Today’s News 14th November 2022

• Fair Elections Are The Underpinning Of A Free Society: Retired Marine Reserve Colonel
  Fair Elections Are The Underpinning Of A Free Society: Retired Marine Reserve Colonel

  Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times,

  Election integrity was paramount on Jan. 30, 2005, when Iraq held its first free election in years to choose an entirely new National Assembly. Retired Marine Reserve Colonel Frank Ryan, today a Republican state representative in the Pennsylvania House, had been called out of retirement and was responsible for pulling together election security with the interim Iraqi government.

  It was important that voting was simple for citizens and that they had confidence in the results.

  

  People waiting to vote in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2005. (Frank Ryan)

  Ryan was one of the few Americans permitted at Iraqi polling places. He attended the Iraqi government meeting when they were counting the ballots that election night.

  “They did a tremendous job of making sure that they had a bipartisan group of people monitoring the counting of the ballots,” Ryan said.

  “And by the way, we got the electoral results done the same day. Just saying.”

  In the end, some people were disappointed their candidate didn’t win, but there were not accusations of fraud, Ryan said, because the election had a robust system of controls.

  “We worked with the Deputy Minister of National Security, and the Multinational Force Iraq, to make sure that we had all the polling places covered,” Ryan told The Epoch Times.

  “We had the rules of engagement relative to the counting of the ballots. We had tremendous security of all the ballots. We knew how many were issued at the polling places. We had complete control. And then obviously, the ultimate control was the dye on the finger to determine that you’ve already voted.”

  

  Frank Ryan in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2005. (Frank Ryan)

  Voting was risky. The insurgency, al-Qaeda, said they were going to kill anyone who voted. There was no mail-in balloting, yet nearly 75 percent of Iraqis showed up in person to vote.

  Each voter dipped their finger in purple ink, a stain to prevent people from voting twice. A group of women in their 70s stood together, Ryan recalls, and they held their ink-stained index fingers up. “They were showing that they weren’t going to be intimidated.”

  The night before the election, a rocket hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, killing two Americans who worked there and wounding five others.

  “One of the deputy ministers in national security called me up the morning of the election, and he was crying. I said, ‘Are you OK?’ and he said, ‘Today, my mother voted freely for the first time in her life. I wanted you to thank the American people for the sacrifices that they’ve done for the Iraqi people so that we can be free. And please tell those families that their children did not die in vain.’ And I started to cry, to think it meant that much to him.”

  The dye on their hands was not going to come off in a day, Ryan said. It was going to be there for a while.

  “They knew they could be executed for it, and they didn’t care. Voting meant that much to them.”

  The privilege of voting and trust in the results cannot be taken for granted.

  “The entire framework of our nation as a republic is based upon trust that people have in the system, that the elections are fair and secure,” Ryan said.

  Leaving Office to Get Things Done

  As a state representative, Ryan, who is also a certified public accountant, has worked on legislation to improve election controls and build voter trust. With Republican Rep. Seth Grove, he worked on Pennsylvania House Bill 1300 in 2021, an election reform bill vetoed by Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf.

  This year, Ryan announced his retirement at the end of his term in December. But he is not done working on election security.

  “I think I can have a bigger impact on public policy outside of the legislature, than from within it,” Ryan said, adding that it is a sad truth that it is hard for legislators to get things done.

  “I intend to work specifically on election security and internal controls, and the elimination of property taxes for schools.”

  Ryan believes he can better mobilize public support around these issues as a private citizen.

  “Even the Democrats I’ve talked to want safe and secure elections,” Ryan said.

  “Democrats and Republicans want to get this fixed, but sometimes they get pressure from their leadership who are being leaned on by outside influences or special interest groups.” Ryan is writing a book about this issue. “It’s going to be about how special interest groups control the agenda in Harrisburg and in D.C.”

  When he thinks about election reform, Ryan looks at issues through the lens of his accounting experience.

  He would like to see reconciliation by the precinct, comparing the number of voters to the number of ballots cast, and details defining each extra ballot.

  It is expected that every county will have a surplus, Ryan explained. If a voter makes a mistake, their ballot is voided, and they are given a new one. Now that voter accounts for two ballots. This should be tracked. The legislation Wolf vetoed called for this and other types of audit mechanisms. Each county handles elections a little differently, he says, and there should be some uniform guidelines for how things are done. He also believes voters should be required to show identification.

  “There are too many flaws in the processes,” Ryan said.

  “If the elections are not close, everybody’s got full faith and confidence in those results. Like there’s no doubt in my mind that Fetterman won. I’m not happy about it. People didn’t ask me if I was happy about the results. But I do believe they were accurate. But if you were to tell me the race was within 20,000 votes, I wouldn’t be able to make that same assertion.”

  That is why election security processes must be reformed, he said.

  “I accept the results because I believe that it was the will of the people,” Ryan said. “And that’s my responsibility, to make sure that the election systems accurately reflect the will of the people. That’s the constitutional provisions that I swore to uphold when I became a United States Marine on Dec. 18, 1969.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/14/2022 – 00:00

• Journalism Tops List Of 'Most Regretted' College Majors
  Journalism Tops List Of ‘Most Regretted’ College Majors

  A whopping 87% of Journalism majors say they regret their decision, and would pick a different major if they could, according to CNBC, citing a ZipRecruiter survey of more than 1,500 college graduates who were looking for a job.

  

  The aspiring corporate media propagandists were followed by Sociology and Liberal Arts majors at 72% each, and communications majors at 64%.

  

  “When we graduate, reality hits,” said ZipRecruiter head economist, Sinem Buber, adding “When you are barely managing to pay your bills, your paycheck might become more important.”

  On average, 44% of all job seekers with college degrees regret their field of study. 

  The poll comes months after a Reuters survey found that trust in the mainstream media is evaporating.

  It comes down to money

  According to “The College Payoff,” a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, bachelor’s degree holders typically earn 84% more than those with just a high school diploma, however of course, career path matters.

  When broken down by areas of study, however, the difference is striking. Students who pursue a major specifically in science, technology, engineering and math — collectively known as STEM disciplines — are projected to earn the most overall.

  In addition to STEM, health and business majors are among the highest-paying, leading to average annual wages that are higher at the entry level and significantly greater over the course of a career compared with liberal arts and humanities majors, the Georgetown Center found. -CNBC

  What are the least regretted majors?

  Computer and information sciences, criminology, engineering, nursing, and health.

  

  According to Buber, “Pay is still most important,” but “Job security is now becoming more important. That happens whenever we have the fear of a recession.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 23:30

• "FTX Isn't The Canary In The Coal-Mine, FTX Is The Coal-Mine… & It Just Collapsed"
  “FTX Isn’t The Canary In The Coal-Mine, FTX Is The Coal-Mine… & It Just Collapsed”

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  Bitcoin Hodlers: Time is Running Out to Convert Nothing into Something

  Three key takeaways:

  1. For weeks, the Bitcoin market has looked propped up by the whales, especially after the recent FTX disaster.

  2. Bitcoin hodlers should strongly consider moving into gold, silver, or at least Ether.

  3. Full disclosure, I have a complicated relationship with Crypto.

  

  An Artificial Market

  I have specifically avoided writing about Bitcoin despite having strong opinions on the subject. Bitcoin is a very hot topic, and most people have already made up their minds. In short, I think it has zero value but that argument has been made many times before so I couldn’t add anything new to the conversation.

  Full disclosure, I have been in the Crypto market since 2013 and am net positive. That said, given recent market events, I cannot sit by in good conscience without giving fair warning. This is not a Bitcoin is worthless analysis, this is a wake-up call to push people to ask what is keeping this market from imploding. FTX isn’t the canary in the coal mine (that was Celsius, or one of the other firms that crashed this year). FTX is the coal mine, and it just collapsed.

  I think the data shows that this market is being propped up by whales. If the dam breaks it could send markets crashing. Back on Oct 31, before anything happened with FTX, I texted a close friend:

  My new theory is that the whales are not trying to pump the price anymore. Instead, they are trying to stabilize the price to win back institutional investors. I have never seen bitcoin price volatility so low over a 6 month stretch in 10 years. It just totally stopped moving after an epic collapse back in June. No bounce, no continuation, no nothing. Just super tight price range even while the stock market has continued falling.

  I was led to this thinking after watching Bitcoin crash in June to ~19k and then just hold. It spent the next few months consolidating while the bond and stock markets went into turmoil. See the chart below with the simple price of SPY overlaid on top of Bitcoin since 2021. You may notice how steady the orange line has been since June 21, directly after the Bitcoin crash below $20k.

  

  Figure: 1 SPY vs BTC

  Let’s compare the 30-day rolling annualized standard deviation between Bitcoin and the SPY. This chart shows the difference in volatility between Bitcoin and SPY. Notice how it has been collapsing in recent months, and Bitcoin was actually less volatile than the S&P for a brief period in October. Since when is Bitcoin less volatile than the S&P 500? That has quickly reversed since the FTX fiasco.

  

  Figure: 2 Volatility/Standard Deviation

  However, while price volatility is falling, trade volume is not. The next chart is the 30-day rolling average trade volume of Bitcoin compared to the price. Once again you can notice a misalignment. As volume was steadily increasing over the last several months, the price stayed in a tight range.

  

  Figure: 3 Price and Volume

  Usually, large changes in volume are accompanied by large moves in price. But in this case, volume was moving up steadily while the price stayed nearly flat. How and why was this happening?

  As I alluded to above in my text to a friend, this looked like an artificial market. The market nearly collapsed back in June and then just flatlined near 20k. That doesn’t happen, especially in Bitcoin. After this past week though, I am now convinced this market is being artificially propped up. After all, 27% of the market is dominated by a super minority of less than 0.01%. They have a major vested interest in keeping this market inflated. I think the increased volume against stable price action is from whales defending the price and painting the tape.

  I won’t rehash what happened with FTX this week (there are 1,000s of articles explaining the epic collapse). Instead, I will just highlight that this is a MAJOR event in the Crypto space. To Crypto, this would be like 3 Enron happenings all at once, or Enron and Madoff happening in the same weekend. This is catastrophic on every level, but the price of Bitcoin only fell by about 20%. What?!?

  In the stock market over the past several weeks, companies have been reporting disappointing earnings at a frequent clip. Each company has been absolutely punished for it. Some have fallen 20% or more in a single day which is extremely rare. These are bad earnings for major corporations that still have revenue. Yet Bitcoin has its Enron + Madoff moment and the price of Bitcoin drops by the same ~20%?

  No way! I am not buying it!

  Step back and think about this for just a moment. Take another look at the charts above that show how the price volatility collapsed despite steadily increasing trade volume. Most importantly, look at the recent massive spike in trade volume from FTX and the relatively minor price drop. For any mathematicians who might be claiming scale and relative impact are not properly reflected, take a look at the same chart on log scale below.

  

  Figure: 4 Price and Volume on Log Scale

  Okay, this looks a little bit more reasonable… until you remember that this was Enron + Madoff! No. I am sorry, but no. The price should be down 50-70% after this event. I am convinced it will be. Think about how much Crypto money just went up in smoke. Think about the confidence lost.

  Everyone keeps saying that Crypto winters come and go, and so will this one. But will the summer ever be as bright for Bitcoin? Each winter has been followed by a bigger hype train than the last one. How can the next hype train be bigger than the last one? You had EVERYTHING going for it last year. The price was screaming higher, hype was at a fever pitch, Superbowl ads, celebrity endorsements. Everything!

  When this Crypto winter breaks, Bitcoin won’t recover to new all-time highs without being artificially pumped up. Who is entering the market on the next rebound that wasn’t already in the market? Institutional investors have abandoned ship and the whales are left trying to stem the tide.

  Want more proof that institutional investors have left? Take a look at the GBTC Premium/Discount chart.

  

  Figure: 5 GBTC Premium and Discount

  This is easy money for institutions. If you want Bitcoin exposure, you can get exposure at a 42% discount. Why is this arbitrage not closing? Let’s make this a little fancier and adjust the price of Bitcoin by the premium/discount of GBTC.

  

  Figure: 6 GBTC Implied Price

  Notice something? Right now, GBTC is implying that the fair market price of Bitcoin is under $10k. So, who is right here? I am betting on the smart money that is unwilling to buy GBTC at a whopping 47% discount.

  I get it. Bitcoin is like a religion for some people. HODL, laser eyes, Michael Saylor, blah blah. But sometimes something is just so obvious you have to get your head out of the sand. If you want true independence from the banking system and you want to reduce counterparty risk, then buy physical gold and silver. Unlike GBTC, the smart money is pillaging the Comex vaults right now while institutional investors are also paying a hefty premium for silver.

  Let me guess, you still want Crypto exposure to maybe get the moonshot event. Triple up or more. Okay fine, at least buy something of value like Ether. It at least has some value. Probably not $1,200, but definitely greater than $0. It also has potential and versatility.

  If it’s me, I still think about value. I wouldn’t pay $500 for a gallon of gas and I wouldn’t pay $10,000 for an ounce of gold (unless hyperinflation hits). So, at $1,200 Ether is probably overpriced. But again, at least it has value. I personally bought in the $150 range and sold too early at around $700.

  Ether is far from perfect or a value investment, but it’s a better option than Bitcoin. Still, anyone who wants to exit the banking system and get value… look at physical precious metals!

  My complicated history with Crypto

  Full disclosure. I have a complex relationship with Crypto. I have made more money in Crypto than gold and silver for sure. I have been bullish and bearish at different times in my life.

  As a Libertarian, I heard about Bitcoin back in 2012 and told myself to spend $2,000 and buy 1,000 BTC, toss half into cold storage, and then trade the other half. Whoops. I forgot to do this because it looked complicated. Then Cyprus happened and Bitcoin shot up to $50. I didn’t want to miss the next move, so I started buying. Had a decent stack at one point. Rode it up to $1,100 and then MtGox crashed and poof went my Bitcoins. I eventually sold the bankruptcy claim to an opportunistic buyer.

  I decided I needed to understand the tech to see if I should buy back in. I read everything. The Bitcoin white paper, articles, wiki pages about hashing, and how blocks are linked together. How computers compete to solve for the nonce with the correct amount of preceding 0s (this is how the algo gets harder). I looked at transactions on the actual Bitcoin blockchain to try and understand it. It started to make sense to me, so when prices came down, I would buy and then sell the rebound. Doesn’t mean I was all-in though. Back in 2020, I wrote:

  I think Blockchain is a vastly overhyped technology. Blockchain removes the need for trust and eliminates counterparty risk, but the cost is enormous. Blockchain is really just a super expensive low-performance database. Not to mention, that there is nothing truly unique in the [Bitcoin] blockchain code, Bitcoin simply has first mover advantage.

  I still stand by this. Blockchain is a database, just really expensive. What makes Bitcoin any different than Litecoin or Bitcoin Cash? Maybe different hashing algos or transaction speeds. But structurally, very little. I bet if you ask most Crypto fanatics, they actually understand very little about the underlying tech. There is nothing about Bitcoin that makes it special except that it came first. When you factor in the cost to mine, Bitcoin actually has a negative value.

  Ethereum is different. It wants to be Web 3.0 and wants to be the world computer. Maybe it will get there, maybe it won’t. But it has a lot better chance of being worth more than $0 in 10 years. Do you know what will definitely be worth more than $0 in 10 years, 100 years, and 1,000 years? Physical gold and silver. Not a futures contract or an ETF necessarily, but physical metal you can hold in your hand.

  If you are still in Bitcoin, then you are betting and hoping for the whales to continue propping up this market. But there is an avalanche of selling coming. As I said, FTX isn’t the canary in the coal mine (that was Celsius, or one of the other firms that crashed this year). FTX is the coal mine, and it just collapsed. Somehow you can still trade BTC for almost $17,000. That’s an extraordinary amount given what just happened.

  If you are still hodling, I encourage you to reconsider. Buy something of actual value with that money like physical gold and silver.

  There is no counterparty risk, no concern over trust, and no risk of a hacker or losing your keys. It is the best form of insurance against the turmoil that lies ahead.

  If you really want Crypto exposure, at least consider Ether. Even if it is overpriced, it is worth something greater than $0.

  Bitcoin is worth whatever the whales can force it to be worth, but one day soon, they might lose the capital needed to manipulate the price higher or even just keep it from crashing.

  As we learned with FTX, things look fine up until the very moment they are not. And then billions can be lost in a very short time.

  How much do you trust the Bitcoin whales to keep this market afloat?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 23:00

• X-37B Space Plane Lands In Florida After Top-Secret 908-Day Orbital Mission
  X-37B Space Plane Lands In Florida After Top-Secret 908-Day Orbital Mission

  The US Space Force’s Boeing X-37B unmanned, reusable space plane successfully deorbited after a record-breaking orbital mission around Earth and landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on Saturday. 

  

  The robotic X-37B landed at 0533 ET after spending 908 days in orbit — more than four months longer than the previous mission. 

  

   It’s the sixth Orbital Test Vehicle mission (OTV-6) with top-secret payloads that military researchers were testing in low-Earth orbit.

  Even though most of the payloads are classified, some have been made public, such as the US Naval Research Laboratory’s Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module, a small device that converts solar power into radio frequency microwave energy. 

  Space.com expanded more on the non-classified experiments and technologies being tested:

  “Technologies being tested in the X-37B program include advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature structures and seals, conformal reusable insulation, lightweight electromechanical flight systems, advanced propulsion systems, advanced materials and autonomous orbital flight, re-entry and landing.”

  Task & Purpose has speculated some of the mysterious payloads could be “testing surveillance systems to experiments on putting satellites in lower orbits.”

  After the space plane landed, Jim Chilton, senior vice president at Boeing Space and Launch, wrote:

  “With the service module added, this was the most we’ve ever carried to orbit on the X-37B, and we’re proud to have been able to prove out this new and flexible capability for the government and its industry partners.” 

  Space Force stated that “NASA scientists will leverage data collected after the materials have spent 900+ days in orbit and compare observed effects to ground simulations, validating and improving the precision of space environment models.” 

  “The X-37B continues to push the boundaries of experimentation, enabled by an elite government and industry team behind the scenes.

  “The ability to conduct on-orbit experiments and bring them home safely for in-depth analysis on the ground has proven valuable for the Department of the Air Force and scientific community. The addition of the service module on OTV-6 allowed us to host more experiments than ever before,” Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, DAF Rapid Capabilities Office’s X-37B Program Director, said. 

  The X-37B is similar to the retired space shuttle, although the space plane is a fraction of the size, coming in at 29 feet in length and 9.5 feet high, with a wingspan of 15 feet. 

  

  Here’s a list of the prior X-37 B’s top-secret missions in low-Earth obit:

  • OTV-1: launched on Apr. 22, 2010 and landed on Dec. 3, 2010, spending over 224 days in orbit.
  • OTV-2: launched on Mar. 5, 2011 and landed on Jun. 16, 2012, spending over 468 days in orbit.
  • OTV-3: launched on Dec. 11, 2012 and landed on Oct. 17, 2014, spending over 674 days in orbit.
  • OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days in orbit.
  • OTV-5: launched on Sept. 7, 2017 and landed on Oct. 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days in orbit.
  • OTV-6: launched on May 17, 2020 and landed on Nov. 12, 2022, spending over 908 days in orbit.

  There are rumors the X-37B might be a testbed for space weapons or could be used to capture adversary satellites… 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 22:30

• It Isn't Cognitive Dissonance; It's Doublethink
  It Isn’t Cognitive Dissonance; It’s Doublethink

  Authored by Thorsteinn Siglaugsson  via ‘From Symptoms to Causes’ Substack,

  Cognitive dissonance is when people feel discomfort due to discrepancies in their own thoughts or beliefs.

  As an example, someone who takes pride in being honest, feels such discomfort when he tells a lie.

  Another example of cognitive dissonance is the discomfort felt by members of a cult when they seek to explain how the end of the world was postponed, as their apocalyptic prophecy did not come true.

  The term was in fact coined by psychologist Leon Festinger in his studies of such cults in the 1950s.

  The opposite of cognitive dissonance is doublethink, a word that first appeared in George Orwell’s 1984.

  

  Doublethink is the ability to accept two contradictory beliefs at the same time, while being totally unaware of the contradiction. In Orwell’s own words:

  To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word—doublethink—involved the use of doublethink.

  This morning I saw an excellent example of this on someone’s Facebook wall (translated by FB from the Icelandic, so not perfect):

  

  Tertullian, one of the church fathers, born in the late second century, made the following observation regarding the birth, death and resurrection of Christ:

  Natus est Dei Filius, non pudet, quia pudendum est;
  et mortuus est Dei Filius, prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est;
  et sepultus resurrexit, certum est, quia impossibile.

  In English:

  “The Son of God was born: there is no shame, because it is shameful.
  And the Son of God died: it is wholly credible, because it is unsound.
  And, buried, He rose again: it is certain, because it is impossible.”

  Here, the contradiction is religious; only God can contradict himself, the absurd is allowed only to God; we mere mortals are bound by the rules of nature and the rules of logic. The only exemption is that through profound religious experience we can transcend the rules of logic and believe the absurd, hence “it is certain, because it is impossible.”

  Does doublespeak have a religious dimension then?

  Has the person who believes two contradictory statements at the same time in some way transcended reason, and entered into a religious dimension? Or has he simply lost his mind?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 22:00

• What Will Break First As The Fed Continues To Tighten: Financial Giants Duke It Out
  What Will Break First As The Fed Continues To Tighten: Financial Giants Duke It Out

  One week ago, in its latest and quite apocalyptic note which was a must-read for every finance professional (and is still available to pro subs), Elliott Management not only previewed the dire endgame of this monetary experiment, and for those who missed it here it is again…

  … the Fed has never raised rates into a struggling economy, as it is now doing. What level of rates will occasion a crash? Or will it be some combination of a melee factor and rates? We can’t know. A crash would certainly put a strong damper on consumer and producer prices. Will they just keep raising rates until the economy does crash? Central bankers actually say that they are aiming for a soft landing. But they are not puppeteers. They do not have the control that they profess to have. Whether there is a soft landing or a “hard” landing (crash) is completely unknown at present.

  As one final example, policymakers state their determination to tame inflation, but QE has not truly reversed. Mortgages on central-bank balance sheets are not being sold. They are raising interest rates like crazy, and the natural way for inflation to go from 10% to 2% is through a serious recession. There is still $30 trillion on central banks’ balance sheets. So what happens when the recession is in full force? Do the central bank balance sheets go to $50 trillion?

  The world is on the path to hyperinflation, which is the direct route to global societal collapse and civil or international strife. It is not baked, but that is the path that we are treading. Uplifting, right

  …  the hedge fund with nearly 50 years of capital markets experience also laid out a list of triggers that could “break” the market and lead to the next crash, including:

  • Banks and other lenders are starting to be forced to recognize large losses on bridge financings and loans;
  • Leveraged holders of mortgage-backed securities, and structured-debt products and CLOs, may be facing substantial markdowns;
  • Liquidity in rates and credit markets has been dramatically reduced;
  • Leveraged private equity will be under severe stress in the event of a meaningful recession; and
  • Housing unaffordability has taken the largest and quickest jump in history (the combination of the 45% rise in home prices from 2019 through 2022 and the extraordinary and rapid rise in interest rates).

  A “market break” is, of course, a topic that has been near and dear to our heart ever since we first predicted in January that the Fed’s rate hikes will inevitably lead to something snapping.

  Remember, every Fed tightening cycle ends in disaster and then, much more Fed easing pic.twitter.com/zX7Dur8nLG

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 5, 2022

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

  And while last week’s near-record market meltup on hopes that the CPI miss means the Fed will slowdown and/or pivot, we still have a lot of rate hikes and tightening pain to go, meaning that the odds of something big “breaking” remain dangerously high. So high in fact that Goldman’s research team, after coming out with a laughable (in retrospect) S&P500 target of 5,100 exactly one year ago, has become outright apocalyptic on stocks (if there was one reason to turn bullish on stocks, that’s it), and in its most read report last week, asks “What Could Break?” as a result of central bank tightening.

  

  While Goldman does cover a lot of potential trigger point in the full report (which we recommend all pro subs read), we focus on the summary from Goldman editor Allison Nathan who partitions the findings into several core sections as follows:

  Although the market apparently took comfort from October’s better-than-expected US CPI print, with inflation still far above target, it’s clear that the major central banks’ inflation fight is far from over. The aggressive policy tightening so far—and still in the pipe—has raised concerns about what could break in a global financial system that has grown accustomed to low rates. Which financial stability risks are worth watching, whether policymakers have the tools to effectively manage those risks, and if they could prompt central banks to slow or even pause the pace of tightening, is Top of Mind.

  We first speak with Jeremy Stein, Professor at Harvard University, who was a vocal advocate of the view that monetary policy should be implemented with financial stability in mind during his tenure on the Fed’s Board of Governors in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Despite this long-held view, he argues that the still-acute inflation problem the US faces today means that “the Fed’s only option is to continue to make inflation its number one policy priority for now.” That said, he warns that financial instability risks should not be discounted, and that the Fed’s ability to address those risks is probably more limited than the market expects and than in past episodes of stress. That’s not only because actions to quell stability risks—the so-called “Fed put”—would almost certainly run counter to the prevailing monetary policy goal of slaying inflation, but also because we can’t assume that the tools that addressed past crises—such as the emergency credit facilities implemented at the beginning of the pandemic—could be employed today.

  Vítor Constâncio, former Vice President of the ECB, has historically taken the opposite view of Stein—arguing that monetary policy should not respond to financial stability concerns—a view he stands by today even as the ECB now formally includes financial stability considerations in its policy decisions. But given that both the Fed and the ECB are already approaching the expected peak in policy rates, he expects the current hiking cycle to end before significant financial stability concerns arise that could force a recalibration of monetary policy. However, he worries about the potential effects of quantitative tightening (QT), especially in the Euro area, where incentives for banks to repay their TLTRO loans early will likely lead to an already sizable reduction in the ECB’s balance sheet even before the ECB embarks on formal QT. That said, he believes Euro area policymakers have all the tools they need nowadays to avoid a repeat of the 2010 sovereign bond crisis.

  But GS European rates strategists George Cole and Simon Freycenet are less sure that financial stability risks won’t affect monetary policy in Europe. In their view, concerns about rate-sensitive debt in both the Euro area and the UK constrain the ECB and BoE compared to the Fed in their inflation fight, likely leading to a more cautious approach from both.   These risks, they say, may force an implicitly higher tolerance for inflation in Europe, although Stein and Constâncio believe that the US could potentially be headed in a similar direction as well.

  * * *

  So which risks—outside of a monetary policy mistake in itself—are worth watching? On both Stein and Constâncio’s lists is illiquidity in the US Treasury and other sovereign bond markets. Praveen Korapaty, GS Chief Interest Rates Strategist, explains why cracks in the plumbing of the market’s microstructure have appeared: a surge in outstanding sovereign debt that has far outpaced intermediation capacity mainly owing to post-GFC regulations that discourage market-making in these securities. Although Stein says that these issues are easily fixable, unless and until they are, Korapaty argues that the Fed and other major central banks may be increasingly forced to use their balance sheets to maintain orderly market functioning rather than to conduct monetary policy.

  Constâncio and Stein are also concerned about the asset-liability mismatches of mutual funds, and especially of open-end bond funds, that have the potential to trigger asset fire sales in times of stress. This structural fragility was on full display in the US in early 2020 and never went away, Stein says, because the Fed bailed out these funds, but may not be able to do so the next time around. They are also worried about mounting pressure on sovereign and corporate borrowers in Emerging Market (EM) economies and beyond, especially, as Stein notes, given the sharp appreciation of the Dollar—a vulnerability that will likely persist according to GS FX strategists Kamakshya Trivedi and Sid Bhushan, who make the case that Dollar appreciation has further room to run.

  Indeed, although GS FX strategist Karen Reichgott Fishman finds that FX intervention by many EM central banks (and the BoJ) has slowed the pace of domestic currency depreciation against the Dollar—if not prevented it—GS FX and EM strategists Ian Tomb and Teresa Alves point out that several Frontier economies are already in the midst of classic EM crises precipitated by a Dollar funding squeeze. That said, most major EMs have proven relatively resilient to these stresses, and globally-systemic EM risks appear low, in their view.

  Even beyond EM, corporate borrowers are worth keeping an eye on, according to GS credit strategists Lotfi Karoui and Vinay Viswanathan. They argue that while fundamentals are still healthy for these borrowers, companies that have issued floating-rate leveraged loans, as well as commercial real estate (CRE) borrowers, are vulnerable to a higher-for-longer cost of funding shock. But they believe the risk of this shock threatening financial stability is lower than in past cycles.

  And what about perhaps the most obvious place to look— pension funds—given that they were at the epicenter of the
  most recent stress episode that arguably increased market focus on financial breakages in the first place? GSAM strategists Ed Francis, Matthew Maciaszek, and Michael Moran explain the recent pressure in the UK pension fund industry and why a similar crisis is less likely to repeat elsewhere, which Freycenet generally agrees with.

  Finally, GS global economists Daan Struyven and Devesh Kodnani take a survey approach to assess the above—and other—financial stability risks that GS research analysts are watching. But, after all this discussion and monitoring of known risks, perhaps the biggest risks of all remain the “unknown unknowns” that we aren’t watching at all.

  To summarize, the most likely market “fracture points” according to Goldman are, or should be familiar to regular ZH readers as we have discussed many if not all of these repeatedly in recent months, and include:

  • Treasury (il)liquidity
  • Asset-liability mismatches of open-end mutual bond funds
  • EM and Frontier economy crises spiraling out of control as a result of the record dollar short squeeze
  • Corporate borrower weakness, especially among those who have exposure to floating rates
  • Pension funds

  Below we excerpt some more from the Goldman report, and specifically the interview with former Fed governor Jeremy Stein:

  Allison Nathan: One area of concern seems to be Treasury market liquidity. Is that concern warranted?

  Jeremy Stein: Yes; the spike in Treasury market volatility in March 2020 proved that concerns over market liquidity are warranted. But the Fed could at least partially address this vulnerability with some relatively simple fixes. For example, the supplementary leverage ratio, which is a risk-insensitive capital requirement imposed on systemically important banks in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), was unhelpful in the March 2020 episode, because it discourages banks from making markets in Treasury securities. The Fed could easily adjust this requirement so that it serves its intended purpose of acting as a backstop rather than as a primary binding constraint on market-making, and do so without weakening overall capital in the banking system by making a compensating adjustment in the risk-based requirements so that capital in the system remains the same.

  The Fed could also make its standing repo facility—which lends against Treasury securities as collateral—accessible to a larger set of financial market participants beyond banks and primary dealers. If access to the facility was expanded to allow any hedge fund, mutual fund, etc. to bring Treasuries to the Fed and get cash at a moment’s notice, the asset fire sales that characterized the March 2020 stress episode may not have occurred to the same extent. I have heard some express the view that such broader access could create a moral hazard problem, but what is the bigger problem—lending against Treasury collateral, or, as recently occurred in the UK, getting cornered into buying a lot of Treasuries at a time when you’re supposed to be tightening monetary policy?

  * * *

  Allison Nathan: What other financial stability risks are worth watching?

  Jeremy Stein: I continue to worry about the open-end bond fund complex, which the Fed basically bailed out in March 2020 by creating credit facilities that had a very powerful effect in stemming the large outflows and liquidations of assets from these funds at the time. While that was absolutely the right thing to do, it prevented us from learning more about the real fragility of some of these funds and created a moral hazard problem—credit spreads tightened, and business went on as usual with very little—if any—change in the underlying structure of these funds.

  I also worry that the sharp appreciation of the Dollar resulting from the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes is putting stress on pockets of the financial system. Corporates in many Emerging Markets borrow in dollars, which can be an inexpensive source of funding but puts substantial pressure on these economies when the Dollar strengthens. Many of these countries are relatively small, so the trade spillovers may turn out to be limited, but the bigger risk is that cracks in the financial system could emerge—when loans go bad, what banks are overexposed to these borrowers? Japan is also a potential source of concern in this context. Its debt-to-GDP is running at more than 200%, with much of that debt effectively rolling on an overnight basis given the effect of their massive QE on consolidated debt maturity. That’s not a problem when interest rates are at zero, but if Japan begins to import inflation given global inflation trends and the strength of the Dollar, and the BoJ must start fighting inflation, this could become quite problematic. Many countries are facing the same issue, but Japan is an extreme case that bears watching.

  Next, for the visual learners, a primer on US financial instability…

  

  … and also Euro area.

  

  There is much more in the full note, including Goldman’s take on FX interventions (they buy time, and “central banks will likely continue to conduct FX interventions over the near term as the Dollar continues to strengthen”), on when the US Dollar will peak, an assessment of the risk of a funding shock, can the UK pension fund crisis repeat and where, how long can the ECB and BOE keep fighting inflation with both economies now in recession, what the risk is in “risk free” rates, and more.

  As noted above, all professional subscribers are encouraged to read the full note available in the usual place.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 21:44

• Washington Attempts To Bully India Into Cutting Ties With Russia
  Washington Attempts To Bully India Into Cutting Ties With Russia

  Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

  For months the US has repeatedly tried to coerce India into cutting ties with Russia, thereby abandoning its national interests. New Delhi, however, continues to spurn American attempts to subject its economy to Washington’s dictates.

  

  The latest fuss concerns the G7 price cap on Russian oil and EU and UK bans on shipping and related services for Russian crude. India continues to have no interest in joining the US-led initiative as it gets a steep discount on oil from Russia and wants to maintain the relationship with a long-time strategic partner. Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was just in Moscow on Nov. 8 to discuss continued sales of oil. From the South China Morning Post:

  India’s foreign minister hailed New Delhi’s “strong and steady” relationship with Moscow on Tuesday, during his first visit there since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

  Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also declared India’s intention to continue to buy Russian oil, again disregarding the US appeal to allies and partners to isolate Russia from the global markets.

  The G-7 plans are likely to send oil prices higher (despite US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claiming the opposite) and reduce tanker availability, both of which will threaten India’s energy security and hurt its economy as India is the third-largest consumer and importer of oil worldwide.

  Russia has said it will not sell to any countries that participate in the price cap scheme, and Jaishankar has repeatedly stated that India cannot afford to buy oil at high prices – at least not without undermining its economic growth, which is forecast to be 6.1 percent in 2023, the fastest-growing major economy in the world. According to Energy Intelligence:

  Russia emerged as India’s top crude supplier in October, shipping over 900,000 barrels per day or roughly a fifth of India’s demand. The two countries’ biggest concern is ensuring that Russian oil continues to flow after the Dec. 5 EU and UK bans and related G7 price cap.

  But despite Jaishankar’s bullish stance in Moscow, India’s state refiners have not placed orders for crude lifting beyond Dec. 5 due to uncertainties about whether shipping and insurance will be available, Energy Intelligence understands. And a recent attempt by an Indian buyer to use the price cap in negotiations with a Russian seller prompted the latter to abandon the deal, market sources said.

  The ongoing lack of clarity on the G-7 could be by design. Russian oil exports have already begun to dip, and Bruce Paulsen, a sanctions expert and partner at law firm Seward & Kissel, told American Shipper, “ If guidance on [price cap] compliance doesn’t come soon, some industry players may sit on the sidelines until they can determine that shipments under the price cap are safe.”

  The US, in a neat sleight of hand, quit pressuring India to adhere to the price cap, and Yellen now says Washington is “happy” for New Delhi to continue buying as much Russian oil as it wants, including at prices above a G7-imposed price cap. But there are just a few caveats: India wouldn’t be able to use western insurance, finance, or maritime services to transport the oil.

  “Russia is going to find it very difficult to continue shipping as much oil as they have done when the EU stops buying Russian oil,” Yellen told Reuters on Friday. “They’re going to be heavily in search of buyers, and many buyers are reliant on Western services.”

  More from Energy Intelligence on why this amounts to a de facto price cap:

  Indian refiners have the capacity to soak up another 600,000 b/d of Russian crude, provided it outcompetes the staple Mideast grades that are the lifeline of the country’s 5 million b/d refining base. But the availability of shipping and insurance — and payment channels — is key. From Dec. 5, tankers and shipping insurance linked to EU and G7 countries — which dominate oil shipping globally — will be barred from trading Russian crude unless those volumes are sold under the price cap, as yet undetermined.

  About 90% of India’s liquids trade is shipped by foreign tankers, presenting challenges, independent energy analyst Narendra Taneja said. Insurance does not appear as problematic, and analysts say that Russian and Chinese firms can handle it.

  This could leave Russia reliant on a shadow fleet of older tankers with opaque ownership that do not transact in dollars. According to Freight Waves:

  Brokerage Braemar reported that 33 tankers previously handling Iranian or Venezuelan exports have carried Russian exports since April, mostly to China and secondarily to India.

  Braemar defined the dark fleet as tankers that have carried Iranian or Venezuelan crude at least once in the past year. It put the current total at 240 tankers, mostly smaller and midsized, with 74% 19 years or older. Eighty of those vessels are very large crude carriers (VLCCs, tankers that carry 2 million barrels) that won’t fit in Russian ports but could be used for ship-to-ship transfers for Russian cargoes.

  If the entire dark fleet switched to Russian service and were as efficient as the “mainstream fleet,” it would be more than enough to keep Russian exports flowing, but “vessels engaged in illicit trading are highly inefficient,” Braemar emphasized.

  At the same time Washington is pressuring New Delhi to comply with the price cap, it is importing from India more vacuum gasoil, which is mostly used at refineries to produce other products such as gasoline and diesel. From Reuters:

  Russia used to be a key VGO supplier to U.S. refiners before the Ukraine war broke out.

  “Given that the U.S. is not buying Russian oil, they are looking for any and all alternatives,” said Roslan Khasawneh, senior fuel oil analyst at Vortexa…

  U.S. and EU sanctions do not apply to refined products produced from Russian crude exported from a third country as they are not of Russian origin. In India, refiners boosted imports of discounted Russian oil to 793,000 barrels per day between April and October, up from just 38,000 bpd in the same period a year ago, trade data showed.

  India joins a list of countries – including Saudi Arabia, Serbia, and Turkey – that are causing heads to explode in Washington for refusing to be bullied into submission.

  This all must be coming as a shock in Washington as its Indo-Pacific strategy in recent years has always included a “like-minded” India helping to counter China and do the US’ bidding in southeast Asia. The possibility that India might pursue its own national interests didn’t seem to factor into the strategy.

  The tension over the Russian price cap is just the latest in a series of disagreements between New Delhi and Washington. US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports deprive India of cheap Iranian oil, and force it to buy more expensive US energy exports. India is now the largest oil export destination for the US.

  Similar to the way Washington is arming Greece and Cyprus in an effort to bully Turkey into breaking off its friendly ties with Russia, the US is doing the same in Pakistan to pressure India. The US has begun to accommodate Pakistan again after the ouster of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, who blames his loss of power in a no-confidence vote on the US.

  In September, the U.S. State Department enraged India when it approved a $450 million deal to upgrade Pakistan’s F-16 fleet. Shortly after, the US ambassador to Pakistan created more tension during a visit to the Pakistani-held part of Kashmir, which he called by its Pakistani name instead of the United Nations-approved name “Pakistan-administered Kashmir.”

  On Nov. 8 US State Department spokesman Ned Price lectured India on what are in its best interests:

  We’ve also been clear that now is not the time for business as usual with Russia, and it’s incumbent on countries around the world to do what they can to lessen those economic ties with Russia. That’s something that’s in the collective interest, but it’s also in the bilateral interest of countries around the world to end and certainly over the course of time to wean their dependence on Russian energy. There have been a number of countries that have learned the hard way of the fact that Russia is not a reliable source of energy. Russia is not a reliable supplier of security assistance. Russia is far from reliable in any realm. So it is not only in the interest of Ukraine, it is not only in the interest of the region, of the collective interests that India decrease its dependence on Russia over time, but it’s also in India’s own bilateral interest, given what we’ve seen from Russia.

  We’ll have to wait and see if the Indian people get the message because as of now the opposite is true.  India’s Observer Research Foundation released poll results on Nov. 2 that showed that 43 percent of Indians regarded Russia as their country’s most reliable partner, which was far ahead of the US at 27 percent.

  Washington would be hard pressed to explain how New Delhi scaling back its economic ties with Russia would be a good thing for India.

  Fuelled by a surge in import of oil and fertilizers, India’s bilateral trade with Russia has soared to an all-time high of $18.2 billion over the April-August period of this financial year, according to the latest data available with the Department of Commerce. That makes Russia India’s seventh biggest trading partner — up from its 25th position last year. The US, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Indonesia remain ahead of Russia.

  India, Iran, and Russia have also spent the past twenty years developing the International North-South Transport Corridor to increase trade between the countries, and it took on increased importance with the western sanctions on Moscow. From The LoadStar:

  RZD Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian railway monopoly RZD, has begun regular container train services from Moscow to Iran to serve growing trade with India by transloading.

  This is aimed at maximizing use of the alternative International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a Central Asia cross-border multimodal freight network helping the two strategic partners work around supply chain challenges created by western sanctions on Russia.

  The inland-ocean leg involves an estimated transit time of 35 days, compared with about 40 with previous traditional shipping, according to industry sources.

  

   

  In much the same way that US heavy-handedness is backfiring elsewhere, the pressure applied on India seems to only be encouraging New Delhi to find a way around the dollar. The Loadstar adds that the Reserve Bank of India is also implementing new regulatory guidelines to help exporters settle shipments in rupees, instead of US dollars that had run into sanctions-related bottlenecks:

   

  The Federation of Indian Export Organizations has also been pressing government leaders to extend the alternative currency method beyond Russian markets.

  “While the Russia-Ukraine war is a setback to our exports in the short run, we are looking to increase our exports to Russia once the rupee payment mechanism gets operationalised,” FIEO noted.

  While India has been benefitting from the discounted Russian crude, it also wants to maintain good ties with Moscow to avoid pushing Russia closer to China and potentially Pakistan, India’s biggest rivals in Asia.

  Pakistan is also now asking the Russian Trade Ministry to introduce a currency swap arrangement to strengthen economic ties between the two countries.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 21:00

• Self-Described Sex Symbol AOC Is "Absolutely" Afraid For Her Life
  Self-Described Sex Symbol AOC Is “Absolutely” Afraid For Her Life

  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who insisted last year that “deranged sexual frustrations” underpin a “Republican fixation on me,” and who said she ‘thought she was going to die’ during the January 6 Capitol riot – despite being in a building across the street from the actual Capitol that day, now says she is “absolutely” afraid for her life.

  

  “I hesitate to walk my dog,” the 33-year-old New York congresswoman told CNN‘s Chris Wallace, adding that the attack on Paul Pelosi has only heightened her concern.

  When asked if she thinks her life is in danger, she replied: “Absolutely, I felt that my life has been in danger since the moment that I won my primary election in 2018,” adding “And it became especially intensified when I was first brought into Congress in 2019.”

  “It means when I wake up in the morning, I hesitate to walk my dog. It means when I come home, I have to ask my fiancé to come out to where my car is to walk me just from my car to my front door,” she continued, adding “It means that there’s just – a general disposition where you kind of feel like there’s almost a static electricity around you.”

  “And you’re just always just looking around, your head is just on a swivel, going to a restaurant, walking down the street.”I actually believe that it very much shaped my political decisions because I started to feel … that it was possible that I may not see the end of the year,” adding “I said I don’t know if I have time so I need to be as robust and urgent as possible to say what I need to say.”

  When asked if she still thinks the job is worth it, she replied: “

  She didn’t seen too afraid in July when she pretended to be handcuffed during a Roe vs. Wade protest.

  Her staff is lying unless she’s Superman and just broke the handcuffs at the end of the video. pic.twitter.com/BrToWoVsg9

  — Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) July 19, 2022

   

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 20:30

• Exxon Mobil Makes First Oil Discovery In Angola In 20 Years
  Exxon Mobil Makes First Oil Discovery In Angola In 20 Years

  By Alex Kimani of OilPrice.com

  Over the past five years, the United States’ largest independent oil and gas company, Exxon Mobil, has mostly focused its exploratory activities in South America.

  

  Last month, the oil major announced that it had made two new discoveries at the Sailfin-1 and Yarrow-1 wells in the Stabroek block offshore Guyana, potentially adding more barrels to one of the most closely watched new oil discoveries. ExxonMobil has now made more than 30 discoveries on the block since 2015, and has ramped up offshore development and production at a pace that far exceeds the industry average.

  In contrast, Exxon’s exploits in Africa have been few and far between, with its last discovery on the continent coming nearly two decades ago. But Exxon has now announced that it has, together with its partners, discovered hydrocarbons in Block 15 off Angola in the Bavuca South prospect. This was the block’s 18th discovery, but the first since 2003. According to Exxon, the Valaris DS-9 drillship drilled the Bavuca South-1 well 365 km northwest from the coast at Luanda in 1,100 m (3,608 ft) of water, encountering 30 m (98 ft) of good-quality, hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone. Exxon owns a 36% interest in the block, with BP Exploration Angola (24%), ENI Angola Exploration (18%), Equinor Angola Block 15 (12%) and Sonangol P&P (10%) being its partners.

  Africa’s Oil & Gas Opportunities

  The last big fossil fuel discovery on the continent dates back to 2010 after Texas-based Anadarko Corp. (now a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp.) and Italian energy giant Eni S.p.A. (NYSE: E) discovered approximately 180 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, equivalent to ~29 billion barrels of oil, in Mozambique’s supergiant offshore basin of Rovuma, immediately catapulting the South African nation to a potential global LNG superpower. As you might expect, there was a stampede by oil and gas majors including ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE), Shell (NYSE: SHEL), and China National Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: SNP)) coming in to stake their claims.  

  Unfortunately, widespread terrorism and the growing menace of piracy have constantly held back progress with Mozambique fast joining the league of African nations grappling with a ‘resource curse.’ The security crisis in the northern region of Cabo Delgado had displaced hundreds of thousands of people, created a humanitarian crisis and even forced TotalEnergies to declare force majeure on its massive natural gas investment in the country.But the tides have now turned, and Mozambique has managed to get its act together just in time. The country is now poised to ship its first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) overseas in November at a time when Europe is desperately trying to cut energy ties with Russia. Experts have estimated that Mozambique can earn in excess of $100B from its natural gas assets over the next 30 years.

  BP has already inked a deal to buy all of the output from Eni’s $7 billion Coral-Sul project–capable of producing 3.4 million metric tons of LNG per year–for the next 20 years. Meanwhile, TotalEnergies has announced plans to resume its massive $20 billion project toward the end of the year, with the terminal expected to churn out 13.1 million tons of LNG annually. In addition, ExxonMobil says it will make a final decision for an even larger project in the near future. Meanwhile, the European Union has planned a five-fold increase in financial support to $15 million to fight militants near Mozambique’s gas projects. The EU has already pledged to provide the country’s army with an additional 45 million euros ($45 million) of financial support, and has so far given a SADC mission in the country 2.9 million euros of funding.

  On its part, Mozambique has laid out plans to set up a sovereign wealth fund toward the end of 2022, with 50% of the fund’s revenues to be reinjected into the fund while the remaining 50% will go to the government’s budget during the first 20 years of LNG production. Mozambique has the potential to move up the ladder and become a middle-income nation over the next two decades if it plays its cards right.

  Vijaya Ramachandran, director for energy and development at the Breakthrough Institute, says Germany and Europe should look to Africa, if they are serious about achieving energy security. Ramachandran notes that the continent is endowed with substantial natural gas reserves and new discoveries in the process of being tapped. Very little of Africa’s gas has been exploited, either for domestic consumption or export.

  Algeria is already an established major gas producer with substantial untapped reserves and is connected to Spain with several undersea pipelines. Germany and the EU are already working to expand pipeline capacity connecting Spain with France, from where more Algerian gas could flow to Germany and elsewhere. Libyan gas fields are connected by pipeline to Italy. In both Algeria and Libya, Europe should urgently help tap new fields and increase gas production. New pipelines under discussion currently focus on the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline Project, which would bring gas from Israel’s offshore gas fields to Europe.

  But the biggest African sources lie south of the Sahara–including Nigeria, which has about a third of the continent’s reserves, and Tanzania. Senegal has recently discovered major offshore fields. 

  Ramachandra says Europe should not ignore these opportunities. For instance, the proposed Trans-Saharan pipeline will bring gas from Nigeria to Algeria via Niger. If the project is completed, the new pipeline will connect to the existing Trans-Mediterranean, Maghreb-Europe, Medgaz, and Galsi pipelines that supply Europe from transmission hubs on Algeria’s Mediterranean coast. The Trans-Saharan pipeline would be more than 2,500 miles long and could supply as much as 30 billion cubic meters of Nigerian gas to Europe per year–equivalent to about two-thirds of Germany’s 2021 imports from Russia (For comparison purposes, the Yamal-Europe pipeline, one of the major routes for Russian gas to Europe, is 2,607-mile-long). On its part, Nigeria is enthusiastic about exporting some of its 200 trillion-cubic-foot reserves of gas, with Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo arguing in favor of natural gas’ critical role, both as a relatively clean transition fuel and as a driver of economic development and foreign exchange earner.

  Unfortunately, the Trans-Saharan pipeline will likely take a decade or more to complete, and LNG shipments to Europe would bring quicker relief.

  Unfortunately, Europe’s biggest gas importer, Germany, has not built a single LNG import terminal as part of its  policy to make the country dependent on Russian gas and in turn make Russia more dependent on Germany. But there’s hope: Berlin has already renounced its old ways and says it will now build LNG infrastructure. 

  Luckily for Germany and other stranded EU nations, Ramachandran says LNG loading ports can be built reasonably quickly in Africa, with the Greater Tortue Ahmeyin field, an offshore gas deposit straddling the maritime border between Senegal and Mauritania, a prime example. When the field comes online next year, it will place the two west African nations among Africa’s top gas producers. Floating liquefaction plants above the offshore gas field produce, liquefy, store, and transfer the gas to LNG tankers that ship it directly to importing countries. While the initial production from this field will be small, it is slated to double in a few years, and the field sits within a larger basin of natural gas with substantially greater reserves.

  Elsewhere in Africa, too, gas production will continue to expand as projects in Tanzania, Mozambique, and other countries come online in the next few years.

  Developing a gas pipeline as big as the Trans-Saharan pipeline will likely present many challenges as it runs through regions plagued by conflict and insurgency. But these kinds of projects could alleviate Europe’s energy crisis while also helping Africa to develop and integrate economically.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 20:00

• Dozens Of Children Worked Slaughterhouse Graveyard Shifts According To Labor Department
  Dozens Of Children Worked Slaughterhouse Graveyard Shifts According To Labor Department

  A top sanitation company has been accused of employing at least 31 children to clean the killing floors of slaughterhouses during graveyard shifts – one as young as 13, according to the Department of Labor.

  

  The company, Packers Sanitation Services, or PSSI (owned by Blackstone), is contracted to work at meatpacking facilities and slaughterhouses across the country. According to court documents filed Wednesday, the children were allegedly employed at three facilities in Nebraska and Minnesota, NBC News reports.

  The company employs over 17,000 employees at more than 700 locations across the country, according to PSSI’s website.

  The investigation found that minors cleaned the killing floors and various machines — including meat and bone cutting saws and a grinding machine — during the graveyard shifts, according to the complaint.

  PSSI employed at least a dozen 17-year-olds across the three slaughterhouses, fourteen 16-year-olds, three 15-year-olds, one 14-year-old and one 13-year-old, the complaint said. -NBC News

  According to the complaint, an Aug. 24 investigation was launched after law enforcement officials were tipped off that the company may be employing children. Search warrants were executed at two plants owned by food processor JBS USA in Grand Island, Nebraska and Worthington, Minnesota – and at a poultry processing plant in Minnesota.

  If true, the practice would violate the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibits employers from “oppressive child labor,” as well as minors from working in any type of hazardous employment, reads the complaint, which asks the Federal District Court of Nebraska to issue a temporary restraining order as well as a nationwide preliminary injunction against the company to stop it from employing minors while the Labor Department investigates.

  Initial evidence indicates the company may also employ more kids under similar conditions at 400 other sites across the country, in addition to the 31 minors employed at three sites that investigators already confirmed, according to the complaint.

  The court partially granted the Department of Labor’s request in a Thursday filing. That order requires PSSI to “immediately cease and refrain from employing oppressive child labor” and comply with the Department of Labor’s investigation. -NBC News

  According to PSSI, the company “has an absolute company-wide prohibition against the employment of anyone under the age of 18 and zero tolerance for any violation of that policy —period,” with a spokesperson adding that the company mandates the use of the federal E-Verify system when it comes to new hires, “as well as extensive training, document verification, biometrics, and multiple layers of audits.”

  “While rogue individuals could of course seek to engage in fraud or identity theft, we are confident in our company’s strict compliance policies and will defend ourselves vigorously against these claims.”

  Company executives were reportedly “surprised” by the filing, after PSSI says it “has been cooperating with their inquiry, producing extensive documents and responses.”

  Interviews with the kids — which were conducted in Spanish, their first language, according to the complaint — revealed that several children began their shifts at the facilities at 11 p.m. and worked until 5, 6 or 7 a.m. Some worked up to six or seven days a week.

  School records showed that one 14-year-old, who worked at the Grand Island facility from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. five to six days a week, from December 2021 to this past April, fell asleep in class and missed school after suffering injuries from chemical burns. At least two other minors also suffered chemical burns, the complaint states. -NBC News

  “While Wage and Hour is continuing to pour over records to identify such children, it is slow, painstaking work. Yet, the children working overnight on the kill floor of these slaughterhouses cannot wait,” states the complaint.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 19:30

• "We're Facing The Collapse Of Everything" – Michael Snyder Warns Of "The End-Times"
  “We’re Facing The Collapse Of Everything” – Michael Snyder Warns Of “The End-Times”

  Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

  Journalist and popular author Michael Snyder says in his new book we are in “End Times.”  Few Christians would disagree.  So, where are we and what are we facing? 

  

  Snyder explains, “I believe we are living at the very end of a timeline.  I believe Jesus is coming back soon… The Bible describes the End Times, the time just before Jesus comes back, as the most chaotic in all of human history.  In fact, Jesus told us there has never been a time like this before, and there will never be a time like this again.  Things are eventually going to get so bad that it is going to be the worst times in all of human history.  I also believe it will be the best time for the people of God.  There is no other time in human history that I would have rather lived than right now… God put you here, if you are watching, here for a reason.  God put you here with a purpose and a destiny and a job for your to do.  If you understand that, you will be really excited about the future, even though things will be chaotic and wild. . . . Jesus said the time just before his return there would be wars and rumors of wars.  A couple of years ago, I came on your program and wrote a book and said there is going to be a war with Russia.  At the time, nobody was thinking about a war with Russia.  People told me, Michael you are crazy.  Of course, now we have a war with Russia. . . . We are getting dangerously close to a nuclear conflict.”

  Snyder also mentions war with China, war between North and South Korea and war between Iran and Israel that are all boiling up right now, all at the same time.

  Snyder also brings up starvation and famines talked about in the Bible that also point to “End Times.”  Snyder explains,

  “There have been droughts in different areas in the past.  We are seeing tremendous droughts affecting agricultural production all over the northern hemisphere.  Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the bread basket of the world, we have seen agricultural products restricted because of war with Russia.  We have this perfect storm for agricultural production.

  Meanwhile, we have an energy crisis that is worse than any of us have ever seen.  It continues to get worse.  The price of natural gas has gone haywire because of this war between Russia and NATO.  Now, two thirds of all fertilizer production have already been shut down in Europe because the price of natural gas, and that is going to affect agricultural production next year. People need to realize that if we could not use fertilizer at all, we could not feed about half the world.  Half the world would instantly starve if there was no fertilizer used.  So, what we are facing is big-time global food shortages in 2023. . . . It’s going to be even worse even beyond that.  These things are going to intensify.”

  On the economy, Snyder thinks the Fed will keep raising rates, and the real estate market will tank even further along with the economy.  Snyder predicts,

  “I don’t think the so-called pivot is close… I think they are going to keep raising rates for now, and that is really bad news for real estate and for the economy because the economy is already being crushed right now.  We are already seeing a massive slowdown all over the economy. . . .I think the Federal Reserve is determined to get inflation down, but eventually they will be forced to pivot sometime in 2023.”

  Snyder also says, “Basically, we are facing the collapse of everything…”

  ”  We are already seeing mass extinctions all over the globe.  One study showed 32,000 species has declined by 69% over the last 50 years.  So, we are already seeing mass extinctions, and they are going to accelerate in the years ahead.  Natural disasters, wars and rumors of wars, pestilences and all the things we have been talking about are going to combine and create this perfect storm.  People will see their lives crumble.  Their lives, careers, what they planned for their future, their lives are going to crumble.  People are going to plunge into depression and despair, and they are going to see no hope.  Society will melt down all around them, and they won’t see any hope for the future.  If you want hope for the future, you need God.  You need the Lord Jesus Christ, not just to get you through what we are facing . . . but what we have in the end.  I read the book, and we win in the end.  We get to be with Jesus for all of eternity, and that is a really long time.  That is the most important thing beyond physical preparation.”

  In closing, Snyder says, “Jesus warned us about all these things in advance so we wouldn’t be afraid.  We can look forward with courage.  Yes, bad things will happen, but it is when times are the darkest the greatest heroes are needed.  In the years that are coming, you have the chance to be a light and make a difference.  If you wanted to live in Biblical times, you are going to have that opportunity.  You are going to have a chance to do a tremendous amount of good in this world if you understand what is happening and be prepared in advance if you take advantage of this, that you rise up and be the people God created you to be.”

  There is much more in the 43-minute interview.

  Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Michael Snyder, author of the new book “End Times.” 

  *  *  *

  To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

  Besides TheEconomicCollapseblog.com, Michael Snyder has another free website:  TheMostImportantNews.com. Michael Snyder has also published six popular books. The latest is called “End Times” You can find all of Michael Snyder’s books by clicking here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 19:00

• Goldman, TS Lombard Confirm Fed Inflation Target Hike Now Inevitable
  Goldman, TS Lombard Confirm Fed Inflation Target Hike Now Inevitable

  For much of the past year (and certainly at the time, more than a year ago, when the so-called experts, central bankers and macrotourists were still yapping about “transitory inflation” and other things they were wrong about and do not understand), we were warning that at some point the Fed will realize that it is simply impossible to contain supply-driven inflation through stubborn rate hikes which instead would lead to a dire alternative – millions in mass layoffs and newly unemployed workers – and will revise its 2% inflation target higher, a move which will send every risk asset, from high-beta trash and meme stonks, to blue-chip icons, to bitcoin and cryptos, limit up.

  To remind readers of this coming phase shift, we most recently warned in June that “at some point Fed will concede it has no control over supply. That’s when we will start getting leaks of raising the inflation target“…

  At some point Fed will concede it has no control over supply. That’s when we will start getting leaks of raising the inflation target

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 21, 2022

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

  Well, it turns out that we were right, and not just about the coming mass layoffs…

  Layoffs This Month (% of Workers):

  1. Twitter: 50%

  2. Cameo: 25%

  3. Robinhood: 23%

  4. Intel: 20%

  5. Snapchat: 20%

  6. Coinbase: 18%

  7. Opendoor: 18%

  8. Stripe: 14%

  9. Lyft: 13%

  10. Shopify: 10%

  11. Meta: “Thousands”

  12. Apple: Hiring Freeze

  13. Amazon: Hiring Freeze

  — The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) November 8, 2022

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

  … but also about the inflation target leaks. But first, lets back up a bit.

  A little over one year after nobody expected the Fed would be hiking rates like a drunken sailor until some time in late 2023 or 2024, it has now become fashionable to not only predict that the Fed will keep hiking rates at every FOMC meeting and at the fastest pace since the near-hyperinflation of the 1980s, but that the central bank will somehow manage to avoid a hard landing (i.e., the hiking cycle won’t end in a recession or depression), even though every single Fed tightening cycle since 1913 has ended in disaster.

  

  An example of this was the statement by former Fed vice chair (and PIMCO’s “twice-revolving door”) Rich Clarida, who told CNBC that “failure is not an option for Jay Powell,” adding that “I think they’re going to 4% hell or high water. Until inflation comes down a lot, the Fed is really a single mandate central bank.”

  “Failure is not an option for Jay Powell,” says Former Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida. “I think they’re going to 4% hell or high water. Until #inflation comes down a lot, the Fed is really a single mandate central bank.” pic.twitter.com/4hfLCVWZDP

  — Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) September 9, 2022

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  Of course, if one could hike rates in a vacuum that could work – after all, Clarida himself, who admits he got this year’s soaring inflation dead wrong when he was still a daytrading god and part oft he Fed in 2021, said that the Fed may as well have just one mandate, namely to tame inflation. But what so few seem to recall is that the Fed is “hiking to spark a recession“, or as CNBC’s Steve Liesman put it, there is no such thing as “immaculate rate hikes” meaning that rate hikes have dire tradeoffs in other sectors of the economy. In other words, if the Fed’s intention is to spark a recession, it will spark a recession… leading to millions of Americans losing their jobs, something which even Elizabeth Warren appears to have grasped.

  SENATOR WARREN SAYS SHE IS VERY WORRIED THAT FED IS GOING TO TIP ECONOMY INTO RECESSION

  Looks like someone didn’t read Chairman Doom’s speech https://t.co/wQALP1aA3Y

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 28, 2022

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

  Yet due to the recency bias of Biden’s trillions in stimmies, and a world where workers – whether working form home or the office – have virtually all the leverage, few today can conceive of a world where inflation is zero or negative and is instead replaced with millions in unemployed workers, an outcome which one could (or rather should) say is even worse for the ruling democrats than roaring inflation. At least, with runaway prices, most people have a job and their wages are rising (at least nominally, if not in real terms).

  However, the higher rates rise, the closer we get to that inevitable moment when the BLS – unable to kick the can any longer – admits what has been obvious to so many for months: the US is facing a labor crisis of epic proportions with millions and millions of mass layoffs. And for those to whom it is not yet obvious, we urge readers to re-read a WSJ op-ed published two months ago by none other than Jason Furman, who was Obama top Economic Adviser from 2013-2017 and currently economic policy professor at Harvard.

  In “Inflation and the Scariest Economics Paper of 2022“, Furman summarized a paper written by Johns Hopkins macroeconomist Larry Ball with co-authors Daniel Leigh and Prachi Mishra of the International Monetary Fund released by the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, whose conclusion is as follows: “To bring price increases down to 2%, we may need to tolerate unemployment of 6.5% for two years.“

  In other words, just as we said, inflation – much of which is supply-driven, which the Fed can do nothing about – will force the Fed to crush the economy by keeping rates for much longer, the result of which will be many millions in unemployed workers, or as Furman puts it, the paper “shows why the Federal Reserve will likely need to maintain its war on inflation, even if unemployment continues to rise.”

  What is more remarkable about Furman’s read of the economist paper is that in addition to its primary theme (the lack of labor slack, or labor tightness, is responsible for some 3.4% of underlying inflation in July 2022), the paper admits precisely what we have been saying all along – that the Fed can’t control supply-side variables:

  The paper also argues, convincingly in my view, for a different measure of underlying inflation. Fluctuations in energy and food prices are generally due to factors outside the control of macroeconomic policy makers. Geopolitics and weather have elevated the inflation rate in recent years. Plunging gasoline prices are temporarily lowering the inflation rate now. That’s why economists since the 1970s have focused on “core” inflation, which excludes food and energy.

  But food and energy aren’t the only things people buy that are subject to supply-side volatility. Prices of new and used cars, for example, have gyrated over the past two years for reasons that are mostly unrelated to the strength of the overall economy. Both regular and core inflation are based on taking averages of price increases and can be distorted by large changes in outlier categories. The median inflation rate calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland drops outliers to remove these distortions.

  According to Furman, median inflation – which is a statistically better measure of the underlying inflation that policy makers can actually control – is well above the Fed’s preferred headline inflation print and still shows little signs of moderating and has run at a 6.3% annual rate in the last three months. But the “scariest” part of the new paper, Furman reveals, is when the authors use their model to forecast the unemployment rate that would be needed to bring inflation down to the Fed’s 2% target. He explains why this is so scary:

  The authors present a range of scenarios, so I ran their model using my own assumptions…  Under these assumptions, which are more optimistic than the authors’ midpoint scenario, if the unemployment rate follows the Federal Open Market Committee’s median economic projection from June that the unemployment will rise to only 4.1%, then the inflation rate will still be about 4% at the end of 2025. To get the inflation rate to the Fed’s target of 2% by then would require an average unemployment rate of about 6.5% in 2023 and 2024.

  Under these scenarios if the unemployment rate rises to 4.1% then inflation will stay above 3%. If it rises to 7.5% then inflation will slightly undershot the Fed’s target.

  The unemployment rate needed to hit the Fed’s target in this scenario is 6.4%. pic.twitter.com/ysUDUU6yaG

  — Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) September 8, 2022

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  Where is unemployment now: it’s 3.7% (6.059 million unemployed workers vs 164.753 million civilian labor force). This matters, because according to one of the most erudite economist Democrats, by the end of the Biden admin in 2024, the unemployment will have to soar to 6.5% for inflation to plunge to the Fed’s historical target of 2.0%

  

  What does this mean in absolute numbers? Assuming a modest increase in the US labor force, a 6.5% unemployment rate in 2024 would translate into no less than 10.8 million unemployed workers, an 80% increase from the 6 million today!

  

  Still think that politicians – and especially Democrats – will sit quietly and blindly ignore how high the Fed is hiking rates if it means that to normalize inflation back to 2% it means nearly doubling the number of unemployed Americans (and a crushing recession to boot). Spoiler alert: no, they won’t, and this may be one of the very rare occasions when Elizabeth Warren is actually right to worry about what the coming mass layoff wave means for Democrats… and the 2024 presidential election.

  So what should the Fed do? Well, according to Furman, the Fed has four options:

  1. First, place more emphasis on the ratio of job openings to unemployment and median inflation as it assesses the tightness of labor markets and the underlying rate of inflation.
  2. Second, the new paper shows how much easier it will be to tackle inflation if expectations remain under control. The Fed should follow up on Chairman Jerome Powell’s tough talk at Jackson Hole with meaningful action such as a 75-basis-point increase at the next meeting.
  3. Third, be prepared to accept the unemployment rate rising above 5% if inflation is still out of control.

  While we doubt #3 is actionable, what is more remarkable is Furman’s final proposal: it’s the one that, like the Dude’s proverbial rug, ties the room together and sets the stage for what is coming:

  Finally, stabilizing at a 3% inflation rate is probably healthier for the economy than stabilizing at 2%—so while fighting inflation should be the central bank’s only focus today, at some point the Fed should reassess the meaning of victory in that struggle.

  And just in case his WSJ proves too complicated for some mainstream experts and economists, here it is in truncated, twitter format:

  (iii) Seriously consider raising the inflation target to something like 3 percent

  This one is tricky. On a blank slate a 3% target would be better than a 2% target. But shifting to that could deanchor expectations.

  — Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) September 8, 2022

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

  And there you have it: remember what we said on June 21: “At some point Fed will concede it has no control over supply. That’s when we will start getting leaks of raising the inflation target.” Well… there it is.

  We first brought all this up more than two months ago, on Sept 10, and said “that while mainstream economists and the market may require quite a few months to grasp what is coming, it is the only way out of a crisis of commodities – as Zoltan Pozsar has repeatedly and correctly put it – and which central banks have no control over, and thus will have to move not only the goalposts but the entire football field to avoid a social revolt or something even scarier.”

  * * *

  Well, it’s now a “few months” later, and we are delighted to note that our June 21 prediction that “At some point Fed will concede it has no control over supply. That’s when we will start getting leaks of raising the inflation target” is becoming more and more accurate by the day.

  Consider the November 4 note from TS Lombard chief strategist Steven Blitz discussing “October US Employment” (available to pro subscribers in the usual place), in which contrary to widespread consensus (especially after the weaker than expected CPI print), Blitz says that the Fed remains on pace for a 75bps rate hike.

  But while we will let readers parse his logic for why the dovish view is due for another disappointment, we will highlight his concluding paragraph in which he makes precisely the point we h

  In the end, a recession is pretty much baked in by what the Fed has done, signalled, and will do. The overall imbalance between the supply and demand for labor is too much of a driver of inflation, through wages and, in turn, services ex shelter, for the Fed to stop now and say they have done enough. Powell, in fact, was very clear there is much more to do. This does not negate the  fact that the coming downcycle will greatly impact those that AIT [average inflation targeting] was seeking to protect and are only just getting closer to even in terms of employment. None of this changes the Fed’s coming actions, what this coming hit to employment does mean is that the political cycle for the Fed is about to get a lot hotter – from all sides. This is one reason why I have long believed, as have many others, that the Fed ultimately bails and raises the inflation target to 3%. Powell does not have the same license to keep unemployment high and real growth low for an extended period as did Volcker (more so in retrospect than at the time). My guess is, Powell knows that.

  Much more in the full must-read note available to pro subs.

  But while the opinions of Furman and Blitz are notable, they are hardly (with all due respect) critical thought-leaders for US policy. Goldman Sachs, on the other hand, is. Which is why we were shocked when the vampire squid this weekend approached the topic aggressively, making it clear that an inflation target increase is no longer a matter of if but when.

  While pro subscriber have access to the full note, we will excerpt some of the big highlights below, confirming that the debate about the coming inflation target raise is in its advanced stages:

  The inflation target level debate

  In the past few months, markets have been gyrating wildly, with views bifurcating along the paths of soft vs hard landing expectations for 2023. The moderation in the October core inflation print is an important landmark as it reduces the risk of the most adverse sticky and high inflation (6-10%) scenario which leaves the G10 central banks no other option but to crush demand.

  How does 3.5-5% inflation allow for policy scenario optionality? Given that most would agree that a fast reduction in inflation to 2% is unlikely we can now have a debate whether raising the G10 inflation target to the 3-4% range is more optimal for reasons of maintaining employment levels or public debt sustainability than the 2% goal which would not be possible if inflation was sticky in the 6-10% range. (see “To keep unemployment low, central banks should plan to raise inflation target” by J Gagnon).

  The premise of this debate (and we mean debate by market participants and not, or at least not yet, by central bankers) is that the shift in the global supply curve to the right (de-globalization / underinvestment / tariffs and sanctions) has probably moved the saddle point of the supply curve defining the inflation level at potential output from 2% to the 3.5-5% range. (see diagram on slide 3).

  

  If this is the case, slowing the economy to potential will not satisfy the 2% inflation target. As the supply curve flattens at negative output gap levels, the output and social cost of bringing inflation to 2% increases disproportionately, creating the political context for the inflation target level revision debate.

  Goldman next lays out the dilemma facing politicians and central banks in no uncertain terms: keep the inflation target unchanged and suffer economic and market devastation, or raise it and enjoy another (however brief) Golden Age. Take a wild guess which option politicians whose careers are measured in “next four year” increments will pick:

  Our very stylized global macro financial framework sees scope for a significant divergence in the growth/inflation/fiscal outcomes in 2023 based on the level of the front end real rates (1y fwd rate futures – 5y BEI) which will be defined by the G10 central banks’ adherence to or departure from the 2% inflation target. If front end real rates are significantly lower from here (ie G10 CBs signal a pause in Q1-23, and break-evens go up meaningfully with the CBs remaining on hold) we see:

  • real growth rebounding,
  • G10 inflation moderating to 3.5-5.0 range allowing for ongoing fiscal consolidation and
  • reduction in public debt/GDP levels,
  • equities rallying,
  • weaker dollar,
  • credit spreads tightening and capital flows returning to EM assets

  If front end real rates keep tightening from here (G10 CBs keep hiking until the 2% core inflation looks clearly within reach with the first indication being much higher Fed dots for 2023 in Dec) we see:

  • real growth collapsing in H1-23,
  • inflation reaching but also possibly undershooting the 2% target and the fiscal position deteriorating with public debt / GDP ratios going higher.
  • The current challenging environment for risky assets will persist in this environment until policy turns for recession stabilization.

  There’s more in the full must-read GS note (also available to pro subs), but that, in a nutshell, is the simple choice that is now being actively discussed behind closed doors at various G7/G20 and BIS/Tower of Basel meetings until the inevitable decision is made.

  Professional subs can find much more on this arguably most important for the future of market topic here and here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 18:30

• "Hints Of Many Crises – Lehman, Enron, MF Global – But No Lender Of Last Resort… Like Banking In The Late-1800s"
  “Hints Of Many Crises – Lehman, Enron, MF Global – But No Lender Of Last Resort… Like Banking In The Late-1800s”

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “Keep me posted when anything material pops up,” I told our team, scanning Twitter feeds for developments in the unfolding FTX drama, everything moving fast. “This is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 33yrs of doing this,” I said. “It has hints of many crises – Lehman, Enron, Madoff, MF Global – but moving at light speed with no lender of last resort. It’s like banking in the late-1800s.” We had no exposure to FTX or its token FTT, avoiding each for different reasons, intuitive/qualitative/quantitative risk management at work.

  “This smells like the kind of thing that happens toward the bottom. Near the end. This is the kind of catalyst that ushers in the capitulation, the flush, that then leads to the next stage we’ve been building for: the first regulated market cycle in digital assets.”

  * * *

  “There was no way US policymakers were going to relax regulation to accommodate new technology,” said The Chairman, repeating advice he’s shared for a couple years, helping guide me through the innovation maze.

  “If you want to introduce new technology into financial markets, you need to start with the premise that it performs the regulatory functions at least as well as the current technology,” he continued. FTX was imploding in the Bahamas, the crypto market’s third largest exchange collapsing in on itself, crypto markets in free fall.

  “And only with that condition satisfied will you be able to capture the efficiencies these new technologies represent.” Creative destruction sounds great in a sentence, though less so when you live it, and this makes navigating change so interesting, worthy, profitable.

  “With the FTX crisis following the Three Arrows collapse, Celsius, Luna and the others, this perspective will become a regulatory reality,” said The Chairman. “And the question for the industry and the regulators today is how do we transition from where we now are to a place where tokenization is consistent with the fundamental principles of sound financial regulation,” he said. “Those principles are:

  1. liquidity transformation needs prudential regulation

  2. customer assets need to be segregated and accessible, and

  3. leverage of all forms needs to be limited and commensurate with liquidity in times of stress

  “And it is fundamental that you can’t sell financial products to retail customers on a caveat emptor basis; transparency and a level informational playing field are necessary,” the Chairman added.

  “The US has a choice now, and there is only one to make. Regulators must incrementally accommodate crypto products, making way for the products, actors, and services that comply with these fundamental principles while keeping out the others. Identifying what is in and what is out has been bogged down in semantics and in the search for regulatory gaps,” he said.

  “The key financial regulators should collectively move forward with the identification of compliant and non-compliant products as well as paths to compliance for those that can get there. And wherever the US draws the line, people will be disappointed. That’s okay. That’s part of bringing discipline to activities that are out of step. What’s not okay is to do nothing and cede many of the opportunities that crypto represents to our competitors and adversaries, while subjecting our retail investors to the risk.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 18:00

• Bang Bros Offers Miami Heat $10 Million For Stadium Naming Rights After FTX Collapse
  Bang Bros Offers Miami Heat $10 Million For Stadium Naming Rights After FTX Collapse

  The Miami Heat “terminated” all business relations with the bankrupted FTX crypto exchange, despite signing a two-decade $135 million deal last year to name the sports stadium “FTX Arena.” The team announced Friday they’re searching for a new stadium sponsorship partner, while the adult company “Bang Bros” tweeted out their offer to name the area “Bang Bros Center (The BBC)” still stands. 

  “The reports about FTX and its affiliates are extremely disappointing,” Miami Heat tweeted out in a statement, adding, “Miami-Dade County and the Miami HEAT are immediately taking action to terminate our business relationships with FTX. We will be working together to find a new naming rights partner for the arena.”

  Miami-Dade County and the Miami HEAT have released the following statement pic.twitter.com/ERZo1IsZ2o

  — Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) November 12, 2022

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

  With the stadium naming rights in the air, Bang Bros tweeted its $10 million offer for the naming rights still stands. 

  In a tweet, the adult film company posted two images of the stadium, one with “Bankrupt” across the top picture that also said “OOOPS!” And right below it, a photoshopped Bang Bros’ logo was placed on top of the stadium, with a caption that read, “BUT HEY! OUR OFFER STANDS! … WE PROMISE LESS PEOPLE WILL GET F@$%ED!”

  

  In another tweet, the company said their “offer still stands to buy the naming rights” of the stadium.

  Our offer for the naming rights still stands ! They should take our deal! https://t.co/pZEtTltEvn@BillyCorben @ONLYinDADE

  — BANG BROS (@BangBrosDotCom1) November 11, 2022

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

  Bang Bros, based out of Miami, tried to purchase the stadium’s naming rights in 2019. Here’s what they said in a tweet back then:

  “We’ve officially Submitted our $10,000,000 bid for the naming rights to the Miami Heat Arena. We wish to thank American Airlines for their past support of the HEAT. We intend to change the name to the BangBros Center aka ‘The BBC.'”

  Twitter users had a field day with Bang Bros’ tweets:

  “Well BangBros arena it is smh this is where we are in the movie Idiocracy thx a lot @SBF_FTX a reality star for president, was the beginning of this alternate time, I think & it appears it can actually keep getting worse this is crypto 2022 god damn who would thunk it in 2013,” one Twitter user said. 

  “After the fraud and disaster that was FTX, they should accept this,” another person said. 

  “Should’ve gone with Bang Bros back in 2019. Everyone knew FTX was a house of cards. Bang Bros won’t be filing for bankruptcy any time soon,” someone else said. 

  “This only has a chance of happening because its Florida,” a Twitter user said.  

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 17:30

• "Please Tell Me What I'm Missing Here": Swalwell Appears To Embrace Medical & Legal Malpractice Over Parental Rights
  “Please Tell Me What I’m Missing Here”: Swalwell Appears To Embrace Medical & Legal Malpractice Over Parental Rights

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Parental rights are becoming one of the defining issues for 2024. Building from Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 gubernatorial victory in Virginia, school boards races and educational initiatives have become some of the most fiercely contested areas on local and state ballots. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Cal.) weighed in this week into the area with a curious attack on parents demanding more say in the education of their children.

  The California Democrat insisted that it is akin to “Putting patients in charge of their own surgeries? Clients in charge of their own trials?” These were curious analogies to draw since patients and clients are in charge of the key decisions in their surgeries and trials. What Rep. Swalwell is missing is called informed consent.

  

  Swalwell is a lawyer with a degree from the University of Maryland Law School.

  He took to Twitter to lash out against parents who dare challenge aspects of the education of their children. The tweet came in response to South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott saying that Republicans intend to put “parents back in charge of their kids’ education.” Swalwell declared such a notion to be ridiculous:

  “Please tell me what I’m missing here. What are we doing next? Putting patients in charge of their own surgeries? Clients in charge of their own trials? When did we stop trusting experts. … This is so stupid.”

  As a threshold matter, it is important to note that parents have always had a say in the education of their children. School boards are invested with the authority to dictate changes in curriculum and teaching policies.

  Indeed, in Meyer v. Nebraska (1925), the Court struck down a state law prohibiting instruction in German. In the decision, it stressed that parental roles in the education of their children was an essential part of the protections under the Constitution’s Due Process Clause: the right “to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”

  Putting that historical and constitutional context aside, Rep. Swalwell is equally mistaken in his analogies to the medical and legal professions. In reality, patients and clients do control major decisions over their cases. Since he asked for assistance, let’s deal with each in turn.

  Patients and Medical Consent

  From the outset, the argument that patients do not make the key decisions on their own medical care is a bit incongruous given Swalwell’s support for abortion rights without any limits. (Swalwell was widely criticized for a campaign commercial showing a women being arrested at a restaurant by police with guns drawn under suspicion of having an abortion). While women clearly consult with doctors, the whole premise of “my body, my choice” is that these decisions are left to women, not the doctors or the state.

  Parents are asking for consent in the basic goals, material, and methods used the education of their children.

  American torts have long required consent in torts. Indeed, what Swalwell seemed to suggest would be battery for doctors to make the key decisions over surgical goals or purposes. Indeed, even when doctors secured consent to operate on one ear, it was still considered battery when they decided in the operation to address the other ear in the best interests of the patient. Mohr v. Williams, 104 N.W. 12 (Minn. 1905).

  In Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772, 784, the court observed:

  “Nor can we ignore the fact that to bind the disclosure obligation to medical usage is to arrogate the decision on revelation to the physician alone. Respect for the patient’s right of self-determination on particular therapy demands a standard set by law for physicians rather than one which physicians may or may not impose upon themselves.”

  Thus, doctors in the United States do have to secure the consent of patients in what they intend to do in surgeries or other medical procedures. (There are narrow exceptions such things as “substituted consent” or  emergencies that do not apply here).

  Ironically, California has one of the strongest patient-based consent rules. As the California Supreme Court stated in Cobbs v. Grant, 8 Cal. 3d 229 (1972):

  “Unlimited discretion in the physician is irreconcilable with the basic right of the patient to make the ultimate informed decision regarding the course of treatment to which he knowledgeably consents to be subjected.

  A medical doctor, being the expert, appreciates the risks inherent in the procedure he is prescribing, the risks of a decision not to undergo the treatment, and the probability of a successful outcome of the treatment. But once this information has been disclosed, that aspect of the doctor’s expert function has been performed. The weighing of these risks against the individual subjective fears and hopes of the patient is not an expert skill. Such evaluation and decision is a nonmedical judgment reserved to the patient alone.”

  While obviously a patient cannot direct an operation itself, the doctor is expected to explain and secure the consent of the patient in what a surgery will attempt and how it will be accomplished. That is precisely what parents are demanding in looking at the subjects and books being taught in school. Moreover, that is precisely the role of school boards, which has historically exercised concurrent authority over the schools with the teachers hired under the school board-approved budgets.

  Clients and Legal Consent

  Swalwell is also wrong on suggesting that clients are not in charge of their own trials. Not only must attorneys secure the consent of their clients on what will be argued in trial but they can be removed by their clients for failure to adequately represent their interests. It would be malpractice for a lawyer to tell a client, as suggested by Swalwell, that they do not control the major decisions in their own cases.

  Ironically, the informed consent rule in the law has been traced to its rise in the medical profession. It was adopted by bars to give clients the right to direct their own legal affairs. MODEL RULES OF PROF’L CONDUCT r. 1.7 cmt. 18. “Informed consent” is a defined term in the Model Rules. See id. r. 1.0(e) (defining “informed consent” as the “agreement by a person to a proposed course of conduct after the lawyer has communicated adequate information and explanation about the material risks of and reasonably available alternatives to the proposed course of conduct”).

  Obviously, lawyers must follow their own ethical and professional judgment in trials and tactical choices are generally left up to the lawyers. However, the main arguments and objectives of the trial remain for the client to decide. As one court explained in Metrick v. Chatz, 639 N.E.2d 198, 653-54 (Ill. App. Ct. 1994):

  “An attorney’s liability for failing to advise a client of the foreseeable risks attendant to a given course of legal action is not predicated upon the impropriety of the recommended course of action; rather, it is predicated upon the client’s exposure to a risk that the client did not knowingly and voluntarily assume. Consequently, to establish the element of proximate cause, it is necessary for the client to both plead and prove that had the undisclosed risk been known, he or she would not have accepted the risk and consented to the recommended course of action.”

  Much like the claim of parents, clients demand the right to reject a plan for trial and the arguments or means to be used at trial. This right of consent is ongoing and can be exercised at any point in the litigation.

  Informed Consent

  Of course, the key to informed consent is that parents are giving the information needed to secure their consent. School districts have been resisting such disclosures and pushing back on parental opposition to major curriculum or policy decisions.

  I have previously stated my opposition to micromanaging classrooms. However, in public education, citizens vote to elect board members to be accountable for educational priorities and policies. In private education, citizens vote with their tuition dollars as well as through school boards. Most of these controversies involve major educational policies ranging from transgender participation on teams to the lesson plans viewed by many as extreme or political. Those policies go to the issues of educational priorities that have historically been subject to school board authority.

  In other words, “what is missing here” is that Rep. Swalwell’s interpretation could constitute both medical and legal malpractice. It may also constitute political malpractice as both parties now careen toward the 2024 elections.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 17:00

• Chappelle Talks Trump, Kanye, And "Observably Stupid" Herschel Walker In Viral SNL Monologue
  Chappelle Talks Trump, Kanye, And “Observably Stupid” Herschel Walker In Viral SNL Monologue

  Dave Chappelle has once again managed to trigger just about everyone during his opening monologue as host of Saturday Night Live this weekend – including SNL staff members who reportedly extremely unhappy about his appearance.

  

  Commentary ranged from Kanye West, Jews, and why Donald Trump won the 2016 US election.

  Kicking things off, Chappelle read a note which said: “I denounce antisemitism in all its forms, and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community,” adding “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”

  He then noted how Kanye, who now goes by Ye, ‘lost $1.5 billion in one day’ after speaking against Jews.

  “I learned that there are two words in the English language that you should never say together in sequence. And those words are ‘the’ and ‘Jews,'” said Chappelle, who later said that it’s a game of ‘perception’ – “If they’re black, it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. If they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should neeeever speak about it.”

  He then turned his attention to politics, which included saying that Herschel Walker is “observably stupid,” and then explaining why Trump won the 2016 US election.

  “He’s very loved. And the reason he’s loved is because people in Ohio have never seen somebody like him,” said Chappelle, who then described how the billionaire captured hearts and minds by admitting “I know the system is rigged because I use it.”

  Of course, Chappelle then suggested that Trump was colluding with Russia (as opposed to the Obama DOJ, FBI, and Hillary Clinton setting him up), and suggested that Melania Trump “looks like the type of chick that James Bond would smash but not trust.” So he either sold out on that one or is woefully under-informed.

  Unsurprisingly, the left was outraged:

  

  As for the actual show itself, a “House of the Dragon’ parody appears to have been the most popular:

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 16:55

• Ghislaine Maxwell Befriends Double-Murderer, Becomes Prison Darling
  Ghislaine Maxwell Befriends Double-Murderer, Becomes Prison Darling

  Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has apparently settled into her new life as inmate #02879-509 at the Federal Correctional Institute in Tallahasse, where she has cultivated a clique of influential inmates who ensure her protection, the Daily Mail reports, citing an inside source.

  

  While the notorious madam reportedly threw a tantrums when she arrived – refusing to eat and complaining about how her clothes fit, she appears to be settling in – making friends with notorious double-murderer Narcy Novak, a 65-year-old Florida woman serving life without parole for hiring a hitman to murder her hotelier husband Ben Novak Jr. and his elderly mother Bernice in an attempt to control the family estate.

  Maxwell, 60, also hangs out with con woman Linda Morrow, who helped her plastic surgeon husband scam $44 million out of insurers by classifying cosmetic procedures as medical necessities. After fleeing to Israel, the now-70-year-old Coachella Valley native was deported to the US in 2019 and jailed for 8 years.

  

  “Ghislaine cried a lot when she first arrived. You could hear her yelling that everything was inhumane. She walked around like a zombie, her eyes were always puffy,” said one recently released prisoner. “She sat down next to me in the canteen, took one look at her food and declared “I can’t eat this”, and stormed off.”

  “Now she has some friends and is eating more. She’s bubbly, you see her smiling. She makes a point of saying good morning. You can see she’s visibly more comfortable.”

  Maxwell, who works just six hours a day in the prison library, spends her time strolling around the manicured grounds of the prison, where she’s got daily access to an array of sporting facilities. One Daily Mail journalist spotted Maxwell going for an hour-long jog in the Florida sunshine.

  

  A typical day for Maxwell begins at 5am, when inmates are woken and served breakfast on a Styrofoam tray – typically grits, oatmeal or toast. She then often does eight to ten laps around the track before heading to the prison’s library and education center, where she works from 7am to 10am.Then, after lunch, she works from noon to 3pm, after which she can swap her standard prison uniform for gray ‘personal athletic clothing’ purchased from the commissary, the Mail reports.

  She spends her free time taking pottery and crochet classes – the latter of which are taught by Novak.

  “She and Linda are learning crochet and cross stitch with Novak. Ghislaine also likes pottery. She’s outside on the track most days but the other ladies generally stay inside,” said the insider, adding “So far there have been no complaints about her. She’s polite, she’s well behaved, she goes to work on time every day.”

  “If you ask her for a book in the library she will find whatever it is you need. The general opinion of her is that she’s a nice lady.”

  Then, before the 9pm lights out, Maxwell will often take a “leisurely walk around the athletics track, where she was photographed this week by DailyMail.com enjoying a twilight stroll.”

  Insiders say Maxwell has used her privileged upbringing to boost her popularity among the 755-strong female population – drawing on her Oxford University education and literary savviness to recommend novels and history books.

  In fact, cell-mates in Unit B South think the British heiress is so smart they recently nominated Maxwell to represent them in a checkers competition – part of an Olympics-style ‘battle of the units’ tournament, held annually.

  ‘There is everything from kickball to hula-hoop but she was selected for the 40 and over checkers,’ dished an insider.

  ‘You want the best players and she has a reputation for being smart. The winning unit gets a really good meal, chicken wings, pizza, that sort of thing. It’s much better than the usual food.

  ‘It’s a big deal. Nobody cares what you’re in for so long as you win.’ -Daily Mail

  Maxwell was originally supposed to serve her 20-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) Danbury, the Connecticut prison that inspired Orange is the New Black, but was instead shipped 1,000 miles south in late July to Florida.

  FCI Tallahasse, where she will spend until July 17, 2037 unless released earlier, is an “elegant, red-brick building behind the rolls of jagged razor wire looks more akin to a high school or college campus,” according to the report.

  

  According to the report, Maxwell’s friendship with Novak has proven extremely useful, as the double-murderer is the head orderly for the dormitory where the disgraced socialite beds down with 100 other inmates in pods that consist of four ‘cubes’ equipped with bunk beds and no doors.

  “The units are basically like a warehouse so it’s hard to escape from that. But Ghislaine hasn’t been attacked yet and it’s gotten much better lately because she is always with Novak,” said a source. “Novak commands respect, people don’t mess with her. Her, Ghislaine and Linda seem to band together because they are the most high profile prisoners here.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 16:30

• Morgan Stanley's 2023 Outlook: Growth Cools, Bonds Rule
  Morgan Stanley’s 2023 Outlook: Growth Cools, Bonds Rule

  By Andrew Sheets, Chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley

  We’ll publish our year-ahead outlook later today. In the global economy, my colleague Seth Carpenter and our global economics team see a story of weaker growth, less inflation, and the end of rate hikes.

  

  Let’s take those in turn.

  Weaker growth is about continued deceleration of the global economy in 2022 into 2023. This slowing has several drivers, including some payback from excessive post-Covid consumer demand and bloated inventories in the retail sector. But the thrust of the slowing is driven by the (lagged) impact of policy tightening. The last 12 months have seen the fastest 12-month increase in the fed funds rate since 1981 and the fastest increase in ECB rates since the establishment of the eurozone.

  Tightening usually works with a lag, and 2023 should be no different. The US barely avoids recession. The UK and eurozone do see recession, thanks to fiscal tightening (UK) and a large energy shock (eurozone). China growth recovers with our expectation that the Covid-zero policy is relaxed in the spring, but the rebound is muted, as deleveraging in the country’s real estate sector remains a challenge.

  Slower growth should (finally) cool inflation. We understand the skepticism, given the persistent surprises this year, but we think that several forces are working to change the narrative:

  1. Global demand should be weaker;

  2. Supply chains are showing much less stress;

  3. Inventories look increasingly elevated, inviting discounting for core goods;

  4. Risk in shelter prices is much more balanced; and

  5. Base effects shift materially (US gas prices are up 11%Y, but will be down 11%Y by March at current prices). US CPI is currently 7.7%Y, but we forecast it to be under 2.0%Y by the end of next year.

  Cooling growth and inflation should lead central banks to pause and assess. They’ve just delivered significant tightening, tightening that works with a considerable lag. As growth and inflation cool, we think that the Fed pauses after a January rate hike at 4.625%, while the ECB pauses in March at 2.50%. EM central banks, which were well out in front of their DM counterparts, see some significant easing, especially in Hungary, Brazil, and Chile.

  Any outlook is uncertain, but that’s especially true this year. We see risks to growth skewed to the downside, driven by more persistent inflation that drives a more forceful policy response. Significant uncertainty also exists around QT; we believe that central banks will show flexibility if it leads to systemic stress, but both central banks and investors are in uncharted waters with a balance sheet reduction of this scale.

  For markets, this presents a very different backdrop. 2022 was marked by resilient growth, high inflation, and hawkish policy. 2023 sees weaker growth, disinflation, and rate hikes end/reverse, all with very different starting valuations. It seems reasonable to think that we’ll see different outcomes, especially in high grade bonds. We forecast US 10-year Treasury yields to end 2023 lower, the US dollar to decline, and the S&P 500 to tread water (with material swings along the way).

  Indeed, we think that high grade bonds, one of the biggest losers of 2022, will be one of the biggest winners of 2023. Real and nominal yields have risen materially across a wide range of high grade markets. Less growth, inflation, and tightening make stable returns more attractive. We see attractive returns through end-2023 in Bunds, BTPs, EUR IG credit, US Treasuries, US IG credit, US municipals, agency MBS, and AAA securitized paper.

  And we think that the ‘income’ theme extends further. Across many of our recommendations we have a bias toward the higher-yielding parts of the market, whether that’s US equities (where we’re overweight staples, healthcare, and utilities) or commodities (where we prefer oil to metals).

  If ’embracing income’ is one key theme, ‘respecting sequencing’ is another. Markets face two great uncertainties for next year – will inflation/tightening moderate, and will growth bottom? We expect clarity on the first before the second. In turn, we generally prefer assets more sensitive to rate uncertainty than those more sensitive to DM growth.

  This should support high grade bonds, which often do well after the last Fed hike regardless of whether a recession follows. But it should also support EM equities and debt. Early to underperform (EM equities peaked in February 2021), we think that they’ll be early to recover, similar to the early 2000s and 2008- 2022 has been a historically bad year for cross-asset returns. Next year won’t be easy, but it should look different.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 16:00

• Republicans And GOP-Leaning Independents Prefer DeSantis Over Trump In 2024: Poll
  Republicans And GOP-Leaning Independents Prefer DeSantis Over Trump In 2024: Poll

  A new YouGov survey has found that 42% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would prefer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over former President Trump as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee.

  

  Just 35% polled said they would prefer Trump over DeSantis.

  

  That said, those who consider themselves “strong Republicans” were more likely to support a third Trump run (45%) over the Florida governor, while 43% said they would prefer DeSantis.

  The difference was far more pronounced among the ‘Republican-leaning’ respondents, of which 45% preferred DeSantis vs. 21% for Trump. 38% of those who described themselves as “not very strong Republicans” prefer DeSantis, vs. 31% who picked Trump.

  The poll comes after Trump lashed out at DeSantis following the governor’s resounding midterm victory last week – cementing his position as a top GOP candidate to run against Trump in the 2024 GOP primaries.

  Trump nicknamed DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious” during a rally last week, before going further and releasing a statement in which he took credit for DeSantis’ political success.

  The former president then suggested that he could share damaging private information about DeSantis “that won’t be very flattering” if the Florida governor runs in 2024, and that DeSantis is actually a RINO.

  

  “I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly,” said Trump, adding “I know more about him than anybody — other than, perhaps, his wife.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 11/13/2022 – 15:30

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