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 22:00

• "I Am Not Suicidal": Watch As Jussie Smollett Loses it During Sentencing Hearing
  “I Am Not Suicidal”: Watch As Jussie Smollett Loses it During Sentencing Hearing

  By Blue Apples

  In an event that will likely not be publicized by the mainstream, the sad chapter of Jussie Smollett’s hate crime hoax came to a fiery conclusion on Thursday. Smollett was sentenced before a court to a 30-month probation term, ordered to pay restitution to the City of Chicago in the amount of $120,000, a fine of $25,000 that was the maximum allowed by statute, and lastly: 150 days in prison.

  Judge James Linn carefully parsed out the terms when reading Smollett his sentence. He elaborated upon the parameters of the 30 month probation by informing Smollett he would be able to travel and report by phone. Judge Linn arrived at the 150 day jail sentence last before asking Smollett if he had any questions. Smollett, after carefully removing his mask, spoke softly stating “I am not suicidal” to which Judge Linn replied “okay…” Smollett then went on by standing up and boisterously declaring that he was not suicidal, with his shouting echoing through the courthouse chambers. Smollett’s unhinged rant continued on with him stating that he was standing up for the African-American and LGBT communities in a display of self-veneration that was lacking any semblance of self-awareness. Smollett dramatically professed his innocence whilst intermittently stopping to assure Judge Linn that he respected his decision, a sentiment which certainly wasn’t reciprocated.

  Smollett’s display was a real microcosm of all of the character flaws that motivated his crimes. He’s clearly a self-absorbed person overly compensating for an inferiority complex who resigns himself to appealing to marginalized demographics of people from whom he is entirely removed from given his status as a multi-millionaire celebrity. The same brazen hubris which led Smollett to believe he’d be able to get away with staging a hate crime as a publicity stunt to capitalize on the racial tensions gripping the United States was on full display during the sentencing hearing, making it difficult to believe that any punishment will be able to teach him a lesson.

  At the very least, I’m sure his tantrum is much more entertaining than anything he’s ever acted in.

  Meanwhile, this tweet is still out there…

  What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie. https://t.co/o8ilPu68CM

  — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 30, 2019

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 21:47

• Majority Of Americans Make "Lifestyle Changes" As Gas Prices Hit Record Highs 
  Majority Of Americans Make “Lifestyle Changes” As Gas Prices Hit Record Highs 

  President Biden’s disastrous economy shows signs of stagflation as growth wanes, and commodity prices stage the largest weekly gain ever. Today’s inflation printed at a 40-year high as soaring commodity costs hit the working poor the hardest, who have been forced to make lifestyle changes to offset additional costs. 

  First, let’s begin with a new report from LendingClub. It shows a staggering 64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, up from 61% in December. As costs skyrocket, the working poor see their wages stripped away by inflation. 

  “You’ve got to eat, you’ve got to commute; these are not discretionary expenses,” Anuj Nayar, LendingClub’s financial health officer, said. 

  New research from Yardeni Research estimates the average household will spend an additional $2,000 per year in gasoline on top of an extra $1,000 in food expenses. Adding this all up, the typical household will spend $3,000 less this year on other things. 

  This means that people living paycheck to paycheck with no savings or other safety nets will have to make abrupt lifestyle changes. 

  According to American Automobile Association (AAA), 59% of Americans are making lifestyle changes as the national average for regular gasoline at the pump hits a new record high of $4.318. If gas hit $5, three-quarters of the respondents said they would need to make lifestyle changes to offset the spike at the pump.

  Among the respondents who said they would make changes in response to higher gas prices, 80% of them said they would drive fewer miles, with some differences among different generations:

  • 18 to 34 year-olds are almost three times as likely as those 35 and over to consider carpooling (29% vs 11%), which would likely involve major changes to their daily travel plans.
  • Those 35 and over are more likely to favor combining tips and errands (68% vs 52%) and to reduce shopping or dining out (53% vs. 43%).

  Prices in some parts of the country have spiked to just under $8 a gallon. 

  Gas prices this morning at a station in West Hollywood. Premium is just under $8 a gallon. https://t.co/s9J8YHg8Lm pic.twitter.com/YFvPEiMTUS

  — CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) March 10, 2022

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  Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, gas prices have risen more than 74 cents to $4.318 per gallon, a record high. The Biden administration has launched a media blitz to blame soaring prices on Putin. 

  

  However, when Biden was elected, gas prices averaged around $2.30 and jumped $1.230 over the last year before the attack several weeks back. That means prices jumped 53% even before the invasion, but the administration insists in their messaging that President Putin is responsible for why prices of everything are rising. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 21:40

• Even With 'Defund The Police' Discredited, Some Schools May Still Shun The Police
  Even With ‘Defund The Police’ Discredited, Some Schools May Still Shun The Police

  Authored by Vince Bielski via RealClearInvestigations (emphasis ours),

  Des Moines this week suffered its first fatal school shooting – reigniting a controversy in the city after the district removed police officers from its schools last year.

  

  Police say a group of teenagers in vehicles outside Des Moines’ East High School fired multiple rounds onto school property on Monday, killing a 15-year-old boy and critically wounding two female students who were bystanders. Six teenagers, some of them current Des Moines students, have been charged with first-degree murder.

  The deadly drive-by shooting now hovers over the decision by Des Moines officials, along with about 30 districts across the country, to exile cops from schools. These moves were part of the “defund the police” movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. It’s a movement now reeling in the face of violent crime surging nationwide, punctuated by President Biden’s State of the Union vow last week to “fund the police.”

  But in schools, at least, a decision to bring back cops — or “school resource officers,” as they are called — isn’t a slam dunk in places where students of color had been arrested at higher rates than whites.

  Des Moines (population: 214,000) provides a case in point. So far its district, half of whose students are black or Latino, has not followed schools from Maryland to California heeding pleas to restore the SROs. Instead, Iowa’s capital city is rolling out a new community-engagement safety plan to replace the cops.

  And that infuriates parents alarmed by school mayhem long before Floyd’s death moved racial justice to the front burner — parents like Lindsay LaGrange. The Des Moines mom reached her breaking point in November after a student in her son’s middle school was found with an airsoft pellet gun on campus. “My son turned in this boy to the front office, and then later this boy beats up my son after school,” she said. “Almost every day he said there’s another fight at school. The kids are not safe.”

  

  The Policing of America’s Schools

  Des Moines joined the wave of districts that hired SROs after the rash of school shootings in the 1990s, a decade capped by the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. The killing of Sandy Hook elementary school children in Connecticut in 2012 spurred more districts to follow suit. As many as 25,000 law enforcement officers are working today in all types of schools, from rural to suburban to urban, said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO).

  In Des Moines, SRO was a coveted job. Cops went through a competitive hiring process, which vetted them for the patience and savvy to communicate with teenagers, said Sergeant Paul Parizek of the Des Moines Police Department. Not every officer was a good fit. Those tapped went through training at NASRO, a crash course in seeing the world through the eyes of a teenager.

  Des Moines started its SRO program about two decades ago. The district would eventually hire 10 SROs and a supervisor – one cop for each high school and four that were shared by the middle schools. Seventy percent of SROs were white men and women. Black men made up 30%.

  Parizek said the public has harbored misconceptions about the approach. SROs weren’t placed in schools to jack up kids with a dime bag. Although an average of 287 Des Moines students were arrested annually in the years before the pandemic, the goal was prevention: to build relationships with students to deter them from trouble and to hear chatter about what’s going down in the schools. Who’s going to fight? Who has a gun?

  “The guns we recovered in 2019, we recovered them before they made it inside the school door,” Parizek said. “And this was because of the relationships that SROs had with students who provided them with information.”

  

  A Cop’s Story at Lincoln High

  Officer Deb Vanvelzen fit the SRO mold. She was a school teacher with a passion for working with students before becoming a cop and then an SRO from 2005 to 2019, mostly at Lincoln High.

  In addition to performing typical police duties, such as breaking up fights and disposing of drugs, Vanvelzen aimed to be part of the Lincoln community. She advised teachers on how to keep classrooms safe. She spoke with parents about how to address problems with their children. She gave students lunch money and clothing her own kids outgrew. A former high school athlete, the white cop played hoops in the gym (and in uniform) with students and ate lunch in the cafeteria with kids of color to break the ice. They talked about clothing styles.

  For a few years she sent every student a birthday card. At graduation, Vanvelzen shook everyone’s hand.

  The payoff? “Once the students saw me as trustworthy, they started talking to me and I found out things before they happened and exploded,” she said. “Sometimes kids talked to me to keep their friends safe.”

  A few years ago, a Lincoln student approached Vanvelzen with a tip about a weapon. The day before, a teen from a different school involved in a fight across the street from Lincoln had a gun. Vanzelzen then relayed the tip to the SRO at that student’s school.

  “So that SRO sees the kid in the hallway, gets him into his office, and lo and behold, he still has the gun,” she said.

  Portilda Sayon, a junior at Lincoln, said some students felt safer because of the SROs. Sayon got to know Dusty Chapline, Vanvelzen’s replacement, after Sayon had a verbal spat with other girls. The two talked a lot about Sayon’s emotional problems and issues at home. “Chappie helped me tremendously,” Sayon said.   

  Some students, however, never took to the SROs. “They don’t like cops because they had a bad experience with them before,” Sayon said.

  Vanvelzen said that she, in collaboration with the Lincoln staff, “absolutely” made the school safer. But she notes the challenge in assessing the effectiveness of SROs. There’s no way to count the number of incidents that did not happen because of her presence at Lincoln.

  The statistics are hard to interpret: there were 1,652 reported acts of physical aggression in the Des Moines middle and high schools in fiscal 2019. That number was fairly steady in the few years before SROs were removed. So perhaps the cops were keeping a lid on violence but not significantly reducing it.

  When officials examined the data, they couldn’t come to a definitive conclusion about SROs. “That’s the essential question, but we really couldn’t answer it with confidence that SROs were or weren’t making schools safer,” said Jake Troja, the district director of school climate transformation.

  How Two Students Expelled the SROs

  The campaign to remove the police was led by two Des Moines students at East High School, Endi Montalvo-Martinez and Lyric Sellers. While researching racial equity for a leadership class, Montalvo-Martinez, then a junior, learned about the controversy surrounding SROs in other cities. It meshed with the experience of some of his friends who believed racism had led SROs to stop them and search their bags.  

  So Montalvo-Martinez and Sellers, then a sophomore, wrote a sweeping anti-racist proposal in early 2020 to compel the district to remove the police, redesign its Eurocentric curriculum and hire more teachers of color.

  

  When the duo met with Superintendent Thomas Ahart, he said no. “He made excuses like there’s no funding, we can’t invest in these things,” said Montalvo-Martinez.

  Soon after that rejection, Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis ignited protests, even in quiet Des Moines, where demonstrators clashed with cops, exchanging bricks and bottles for tear gas in May of 2020. The following month, Ahart sent a letter to families, titled “We ALL Must Be Actively ANTI-Racist.”

  Montalvo-Martinez said the district’s new anti-racist pledge gave the two students more political leverage, but they still needed tactical advice on how to sway administrators and board members. Jaylen Cavil, a defund the police advocate with the Black Liberation Movement and candidate for the Iowa House, became a key adviser.

  Montalvo-Martinez and Sellers gathered arrest data from the Des Moines human rights department and student testimonials about being traumatized by SROs before making presentations to principals, teachers and school board members individually. They encountered some resistance from school staff, but in their second meeting with the superintendent, Ahart agreed that the SROs must go. “Ahart did a 180,” Montalvo-Martinez said.

  

  But Ahart knew that most parents probably wouldn’t back his decision. In a survey by the district, a majority of parents (66%) and students (53%) had said they supported having police in schools.

  In the heated racial politics of the moment, the arrest data – blacks students were twice as likely to be involved with a SRO than whites – became a rallying point. Montalvo-Martinez and other activists said it showed that the cops were biased and targeted blacks for arrest.

  The cops, however, generally didn’t patrol the halls and playgrounds looking to make arrests. The vast majority of arrests started with calls for help to SROs from school administrators, who were identifying the incidents and misbehaving students that they wanted the cops to handle, district officials say. “I want to make clear that SROs were not the problem even though it comes off in the media that way,” Troja said. “They were summoned” to the scene.

  In February 2021, the school board voted unanimously to end the SRO program. “Kudos to these two students for really being intentional around the process and information and lining up support on this issue,” said Teree Caldwell-Johnson, vice chair of the school board. 

  Schools Take On Violence Control

  Following the lead of other districts, Des Moines developed a SRO replacement plan for schools to handle most of the behavior problems, other than serious crimes such as possession of a weapon. This way, students would avoid the taint of a police record that could harm their job prospects after graduation.

  Officials also argued that they could improve school safety if the $900,000 spent on SROs was redeployed in support of a new, community-based approach. That included bringing community organizations like Dads on a Mission – a group of local fathers who want to have a positive influence on students – into the schools. Hall monitors were hired so high schools now have five of them rather than one SRO. And the district has been rolling out a restorative justice program, where students hash out their conflicts in discussion groups in hopes of overcoming them – a practice that has had mixed results in other districts around the country.

  “We were calling the SROs for many incidents, like physical fights in the hallways, that we could have handled ourselves,” Troja said. “Now we are approaching safety differently by allocating funds to different resources to try to get better results.”

  The new approach didn’t get off to a good start. Last fall, after 16,000 middle and high school students returned to classrooms full-time in Des Moines, officials were caught off guard by the spike in fighting and disruptive behavior. The removal of the SROs didn’t cause the surge in violence, but nor were the cops readily available to tamp it down.

  Last September, there were 83 referrals for fighting in Des Moines’ six high schools compared with 59 in the same month in 2019 – a pattern of monthly increases that continued through December. Students posted numerous disturbing videos on Snapchat of boys and girls aggressively attacking each other at different schools, with punches to the head, kicks to the stomach and stomps on the chest.

  Then there’s the matter of guns. Last year, a student brought a loaded 9mm pistol into Lincoln High, alarming parents but not surprising them. From 2016 to 2020, the staff and SROs confiscated 20 lethal weapons from students, mostly loaded guns, in this school district of 32,000 students. Des Moines police say a number of gun shots have been fired near schools that have been linked to students, but without any fatalities.

  In addition to guns, students have access to a wide arsenal of weapons. In December, a Lincoln student who had been bullied brought a taser to school and used it when he was attacked by others bearing brass knuckles and pepper spray.

  Backlash at the School Board

  Aveantai Smith moved from Arlington, Texas, to Des Moines, where she had lived about 17 years ago, assuming the schools were as safe as she remembered. Instead, she has been horrified by the brutality that her son and daughter have encountered at Lincoln High.

  Smith met with the principal, who said he’s doing everything he can to control the surge in violence. But that didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. She pulled her daughter out of Lincoln and sent her back to Texas to live with her grandmother. Her son, a football player who isn’t easily intimidated, remains at the school.

  “It’s literally outrageous,” said Smith, herself a college nursing student. “The school is not safe and secure. The fighting is on a whole different level. I’m scared to send my kids to school every single day.”

  By December a backlash was underway, with Des Moines parents calling for a return of the SROs in media interviews. The controversy came to a head at a Dec. 7 school board meeting.

  LaGrange, whose son Jeremiah was attacked by another student, has been organizing other parents on social media behind the SRO cause. She bluntly told board members during the meeting to “wake up” to the reality of the rise in violence and restore the police program to protect students.

  Critics of SROs also spoke up at the meeting, repeating the story line about racist police practices. A public school employee told the board that the police were removed for “targeting black children” and that the racist practice would return with the SROs. An activist with the Young Women’s Resource Center urged the officials to reject the “dangerous narrative” pushed by local TV station KCCI in its “campaign against black children, framing them as sources of violence within our schools.” But KCCI hasn’t singled out black students in its coverage.

  Ten days later, Superintendent Ahart was forced to crack down on students, announcing a tougher suspension policy for fighting in a letter to families. After a first fight, students can stay in school and try to resolve the conflict. After a second, they shift to 30 school days of remote virtual learning with counseling to get to the root of the problem. A third fight means two months of virtual instruction.

  With the return of some old school discipline, the number of reported high school fights dropped to 47 in January compared with 67 in the same month of 2020.

  But Ahart, who announced his resignation on Feb. 28, was silent on the question of bringing back SROs. Would having cops on-site who can quickly respond to incidents like the brawl outside of Lincoln High in September also make a difference?

  “Yes, without SROs we lose that immediate access to an officer,” Troja said. “Does that have benefits? It does. But do those benefits outweigh the benefits that we gain now with our new approach? I don’t think so, or we wouldn’t have gone down this path.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 21:20

• Watch: Kamala's Awkward Response When Asked About Ukraine's Refugee Crisis
  Watch: Kamala’s Awkward Response When Asked About Ukraine’s Refugee Crisis

  As we predicted earlier, despite Vice President Kamala Harris being dispatched to Poland to try and smooth over the MiG jets for Ukraine fiasco, she only made things more awkward during her joint press conference with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw.

  She broke into deep laughter, which perhaps made President Duda visibly uncomfortable given how long the cackle lasted when asked a series of questions about the growing Ukrainian refugee crisis impacting the region. Watch:

  Kamala Harris jokes about the dire refugee crisis from Ukraine Russia war. pic.twitter.com/bIb5AJSxPZ

  — Big Fish (@BigFish3000) March 10, 2022

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  The moment was prompted after a reporter posed questions for which she seemed unprepared, after which Harris and Duda looked at each other to determine who would go first.

  “It’s an improvised system that can work for maybe two weeks but not indefinitely,” the reporter added before asking, “And I’m wondering what the United States is going to do more specifically to set up a permanent infrastructure and relatedly, is the United States willing to make a specific allocation for Ukrainian refugees?”

  “OK,” Harris then said, and proceeded to make a joke, letting loose deep laughter that seemed to continue on for an awkward length of time. One report said it lasted up to 15 seconds.

  “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” she said, laughing at her own ‘joke’. The refugee crisis which has emerged after two weeks of war in Ukraine has now been called the worst since World War 2, with the United Nations by middle of this week estimating over 2.4 million Ukrainians have fled amid the Russian invasion.

  

  The New York Post and others assembled some quick reactions, after she was slammed by multiple pundits for the inappropriate moment, considering the gravity and dire nature of the situation:

  “Only Kamala Harris would find it appropriate to laugh when talking about the topic of Ukrainian Refugees,” tweeted Benny Johnson of conservative group Turning Point USA.

  “Kamala Harris has been very consistent during her live remarks with Poland’s leader,” said former Donald Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. “She is awkwardly laughing. Again. Discussing refugees is no laughing matter. Why she laughs at this is deranged.”

  “Nothing about any of this is funny,” added Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean.

  And as The Daily Mail noted, “The vice president’s now commonplace laughter at inappropriate moments with world leaders was met with widespread criticism.”

  “I am here. Standing… here…” ::checks notes:: pic.twitter.com/lylvfZj4qO

  — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) March 10, 2022

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  Fresh numbers in The Wall Street Journal indicate that about 1.4 million Ukrainian refugees are now in Poland alone, with two refugees entering the country every three seconds at this point.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 21:00

• Putin Tells West "Don't Blame Me" For Soaring Energy Prices, Releases Banned Exports Partial List
  Putin Tells West “Don’t Blame Me” For Soaring Energy Prices, Releases Banned Exports Partial List

  Update(18:42ET): On Thursday Russia released its list of exports that are banned as retaliation against Western sanctions. “These measures are a logical response to those imposed against Russia and are aimed at ensuring uninterrupted functioning of key sectors of the economy,” the economy ministry said.

  Notably, the only major commodity being banned is lumber, despite two days ago upon the initial announcement the Kremlin saying “certain commodities and raw materials” would fall under the ban. While not yet naming the precise list of specific items it’s said to include 200 total products…

  “The list includes technical, telecommunication and medical equipment, vehicles, agricultural machinery, electrical equipment – more than 200 items in total, including railway cars and locomotives, containers, turbines, metal and stone processing machines, monitors, projectors, consoles and panels,” the Kremlin statement says. “This measure is necessary to ensure stability in the Russian market.”

  Whew. I was afraid my Russian bride wouldn’t ship.

  — Alvin Quinn (aka The Thinker) 👨‍🎓🕵️‍♂️ (@bquicker) March 10, 2022

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  And more according to Reuters:

  Interfax news agency cited a source familiar with legislation being prepared as saying Russia may temporarily ban grain exports to a group of ex-Soviet countries forming part of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) from March 15 to August 31, as well as sugar exports outside the EEU area.

  Also on Thursday Russian President Putin addressed soaring energy prices in the West and worldwide, saying Washington is engaged in an empty blame-game. He urged the public not to accept the US narrative that he is to blame. According to a state media translation, Putin said:

  “The prices there [for energy carriers in the EU countries] are growing, but not through our fault. This is the result of their own miscalculations. They should not blame us for this.”

  “The same applies to the surge in prices for oil and petroleum products in the United States. They announced that they were closing the import of Russian oil to the American market, prices there are high, inflation is unprecedentedly high, probably reached all-time highs. They are trying to shift blame for the results of their own mistakes on us,” the Russian leader added.

  At least people will start walking again pic.twitter.com/27zLjXmGUr

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 10, 2022

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  And more via TASS: According to him, this is obvious to market experts, “because the supply of Russian oil to the American market does not exceed 3%.”

  “This is a negligible volume, and their prices are rising. We have absolutely nothing to do with it, and even here the ban on Russian oil imports has absolutely nothing to do with it. They just hide behind these decisions in order to once again deceive their own population,” Putin said.

  He further called out US hypocrisy for seeking to quickly do deals with Maduro’s Venezuela as well as the Islamic Republic:

  “They are ready to make peace with Iran, immediately sign all the documents, and with Venezuela. They went to Venezuela to negotiate, but they should not have introduced these illegitimate sanctions,” he said. “The same will happen in relations with our country, I have no doubt about that.”

  * * *

  Update(12:45ET): European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell issued a provocative statement aimed at Moscow and Putin personally on Thursday. Borrell declared that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine starting on Feb.24 with the belief that he was quickly going to conquer Ukraine, but that “he failed”. Borrell stated of Putin: he “believed he was going to conquer Ukraine” but “he failed.” 

  The EU top diplomat continued: 

  “He believed he was going to divide us; he failed. He believed that he was going to weaken the transatlantic relationship and he failed. Now he has to stop,” he added while speaking to reporters while entering a summit of EU leaders in France’s Versailles.  

  Borrell also addressed the necessity of Europe winding down its energy dependence on Russia, saying, “we will be much safer. Have to spend less gas, use less gas, the climate requires that. For once, geopolitics and climate go together.” 

  UAV footage showing Ukrainian attacks on a Russian armored column in Brovary, including that captured T-72A tank. According to the audio, the regimental commander was killed. It appears it was a mix of Ukrainian artillery and tank strikes on the column.https://t.co/LemIgjQiOZ pic.twitter.com/x2tVSHPENa

  — Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 10, 2022

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  European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen had a similar message at the summit in Versailles, saying, “we will rethink European defense with strong capabilities. We will rethink energy. We have to get rid of the dependence of Russian fossil fuels and for that we need massive investment in renewables.”

  During the fourth round of Ukraine-Russia talks, Kiev is reported to have offered “neutrality” on the NATO question, but it went nowhere:

  Thursday’s high-level talks in Turkey between Ukrainian and Russian foreign affairs counterparts ended in no progress for a potential cease-fire or for protecting civilians in the heavily bombarded Mariupol, even after Ukraine suggested a “neutrality” proposal with security guarantees from world powers. 

  In the most senior interaction since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the failed talks between Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his counterpart, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, lasted just 90 minutes in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya. 

  Russia reportedly rejected Ukraine’s “neutrality” proposals that promised international security guarantees, according to the Financial Times. The two sides discussed a 24-hour cease-fire but did not make progress, as Russia was still seeking “surrender from Ukraine,” Kuleba said. 

  And via Bloomberg on Thursday, Russia has signaled it’s ready repay debt in increasingly worthless rubles in a fresh counterthreat to drop sactions: “Russia will repay debt in rubles if agent banks deny to unfreeze reserves or don’t respond to queries,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said. He further stipulated: 

  • Repayment of debt, payment of coupons in FX will only be possible if the FX accounts of the government and central bank are “unfrozen,” he says
  • Russia “will fulfill obligations to investors in any case,” he says

  The European Union is imposing additional sanctions that would target 160 Russian leaders and prominent figures — including oligarchs.

  The new sanctions extending to Belarus, which include reduced access to the SWIFT banking system. @NBCNews

  — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 10, 2022

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  * * * 

  With newsflow out of Ukraine having become a firehose, with market moving headlines firing every minute, traders can be forgiven if they have just given up following the narrative. To help out, here is a snapshot of all the latest market-moving news out of Ukraine from the last few hours:

  Ceasefire Negotiations:

  • Ukraine and Russia failed to make progress in halting the war at the first high-level talks between their foreign ministers since the Russian invasion began.

  • Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba says no progress on ceasefire; Russia stuck to its script; holding the meeting with his Russian counterpart was not easy; ready to meet again in this format; ready to continue engagement to stop the war. Mariupol was the most difficult situation, Lavrov did not commit to a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol. Have two tasks now: organizing humanitarian corridor from Mariupol and reaching 24-hour truce.

  • “The broad narrative he conveyed to me is that they will continue their aggression until Ukraine meets their demands, and the least of these demands is surrender,” Kuleba said.

  • Hosted by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, this was the most senior in-person meeting between Ukraine and Russia since the Russian invasion began Feb. 24.

  • The main sticking point, from a Ukrainian perspective at least, appears to be the humanitarian corridors as Kuleba noted that there was no progress on a ceasefire and the city of Mariupol was the most difficult situation. During the presser, the Mariupol, Ukraine City Council says the city is under attack from the air; residential buildings have been hit and the Deputy Ukrainian PM added that a humanitarian corridor attempting to reach the city had to turn around given the fighting.

  • Russia is open to serious talks between the two presidents “but those contacts must have added value,” Lavrov told reporters after the meeting. He reiterated that Russia is seeking the demilitarization of Ukraine.

  • “We want a Ukraine that’s friendly and demilitarized, a Ukraine in which there isn’t a risk of the creation of another Nazi state, a Ukraine where there won’t be a ban on the Russian language, on Russian culture,” Lavrov said.

  • German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to Putin by phone Thursday and reiterated their demand for an immediate cease-fire. The three leaders agreed to stay in close touch in coming days, according to a statement from Scholz’s office.

  • In terms of the market reaction, Kuleba began speaking first and his remarks that there was no ceasefire progress and seemingly intimating that a Presidential-level meeting was not due imminently sparked some pressure in the equity space, hampering the ES March’22 contract by around 15-points, geopolitical-premia lent some support to WTI and Brent as well, moving to fresh incremental highs. However, the most significant move was in Spot Gold, which tested USD 2k/oz to the upside (high USD 2000.03/oz), gaining around USD 20/oz amid the commentary from the ministers.

  • Looking ahead, look for updates on Kuleba’s focus points of a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol and attaining a 24-hour truce. Additionally, for any indications towards, as suggested by Ukraine, another Foreign Ministers meeting and/or a gathering between the respective Presidents. Note, the situation at the Chernobyl nuclear plant has not developed following the power outage reported earlier in the week, during the Foreign Ministers press conference the Ukrainian Energy Minister confirmed the ongoing lack of power.

  Other Discussions/Negotiations:

  • Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says a possible meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents was discussed; but need more preparations, Reminded Ukraine that Russia had presented its proposals and Moscow wants a reply. Prepared to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine. Possible meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents was discussed; but need more preparations. No one here today was discussing a ceasefire; on oil/gas sanctions, says never used oil and gas like weapons.

  • Reminder, prior to the Foreign Ministers meeting the Russian Kremlin said the Turkey meeting could open the way for talks between Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky, awaiting the outcome of today’s Foreign Minister talks.

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he’s willing to consider some compromises on Russia’s demand that his country abandons ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and adopt a neutral position.

  • Zelenskiy’s also said that “only after the direct talks between the two presidents can we end this war,” and that there’s been no direct contact between him and Putin.

  • EU is to back Ukraine’s European bid although fast membership is unlikely, according to Sputnik citing reports.

  Energy/Economic Updates

  • UK PM Johnson told Ukrainian President Zelensky that he is committed to further tightening sanctions to impose maximum economic costs on Russia, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.

  • Russian Finance Ministry said domestic banks would be allowed to lend to companies controlled by non- residents and the move will allow firms wishing to continue doing business in Russia to work as usual.

  • Morningstar Indexes determined it is necessary to reclassify Russia from emerging market to unclassified and will remove all Russian securities from the Morningstar fixed income indexes as of March 31st.

  • Ukraine gas transmission network operator says that Russian forces have taken control of gas compressor stations, which threatens transit to Europe.

  • European Union has reached the limit of its capabilities when it comes to financial sanctions against Russia, according to NEXTA citing Head of EU diplomacy Borrell, via NEXTA

  Defence/Military

  • White House said Russia’s claims of alleged US biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine are false and that the US should be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine in light of its false claims.

  • US Secretary of State Blinken discussed with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba additional security and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine and discussed Russian attacks on population centres US Defense Secretary Austin spoke with Ukrainian counterpart about continued provision of defensive assistance for Ukraine.

  • Spain is ready to send a new batch of weapons to Ukraine, according to reports in Sputnik citing the Defence Minister

  Third Party Remarks

  • Pimco risks losing billions in the event of a default by Russia with the fund manager exposed to a derivative bet of at least USD 1.1bln and holds USD 1.5bln of sovereign bonds, according to FT.

  Other

  • White House said the US is continuing to engage with Iran deal partners including Russia, while it believes US and Russia share an objective on the Iran nuclear deal.

  • Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Shamkhani said nuclear talks have become more complicated every hour and that the US’s desire for a quick agreement indicates it has no will for a strong nuclear deal.

  • Iranian Supreme Leader says Iran will not bow to pressure to reduce defensive power, regional presence and progress in nuclear technology.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 20:45

• Warmongers Against Putin's War
  Warmongers Against Putin’s War

  Authored by Kym Robinson via The Libertarian Institute,

  Revulsion to war is inconsistent for some. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought critics of this particular war to the antiwar movement, though they likely will return to their pro-war instincts when current headlines fade. For now, in the West, Vladimir Putin has been labelled as the next Adolf Hitler. Ironically Hitler was a product of the West and led a terrible invasion of Russia (a memory that lingers and moulds present day Russian foreign policy). Twenty years ago Saddam Hussein was the next Hitler. Colonel Qaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Mahmoud Ahmanddinejad and so on were all heads of state of terrible regimes, but they weren’t Hitler. Only Hitler was Hitler. Hitlerism was born from war and injustice, not from peace and dialogue.

  The actions of the Russian government are not justifiable. Any act that leads to the intentional or indirect murder of innocent civilians should not be embraced. On the surface many people will agree that murdering the innocent is wrong, until you pull back the layers of ideological and nationalist context. Inside of Russia and those looking at the world from a different perspective, the death of civilians at the hands of the Russian military is justifiable in the minds of some. As justifiable for the Russian state as the murder of Iraqi, Syrian, Afghan, Somali, Yemeni, Vietnamese, Panamanian, Laotian, etc civilians were to those who view the world from the eyes of the American empire.

  

  Should this hypocrisy be raised in the presence of a pragmatic wit often they will dismiss the past as being done and dusted. Nothing to be gained by remembering the misery of then, only the expedient importance of now and the near future matters. Putin must be stopped, ISIS halted, Assad overthrown. There is always a sense of emergency that overrules morality and reason always leading to irrationality and immoral actions. In time it will be shown that the decisions made and actions taken were foolish and vulgar, past lessons seldom learned and wiser minds never listened to when it mattered most. It was such desire for expedience by the Russian government that likely led to the invasion of Ukraine.

  The United States and its allies have recently removed their bloody swords from Afghanistan and in the past many other nations, leaving behind so many dead and suffering. None of these were defensive wars in the traditional sense, only in the definition of abstract hubris. The dead civilians were always justified by the experts and warmongers. The outcome of the war a bloody limbo of non-victory but not-defeat, where the warmongering nations face no justice. They are still heralded as the kings on the chessboard of international order despite war crimes and millions of dead civilians. Without any sense of shame they now criticize the Putin regime for its war. The specter of Hitler is often raised to justify aggressive wars, against his image but in his footsteps.

  If one were to fly the Iraqi flag or celebrate citizens resisting an allied invasion force during the height of the coalition’s war on the “Hitler of Baghdad,” one would be deemed a supporter of terrorists and suffer the wrath of neocon cancel culture. To wave the Ukrainian flag and to celebrate its defiant citizens as they oppose an invader is chic and trending because the invader they face is not a familiar. Their invader is from the outset the villain, whose motives do not matter. But our invader had reasons that do matter and those sweet worded reasons apparently can cover the stench of thousands of innocent corpses.

  It is easy for the lazy virtue signaler on social media to find cause with the white middle class of Ukraine. They are relatable, with smart phones, jobs and cars, having a day-to-day life that is similar to those in the West. Or perhaps because they are from Europe it helps too. But a starving baby in Yemen, an obliterated family in Afghanistan, or a mutilated boy in Somalia, they may as well be aliens from another planet. They still bleed and cry as any Ukrainian does and attempt to escape the horror that is visited upon their country (as you would too). They are all innocent. A civilian from anywhere in Ukraine to anywhere else in the world should not be murdered; not by roaming Nazi militias or the Ukrainian government, or from the Russian military and its proxies in the rest of the nation.

  This is a photograph of a US-made cluster bomb, dropped by the Saudis, that I took in northern Yemen in 2015. https://t.co/Krueydyep9 pic.twitter.com/H2DkyA5JxE

  — Matthieu Aikins (@mattaikins) March 8, 2022

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  For almost two decades a Global War on Terror was waged against groups considered “terrorists.” The religion of Islam itself was slurred as being an ideological breeding ground for “Islamo-fascist” head choppers. The war then saw the allied nations supporting, training, and fighting alongside such terrorist groups, even those linked with the attacks on the United States itself. In the past few years white supremacist Nazis have become the ideological fixation for Western governments, the new enemy within. Though like the slur of Hitler, what constitutes a Nazi is ill-defined. Since 2014, those who embrace the Nazi ideology of Hitler’s regime are fighting against the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine and are now supported and embraced by Western governments. This is the nature of vulgar pragmatism and war itself.

  For now it is popular to be anti-war because it is not a familiar’s war. It is easy to be anti-war when one’s own empire, national and self interest is not invested in the misery. As more become dependent on the government above them it is harder to dissent and exert independent thought and agency. Dependency validates the state; it instills it with a righteousness and importance, destroying alternatives and options while outlawing freedom. The threats and enemies, internal and abroad, necessitate a strong and powerful government, one that places security, safety, and welfare above liberty and rights. It will not stop expanding and soon dissent itself will be an unfamiliar concept. It is from war, conventional and ideological, that such powers are found. For many individuals such warfare and dependence sustains them, feeds them and they profit from it. Jobs over justice, entitlements above rights, central planning instead of choice, and security over liberty.

  When one becomes reliant on the government for their livelihood and well being, it becomes harder to criticize it openly, especially during wartime. It is why the context of nationalism and the tribe of the familiar can skew one’s morality, afford them the ability to turn a blind eye when the injustice is committed by a colleague or those of one’s own nation. The victims are marginalized, alienated, and always somehow blamed. The horrible deeds of a familiar are smothered by the greater good or removed from mind. The evil acts of the unfamiliar enemy however, in this case those committed by the Russians, can justify any course of action and condemnation. One’s consistency only needs to keep step with their loyalty to the familiar and the comfort it brings, but remain inconsistent to the march of morality itself. As Orwell put it, war becomes peace.

  If you are for a brief moment revolted by war because the warmonger does not belong to your tribe, welcome. When the bitch of necessity rears itself again for your nation to bring death and destruction to a homeland of innocent civilians, we can be sure that you will disregard the criticism and condemnation of those who are on the other side or who have always been consistent in their rejection of war.

  Welcome to the anti-war movement critics of Putin, flip floppers, and social media clout chasers, we hope that you stay. Chances are though once Putin’s war ends, another one of yours will begin. And maybe one day when you look in that mirror, you will see Hitler again.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 20:40

• Manhattan Apartment Rents Climb To Record High As Inventory Tightens 
  Manhattan Apartment Rents Climb To Record High As Inventory Tightens 

  Appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate published a new report of the latest trends in the Manhattan apartment market. According to Bloomberg, they found that rent in the borough jumped to a record high. 

  Finding a bargain on a rental in Manhattan is near impossible today. Prices have steadily increased (read: here & here) since the pandemic low (between late 2020 and through the summer of 2021) and have steadily increased. Now rents are higher than they were during pre-pandemic times. In February, the median rent was at a record-high of $3,630 and up 28% from a year earlier.

  

  Rents are now 2.5% higher than the previous record set in April 2020, right before the rental market imploded during COVID as Manhattanites broke their leases and moved outside of the metro area or to an entirely different state to avoid draconian public health restrictions. Even with most white-collar workers still out of the office and remotely working or on some hybrid work schedule, people have been flooding into the borough since late 2021 in hopes of finding deep discounts. 

  

  Bidding wars have ensued as demand for apartments is elevated, but supply is exceptionally tight. Inventory plunged 81% from a year earlier to just over 4,500 units, the lowest for a month since February 2008. Attractive concessions were no more. Only 20% of new leases offered a free month of rent. 

  Hal Gavzie, executive manager of leasing at Douglas Elliman, said renters who had signed leases at a discount are seeing price increases of 15% to 30%. Even then, he said, tenants who rented at the pandemic lows opted to renew because inventory is so tight. 

  Gavzie said units priced around $2,500 might see between 50 to 100 inquiries in one day. Some places are in such a hot demand that prices are usually driven up. 

  

   A separate report by real estate firm Corcoran Group noted that the higher end of the market, especially doorman buildings, is in huge demand, where 58% of new leases were signed last month. The brokerage said that the share is the highest in more than three years.

  “With the city relaxing Covid restrictions, and more office workers and students returning to in-person work and school, I expect demand to rise even further in the near term,” Gary Malin, chief operating officer at Corcoran, said.

  “I suggest tenants enter the market prepared, patient, and willing to compromise,” Malin said. 

  Corcoran said the shortfall of new apartment buildings in the borough could add to tighter inventory and may only intensify rent prices. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 20:20

• China Asks State-Owned Refiners To Halt Gasoline, Diesel Exports
  China Asks State-Owned Refiners To Halt Gasoline, Diesel Exports

  By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

  Chinese authorities have asked state refiners in the country to consider halting diesel and gasoline exports next month due to heightened concerns about oil supply after Russia invaded Ukraine, Reuters reported on Wednesday, quoting sources familiar with the issue.

  “This is to prevent a shortage as independent refiners are under big pressure to lower throughput in the face of soaring crude oil prices,” a source with knowledge of the talks with state refiners told Reuters.

  

  China, the world’s largest crude oil importer, hasn’t condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is likely the country that will continue to trade with Russia regardless of any sanctions the Western allies decide to impose in the future.

  However, China is concerned about its energy security, too, considering the skyrocketing prices of energy commodities, of which it is a major importer.

  China plans to increase its crude oil, natural gas, and coal production, boost reserves of energy commodities, and keep stable imports to ensure its energy security amid skyrocketing commodities prices, the top Chinese economic planner said earlier this week.

  “Since the beginning of this year, under the combined influence of multiple factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the monetary policy shift of major economies, and especially the escalation of geopolitical conflicts, the international commodity price situation has become more severe, complex and uncertain,” Lian Weiliang, a vice-director at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at a press briefing as carried by South China Morning Post.

  The upward price pressure on energy and agricultural commodities “poses a new challenge to ensure domestic supply and price stability,” Lian said.

  The planning body NDRC said over the weekend that the country would raise coal production and reserves, develop “major petroleum reserve projects,” and increase petroleum reserves, too, per Reuters.

  Last month, China said it would help run its coal-fired power plants at full capacity in a bid to ensure energy security, despite the climate goals of the world’s largest polluter. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 20:00

• A Decade Of Elon Musk's Tweets, Visualized
  A Decade Of Elon Musk’s Tweets, Visualized

  Elon Musk is known for many things, but one of his most buzzworthy claims to fame is his online Twitter presence.

  Because of its candid nature, Musk’s Twitter feed provides the public with a unique opportunity to catch an unfiltered look into his eccentric mind.

  What can we learn from an in-depth look at Elon Musk’s Twitter feed? What subjects does he focus on the most, and how has his Twitter use changed over the past decade?

  Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang and Nick Routley sifted through his entire tweet history to find out.

  

  Why Bother?

  To gain a high-level understanding of Musk’s Twitter profile, our research team sifted through his entire Twitter feed and compiled 15,000 of his tweets into a comprehensive dataset.

  Why go to all the effort? Here are a few reasons why we spent months sifting through Elon Musk’s Twitter feed:

  • People care about what he has to say: Musk has over 77 million followers on Twitter, and his account is currently the 11th most followed (coming in between Ellen DeGeneres and Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India). Even run-of-the-mill replies to regular Twitter users receive thousands of shares, likes, and comments. Clearly, people are interested in his ideas and interactions.

  • Musk tweets often, and candidly: These days, it’s not uncommon for Musk to share more than 30 tweets in a single day. And his Twitter conversations cover a wide range of topics, from serious conversations about technical aspects of his products to lighthearted memes. This is highly unusual for a person in his position.

  • Some of his tweets have had a big impact: Elon’s tweets consistently make headlines and ruffle the feathers of big shots in business and politics. Elon’s Twitter fingers have moved the needle on everything from Tesla’s stock price to cryptocurrency markets.

  • He’s become a public icon: He’s currently the richest person in the world, and last year, he was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. The companies that Musk runs are also hugely influential and disruptive. In other words, no matter how you feel about him personally, he’s a pretty big deal.

  Because of the above, we thought digging into the depths of Elon Musk’s Twitter feed was a worthy pursuit. Below, we’ll get into our methodology, and how we went about analyzing the mountains of tweets.

  How We Did It: Notes on Our Methodology

  Once we scraped a decade worth of Elon Musk tweets, we dug through the data and sorted the information to answer two main questions:

  1. What are Elon Musk’s most tweeted topics?

  2. How has his Twitter activity changed over the years?

  To answer the first question, we sorted Elon’s tweets into categories (based on keywords) and ranked each category based on the volume of mentions.

  The results are visualized in the circle chart in the middle of the graphic, which shows Musk’s most tweeted subjects over the last decade.

  To answer our second question (how has Elon’s Twitter activity changed over the years) we sorted Elon’s feed into three main topics—Tesla, SpaceX, and everything else—and showed which topics dominated his feed each year.

  Main Takeaways from the Analysis

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that the two main things Elon talks about the most are Tesla and SpaceX. He’s mentioned both companies consistently over the last decade, and as the timeline shows, Tesla and SpaceX take turns in the spotlight, depending on what’s going on for the companies at the time.

  While the topics and themes of his content have remained fairly consistent, the frequency of tweets has grown over the years.

  

   

  Musk now uses Twitter very consistently, tweeting at least once on all but 14 days in 2021. His follower count has growth steadily over the years too:

   

  

  As the above graphic shows, his follower growth started to escalate between late 2017 and mid-2018 as Musk began to burst into the public consciousness. Why? A lot was happening both personally and professionally for the busy founder:

  • December 2017: Announcement on Twitter that the Boring Company was planning to release a limited edition flamethrower. 20,000 units were sold before the product was discontinued.

  • February 2018: Tesla Roadster was launched into space.

  • July 2018: 12 boys and their teacher get trapped in a cave in Thailand, and Elon gets heavily involved in efforts to try and rescue them. This includes an awkward—now deleted—tweet referring to a British cave diver as a pedophile. (Musk later won a defamation case in 2019.)

  • August 2018: Elon announces on Twitter that he’s considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Tesla’s share price promptly dropped after this now infamous tweet was sent.

  • Sept 2018: Musk appears on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and smokes weed with him. The spectacle grabs headlines after the podcast is published.

  • From 2016 to 2018: A highly publicized, on-again-off-again relationship with actress Amber Heard.

  No matter how outlandish or shocking his comments have been, Musk’s companies continue to see success, and people have continued to show interest in keeping up with the founder’s thoughts—and dank memes—on Twitter.

  Highlights (and Lowlights) of Musk’s Twitter History

  In the next section below, we’ll cover some of Elon’s most iconic Twitter moments, hand-selected by our research team.

  The End of the Fake Elon Era

  Elon Musk’s first real tweet was shared in 2010. Prior to that, someone was pretending to be him and using the Twitter handle @elonmusk to tweet random and controversial things.

  Luckily, the imposter didn’t gain much traction, and the real Elon Musk cleared the air on June 4, 2010, with a tweet announcing his authentic arrival onto the platform:

  Please ignore prior tweets, as that was someone pretending to be me 🙂 This is actually me.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 4, 2010

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  After this initial tweet, Musk didn’t tweet again until the end of 2011, though his account was still verified that year. His Twitter activity remained relatively low until 2012.

  A Splashdown to Remember

  In May 2012, Musk went to Twitter to share his excitement after the Dragon spacecraft successfully returned home.

  Splashdown successful!! Sending fast boat to Dragon lat/long provided by P3 tracking planes #Dragon

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2012

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  This landing made history, as SpaceX became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.

  The engagement on this tweet highlights how much larger Musk’s audience is today. The tweet above, which is highlighting some very exciting news, only has about 350 retweets.

  The Boring Company Flamethrower

  In late 2017, Musk started selling Boring Company merchandise, mostly as a joke. But products were selling, and Elon decided to take things one step further, and announced to Twitter that he’d release a Boring Company flamethrower if 50,000 Boring branded hats sold:

  After 50k hats, we will start selling The Boring Company flamethrower

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2017

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The hats did sell out, so true to his word, Musk released a limited edition flamethrower at $500 bucks apiece. All 20,000 units sold out.

  The $20 Million Quip

  In August 2018, Musk told Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private, at $420 a share.

  Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  This tweet was a cheeky reference to marijuana, but it ended up costing a fortune. The SEC sued him with fraudulent charges, claiming this irresponsible tweet misled investors.

  He ended up paying millions in fines, and had to step down as Tesla’s chairman as a result of the drama.

  Candid COVID Opinions

  Musk hasn’t been shy about sharing his thoughts on the global pandemic. On March 6, 2020, he tweeted “the coronavirus panic is dumb.” Since then, he’s been vocal about his distrust in antigen tests, and isn’t afraid to share his frustrations around lockdowns with his followers:

  FREE AMERICA NOW

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2020

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  He’s also said that the virus isn’t that deadly and that COVID-19 related deaths were inflated because doctors were wrongfully attributing deaths to the virus instead of other causes.

  Becoming the World’s Richest Human

  In 2021, Musk surpassed Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world. His reaction was quite understated. In response to a tweet from @teslaownersSV sharing the news, he simply said, “how strange.”

  From there, he tweeted:

  Back to work I go …

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Musk is still currently the richest person on the planet as of this article’s publication date, with a net worth of $213 billion.

  Bitcoin Boost

  Elon Musk’s foray into Bitcoin boosterism ramped up on January 29, 2021, when he added “#bitcoin” to his Twitter profile page, a move that appeared to have an impact on the price of BTC.

  Days later, Musk announced that Tesla acquired $1.5 billion in bitcoin, with plans to accept it as payment.

  You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The news caused the price of Bitcoin to jump 17% to $44,000, a record high at the time. Bitcoin remained in the spotlight through the year as the cryptocurrency continued to gather support from major financial institutions.

  Just days prior, Musk also added fuel to the speculative fire surrounding the GameStop stock. By simply tweeting the word “Gamestonk” paired with a link to Reddit’s infamous r/wallstreetbets, GME’s price exploded more than 150% higher.

  The Multi-Billion Dollar Question

  After facing backlash over his significant stockpile of wealth, Musk turned to Twitter to ask users if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock in order to pay taxes.

  Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.

  Do you support this?

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The majority of Twitter users voted yes, and the billionaire actually followed through and sold more than $16 billion worth of Tesla stock.

  Reconnecting Ukraine

  In late February, as Russia launched its offensive in Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation called the SpaceX founder out on Twitter, asking for support.

  Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Musk would reply within 24 hours, and soon after, Fedorov would tweet a photo of Starlink terminals arriving safely in the country.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 19:40

• Genetically-Modified Mosquitoes Set To Be Released In California And Florida
  Genetically-Modified Mosquitoes Set To Be Released In California And Florida

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes are set to be released in California and Florida in an effort to reduce the number of real, disease-carrying invasive mosquitoes.

  

  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday approved use of the genetically engineered insects in pilot projects in specific districts across both states.

  The mosquitoes were made by UK-based biotechnology firm Oxitec, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in an effort to combat insect-borne diseases such as dengue fever, yellow fever, and the Zika virus.

  According to Oxitec, its “sustainable and targeted biological pest control technology does not harm beneficial insects like bees and butterflies and is proven to control the disease-transmitting Aedes aegypti mosquito, which has invaded communities in Florida, California, and other U.S. states.”

  Since it was first detected in California in 2013, the Aedes aegypti mosquito has spread rapidly to more than 20 counties throughout the state, increasing the risk of mosquito-borne diseases being transmitted to humans.

  Oxitec’s new technology consists of genetically-modified male mosquitoes, which do not bite, that will be released into the wild where they are expected to mate with females, which do bite.

  In mating with them, they will pass on a lethal gene that will effectively ensure their offspring die before reaching maturity.

  Environmental Protection officials approved two projects on Monday, one with the Delta Mosquito and Vector Control District (Delta MVCD) in California and one with the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) in Florida.

  The Florida pilot project will be a continuation of Oxitec’s partnership with the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District after its pilot project in the Keys in 2021.

  “Given the growing health threat this mosquito poses across the U.S., we’re working to make this technology available and accessible,” Grey Frandsen, CEO of Oxitec, said. “These pilot programs, wherein we can demonstrate the technology’s effectiveness in different climate settings, will play an important role in doing so. We look forward to getting to work this year.”

  The upcoming release of the modified insects will be the largest release in world history.

  However, critics, including scientists, public health experts, and environmental groups, are concerned about what impacts releasing the generically altered mosquitoes could have on public health as well as the environment.

  “This is a destructive move that is dangerous for public health,” Dana Perls, food and technology program manager with Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy organization, told USA Today.

  Perls said her biggest concern was the lack of widespread, peer-reviewed scientific data regarding the generically modified insects and the potential risk they could bring.

  “Once you release these mosquitoes into the environment, you cannot recall them,” she said. “This could, in fact, create problems that we don’t have already.”

  Jaydee Hanson, policy director with the Center for Food Safety said the “experiment is unnecessary and even dangerous” while pointing to the lack of prominent tropical diseases in California.

  “There are no locally acquired cases of dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya or Zika in California,” Hanson said. “Releasing billions of GE mosquitoes makes it likely that female GE mosquitoes will get out and create hybrid mosquitoes that are more virulent and aggressive.”

  “Other public health strategies, including the use of Wolbachia infected mosquitoes, could better control the Aedes aegypti in California and Florida,” Hanson added.

  The Epoch Times has contacted an Oxitec spokesperson for comment.

  According to Quartz, areas including Malaysia, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, and Panama have seen their mosquito populations drop by as much as 90 percent after similar experiments were conducted.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 19:20

• Polish Ambassador Says Sanctions On Russia Should "Last For A Decade, Maybe 15 Years"
  Polish Ambassador Says Sanctions On Russia Should “Last For A Decade, Maybe 15 Years”

  Poland’s Ambassador to the United States, Marek Magierowski, wants the new US and EU-led sanctions on Russia which came in the aftermath of its Feb.24 invasion of Ukraine to last for ten or up to 15 years.

  He described in a live interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that the sanctions should “last for a decade, maybe 15 years.” Also amid allegations that Russian forces are targeting hospitals, which are similar to claims made in Aleppo during Russia’s prior years’ military action there, Magierowski cited “acts of barbarism in Ukraine” that he called “war crimes, atrocities.”

  

  On this point, he said, “I do believe and I am confident that Mr. Putin and his cronies and all his closest aides will end up in the dock, in the Hague, in the International Criminal Court, because this is what he has already fully deserved,” according to CNN.

  Here’s what he told Amanpour in the interview on how long-lasting Russia’s total economic isolation should be:

  “I think that if we wanted to retaliate for that invasion against Ukraine with punitive measures and by crippling the Russian economy, we have to be determined and ready to uphold the sanctions in a longer term. Maybe they should last for a decade, maybe 15 years, because I’m afraid we are going to live with Mr. Putin for many years to come.”   

  Magierowski additionally described that he doesn’t think a diplomatic solution is reachable, but stressed the outcome will likely be decided on the battlefield, while underscoring it’s not going well for Russia…

  “Russia is losing this war right now. Not only in the hearts and mind of Europeans and Americans or the societies of the so-called free world but Russia is losing this war literally,” the Polish ambassador said. “I don’t know whether we will find a diplomatic solution, but maybe a military solution… I believe the Ukrainian army is capable of defeating the Russian army right now.”

  But it remains that Ukraine’s army is vastly outnumbered by Russian forces, which are now said to be just a few miles outside the capital of Kiev.

  Economist Michael Hudson has long argued that the US war on Russia was actually a US war on Europe, to keep the EU subordinated to US capital

  That’s exactly what’s happening now: European industry is shutting down as energy prices soar due to sanctionshttps://t.co/Ly5zpeXzVY

  — Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Meanwhile, Axios has an updated list of major global businesses across multiple sectors which have abandoned Russia since the start of the invasion…

  • Yum Brands, the parent company of KFC and Pizza Hut, has suspended operations and investment in Russia.
  • McDonald’s announced it is temporarily closing all of its stores in Russia.
  • Starbucks suspended all activity in Russia.
  • Coca-Cola was suspending operations in Russia.
  • Deloitte said it “will no longer operate in Russia and Belarus,” and “will separate our practice” in the two countries “from the global network of member firms.”
  • Ernst & Young was severing ties with Russia, axing its 4,700-person business in the country.
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers was cutting ties with its Russian member, affecting 3,700 partners and staff in the country.
  • KPMG was ending its association with its 4,500 partners and staff in Russia and Belarus.
  • Estée Lauder said it was suspending “all commercial activity in Russia.
  • Boeing suspended major operations in Moscow, as well as maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines.
  • Airbus is halting supply of parts and services to Russian airlines.
  • Shell was severing ties with Russian gas giant Gazprom and ending its roughly $1 billion financing of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. It’s donating profits from a recent purchase of Russian crude oil to aid Ukrainian refugees.
  • BP is exiting its nearly 20% stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft, and faces a potential financial hit of as much as $25 billion.
  • Exxon Mobil said it was exiting Russia oil and gas operations valued at more than $4 billion and cease new investment.
  • GM, which sells only about 3,000 cars a year in Russia,was suspending exporting vehicles.
  • Ford suspended operations.
  • BMW stopped shipments and will stop production in Russia.
  • Daimler Truck Holdings said it would no longer send supply components to its Russian joint-venture partner.
  • Volvo Cars, owned by Chinese conglomerate Zhejiang Geely, halted sales and shipments.
  • Renault ceased operations and production at two assembly plants because it can’t get parts.
  • VW paused delivery of Audis already in Russia so it can adjust car prices to reflect the decline in value of the ruble.
  • Harley-Davidson suspended shipments to Russia.
  • Adidas suspended its partnership with the Russian Football Union.
  • Nike ceased online sales because it can’t guarantee delivery.
  • FedEx and UPS suspended shipments.
  • Yoox Net-A-Porter Group and Farfetch, luxury e-commerce platforms, are suspending deliveries in Russia.
  • Apple has paused product sales and limited services (including Apple Pay), on top of ceasing exports to Russia and restricting features in Apple Maps in Ukraine to safeguard civilian safety.
  • Dell stopped selling products.
  • Ericsson was suspending deliveries to Russia.
  • Walt Disney was pausing film debuts in Russia. Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount and Universal say they won’t release films in the country.
  • Ikea was closing its Russian stores and pausing all exports and imports in the country and ally Belarus.
  • Airbnb said it was “suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus.”
  • Google suspended all online advertising in Russia.
  • Microsoft suspended all new sales of its products and services in Russia.
  • Hermès temporarily closed all of its stores in Russia.
  • Visa, MasterCard and American Express suspended all Russian operations.
  • Amazon Web Services was no longer accepting new customers Russia and Belarus.
  • Uniqlo’s owner, Fast Retailing, temporarily suspended operations in Russia.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 19:00

• Will The Mask Mandate For Plane Travel Ever End?
  Will The Mask Mandate For Plane Travel Ever End?

  Authored by Scott Morefield, op-ed via Townhall.com,

  Like those horses on Yellowstone that just refuse to be ridden, I’d like to think that I never, ever ‘broke’ to the habit of mask-wearing.

  

  It’s always awful. It’s always uncomfortable. Every moment I’m forced to wear one of those contraptions is a moment of completely unnecessary suffering enforced by power-hungry, hypochondriac tyrants whose primary goal is to make people miserable for as long as possible.

  Sure, adults and even children get ‘accustomed to’ masks over time, but those who make that argument should remember that prisoners also eventually get institutionalized. I never got used to mask wearing, and I WEAR THAT fact like a badge of honor.

  Unlike many, I was fortunate enough to be in a state where I could largely ignore the toothless ‘mask mandate’ in my county. Businesses rarely if ever raised a peep at the few maskless people who entered their doors even during the height of the pandemic. They wanted people to wear masks, but they wanted the business more so they didn’t turn customers away. But airports, airplanes, trains, and train stations are an entirely different matter. There, peasants like you and I are forced – at proverbial gunpoint – to wear masks for hours on end with little to no reprieve.

  I’ve had the misfortune of having to fly several times during this ridiculous era, and each time is a misery all its own. But having to play the Kabuki theater there when almost the entire rest of the country, including New York City, is living normally, is somehow worse.

  Last week, as Covid restrictions faded away in even the bluest of places, for the ‘crime’ of simply needing to fly to Texas I found myself again forcibly gagged while traversing a bleak, mindless hellscape where time has inexplicably stood still.

  Compared to the ‘free’ world, airports and airplanes are like dystopian, alternate realities with a forced order that has absolutely zero basis IN reality. In it, we masked zombies wander seemingly aimlessly from place to place, barely looking up, clearly agitated and unhappy yet powerless to remedy the situation lest we find ourselves on a no-fly list or, worse, in a prison cell. Forcibly muzzling passengers who have already been treated like cattle for decades is the perfect leftist power-play, and they’re playing it for maximum impact.

  As the pre-flight recording makes abundantly and obnoxiously clear down to the excruciating detail of what needs to happen after every bite and sip, travelers are expected to be fully masked from above the nose to below the mouth during every non-eating and drinking second of our existence at these infernal places. It’s torture enough on relatively short, on-time flights, but God help you if your flight is delayed, and even God won’t be able to help you if you’re stuck for hours on a tarmac inside a plane that has ‘mechanical issues.’ Breathing freely is, after all, secondary to ‘following the rules.’ 

  Traveling is stressful enough without this, and yet this is what our tyrannical overlords impose in the name of ‘safety.’

  They don’t care about your ‘comfort,’ only your obedience.

  They know damn well cloth masks aren’t worth the t-shirt material it took to manufacture them and that the recycled air on planes makes them as safe or safer than anywhere else indoors, and yet the federal travel mask mandate is likely to be extended even beyond the supposed March 18 expiration. 

  Why? I submit it’s because they can. It’s a scientific fact that if these crazed, hypochondriac power mongers could control society like they can control those places with the iron fist of the TSA, we’d be in masks forever. They can’t, of course, which is why the politics changed enough for them to ‘relax’ mandates almost everywhere.

  But airports and airplanes are a different animal. There, the ‘security theater’ practiced for decades fits perfectly with the newer but even more sinister ‘mask theater’ of the Covid era.

  If passengers are still forced to remove their shoes because of the clumsy actions of some loser more than twenty years ago, do you think forcibly muzzling people for the next two decades and beyond is an issue for these ghouls?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 18:40

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• Watch: John Mearsheimer & Ex-CIA Ray McGovern Discuss Why "Ukraine Is Going To Get Wrecked"
  Watch: John Mearsheimer & Ex-CIA Ray McGovern Discuss Why “Ukraine Is Going To Get Wrecked”

  A rare must-see panel discussion has been sponsored by Consortium News bringing together geopolitical heavyweights to offer their ‘outside-the-establishment norm’ perspectives on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the state of play in Europe and among NATO powers.

  Presented by the Committee for the Republic in Washington, the discussion features University of Chicago professor and international relations analyst John Mearsheimer, as well as ex-CIA Russia specialist Ray McGovern. It should be noted that McGovern’s CIA career spanned 27 years, which in the latter part included serving as the agency’s presidential briefer at the White House. WATCH:

  Also part of the discussion is Jack Matlock, last US ambassador to the Soviet Union, as well as Ted Postol, MIT professor of technology and international security. Additionally, Susan Eisenhower, grand-daughter of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was part of the panel. 

  A recently resurfaced lecture that Prof. Mearsheimer gave at the University of Chicago in 2015 has gone viral since the Russian invasion kicked off last month. On YouTube alone, for example, the over hour-long speech has racked up more than 17 million views. 

  The famous author and political science theorist had predicted at the time: “The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked.” This tragedy for the Ukrainian people is playing out now, with little hope that ongoing rounds of Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks will halt the fighting.

  Analysis & prediction on Ukraine from 6 years ago:

  “The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path & the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked.”

  -John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the U. of Chicago, pic.twitter.com/kPQNH58o7G

  — Prodigal Son (@ThePr0diga1S0n) January 24, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Writing at The American Conservative, columnist Rod Dreher said of his prior predictions: “Mearsheimer Told Us So — In 2014.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/10/2022 – 00:00

• Mapped: 200 Years Of Global Political Regimes, By Country
  Mapped: 200 Years Of Global Political Regimes, By Country

  Do civilians get a representative say in how the government is run where you live?

  While it might seem like living with a basic level of democratic rights is the status quo, as Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh details below, this is only true for 93 countries or territories today—the majority of the world does not enjoy these rights.

  It also might surprise you that much of the progress towards democracy came as late as the mid-20th century. This interactive map from Our World in Data paints a comprehensive picture of democratic rights across the globe.

  Which Countries Achieved Democracy First?

  The three famous first words in the U.S. Constitution—“We The People…”—paved the way for the birth of a federal democratic republic in 1789. This makes the United States of America the world’s oldest uninterrupted democracy today.

  That said, the classification system in the interactive map above provides a slightly different perspective. It draws from the Regimes of the World (RoW) classification and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, and establishes four major classifications of political systems:

  1. Liberal Democracy
     Citizens have further individual and minority rights, are equal before the law, and the actions of the executive are constrained by the legislative and the courts.
     32 countries/territories in 2020

  2. Electoral Democracy
     Citizens have the right to participate in meaningful, free and fair, and multi-party elections.
     61 countries/territories in 2020

  3. Electoral Autocracy
     Citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature through multi-party elections; but they lack some freedoms, such as the freedoms of association or expression, that make the elections meaningful, free, and fair.
     64 countries/territories in 2020

  4. Closed Autocracy
     Citizens do not have the right to either choose the chief executive of the government or the legislature through multi-party elections.
     42 countries/territories in 2020

  Under the classification system used here, it’s arguable that Switzerland was the first country to achieve a fully liberal democracy status in 1849, followed by Australia in 1858.

  The Least Democratic Countries

  Our World in Data also looks at how the global population breaks down by political regime.

  The following chart demonstrates the share of the global population living under each type of regime since 1800, in relative or absolute terms.

  While the global population has increased tremendously in 200 years, so has the number of civilians living under stricter political systems. Today, 1.9 billion people live in closed autocracies, of which nearly 75% live in China alone.

  The major dip observed at the very end of the above chart comes from India. According to the data source, the nation flipped from electoral democracy to electoral autocracy status in 2019. As the second-most populous country, this change affected nearly 1.4 billion people.

  Finally, while the data in the above maps and charts ends in 2020, notable events have taken place in recent months that may affect the number of people living in different political regimes.

  The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in mid-2021 caused the country to slide into closed autocracy status, and as the current conflict in Ukraine/Russia heats up, it’s possible that more people may find themselves living under non-democratic regimes going forward.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 23:40

• Texas Elections Official To Resign After 1000s Of Uncounted Ballots Found
  Texas Elections Official To Resign After 1000s Of Uncounted Ballots Found

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  The Harris County elections commissioner is resigning after 10,000 uncounted ballots for last week’s primary were discovered, according to an announcement posted online on Monday.

  “Today I am submitting my resignation, effective July 1,” Isabel Longoria said in the announcement.

  “I think this date ensures that there is a presiding officer during the May and June elections and allows the election commission the time they need to find a replacement. I remain committed to the office and its mission and hope to aid in defeating harmful rhetoric to ensure successful elections in the future.”

  

  It’s not clear exactly why Longoria was resigning. The Harris County Republican Party in Texas recently filed a lawsuit against the commissioner after the 10,000 uncounted ballots were discovered.

  There were other issues with the primary election, including staffing problems, equipment issues, and longer-than-usual lines, according to local reports.

  “The buck stops with me to address issues for voters and I did not meet my own standard or the standard set by commissioners,” Longoria said Monday.

  Before Longoria’s statement, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she had spoken with the commissioner about a “change in leadership,” Hidalgo told a Commissioners Court meeting last week.

  It came days after the Harris County Elections Office said that some 6,000 Democratic votes and 4,000 Republican votes weren’t counted and will be added to final tallies for last week’s primary.

  “While the votes were scanned into our tabulation computer, they were not transferred and counted as a part of the unofficial final results as they should have been,” the Harris County Elections Office said in a statement, blaming an “oversight” for why the votes weren’t counted in the county, which is home to Houston.

  March 1’s primary was the first Texas election that took place in the state under newer, tighter voting laws that were passed last year. Outside of Harris County, thousands of mail-in ballots were rejected across the state for not having new required information.

  On Monday, the Harris County Republican Party filed a lawsuit against Longoria and the elections office for committing the “worst elections fiasco in Texas history” after the ballots were found, uncounted.

  In an accompanying statement, the GOP described the incident as “another example of the serious mismanagement of Lina Hidalgo’s unqualified Elections Administrator.”

  Even the Democratic Party of Harris County released a statement calling for an investigation.

  “We called for a post-election review of all processes—there has not been any skirting of party responsibility, and we have been completely transparent in our desire to dig into the details of what went wrong and identify how to make corrections moving forward,” Harris County Democratic Party Chair Odus Evbagharu remarked.

  The Epoch Times has contacted the Harris County Elections Division for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 23:20

• Does This Mysterious Superyacht In Italian Port Belong To A Russian Oligarch?
  Does This Mysterious Superyacht In Italian Port Belong To A Russian Oligarch?

  A mysterious superyacht is docked in Marina di Carrara, a small Italian town on the Tuscan coast. Italian police have boarded the vessel, searching for clues and interviewing the ship’s captain to figure ownership, according to NYTimes. 

  Scheherazade, a 140-meter superyacht, is estimated to be worth around $700 million, has two helipads, a swimming pool, and gold-plated fixtures in the bathrooms. 

  

  Locals believe the yacht could be owned by a Russian oligarch or even Russian President Vladimir Putin. They’ve nicknamed it “Putin’s yacht.”

  Luxury motor yacht SCHEHERAZADE – absolute beast 😍🔥
  Built by @luerssenyachts in 2020.👌🏻

  Her exterior design is the work of Espen Oeino!🙌🏻

  She can accommodate up to 40 guests in 22 cabins.🎊

  Guess her length in the comments down below👇🏻

  🎥 @boatfromtheworld pic.twitter.com/GSyRIxofh1

  — Boatsters Black (@Boatsters) November 12, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

   “Everybody calls it Putin’s yacht, but nobody knows whose it is,” Ernesto Rossi, a local interviewed by NYT. “It’s a rumor that’s been going around for months.”

  So @MarineTraffic was very helpful in helping us learn more about this superyacht. Here’s a track of the Scheherazade in 2021 – note the trip to Sochi (in the first week of July last year) pic.twitter.com/dgHA5Ft3Si

  — Mike Forsythe 傅才德 (@PekingMike) March 8, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The ship’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, said Putin had ever been on the yacht. 

  “I have never seen him. I have never met him.” He noted the owner of the yacht is currently not under any sanction list though didn’t rule out that the person could be Russian, adding he couldn’t reveal the owner because of a “watertight nondisclosure agreement.”

  Captain Bennett-Pearce said Italian investigators had recently come aboard to examine the vessel’s certification documents. “They are looking hard. They are looking at every aspect,” he said. “This isn’t the local coppers coming down, these are men in dark suits.”

  On Monday, the captain was forced to hand over documents revealing the owner’s identity and was told by investigators it would be handled with “confidentiality.” 

  “I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this will clear the vessel of all negative rumors and speculations,” he said.

  The investigation into the Scheherazade comes as the Biden administration made it very clear last week they will “seize the yachts, luxury apartments, and private jets” of Russian billionaires. Sanctions were announced by Western countries that have hit Russia’s economy hard and targeted Putin’s inner circle of oligarchs. 

  Even though some Russian superyachts and other assets of the oligarchs have been seized, there has been tremendous difficulty (see: here) of linking assets to oligarchs on the sanctions list (and even assets secretly controlled by Putin). 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 23:00

• Hopkins: Revenge Of The Putin-Nazis!
  Hopkins: Revenge Of The Putin-Nazis!

  Authored (mostly satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

  And they’re back! It’s like one of those 1960s Hammer Film Productions horror-movie series with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee … Return of the Putin-Nazis! Revenge of the Putin-Nazis! Return of the Revenge of the Bride of the Putin-Nazis! And this time they are not horsing around with stealing elections from Hillary Clinton with anti-masturbation Facebook ads. They are going straight for “Democracy’s” jugular!

  

  Yes, that’s right, folks, Vladimir Putin, leader of the Putin-Nazis and official “Evil Dictator of the Day,” has launched a Kamikazi attack on the United Forces of Goodness (and Freedom) to provoke us into losing our temper and waging a global thermonuclear war that will wipe out the entire human species and most other forms of life on earth!

  I’m referring, of course, to Putin’s inexplicable and totally unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, a totally peaceful, Nazi-free country which was just sitting there minding its non-Nazi business, singing Kumbaya, and so on, and not in any way collaborating with or being cynically used by GloboCap to menace and eventually destabilize Russia so that the GloboCap boys can get back in there and resume the Caligulan orgy of “privatization” they enjoyed throughout the 1990’s.

  No, clearly, Putin has just lost his mind, and has no strategic objective whatsoever (other than the total extermination of humanity), and is just running around the Kremlin shouting “DROP THE BOMBS! EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES!” all crazy-eyed and with his face painted green like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now … because what other explanation is there?

  Or … OK, sure, there are other explanations, but they’re all just “Russian disinformation” and “Putin-Nazi propaganda” disseminated by “Putin-apologizing, Trump-loving, discord-sowing racists,” “transphobic, anti-vax conspiracy theorists,” “Covid-denying domestic extremists,” and other traitorous blasphemers and heretics, who are being paid by Putin to infect us with doubt, historical knowledge, and critical thinking, because they hate us for our freedom … or whatever.

  Let’s take a quick look at some of that “Russian disinformation” and “propaganda,” purely to inoculate ourselves against it. We need to be familiar with it, so we can switch off our minds and shout thought-terminating clichés and official platitudes at it whenever we encounter it on the Internet. It might be a little uncomfortable to do this, but just think of it as a Russian-propaganda “vaccine,” like an ideological mRNA fact-check booster (guaranteed to be “safe and effective”)!

  OK, the first thing we need to look at, and dismiss, and deny, and pretend we never learned about, is this nonsense about “Ukrainian Nazis.” Just because Ukraine is full of neo-Nazis, and recent members of its government were neo-Nazis, and its military has neo-Nazi units (e.g., the notorious Azov Battalion), and it has a national holiday celebrating a Nazi, and government officials hang his portrait in their offices, and the military and neo-Nazi militias have been terrorizing and murdering ethnic Russians since the USA and the Forces of Goodness supported and stage-managed a “revolution” (i.e., a coup) back in 2014 with the assistance of a lot of neo-Nazis … that doesn’t mean Ukraine has a “Nazi problem.” After all, its current president is Jewish!

  If a traitor mentions the Ukrainian Nazis, switch your mind off as quickly as you can and hit them with that thought-terminating cliché … “THE PRESIDENT OF THE UKRAINE IS JEWISH!” Or “EVERY COUNTRY HAS NAZIS!” That’s another good one!

  

  The other thing we need to look at, and dismiss, and never think about again, is the role the United Forces of Goodness played in orchestrating this mess, starting with how members of the US government stage-managed that coup in 2014, and how they funded and worked with known neo-Nazis — not secret, dog-whistling, half-assed Nazis, but big fat, Jew-hating, Sieg-heiling Nazis — to foment and eventually execute it. All that, of course, is just “Russian propaganda,” despite the fact that it has been thoroughly documented, not just by the usual “conspiracy theory outlets,” but by official mouthpieces of the Forces of Goodness, like the BBC, The Nation, and even The Guardian.

  

  If some Putin-Nazi traitor mentions these facts (or sends you links to the numerous articles documenting the 2014 coup), again, switch your mind off immediately and shout “ANCIENT HISTORY! ANCIENT HISTORY!” and then shoot yourself up with a massive “booster” of fact-checked Truth from the Forces-of-Goodness media. I recommend The Guardian and The New York Times, but if you want to go directly to the source, just follow Illia Ponomarenko of the Kyiv Independent on Twitter. I’m sure that Illia and his neo-Nazi Azov-Battalion “brothers in arms” will cleanse you of all that “disinformation” and “Putin-Nazi propaganda.”

  

  OK, that’s enough “inoculation” for now. We don’t want to expose ourselves to too much of that stuff, or we’re liable to end up supporting the wrong Nazis.

  Fortunately, the United Forces of Goodness (and Freedom) are censoring most of it anyway, and instead are feeding us sentimental stories, like the one about “the Ghost of Kyiv,” the completely fictional Ukrainian fighter pilot who shot down the entire Putin-Nazi Air Force while delivering pithy one-liners like Bruce Willis in the Die Hard films!

  As The New York Times explained, fake stories like that, or the one about the Snake Island martyrs who told the Russians to “go fuck themselves,” and then were genocided by a Putin-Nazi kill squad, but then turned up alive a few days later, are not disinformation, and even if they are, it doesn’t matter, because they’re good for morale!

  And that’s the important thing, after all. If we’re ever going to defeat these Putin-Nazis, and the imaginary apocalyptic plague, and Trump, and terrorism, and domestic extremism, and climate change, and racism, and whatever, we need to keep the Western masses whipped up into a perpetual state of utterly mindless, hate-drunk hysteria like an eternal episode of the Two Minutes Hate from Orwell’s 1984.

  It doesn’t really matter who the masses are being told to hate this week … the Russians, the Unvaccinated, the Terrorists, the Populists, the Assad-Apologists, the Conspiracy Theorists, the Anti-Vaxxers, the Disinformationists … or whoever. In the end, there is only one enemy, the enemy of the United Forces of Goodness, the enemy of the unaccountable, supranational global-capitalist empire (or “GloboCap” as I like to call it).

  This multiplicitous, Goldstein-like enemy of GloboCap is an internal enemy. GloboCap has no external enemies. It dominates the entire planet. It is one big global-capitalist world. It has been for the last 30 years or so. Most of us can’t quite get our heads around that bit of reality yet, so we still see the world as a competition between sovereign nation states, like the USA and Russia. It is not. Yes, there are still nation states, and they compete with each other (like corporations compete for advantage within the system they comprise), but the fundamental conflict of our age is a global counter-insurgency op.

  What we’ve been experiencing for the last 30 years, over and over, in many different forms, is a globally hegemonic power system carrying out a “Clear and Hold” operation. GloboCap has been gradually destabilizing, restructuring, and privatizing the post-Cold-War world, first, in Eastern Europe and the Greater Middle East, and, more recently, here at home in the Western nations. For those not familiar with the term “Clear and Hold” …

  “Clear and hold is a counter-insurgency strategy in which military personnel clear an area of guerrillas or other insurgents, and then keep the area clear of insurgents while winning the support of the populace for the government and its policies.”

  Take a minute and think about that. Think about the last two years. Think about the last 30 years. Seriously, just as an exercise, imagine GloboCap as an occupying army and the entire world as the territory it is occupying. Imagine GloboCap establishing control, targeting and neutralizing a variety of insurgencies … any insurgency, regardless of its nature, any and all resistance to its occupation, or lack of support for its “government and policies.” It does not matter who the insurgents are … diehard communists, Islamic fundamentalists, nationalists, populists … it makes no difference. The occupation couldn’t care less what they believe in or why they’re resisting. The objective of the op is to control the territory and get the populace on board with the new “reality.”

  Welcome to the new reality … a “reality” in which “history has stopped [and] nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” Yes, I know you are sick of me quoting Orwell, but, given the circumstances, I cannot help it. Just reflect on how seamlessly GloboCap segued from the Apocalyptic Pandemic narrative back to the Putin-Nazi narrative, which had seamlessly replaced the War on Terror narrative in the Summer of 2016, and how instantly the New Normals switched from hating “the Unvaccinated” to hating the Russians, and then scold me again for quoting Orwell.

  Look, I hate to disappoint Edward Norton and millions of other fanatical liberals, but the USA is not going to war with Russia, or not intentionally in any event. Russia has ballistic missiles with thermonuclear warheads on them. This isn’t a rerun of World War II. And it isn’t World War III, or the Cold War redux. That is not what is happening in the Ukraine.

  What is happening in Ukraine is, Russia is not playing ball. For some reason, it does not want to be destabilized, and restructured, and privatized by GloboCap. It is acting like a sovereign nation state … which it is, and isn’t, which paradoxical fact GloboCap is trying to impress on Russia, just as countries throughout the global-capitalist empire impressed it on us for the past two years, as Trudeau impressed it on those protesters in Ottawa when he cancelled their rights and went full-fascist.

  What is happening is, Russia is rebelling against GloboCap, and, unlike the other rebellious parties that GloboCap has been dealing with recently, Russia has thermonuclear weapons.

  I’m not trying to tell you who to root for. Root for GloboCap if you want. I’m just urging you, before you fly over to “Kyiv” and join the fight against the Putin-Nazis, or make a jackass of yourself on the Internet shrieking for nuclear Armageddon, or fire-bomb your local Russian restaurant, or beat the crap out of some Russian-looking person, to maybe take a moment or two and try to understand what is actually going on, and who the major players actually are, and where GloboCap’s efforts to “clear and hold” the entire planet are inexorably taking us.

  I know, that’s a lot to ask these days, but I can’t help thinking about all those nukes, and the fallibility of human beings, and yes, all the non-Nazi Ukrainians who are going to needlessly suffer and die while we watch the action on TV, and root for our favorite characters to win, and so on … as if it were a fucking movie.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 22:40

• Arab Spring 2.0 Begins: Iraqis Take To The Streets In Protest Of Soaring Food Prices
  Arab Spring 2.0 Begins: Iraqis Take To The Streets In Protest Of Soaring Food Prices

  With commodity costs hitting daily record highs, and food prices far surpassing levels seen in the historic 2011 as a result of the collapse of Russian and Ukrainian food exports…

  

  

  … and Russia’s upcoming fertilizer trade ban…

  

  … an ever louder question on the lips of geopolitical strategists is when, not if, global protests over food will re-emerge and begin toppling unstable – or perhaps stable – governments across the world in a rerun of the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 when widespread public outrage started as a result of surging food prices.

  

  It appears that the answer is “now”, because as Al Jazeera reports, on Wednesday protests erupted in Iraq’s impoverished south over a rise in food prices that officials attributed to the conflict in Ukraine. Here, for the past week, the price of cooking oils and flour have skyrocketed in local markets as government officials have sought to address growing anger with various statements and measures.

  Today, the public frustration with these runaway prices finally boiled over, and more than 500 protesters gathered on Wednesday in a central square in the southern city of Nasiriya – a flashpoint of anti-corruption protests that gripped the country in 2019.

  “The rise in prices is strangling us, whether it is bread or other food products,” retired teacher Hassan Kazem told AFP news agency. “We can barely make ends meet.”

  

  On Tuesday, the Iraqi government announced measures to confront the increase in international prices. These included a monthly allowance of about $70 for pensioners whose incomes do not exceed one million dinars (almost $700), as well as civil servants earning less than 500,000 dinars ($343). The authorities also announced the suspension of customs duties on food products, basic consumer goods and construction materials for two months.

  Local trade ministry spokesman Mohamed Hanoun attributed the rise in cooking-oil prices to the conflict in Ukraine. Indeed, as we noted last week, a whopping 70% of Egypt’s wheat is in the form of Ukraine and Russian imports, imports which have now been indefinitely halted.

  

  The interior ministry announced it had arrested 31 people accused of “raising the prices of food commodities and abusing citizens”. A protester in Nasiriya on Wednesday denounced the “greed of traders who manipulate prices”.

  “There’s a major global crisis because Ukraine has a large share of [the world market in cooking] oils,” he said. On Tuesday, a protester was seriously injured in a demonstration in the central province of Babil that was marred by violence, a security source said.

  While some will be willing to brush this off as just another third world protest, recall that the 2011 Arab Spring had similar inauspicious beginnings until Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Dec 2010 and dying a few weeks later, in the process launching a cascade of uprisings across the MENA region, many of which led to bloody revolutions and unprecedented geopolitical upheaval.

  And while it might be viewed as entering the fringe zone of conspiracy theories, one should probably consider that a wave of violence may also have the blessing of the WEF nomenklatura: after all, a big part of the “Great Reset” is the efficient depopulation of broad swaths of the globe, and a second Arab Spring would be just what the billionaire overclass ordered.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 22:32

• Amid Ukraine War, China Threat Rises
  Amid Ukraine War, China Threat Rises

  Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

  As the world focuses on Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine—along with the climbing civilian death toll and growing refugee crisis—it’s also witnessing a seismic shift in the global geopolitical landscape.

  

  Russia’s actions in Europe have drawn the eyes of the United States and its allies to the West, as they did in decades past, as meanwhile a larger, more formidable force gathers strength in the East, setting its sights on dominating the Indo-Pacific, and then the world.

  For decades, the Chinese communist regime has been building its economic and military might so as to replace the United States as the sole superpower by mid-century. With the regime acknowledged by the U.S. administration as America’s primary threat, posing its ​​“greatest geopolitical test,” Washington has been shifting its resources and energy to the Indo-Pacific region in a bid to check Beijing’s rising influence there.

  But the escalating war in Eastern Europe is frustrating Washington’s plans, analysts say, even as the Biden administration insists that it can focus on two theaters—Europe and the Indo-Pacific—at the same time.

  “The revival of Cold War 1.0 (Moscow–Washington) taking oxygen majorly away from Cold War 2.0 (Beijing–Washington) is a blunder of historical proportions where the democracies are concerned,” Madhav Nalapat, a strategic analyst and vice chair of the India-based Manipal Advanced Research Group, recently told The Epoch Times.

  

  Nalapat pinned the blame on Washington and NATO for engaging in a series of strategic missteps that he believed culminated in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

  Brandon Weichert, geopolitical analyst and author of “Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower,” held the same view, chiding the Biden administration for choosing to return to “pre-Trump normal” with respect to its relations with Russia—that is, by adopting a policy that sought to “contain Russia” and put pressure on Moscow to be “a good democracy with human rights.”

  “Vladimir Putin believes that no more deals can be made with the United States, certainly not with neoliberal and neoconservative elites like Joe Biden, or even Lindsey Graham, running the show in Washington,” he said.

  “Under [former President Donald] Trump, this was our last exit ramp, before a real catastrophe happening”—the buildup of the Sino–Russian alliance, he said.

  The recent approach has effectively pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin into a corner, according to Weichert. And with no else to turn to, Putin chose to side with the Chinese Communist Party.

  But this outcome, he said, could have been averted. While Russa is by no means an ideal or natural partner, given the country’s human rights and military record, Weichert said, it has to be acknowledged that Moscow could have helped the U.S. administration in providing a valuable counterweight to Beijing.

  “If we could get the right leader in charge, we would be able to possibly break Russia away from China, because ultimately, Russia still doesn’t trust China,” he said. “And ultimately, Russia would prefer to continue to do business with the Europeans, and to still have positive relations, at least in space, and on nuclear matters with the Americans.”

  As this didn’t occur, Russia and China are deepening their relationship, in ways previously unseen. Two weeks before the invasion, as Russia was drawing heavy international criticism for its plans to attack Ukraine, Putin and Xi proclaimed a “no limits” partnership, a bilateral relationship “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era.”

  This burgeoning partnership is worrisome, Weichert said, because the two countries decided not just to cooperate economically and militarily, but to work together in a “general ideological way.”

  “They’re starting to look at the ideological component—the component of autocracy, the concept of multipolarity—having many different powers in the world, as opposed to only the United States running the world, with spheres of influence,” he said.

  “That is something that Russia and the Chinese leadership for 30 years have talked about, but they never actually shared or coordinated with one another. Now we see the beginnings of that.”

  The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

  Distrustful Partners

  On the opening day of the Winter Olympics, Putin met with Xi in Beijing, displaying a united front against growing international condemnation of their respective regimes.

  According to a 5,000-word joint statement, the two leaders said there would be “no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation” between their countries.

  The statement also revealed that Putin and Xi had decided to support each other geopolitically: China denounced the enlargement of NATO, a key justification for Russia’s invasion, while Moscow backed Beijing’s claim that self-governing Taiwan was a part of China.

  The new partnership is, in fact, many years in the making, particularly after 2014 when Russia was hit with multiple sanctions over its annexation of Crimea. Since then, bilateral trade has gone up more than 50 percent and now China is the top destination of Russian exports.

  Russia is China’s second-biggest oil supplier behind Saudi Arabia, accounting for 15.5 percent of China’s total imports in 2021. Russia is also a major supplier of gas and coal to China.

  While the bond between Russia and China might appear strong on the surface, Weichert said that Putin must be fully aware of what the partnership would entail.

  “What’s going on now is, Russia under Putin is very aware that they are relatively weaker than China. And the closer that Putin gets to China, the more likely he’s going to become a second player—second fiddle to Xi Jinping’s juggernaut in China,” he said.

  “The last thing he wants to do is go from being sort of pushed around by the West to then switching over to the Chinese, and suddenly being subordinated or assimilated by China into their new growing high-tech empire of Eurasia.”

  

  In Weichart’s view, Putin has already tried to assert his dominance over Xi, when the Russian president decided to deploy Russian troops into Kazakhstan as peacekeepers in January.

  “I think Putin was trying to say, ‘Hey, Xi, we can work together to trade in Central Asia, but I’m the alpha male here, you work with me, not the other way around,’” he said.

  China has dramatically dialed up its influence in Central Asia—a region of former Soviet states where Russia holds much sway—in recent years, as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have all signed up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road).

  Beijing rolled out the initiative in 2013 to increase its economic and political clout worldwide by building up trade routes linking China, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.

  “The allies—China and Russia—are constantly going to be looking over each other’s shoulder even when they’re working together to push back American power projection, in Eurasia first and eventually throughout the world,” he said.

  Bigger Threat

  The most important factor making the Chinese regime a bigger threat than Russia is the size of the Chinese economy, according to Weichert.

  “The China threat is the longer-term strategic threat,” he said. “They’re the ones with the greater technology base. They’re the ones whose economy is right behind the size of America’s.”

  China is currently the world’s second-largest economy, trailing the United States. According to 2020 data from the World Bank, China’s economy is about 10 times bigger than Russia’s.

  The economic power behind the Chinese communist regime thus allows it to do things that Russia cannot, Anders Corr, principal at the New York-based political consultancy firm Corr Analytics, said.

  “China uses that economic power not only to build its military,” Corr, who is also a contributor to The Epoch Times, said. “China is able to use that economic power for political influence around the world.

  “So essentially, they’re able to bribe politicians, whether that’s directly by giving them bags of cash, or they’re able to bribe them through promises of aids, loans, and cheap loans.”

  

  Western officials and experts have criticized China for exporting corruption through BRI or sustaining corruption in BRI-participating nations. The program also has been described as a form of “debt-trap diplomacy,” which saddles developing countries with unsustainable debt burdens, potentially forcing those nations to transfer strategic assets to Beijing.

  China Merchants Port Holdings is now running Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port on a 99-year lease, after the South Asian country was unable to service a $1.4 billion loan for its construction in 2017. Seizing the port has allowed Beijing to gain a key foothold in the Indian Ocean.

  Critically, the Chinese regime has a unique advantage in the West arising from its sprawling business ties between Western firms, eager to gain a greater pie of the lucrative Chinese market. As a result, Beijing has been able to build clout in the United States and elsewhere, through its own elites—a strategy known as “elite capture.”

  “The Chinese Communist Party has done a great job of basically enlisting the elites of the free world. And so a lot of their wealth is tied up in this relationship with China,” Robert Spalding, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and retired Air Force brigadier general, told The Epoch Times.

  The regime, “by entwining themselves into the fortunes of the elites,” is then able to “push on them and lean on them,” Spalding said. “This is a problem.”

  

  Taiwan

  The Chinese regime’s other threat, which has worldwide implications, is its desire to take over Taiwan, a de facto entity Beijing claims as part of its territory. The island, home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker TSMC, produces about 63 percent of the world’s semiconductor chips, compared to the 12 percent produced by U.S. chipmakers.

  Seizing Taiwan would give China control over the island’s chip manufacturing facilities, potentially allowing Beijing to block other nations from buying the critical technology, which is used to power nearly all electronics from cars to missile systems.

  “I think China does definitely have its eye on Taiwan. China will be watching what we do, what Russia does in terms of Ukraine as a lesson that it can take home, in terms of its strategy for Taiwan,” Corr said.

  “So I think that if we don’t truly punish Russia in a serious way, we will be giving the green light to China to do the same thing to Taiwan.”

  Complicit?

  As the Ukraine war drags on, Beijing has repeatedly refused to condemn Russia for its aggression, nor label the attack as an “invasion.” It has also rejected joining the West in imposing financial sanctions against Moscow, describing such a move as lacking legal basis.

  Such signs of tacit support have caused some to suggest that Beijing had played a larger role than it appeared on the surface in facilitating Russia’s assault.

  “Moscow is so much under the thumb of Beijing,” Corr said, adding “which makes me think that in the current case of the invasion of Ukraine, it is so not in the interests of Russia … to make itself an international pariah and focus of the world’s attention.”

  He added: “That makes me suspect that it’s possible Beijing had asked Putin to do this or encouraged Putin to do this in some way. So I think we have to consider that as a possibility.”

  Indeed, there is piling evidence that Beijing knew of Moscow’s military plans prior to the invasion and had discussed it with Russian officials.

  Senior Biden administration officials shared intelligence with top Chinese officials about the Russian military buildup near Ukraine, according to a Feb. 25 report by The New York Times. The intelligence-sharing lasted more than three months, the report said, citing unnamed U.S. officials. But China ignored the repeated U.S. warnings, and instead turned around to tell Moscow what it had learned from Americans and that it wouldn’t interfere with Russia’s plans.

  A Western intelligence report, first covered by The New York Times on March 2, indicated that senior Chinese officials asked senior Russian officials to wait until after the end of the 2022 Winter Games before invading Ukraine. The request happened in early February, but it is unclear from the report whether Xi and Putin talked about it during their meeting in Beijing.

  Regardless of the level of Chinese involvement, the invasion ultimately served to achieve Beijing’s aims, noted lawmakers and experts.

  Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) recently told EpochTV’s “China Insider” program that the invasion was a “distraction,” shifting U.S. attention away from the Pacific.

  “In China’s view, it serves as a way of siphoning off resources that can be used in other areas,” Buck said.

  For Corr, the invasion would distract people from paying attention to China’s problems, such as the genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s far-western Xinjiang region and the expansion of artificial islands in the South China Sea.

  Gary Bai contributed to this article. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 22:00

• Cooking Oil Shortage Sparks Panic Buying In Indonesia
  Cooking Oil Shortage Sparks Panic Buying In Indonesia

  Indonesia, the world’s largest exporter of cooking oil, will reduce exports of edible oils as a domestic shortage sparks panic hoarding among households, a sign of rising protectionism around the world as countries deal with record-high food prices, according to Bloomberg. 

  Trade Minister Muhammad Lutfi announced new rules Wednesday for palm oil exporters to increase domestic shipment volumes from 20% to 30% to ensure local consumers have access to affordable cooking oil.

  The move by the Indonesian government comes as dwindling cooking oil supplies has unleashed record high prices. Togar Sitanggang, vice chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (Gapki), said in a pre-recorded speech at a conference that households are panic buying edible oils as a shortage emerges. They’re buying more than they need worsening the shortage, he said. 

  Palm oil for May delivery in Malaysia soared 10% to $1,687 per ton, a new record high for the contract and most active contract with the largest daily gain since 2001. Palm and soybean oil also rose to a record in Chicago. 

  

  “All those who were short in the market have had their hearts pulled out,” said Dorab Mistry, a veteran trader and director at Godrej International Ltd. “This is a knee-jerk reaction. I don’t think these prices are sustainable.”

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrown global food supply chains into disarray. Governments worldwide are beginning to take proactive measures that are considered protectionist to safeguard domestic food supplies. On edible oils, Ukraine and Russia export about 80% of sunflower oil and a quarter of the world’s wheat — as we’ve noted, shipments from the region have been halted or limited due to conflict or sanctions. Compound snarled supply chains and food shortages from the COVID era with the latest disruption, and it appears record-high food prices will be sticking around. 

  

  Food protectionism is also happening in Hungary, Argentina, Turkey, and Moldova. The world is on a collision course of high prices and shortages could trigger social instabilities in these emerging market economies.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 21:40

• US Won't Give Poland's Jets To Ukraine Over Concerns Putin Would See Move As "Escalatory"
  US Won’t Give Poland’s Jets To Ukraine Over Concerns Putin Would See Move As “Escalatory”

  By Zachary Stieber of the Epoch Times

  

  The United States won’t act on a proposal from Poland to take fighter jets from the ally and transfer them to Ukraine because of concerns Russian officials would view the move as “escalatory,” a U.S. official said March 9.

  “The intelligence community has assessed the transfer of MiG-29s to Ukraine may be mistaken as escalatory, and could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” John Kirby, the U.S. Department of Defense’s spokesman, told reporters in Washington.

  Based on the assessment, with which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin concurs, the military assesses the transfer as “high-risk” and will not carry it out, at least for now.

  The proposal from Poland was Polish officials would transfer jets to the United States, which could then send the jets to Ukraine. Poland’s government also called on NATO allies to send jets to U.S. bases. But U.S. officials quickly rejected the proposal, though they had not detailed the intelligence assessment until Wednesday.

  Kirby also framed the decision as in Ukraine’s best interests, arguing that Ukraine would benefit more in the conflict with Russia by receiving anti-armor and air defense weapons.

  While Russia’s air force has significant capabilities, air assaults have been met with resistance in the air and on the ground, according to U.S. officials. Additionally, the Ukrainian Air Force was also said to have several squadrons of fully capable aircraft already, and a U.S. assessment concluded “giving them more is not likely” to make a big impact, according to Kirby.

  Austin conveyed the position to Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak in a call and also spoke with a top Ukraine official about similar matters.

  U.S. officials had previously said Poland was welcome to transfer planes to Ukraine directly and Kirby said each nation “can decide for themselves what they want to do.”

  Ukraine’s public position is that getting fighter jets would help tremendously against Russia, which invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24.

  “That’s absolutely the way we see it,” Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, said on Sky News on Wednesday when asked if jets would give Ukraine the advantage it needs.

  “All the tactical means you are talking about, they can be covered if we have at least not superiority, but at least control over our skies,” he added.

  Ukraine prefers older jets because its pilots are trained to work with them. Around the same time, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters in Washington said she was asked by Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky for help getting planes.

  The updates came hours after Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister, said Poland would only provide jets to Ukraine directly if all NATO members agree, as Russian officials have threatened countries that undertake such moves.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 21:35

• A Recession Unlike Any Other
  A Recession Unlike Any Other

  Submitted By Michael Pento

  The U.S. economy is already deteriorating due to the humongous fiscal and monetary cliffs. These cliffs are now being compounded by the war in Eastern Europe and near record-high inflation. And, the Fed’s “PUT” is much lower and smaller in size than Wall Street believes.

  

  The war in Ukraine will exacerbate the negative supply shocks that are already in place due to COVID-19. Worsening bottlenecks will combine with rising inflation to produce a contraction in global growth. Russia produces 12 percent of the world’s oil supply and exports 18 percent of the world’s wheat consumption. Ukraine accounts for 25 percent of global wheat production. Sanctions and war will serve to slow the economy further and send prices for these vital commodities even higher.

  But the upcoming recession will be extraordinarily unique. Not only will it occur while inflation is at a multi-decade high, it will be the first U.S. economic contraction to take place while the Federal Reserve had its target interest rate at or near zero percent. For comparison, look at how much room the Fed had to reduce borrowing costs during previous economic contractions.

  The following historical data indicates the level of the Fed Funds Rate just prior to the outset of all 10 U.S. recessions since WWII: 1957 3.5 percent, 1960 4.0 percent, 1969 10.5 percent, 1973 13.0 percent, 1979 16.01 percent, 1981 20.61 percent, 1989 10.71 percent, 2000 6.86 percent, 2007 5.31 percent, and 2019 2.45 percent.

  In addition, the swoon in GDP will occur after the Fed has just finished printing $4.5 trillion over the past two years and with the national debt vaulting over $30 trillion due to the massive increase in government deficits in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such borrowing helped send the government’s debt to GDP ratio soaring to 125 percent. For perspective, that ratio was just 53 percent back in 1960, and only 58 percent as recently as 2000.

  Inflation is destroying real wages, and rising borrowing costs are destroying consumers’ ability to consume. Consumption is 70 percent of GDP, and that means the rate of economic growth is set to plunge. This would normally spur the government into remediative action. But the fact remains that the ability of the Treasury and Federal Reserve to turn around a recession expeditiously by borrowing trillions of dollars and having that debt monetized by the Fed has become greatly fettered this time around.

  Fed Chair Jerome Powell is in a conundrum that is mostly of his own making; and from which there is no innocuous outcome. If the Fed gets overly concerned about slowing GDP due to the conflict in Ukraine, it could, for the most part, shelve its plans to raise rates and the planned reduction in the size of its balance sheet. But that would risk propelling inflation even further away from Powell’s stated 2 percent target, which he has exceeded by 3.75 times. Inflation expectations could then rise intractably from there. In other words, doing nothing isn’t a viable option for Powell—not with inflation running at a 40-year high and the WTI oil price vaulting above $110 per barrel.

  Commodities are indeed soaring, but the inflation doesn’t end there; rents have soared by 20 percent year over year, which is closer to the actual rate of inflation, rather than the massaged 7.5 percent CPI reported by the Labor Department. If inflation were to continue to increase even close to that rate, it would push those in the middle class into the lower class; and those in the lower class into poverty. Of course, this would end up destroying markets and the economy anyway. It could also put at risk confidence in the U.S. dollar and sovereign bond market.

  Therefore, the Fed is now forced to combat inflation whether it really wants to or not. At the nucleus of the inflation issue is runaway owners’ equivalent rent costs, which at 30 percent, make up the greatest weighting in the CPI metric. But to tackle owner’s equivalent rent inflation, Powell must first pop the record-setting real estate bubble. The negative ramifications of accomplishing this task for the banking system and economy will be enormous.

  Nevertheless, if Powell prosecutes his plan to raise rates six or more times this year—just as the Fed destroys the money supply by shedding a trillion dollars in Treasuries and Mortgage-backed Securities—the upcoming recession could quickly morph into a depression.

  So, which is it, Powell? Keep monetary policy loose and risk an intractable rise of inflation and the complete loss of confidence and credibility of the central bank. Or tighten monetary policy enough to deflate the massive bubbles in bonds, real estate, and equities. Either strategy is now destined to end in disaster for the market and economy.

  Such are the consequences derived from the Fed counterfeiting trillions of dollars for the purpose of distorting and obliterating free markets.

  The bottom line is this: the view of Pento Portfolio Strategies is that the Fed will now be forced to tighten monetary policy into one of the greatest decelerations of economic growth and earnings ever. A great defense is always a requirement in a winning portfolio strategy.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 21:20

• Elizabeth Warren Wants ‘’Windfall Tax’’ On Oil Profits
  Elizabeth Warren Wants ‘’Windfall Tax’’ On Oil Profits

  On one hand the Biden administration is offering an olive branch to US shale producers, whose oil it desperately needs to offset near record high oil prices. On the other, Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren are hinting at the fire and brimstone the Congress hopes to unleash on US oil companies (before November, as the Democrats face a historic loss at the midterm elections).

  As prices at the pump continue to rise for Americans, and as U.S. President Joe Biden warns oil and gas companies about price-gouging to take advantage of profits from the fallout of the Russia-Ukraine war, Senator Elizabeth Warren reveals she is gearing up to propose a new windfall tax on oil profits, OilPrice reports.

  “Big Oil’s first priority is to maximize profits,” Warren said in a Tweet on Wednesday. “We can’t let them use Putin’s invasion as an excuse to pad their bottom line with war-fueled profits.”

  Warren said she was working with Senate Democrats on the new tax proposal, which may or may not end up being included in President Biden’s revised plans. 

  The bill would target windfall profits, sudden and usually large profits for oil companies in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

  “Look, we get it, supply and demand, that prices go up. But profit margins should not go up,” Warren told MSNBC on Tuesday. “That’s just oil companies gouging when they do that.”

  The U.S. national current average for gas prices as of Wednesday is $4.252, up from $4.171 yesterday and $3.656 a week ago, according to AAA. 

  

  Attorneys General in multiple states have been warning consumers about price-gouging. 

  Could the bill possibly earn bipartisan support? 

  East Bay Congressman John Garamendi, one of the figures set to investigate claims of price gouging, said that while no one had reached out to Republicans yet, he expected those in “urban and suburban areas” due to rising gas prices, but he expected strong opposition from those in the oil patch. 

  Shareholders of American oil companies are getting rewarded for the first time, and that “windfall” tax represents long overdue dividends for investors who got taken for a ride in the first shale boom and are only now reaping the rewards. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 21:12

• Will There Be A Military Draft? Interest Surges Online 
  Will There Be A Military Draft? Interest Surges Online 

  Interest in the “draft” and “Russian nuclear weapons” surged online since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last month Russian President Vladimir Putin put his nuclear forces into “special combat readiness.” He warned days ago, if the West imposes a ‘no-fly’ zone over Ukraine, it will lead to further conflict. 

  So with World War III trending online, many young men wonder if they will be suddenly called up to fight against the Russians. The google search term “Will I get drafted” just soared to a record high.

  

  The interest in being drafted surpassed the time in early 2020 when a US drone strike in Iraq killed Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, prompting concerns for war which crashed the Selective Service System’s website that maintains a database of Americans eligible for a draft.

  There have yet to be problems with the Selective Service System website, as far as we know. For those wondering, 18 to 25 years old must register with the Selective Service System. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 21:00

• JPMorgan Bails Out Chinese Nickel Giant Facing Billions In Losses From Record Margin Call
  JPMorgan Bails Out Chinese Nickel Giant Facing Billions In Losses From Record Margin Call

  Two days ago we reported that while “plain vanilla” commodity producers such as coal giant Peabody had no choice but to pay up on their commodity margin calls (which they funded with an expensive, 11%, Goldman credit facility), others such as Chinese giants were magically exempt from mandatory payments in the billions.

  Extending on our observation earlier this week that the record surge in commodities, such as nickel, would – ironically – cripple producers who despite being long physical commodities in the spot market are also short in the futures market as a hedge, and it is these hedges that are causing unprecedented waterfalls of cascading short squeezes at this moment as producers scramble to find the cash to satisfy variation margins…

  *NICKEL JUMPS 12%, EXTENDING RECORD RALLY ON SHORT SQUEEZE

  ironically, this will bankrupt producers

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 8, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  … earlier this week we learned that Chinese nickel titan Tsingshan Holding Group, the world’s largest producer of the metal, controlled by Xiang Guangda – known as “Big Shot”, or is that “Big Short” – faced billions of dollars in trading losses after Russia’s war in Ukraine set off an unprecedented rise in the price of nickel, and which soared by a record 250% in two days.

  

  As further detailed yesterday, the paper loss stood at $8 billion on Monday – the result of holdings of about 100,000 tons of nickel on the LME – before a violent rush higher in nickel prices led the London Metal Exchange to suspend trading in the metal on Tuesday after it hit a record $101,365 per metric ton up from $20,175 in January. The exchange has since said it anticipates trading won’t resume before Friday (for more see “An LME Member Has Defaulted On Billions In Margin Calls, But The LME Doesn’t Want To Declare Default“)

  According to the WSJ, Tsingshan’s founder, Xiang Guangda, told a Chinese media outlet that “there have been some moves by foreigners,” and that it is in active negotiations with relevant parties, without specifying who they were and what was being negotiated.

  Xiang was also quoted saying that “relevant government departments and leaders are all very supportive of Tsingshan. Tsingshan is a solid Chinese enterprise and our positions and operations do not have problems,” according to the report in Yicai, a financial-news outlet.

  Needless to say, the fact that the LME is now owned by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, whose biggest shareholder is the Hong Kong government which for the past two years has been a puppet of China, did not hurt Xiang, whose empire would have been bankrupted had the LME forced him to make payment on his margin call. None other than outgoing LME chief executive Matt Chamberlain admitted as much.

  LME chief executive Matt Chamberlain told @BloombergTV this morning that if the exchange hadn’t cancelled trades, several brokers would have struggled to survive

  — Jack Farchy (@jfarchy) March 9, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Long story short: if you are a small nobody and your margin call will wipe out just you, nobody will think twice to margin you out; on the other hand if you are a Chinese tycoon whose default will ruin not just him but lead to massive losses for all LME members and also drag down more than one broker in the process (as Russell Clark explained earlier), well then… the rules can certainly be bent.

  And sure enough, on Wednesday morning, two days after Xiang was supposed to be in default buried by billions in margin calls, Bloomberg reports that he has successfully secured “a package of loans from local and international banks to help it meet a wave of margin calls.”

  According to the report, Tsingshan Holding has won credit promises from – drumroll – none other than JPMorgan Chase, and one of China’s largest banks, China Construction Bank, in meetings that ran into the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday morning. Some of the terms, such as how much extra collateral Tsingshan needs to pledge, are still under discussion, Bloomberg’s sources said.

  Since JPMorgan’s assistance alone was not enough, Chinese authorities also directed Tsingshan’s domestic banks to offer more credit lines to the company, with the bulk of the new capital going toward satisfying the margin calls on its existing positions on the London Metal Exchange.

  So what do the banks get in exchange for their generous bailout loans?

  Well, with large nickel production facilities in Indonesia and China, coupled with surging prices and strong demand, the firm’s owner, Xiang Guangda, told bankers at the meetings that he’s confident his company can meet its obligations.  He’s also reviewing his hedging strategy and is considering exiting the bets against nickel, which in light of the catastrophic outcome is probably not a bad idea.

  As reported previously, on Monday CCBI Global Markets, one of Tsingshan’s brokers, failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in margin calls on its nickel positions. The LME refrained from putting it into default, giving it more time to pay. The broker was able to settle the margin calls on Tuesday after several clients, including Tsingshan, got loans to cover their positions.

  As for Tsingshan itself, we now wait until Friday when the LME restarts nickel trading to see if Jamie Dimon’s generosity prevented the collapse of one of the pillars of China’s commodity empire. If so, expect the price to collapse. If not, all bets may be off and Pozsar’s “worst case scenario” will be in play.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 20:44

• Wisconsin Special Counsel Alleges Massive Misconduct In 2020 Election
  Wisconsin Special Counsel Alleges Massive Misconduct In 2020 Election

  Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Special Counsel Michael Gableman says in a 136-page interim report that he has uncovered numerous instances of alleged lawbreaking in Wisconsin in the 2020 election.

  

  The former justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court was hired last summer by the Republican Speaker of the State Assembly, Robin Vos, to investigate suspected election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

  In the report released March 1, Gableman wrote that his investigation uncovered instances of numerous mentally incompetent nursing home residents, non-citizens, and ineligible felons casting votes.

  He cited the use by municipal and county clerks of unstaffed absentee ballot drop-boxes, in violation of state law.

  Laws were also allegedly violated when the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) allegedly exceeded its authority by ordering local election officials to disregard state statutes that regulate absentee voting.

  The Special Counsel raised concerns that private money influenced municipal officials in the state’s five largest cities to “disfavor” many of their own citizens, as well as the vast majority of state residents, by spending millions of dollars of grant money on voter registration drives, absentee voter efforts, and Get-Out-The-Vote campaigns designed to serve certain favored, and specifically targeted, racial groups, in violation of the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitution.

  

  Gableman offered a list of suggested reforms designed to restore public confidence in Wisconsin elections.

  Among Gableman’s recommendations was a call to abolish the WEC, prohibit outside money and personnel from participating in election administration, and improved training to better acquaint local election officials with their powers, duties, and rights.

  He also laid out the legal rationale for decertifying the state’s 10 electors who voted for Democrat Joe Biden.

  Biden was declared the winner of Wisconsin’s popular vote by six-tenths of one percent, or 20,000 votes.

  Relying on the common law principle that fraud or illegality invalidate results under an illegal or fraudulent process, Gableman asserted that the state legislature had the constitutional plenary power to decertify the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin because state laws were broken.

  Democrat Governor Tony Evers released a statement the day the Special Counsel’s Report came out, saying: “This circus has long surpassed being a mere embarrassment to our state … Every day this effort continues, it is an increasingly dangerous and ongoing threat to our democracy.”

  Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who has sued to block, or curtail, subpoenas issued by the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC), said in a March 1 statement that Gableman’s report was a “full-throated attack on democracy” and an attempt to “overturn the will of the voters.”

  Kaul said that Republican state legislators “have an obligation to our democracy to condemn, and end, this preposterous fake investigation.”

  The OSC report detailed instances of what it called “obstruction” on the part of some state officials and private interest groups, which have filed nine lawsuits against the OSC and snowed it under with what it calls “dilatory,” “frivolous,” and “voluminous” public information requests.

  

  Gableman alleges in his report that Democrat political operatives, paid for by grants from the Zuckerberg-funded non-profit Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), all but took over administration of the 2020 election in five of Wisconsin’s largest cities.

  According to OSC’s report, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged in the spring and summer of 2020, CTCL donated nearly $8.8 million to county clerks and municipal election administrators throughout Wisconsin.

  The stated purpose of the grant funding was to help ensure that communities had enough money to be able to conduct elections in accordance with public health safety guidelines.

  Five of Wisconsin’s largest cities—Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha—received a total of $6.3 million in grant funding, ostensibly to purchase PPE and other health-related equipment, such as plexiglass barriers and hand-sanitizer.

  The grants were conditioned on the five cities agreeing to guidelines of the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan (WSVP).

  Gableman alleged that WSVP was little more than a partisan campaign program designed to maximize voter registration and turnout in heavily minority-populated precincts.

  The report states that the Wisconsin Elections Commission supported the WSVP Get-Out-The-Vote program, an action Gableman asserts is not part of the agency’s mission.

  How Did the Five Cities Spend the Grant Money?

  The cities used grant funds to pay for curbside voting tents, mobile polling places operated out of trucks, and for a drive-thru voting window at one city hall.

  The cities spent grant money on voter education, a multi-media advertising and phone blitz, geo-fencing (a computer technique used to pin-point particular areas of geographic and demographic interest) and they paid for personnel called “voter navigators” (also known as ballot harvesters), whose job was to shepherd a prospective voter through the process of voting.

  The municipalities purchased and installed in strategic locations, unstaffed absentee ballot drop-boxes in violation of Wisconsin law.

  The OSC report presented data showing that the city of Green Bay spent eight-tenths of one percent of its $1 million in grant funding on PPE and health equipment.

  Green Bay spent $50,000 for ballot drop-boxes and purchased a couple of new Ford trucks. The city paid a public relations firm $150,ooo for a voter outreach campaign.

  The public relations campaigns in each city zeroed in on preferred racial groups, which, coincidentally matched the demographic profile of Biden voters, according to the OSC report.

  The report said the cities’ actions were discriminatory and “disfavored” city and state residents who did not fit the targeted profile, raising issues of unequal treatment under the law.

  CTCL and other private workers, called “grant mentors,” along with many volunteers, worked for weeks assisting city election officials and county clerks in conducting the 2020 presidential election.

  What kind of assistance did the CTCL-supplied workers provide?

  According to the OSC report, representatives of private organizations participated in much of the planning and administration of the election.

  Tasks they performed included, curing defective mail-in ballots, challenging voted ballots, verifying photo ID, setting up voting equipment and vote counting centers, training volunteers, and writing instructions controlling the activities of count observers

  Workers provided by private organizations assigned inspectors for polling places and vote counting centers, transported ballots to city hall and counting centers, issued a purchase order, made decisions whether or not to accept ballots after 8 p.m. on Election Day, participated in the counting of ballots, and set up wireless digital networks in polling places, clerks’ offices, and other buildings, according to the report.

  The OSC report stated that local election officials, made beholden to private organizations by grant funding, could be susceptible to leverage pressuring them to do things in violation of their oath of office.

  Other Alleged Offenses and Abuses by State and Local Election Officials

  The special counsel alleged that rampant fraud and abuse occurred statewide in many of Wisconsin’s 6,875 nursing homes (housing 92,000 residents) during the 2020 election.

  When visited by OSC investigators, many nursing home residents who are on record as having voted absentee in the election, were unaware of their surroundings, what year it was, or to whom they were speaking.

  Some nursing home residents who purportedly voted had been adjudicated by a court to be mentally incompetent and whose voting rights had been taken away.

  Wisconsin election laws require that a nursing home resident desiring to vote absentee must be visited by a Special Voting Deputy (SVD) designated by the local clerks or election boards to assist the resident and supervise the application and voting process.

  Under the statute, only the resident’s immediate family, or an SVD, can have any contact with the ballots. They are never to be mailed.

  

  In June 2020, for reasons of public health, the Wisconsin Elections Commission directed all clerks to handle nursing home voting according to the rules governing ordinary mail-in voting, thereby disrupting the strictly limited chain of custody of residents’ ballots—a direct violation of Wisconsin law.

  The result was thousands of application forms, ballot envelopes, and ballots were illegally handled by nursing home employees, according to the report.

  The report alleges nursing home administrators and staff members illegally assisted residents in marking their ballots. Some family members have reported suspected cases of staff forging the voter’s signature.

  According to the OSC, the result was an “improbably high” voting rate, with many nursing homes reporting that 100 percent of their residents voted in the 2020 election.

  Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe said in a statement: “The integrity of the November 2020 election, and of the WEC, has been shown time, and time again, through court cases and previous investigations.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 20:40

• Congress Claims Amazon Potentially Obstructed Justice
  Congress Claims Amazon Potentially Obstructed Justice

  Over the years, Amazon has faced multiple investigations into whether its platform implicitly favors its own products. Back in 2020, WSJ published a series about Amazon’s use of its proprietary data collected on third-party sellers, and how the company used this information (which it doesn’t share with its competitors) to produce its own rival products.

  

  At a time when Democrats (and many Republicans) are eager to weaken the economic strength of consumer-facing tech behemoths like Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Meta, there are few better options for accomplishing this than litigation, or criminal prosecution. A bipartisan team of lawmakers is trying very hard to make the latter happen. According to WSJ, two Congressmen have sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to investigate the Seattle-based tech giant Amazon’s refusal to provide information that lawmakers had sought as part of a Judiciary Committee subcommittee probe into Amazon’s competitive practices.

  What’s more, the letter accuses Amazon of deliberately trying to thwart investigators looking into potential “criminal conduct”.

  Throughout the investigation, “Amazon repeatedly endeavored to thwart the Committee’s efforts to uncover the truth about Amazon’s business practices,” the congressional letter says. “For this, it must be held accountable.”

  The letter says it is alerting the Justice Department to “potentially criminal conduct by Amazon and certain of its executives,” though it doesn’t specify which individuals.

  The letter represents a revival of tensions between Amazon and lawmakers who conducted a 16-month antitrust investigation of Congress, which resulted in the October 2020 report that criticized all four companies, but their take on Amazon was particularly contentious.

  The biggest issue for Amazon  was its responses (or lack thereof) to lawmakers’ inquiries about how it uses the data of third-party sellers on its platform when creating private-label products, and how it treats those Amazon brands in its search results.

  At one point, Committee members asked Amazon to produce evidence to support its denials, including a report from the investigation Mr. Bezos had referenced.

  In meetings with congressional staff and written testimony, Amazon or its lawyers refused to produce the investigation report and other documents.

  This isn’t the first time one of these anti-trust letters has been sent to the DoJ regarding Amazon.

  In October, committee members sent a letter to Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy urging the company to provide “exculpatory evidence” surrounding its private-label business practices and its use of third-party sales data.

  Amazon has a reason for being secretive. Amazon “has refused to turn over business documents or communications that would either corroborate its claims or correct the record,” the letter says. “And it appears to have done so to conceal the truth about its use of third-party sellers’ data to advantage its private-label business and its preferencing of private-label products in search results—subjects of the Committee’s investigation.”

  The letter was signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline and committee members Reps. Ken Buck, Matt Gaet and Pramila Jayapal.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 20:20

• "It's Appalling": In Hilarious Reversal, Biden Admin Now Slams Shale For Not Raising Output
  “It’s Appalling”: In Hilarious Reversal, Biden Admin Now Slams Shale For Not Raising Output

  It was just last June when we asked if “ESG will trigger energy hyperinflation“, explaining that the progressives’ ESG agenda, “is unwinding the shale oil revolution. As recent events at Exxon and Shell have shown, the pressure on oil companies to reduce oil and gas exploration and adapt their business models has increased significantly over the past few months” (incidentally the answer to our rhetorical question was “yes”).

  We added that “ESG is a negative supply shock that internalizes the climate cost of the production of goods and services. This negative supply shock will be inflationary until technological progress absorbs these costs. That could take years.  Moreover in Europe, it could garner enough of political support to justify a more aggressive fiscal policy despite the constraints at the German or EU levels.”

  Meanwhile, the impact of ESG on oil companies has been to depress Capex spending to the lowest level in decades, leaving the energy sector entirely unprepared for any energy price spike, as it simply did not have the capacity to pump as much oil as may be needed.

  

  And while the White House, and especially the ultra-progressive wing of the US socialist party was delighted with the slow, steady destruction of the energy sector, whose profit contribution to the S&P had collapsed to the lowest on record…

  

  … now that gas prices are the highest on record and the Biden administration is flailing, its approval rating crushed by soaring gas prices and desperately pointing the finger at Putin or any other feces that will stick to the wall, suddenly the president is going for a full U-turn and hoping that everyone has been sufficiently neuralized to forget that on the very first day of his administration, the 79 year old president ordered the closure of the Keystone XL pipeline (in a hilariously titled Executive Order called “Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis“) and froze new drilling leases while pushing for disastrous initiatives that centered on clean energy.

  So fast forward to today when ignoring over one year of catastrophic policies, the U.S. State Department’s senior energy security adviser Amos Hochstein – seeing the freefall in White House approval ratings – turned that tables hoping that most Americans are idiots instead of only half, and said that shale companies choosing not to reinvest massive profits into higher production growth at a time of war is “appalling.”

  Hammered by policies that discourage evil investments boosting “fossil fuel” output, and under pressure from activist investors to boost cash flows after a decade of weak returns, many publicly traded explorers are limiting production growth to no more than 5%. But that is suddenly at odds with the Biden administration’s efforts to curb soaring inflation and energy prices at home.

  So after a year of trying to defang domestic energy companies, the White House – whose Fed Vice Chair candidate Sarah Bloom Raskin even went so far as suggesting to starve energy companies of capital – is now asking producers to raise oil supply to replace Russian crude flows after Biden banned oil imports from the country.

  In other words, while yesterday it was Putin’s fault, now it is the fault of shale companies according to an administration that will always find blame anywhere it looks except its own devastating policies.

  Shale producers are “out there saying they can’t produce more because their financiers are not allowing them to,” Amos Hochstein said in an interview at CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston Wednesday. “I find that to be appalling. We’re in the middle of a war, consumers are paying, the American economy is paying and the profits from $130 oil or $120 oil should be reinvested back in the United States.”

  Actually, Amos, if the S in USA stood for socialist, you might have some grounds for that idiotic statement. However, as long as the country is capitalist – and last time we checked it still was – and as long as the government is Democrat (which it will be until November’s landslide) and seeking to bankrupt the very companies that it now so desperately needs, such appeals are moronic at best. Oh, and last time we checked, it was the Biden family that is at war – the same family whose “brilliant” scion, Hunter, once advised Ukraine on its energy policies – not the country. So maybe the Biden family can reinvest some of its Ukraine profits into a war that it so desires.

  Amos’ socialist appeals aside, independent oil producers remain disinclined to invest unless the administration takes steps to correct its anti-fossil fuel environment that raises their cost of capital (which won’t happen, especially with midterm elections coming up). They have asked Biden to throw his weight behind the sector, by reopening federal lease sales, backing pipelines and speeding up liquefied natural gas export permits. So far, nothing but silence.

  “There’s this notion out there in the media and elsewhere that the administration is somehow blocking the industry from producing more,” Hochstein said. “That is just not true.”

  Actually it is and even thought Biden himself recently said “it’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production”, the following thread by Drew Holden explains why the president is lying.

  🧵THREAD🧵

  President Biden recently said “it’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production.”

  I figure the fact checkers likely won’t touch this one, so I did the homework.

  Biden’s claim isn’t true. I explain. ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/dLfbeP7WFt

  — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  But never let truth stand in the way of a flailing regime which is so desperate it sent not one but two of its henchmen to the CERAWeek S&P global energy conference in Houston, where in addition to Hochstein, the top U.S. energy official openly called on oil and natural gas producers to boost supply.

  “We are on a war footing,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told a packed ballroom at the CERAWeek conference on Wednesday.

  “We are in an emergency, and we have to responsibly increase short-term supply where we can right now to stabilize the market and to minimize harm to American families,” Granholm said.

  In a desperate attempt to appease a sector that the Biden admin was on true “war footing” against for the better part of a year, Granholm offered an olive branch to the industry that President Joe Biden once shunned, saying the country is “eternally grateful” to oil and gas companies for powering the nation for the past century — and hopes they will continue doing so for the next 100 years with zero-carbon technology.

  Her comments come after oil executives at the biggest energy summit in the Americas spent the week criticizing the White House for asking OPEC countries to raise output, rather than domestic producers. The largest independent shale companies have said they won’t accelerate growth without long-term support from Biden, even as oil prices surge to the highest levels since 2014.

  But for that to happen, the loudest democrat mouths, AOC and her gal pals, would need to be shut up, and that just won’t happen without the Democrat party splitting in two: one merely centrist socialist, and one radical communist faction.

  “Right now, we need oil and gas production to rise to meet current demand,” Granholm said, adding that boosting short-term oil supplies isn’t at odds with the administration’s commitment to clean energy. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said… although she may want to check if that is also true for her boss.

  Finally, as OilPrice explains, even if the US shale sector decides on a truce with an administration that would have gladly watched it crash and burn, it still can’t replace Russian oil in the short term as commodity intelligence firm Kpler said on Tuesday.

  Russia exports around 5 million bpd of crude and 2.8 million bpd of refined products. According to Kpler’s estimates, Russian crude oil exports could drop by as much as 1.5 million bpd from April onwards.

  But U.S. shale will not be able to fill the gap over the next few months, despite its flexibility and reactivity to market conditions, Alex Andlauer, Senior Global Energy Analyst at Kpler, notes. A lack of equipment is the key reason why the U.S. shale patch cannot replace the loss of Russian crude, Andlauer added.

  “If there had been no shortage in workers, trucks, sand and completions equipment, the upside for June (three months process) would have been small anyway, at around +130 kbd, or less than 10% of what we expect Russian crude exports could lose next month,” he wrote.

  Shale executives also think the U.S. cannot offset lost Russian barrels. Scott Sheffield, chief executive at Pioneer Natural Resources, the biggest oil producer in the Permian, says U.S. producers will not be able to replace Russian oil this year. In the event of a Russian embargo—which Sheffield supports—oil could jump to $150 and even $200 per barrel, the executive said in an interview with the Financial Times last week.

  The U.S. shale patch would need several months to raise production sharply, even if it started drilling many new wells now, Pioneer’s CEO noted. Labor, sand, and equipment shortages are already expected to constrain growth in U.S. shale this year, Sheffield and other U.S. oil executives said last month.

  In short, the Biden admin will have to be waving the neuralizer a whole lot more to make everyone forget that the energy hyperinflation observed today is just as much its fault as it is due to the war in the Ukraine. And speaking of forgetting, maybe it can also erase the memories of all those “81 million” voters who have put America in the worst stagflationary shock since the 1970s energy  crisis.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 20:00

• Elon Musk Asks Federal Judge To Vacate His 2018 Fraud Settlement With The SEC
  Elon Musk Asks Federal Judge To Vacate His 2018 Fraud Settlement With The SEC

  In what is likely a sign that things aren’t going great between the SEC and Elon Musk, it was reported this week that Tesla’s CEO was trying to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to vacate his 2018 fraud settlement with the agency. 

  Musk asked a federal judge to throw out the settlement this week, the WSJ reported, in a motion filed in Manhattan federal court.

  Musk’s lawyers argued that the settlement, which famously required Musk to run his Tweets past a “Twitter sitter” as a consequence of faking an $80 billion buyout for Tesla, “has become unworkable”.

  And in a sign that the SEC is currently a fly in Musk’s ointment, his lawyers said that the regulator was using the settlement to make “round after round of demands for voluminous, costly document productions, with no signs of abatement.”

  Additionally, Musk called into question the SEC’s original claims that he defrauded shareholders in 2018. 

  “I never lied to shareholders. I would never lie to shareholders. I entered the consent decree for the survival of Tesla, for the sake of its shareholders,” Musk said, claiming he felt “pressured” to settle with the SEC and put the matter behind him.

  

  Donna Nagy, a law professor at Indiana University, told the WSJ: “It is exceedingly difficult to convince a federal court to terminate a consent decree. The showing required is very high and there is very recent precedent in an analogous area.”

  Recall, just days ago, we wrote that the SEC was probing Musk and his brother, Kimbal, over trades they executed in November 2021. 

  The investigation began one day after Kimbal Musk sold $108 million in stock – which occurred one day before the Tesla CEO polled his Twitter users, on November 7 – just as the Russell and cryptos peaked – asking whether or not he should sell 10% of his stake in the company.

  That vote then set Musk in motion to sell far in excess of $10 billion in stock, representing about 10% of his stake in Tesla. The Tesla CEO claimed the sale was a way to cover taxes for potential new capital gains laws.

  After Elon started selling stock, Tesla’s stock price fell 33%. 

  Regulators are reportedly probing whether or not Elon may have told his brother Kimbal about his planned Tweet and, if so, if Kimbal knowingly traded ahead of the event. 

  Kimbal’s trading might “violate rules that generally prohibit employees and board members from trading on material nonpublic information”, the Journal reported. Kimbal’s shares were not sold pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan, which would have dictated that he could sell at a predetermined interval.

  The probe is not guaranteed to result in an enforcement action.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 19:40

• 'Forget About COVID', They Say…
  ‘Forget About COVID’, They Say…

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  Earlier this year, a phrase was trending because Bari Weiss used it on a talk show: “I’m done with Covid.” Many people cheered simply because the subject has been the source of vast oppression for billions of people for two years. 

  There are two ways to be over Covid. 

  One way is to do what the memo from the consultants of the Democratic National Committee suggested: declare the war won and move on. For political reasons. 

  Deaths attributed to Covid nationally are higher now than they were in the summer of 2020 when the whole country was locked down. They are also higher now than during the election of November the same year.

  But today we are just supposed to treat it for what it is: a seasonal virus with a disparate impact on the aged and frail. 

  

  Rationality is back! In that sense, it’s good to forget about Covid if it means living life normally and behaving with clarity about what does and does not work to mitigate a virus. The Democrats decided that the hyper-restrictionist ways were risking political fortunes. Hence, the line and the talking points needed to change. 

  Another way to get over Covid is to forget completely about the last two years, especially the astonishing failures of compulsory pandemic controls.

  Forget about the school closures that cost a generation two years of learning.

  Forget that the hospitals were largely closed to people without a Covid-related malady.

  Forget about the preventable nursing-home deaths.

  Forget that dentistry was practically abolished for a few months, or that one could not even get a haircut. 

  Forget the stay-at-home orders, the church and business closures, the playground and gym closures, the bankruptcies, the travel restrictions, the firings, the crazed advice for everyone to mask up and physically separate, the record drug-related deaths, the mass depression, the segregation, the brutalization of small business, the labor-force dropouts, the forced stoppages of art and culture, and the capacity limits on venues that forced weddings and funerals to be on Zoom. 

  Forget about a closer look at the bogus mathematical models, vaccine trials, the circumstances behind the Emergency Use Authorizations, the adverse effects, the inaccuracies of the PCR test, and misclassification of deaths, the billions and trillions of misdirected funds, the division of all workers between essential and nonessential, and the millions who were forced to get jabs they did not want. 

  Forget about the possibility of a lab leak, the role of China, the deadly use of ventilators, the neglect of therapeutics, the near-banning of all talk of natural immunity, the overselling of the vaccine, the lost religious holidays, the lonely deaths due to the blocking of loved ones from hospitals, the censorship of science, the manipulated and hidden CDC data, the payments to the major media, the symbiotic relationship between government and Big Tech, the demonization of dissent, and the abuse of emergency powers. 

  Forget how health bureaucracies headed by political appointees took over the task of regulating nearly the whole of life, while messaging the country that freedom just doesn’t matter much anymore! 

  Who precisely benefits from this method of being “over Covid?”

  The unrepentant hegemon that gave us this disaster to begin with. They want to be in the clear. They don’t just desire to be exonerated; they don’t want to be judged at all. They want to be unaccountable. The best path toward that end is to foster public amnesia. 

  I don’t just mean the Democrats. This calamity all began under a Republican president who still retains folk-hero status. Plus all Republican governors except one (Kristi Noem of South Dakota) bought into the initial lockdowns. They don’t want to talk about it either. 

  There is a vast machine extant that desperately wants everyone to forget. Not even forgive, just forget. Don’t think about the old thing. Think about the new thing instead. Don’t learn lessons. Don’t change the system. Don’t uproot the bureaucracies or examine why the court system failed us so miserably until it was too late. Don’t seek more information. Don’t seek reforms. Don’t take away powers from the CDC and NIH, much less Homeland Security. 

  Meanwhile, we live amidst a crisis without precedent. It affects health, economics, law, culture, education, and science. Nothing has been left untouched. The end of travel augmented every preexisting international tension. The wild government spending and the monetary accommodation of the ballooning debt, in addition to supply chain breakages, are all directly responsible for record levels of inflation. It’s much easier to blame Putin than it is to look at the failed policies of the US and many other governments in the world. 

  There are so many remaining questions. My own estimate is that we know about 5% of what we need to know to make sense of this whole disaster. What precisely were Fauci, Collins, Farrar, Birx, and the whole gang doing in February 2020 when they weren’t looking for early treatments? 

  Why did so many prominent epidemiologists completely reverse their stated views on lockdowns? They flipped from being largely skeptical of coercive measures on March 2, 2020, to fully embracing the most egregious measures only a few weeks later. Moreover, there was clearly a conspiracy emanating from the top to smear dissenting scientists who later said that the lockdowns were causing vastly more harm than good. The people behind the Great Barrington Declaration were targeted by government and media for professional ruin. 

  When did the vaccine companies get rolled into the mix and under what terms? We need to know the when and why of the questioning and denial of natural immunity. Who was involved in this egregious and wholly inaccurate attempt to stigmatize those who rejected the vaccine? Where were the trials for generic therapeutics that the NIH is supposed to fund? 

  Why in general did an entire establishment choose panic, lockdown, and mandate over calm and the traditional practice of public health? 

  I have my own questions.

  What were the conditions and the messages that led the New York Times to use its podcasts and printed pages (February 27 and 28, 2020) to spread absolute panic?

  This institution had never done this before in any previous pandemic. Why did it choose this path even weeks before Fauci and Birx started lobbying Trump to pull the trigger? 

  To put a fine point on it: how much money was involved? 

  What we need is a full timeline with every detail for two years. We need reparations for the victims. We need to take powers away from hundreds and thousands of leading politicians, scientists, public health officials and media executives. 

  What changed pandemic panic to a new calm is the force of public opinion. God bless the protestors, polls, and truckers. That is a great improvement but there is a long way to go to rekindle the love of liberty that can protect us next time. It’s not about left and right. We need a new understanding of public health, bodily autonomy, and essential liberties. 

  Some people want global amnesia and otherwise no change in the regime, no follow-up, no investigations, no connecting dots, no justice, no answers to burning questions. 

  And consider this.

  If we are so over Covid, why are people still being fired for not being vaccinated, including people with superior natural immunity? Why have the fired not been rehired? Why the masks on planes, trains, and buses? Why the continued quarantine rules? Why the restrictions on international travel? Why are children still forced to cover their faces? Why must everyone who wants to see a Broadway play be forced to cover up their smiles? 

  The remnants of restrictions, mandates, and impositions are there to serve as a reminder of the prevailing ruling-class attitude toward their policy choices. There are no regrets. They have done everything right. And they still have their thumb on you. 

  That is intolerable. By all means, forget about Covid and live life as normally as possible in defiance of those who live to foster fear. But, never forget the disastrous Covid restrictions that created such destruction. We cannot let anyone off the hook, much less pretend that the policy disaster that created billions of personal tragedies never happened. 

  The world we live in today – with worse health, economic dislocations, demoralized and undereducated children and youth, segregations and censorships, the unquestioned ubiquity of rules manufactured by the undemocratic administrative state, the instability and fear that comes with no longer trusting the system – is a far cry from the one that existed only a few years ago. We need to know why, how, and who. There are millions of questions that cry out for answers. We must have them. And we need to work to recover, rebuild, and insure it will never happen again. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 19:20

• A Bomb Cyclone Could Wallop Northeast With Heavy Snow 
  A Bomb Cyclone Could Wallop Northeast With Heavy Snow 

  Despite the unseasonably warm temperatures in the eastern US earlier this week, winter isn’t over with eleven days left in the season. 

  AccuWeather forecasters warn a potential ‘bomb cyclone’ could unleash accumulating snowfall from the central Appalachians to the interior Northeast on Friday through Saturday. 

  “Confidence is growing for a significant storm that will bring wide-reaching impacts,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Alex DaSilva said.

  The end-of-the-week storm will take aim at the Eastern Seaboard and is expected to undergo rapid strengthening, perhaps reaching bomb cyclone status. 

  “Winds across the entire Northeast and mid-Atlantic will be very gusty Saturday and Saturday night,” DaSilva said. 

  AccuWeather meteorologists are still determining the rain-snow line, but models already suggest somewhere around Interstate 95. 

  

  In the interior Northeast, accumulating snowfall is expected. 

  “It is within this Appalachian zone that the air will be cold enough at the onset of precipitation, or turn colder dramatically during the event, for mostly snow to fall, with accumulations ranging from a few inches to a foot or more,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.

  

  Nothing is locked in as meteorologists will likely be more definite in their forecasts on Thursday evening. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/09/2022 – 19:00