Feb 15

Today’s News 15th February 2024

  • What Everyone Is Missing About The Putin/Carlson Talk
    What Everyone Is Missing About The Putin/Carlson Talk

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    “The Vorlons say, understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth”

    — John Sheridan, Babylon 5

    The biggest media story of 2024 so far has come and gone. Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin last week.

    Everyone, even the Davos/UK dominated media, has put forth their opinion on it. I gave out a quick take for my Patrons the morning after just like everyone else. And like everyone else I missed the biggest takeaway from this interview.

    Now, if you go through the commentary what you will mostly see is people, as always, doing what traders call “talking their book.” In other words, as opposed to dealing with the information presented and the motivations of the people involved, most media outlets and commentators put forth their opinion on whether this interview satisfied their needs from it.

    So, for the hardcore geopolitical types and armchair psychoanalysts, we heard a lot of opinions second-guessing Putin’s strategy to open the interview with a nearly thirty minute recitation of Russian/Ukrainian history. Why would he do this, was the common refrain.

    I’ll use my former-bellwether-for-normies, Scott Adams, as an example of this.

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

    This was the kindest of the ‘bad takes’ I found on this. But I’m having one of Scott’s “One movie, two screens,” moments here. Because Putin looked anything other than “unhinged.” In fact, he looked as calm as I’ve ever seen him, taking a relaxed posture to put Carlson, who was clearly unsure of where he stood at the beginning of the interview, at ease.

    But this is the message that Adams wanted to see, framing Putin in relation to Biden, because he needed something unique to say to justify his even being in the conversation.

    By contrast, Martin Armstrong had a great post curating all of the crazy Neocon takes from the “media” on his blog over the weekend.

    What’s obvious from those is that they understood that Putin’s 30 minute opening monologue would put off a lot of casual watchers who would tune him out at that point. So, their “analysis” focused on steering the conversation to Putin’s ‘false history’ of Russia and Ukraine.

    This way that ‘false history’ would dominate everyone’s opinions the next day, managing the Overton Window of the entire interview, making it all about that. This would be the basis of how they discredit Putin.

    Then to discredit Carlson, people like Hillary Clinton was trotted out to lie about Tucker Carlson, calling him a “useful idiot,” and “puppy dog” and a joke in Russian media, which is an outright lie. Hillary’s harpy laugh made an appearance alongside a sycophant interviewer as they joked about Carlson’s having been fired from every legitimate news agency.

    We were treated to a common sight: Two Beltway insiders laughing inside their echo chamber and only our sick fascination with roadkill makes it even remotely interesting.

    So, the whole exercise is reframed as Puppy Dog Tucker throwing softballs to Liar Putin to distract us away from the sum and substance of their talk.

    I know… in other news water is wet and women want more sex when they’re fertile.

    And I also know that it is fatuous to bring up these panicked attempts to marginalize this event. They started days before Carlson was even rumored to be in Moscow.

    On the one hand we have people intentionally missing the point because they need to have their opinions validated. And on the other we have people intentionally leading those truly curious away from the purpose of the interview: to get an unfiltered look at Putin’s motivations for how he governs Russia.

    Why? Because, as we already also know, the warmongers are in charge in the West and they will not be deterred by some prep school gadfly and a dirty Slavic ruler with pretensions of adequacy.

    So the war show must go on.

    But buried beneath these layers of surreality are these men’s motivations for having this talk. Carlson’s motivation is illuminated quite effectively in his first appearance after his talk with Putin (watch the first 90 seconds).

    His outrage at being denied this interview for three years by NSA/CIA spying on him is what drove him. The worst thing the gatekeepers ever did was fire Tucker Carlson from Fox News; making him independent freed him from the restraints of the corporate media.

    Knowing that Tucker tried for three years to get this interview with Putin, we should assume that Putin would come into the room prepared. So, it makes sense that Putin wanted to give us a history lesson because he assumes, rightly, that most Americans do not have any clue about Russia’s history.

    He didn’t do this to bore us, he did this to inform us and set us at ease. To tell us that he is a man with a perspective that he believes he can justify.

    He’s not a frothing-at-the-mouth cannibal who desires world domination.

    No, Putin’s aim was to elucidate, calmly, the nature of the conflict, laying out the missteps made along the way. And I believe he was effective to those that stayed with him. Because, never once did Putin talk down to his audience.

    How many Americans learned that Putin asked Bill Clinton for Russia to become part of NATO, thus ending NATO’s raison d’etre?

    Or that Bush the Lesser unilaterally abrogated the ABM Treaty?

    Or that the Minsk Agreements were our last hope for a settlement of the differences between the Donbass and Kiev, and that Putin was the one pushing to make them work?

    There are at least a half-dozen other things people learned in this interview, if they had ears to listen, I’m looking at you Scott Adams.

    And given that this conflict is hurtling towards a war that only very select gatekeepers and power-brokers want, that should have been enough to sharpen everyone’s focus to give Putin an honest hearing.

    Now, that said, Putin did present his version of history, of the truth. Shouldn’t we expect that?

    But, as I’ve painstakingly laid out here, much like Putin himself, focusing on that is focusing on the wrong thing. It’s the wrong framework to view this interview given the current stakes of this conflict.

    And this is what everyone missed about this interview. It literally does not matter one whit whose is right and who is wrong here. Putin’s version of history isn’t what’s at stake here.

    It doesn’t matter whether Putin violated international law by crossing the post-USSR border. As Putin pointed out, NATO violated Serbia’s borders by bombing Belgrade for six months in 1999. So, borders only matter when it behooves certain actors?

    It doesn’t matter if Putin is overstating the level of ‘Nazification’ of Ukraine to justify defending the Donbass, whether he jails journalists, cracks down on free speech, or rules Russia with a thinly-veiled form of democracy.

    It doesn’t matter if you believe he pulled off a coup in Crimea in 2014, poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Alexi Navalny is a freedom-fighter or he helped get Donald Trump elected (and I’m looking at YOU Hillary Clinton!).

    What does matter is that is how Putin views this conflict. And we have to deal with it. Period.

    What also matters is that those who stand behind Putin are even less patient and circumspect than he is.

    In order to avoid that bigger war only the oligarch class wants, we, as people, have to accept some responsibility for it getting to this point. Without that there can be no basis for a negotiated settlement.

    This conflict between the West, and this includes all of Europe, the UK as well as the US, and Russia is one with existential consequences.

    What Putin said, quite clearly, is that this ball is in our court. We can either sit down and have an honest discussion of a negotiated future or we will be at war. If that is what we in the West want, it is what we will get. Putin has put his sons on the line in eastern Ukraine. Are we?

    You can dig in on being right or we can have peace. But, we cannot have both.

    The Victoria Nulands and the Ursula Von Der Leyens of this world represent people who refuse to accept that Russia and/or China are not systems, but rather civilizations. They aren’t the current bogeyman ‘ism du jour, like Communism or authoritarianism, they are a people, a culture, an ethnos. The ‘ism is just the thing they’ve adopted now to help them preserve those things inherently Russian or Chinese.

    Our leaders are this way because they don’t believe in those things for us no less anyone else. And they spend all their time trying to convince us that that is what divides us. But it isn’t. It’s simply their greed, their emptiness.

    Because of this they lack any sense that these civilizations 1) have any right to exist and 2) deserve any empathy. So, logically, none of Russia’s demands are valid.

    Putin put how he feels about history on the table. He’s angry about it. The West keeps saying, “Your version of history is wrong. So you have no right to be angry.”

    Have you ever had an argument with someone important to you and they did this to you? I’ve done it and had it done to me. In my experience the argument doesn’t get resolved. It escalates.

    And it escalates, eventually, even if it goes on for a long time, say, in a marriage, to the point of estrangement if not outright hatred. If you want to repair the relationship in some way then you have to lead with, “Okay, I hear you.”

    Then you have to learn how to mean it.

    That’s where we are today. The Russians are done with our leadership. We use diplomacy as a basis for betrayal, not as the foundation of a future.

    They see us as a failing empire, a failing civilization on the long historical time line, because we have embraced cynicism and allowed the rapacious and the perverse to run our world.

    This is why there is no basis for diplomacy at the head of state level. This is an argument between two people one of whom wants nothing to do with the other (The West) while the other one is insisting that no matter what the other does, they will survive (Russia).

    Rock, meet Hard Place…. choose between chisels or sledgehammers.

    Putin came to the interview with his argument. He laid it out carefully for us, the people of the West, to review. Carlson tried to call him out for not talking to President Biden and open negotiations and Putin rightly set him straight.

    Who can he call up and talk to? Who has the political or even moral authority to negotiate? Is there anyone on our side even willing to negotiate? He made it clear that he’s open to someone calling him up. He continues to hold out hope because, as he said, “Stop supplying weapons, and this war will be over in weeks.”

    And if your knee-jerk response to that is, “Well, Vlad, you can just leave Ukraine…” then you are part of the problem because you are not even trying to listen.

    Because this war is in our hands now. That’s who Putin was speaking to through Tucker Carlson.

    The architects of this war have led us to a perilous moment. Putin doesn’t have to invade Poland or Germany to defeat the West. All he and Russia have to do is survive our collective rage. Our leaders are bankrupting us, as he pointed out, trying to defeat Russia.

    If you want peace, deal with the facts of this war by acknowledging the feelings of the people on the other side of it while truly examining your own.

    Either way, history will not judge any of us kindly.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you want to know what you’re missing

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/15/2024 – 00:05

  • Yen's Big Sway On Japanese Shares Fades To A Myth
    Yen’s Big Sway On Japanese Shares Fades To A Myth

    By Hideyuki Sano, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist

    The conventional wisdom in the Japanese market that a cheaper yen benefits exporters and boosts share prices has been turned on its head.

    In reality, the yen’s exchange rate is having less and less of a bearing on Japanese stocks. The correlation between the Topix index and the dollar/yen rate since July has been 0.23, a level statisticians would judge as pretty weak. The link between the yen and the Nikkei 225 during the same period is even slightly negative.

    The chart below illustrates the point. Blue dots show where the yen and the Topix were each day since July. When Japan’s currency was at 150 against the dollar, the Topix was lower. In 2022 the Topix hardly reacted to the yen’s exchange rate, stuck mostly between 1,800 and 2,000, as shown by the gray dots.

    The relations between the dollar/yen and the Topix since 2022.

    The loss of connection between the yen and share prices is no surprise given how Japanese exporters have changed. Successful companies such as Sony Group Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. have long ditched their old models of exporting goods manufactured in Japan, making their business more global and diversified.

    “Some people say a cheap yen will benefit exporters, but the impact of that is very limited after the hollowing-out of the domestic manufacturing base,” said Seiya Nakajima, visiting professor of international finance at Fukui Prefectural University.

    The only period when the Topix appeared to be correlated to the yen is the first half of 2023, (shown by the orange dots), with the index higher when the currency was cheaper.

    But the connection appears tenuous: during that period Japanese shares had their own drivers, such as Warren Buffett’s investment in trading firms as well as hopes about corporate governance improvements, suggesting any boost from the yen was secondary.

     

    Hitachi’s earnings before interest, taxes and amortization increased by just ¥200 million ($1.3 million) for each one yen depreciation against the dollar. As for Sony, the net impact of yen moves on its earnings is relatively limited.

    For many chip-related companies, the outlook for that sector overseas as well as the global economy has a far-larger impact than the foreign-exchange rate. Against this backdrop, the correlation between the dollar/yen rate and the Topix Electronics Appliance index – the biggest segment of the stock market with a 17% weighting – has decreased since the pandemic.

    This isn’t to say that a cheaper yen has no benefit. It still brings currency translation gains for Japanese companies’ earnings on big overseas sales. Automaker shares continue to have a strong correlation with the yen as they export a lot of vehicles. While that weakened in 2022 when chip shortages hobbled their output, the link between Japanese carmakers and the yen came back last year.

    Still, automakers account for just 9% of the Topix. And the perception that Japan’s economy is export-driven also needs a reality check. Japan’s exports have stagnated so much over the past decade in part due to a production shift abroad and the loss of competitiveness. It’s the only major economy that saw exports decline over the last decade.

    It’s little wonder, then, investors don’t buy Japanese stocks just because the yen is cheap.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 23:25

  • Boeing Plane Deliveries Fall 29% In January Amid Max Jet Crisis 
    Boeing Plane Deliveries Fall 29% In January Amid Max Jet Crisis 

    Boeing’s plane deliveries tumbled 29% in January – compared to the previous month, driven primarily by seasonal trends and fallout from a near-mid-air disaster of a fuselage panel that ripped off one of its 737 Max 9s. 

    Last month, the company handed over 27 aircraft, marking its lowest delivery count since September, in contrast to 67 deliveries in December. As for Max jets, it delivered 25 aircraft, down from 44 in December. 

    “New aircraft orders are light in the month, but are typically seasonally light early in any year, while new aircraft order backlog remains very large compared to supply,” Goldman analysts wrote in a note. 

    The analysts, led by Noah Poponak and Anthony Valentini, continued: “Deliveries slowed in January, in part due to seasonality and in part from Boeing slowing down the system to renew the focus on product quality.” 

    They expect the slowdown in January to be temporary as an “acceleration in output” will occur “in the near-term and through the rest of 2024.” 

    Here are Boeing’s gross orders, cancellations, and ASC 606 adjustments for the 737, 777, and 787 planes.

    As of Jan. 31, Boeing’s backlog decreased from 5,626 to 5,599 aircraft. It has 6,189 unfilled orders when accounting for adjustments. 

    “Boeing would have adequate backlog coverage to support production rate plans over the near-to-medium term, with ~6X years of 737 backlog coverage even if the ASC 606 movements are not recognized in the backlog by 2026, and ~5X/9X years for the 787 and 777, respectively,” the analysts said. 

    Since the Jan. 5 incident involving a door plug on a brand new Alaska Airlines Max 9 jet, Boeing executives have been scrambling to ensure safety in its manufacturing supply chain. The US Federal Aviation Administration briefly grounded the Max 9 jets for inspections and has since capped Boeing’s production of the planes while an audit of the manufacturing process is ongoing. 

    Meanwhile, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has promised to carefully review manufacturing processes at the company’s factory. The FAA won’t lift the production cap on Max jets until the agency is “satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved.” 

    Despite the mounting risks for Boeing, the analysts continued with a buy rating on Boeing, with a 12-month price target of $268. 

    They also outlined three key risks for Boeing shares: 

    1. the pace of air traffic growth,
    2. supply chain recovery timing, and 
    3. defense program margins in the medium-term

    Given Goldman’s price target, shares are at a deep discount, trading around $204 as of Wednesday morning.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 23:05

  • US Govt Is Hiding Documents That Incriminate Intel Community For Illegal Spying & Election Interference, Say Sources
    US Govt Is Hiding Documents That Incriminate Intel Community For Illegal Spying & Election Interference, Say Sources

    Matt Taibbi explains the multi-part series, cowritten with Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag, about the corrupt origins of the Trump-Russia investigation…

    Subscribe to Racket News here…

    Read Part 1 here “CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say “…

    Part 2: U.S. Government Is Hiding Documents That Incriminate Intelligence Community For Illegal Spying And Election Interference, Say Sources

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag via Public substack,

    Former CIA Director Gina Haspel blocked the release of “binder” with evidence that may identify her role in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax

    FBI Director Christopher Wray (left), former CIA Director Gina Haspel (center), and former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats (right), testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee on January 29, 2019. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

    Last December 15th, as Americans decorated trees, lit Menorahs, and prepared to tune out for winter holidays, CNN ran an extraordinary article titled, “The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump.”

    Co-authored by Natasha Bertrand, the gargantuan expose claimed a mysterious “binder” of “highly classified information related to Russian election interference” went “missing” in the chaotic waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency in January 2021, raising concerns that some of America’s most “closely guarded national security secrets… could be exposed.”

    CNN and its intelligence sources meant “exposure” in a bad way.

    Sources have told Public and Racket, however, that the secrets officials worry might be “exposed” are ones that would implicate them in widespread abuses of intelligence authority dating back to the 2015-2016 election season.

    “I would call [the binder] Trump’s insurance policy,” said someone knowledgeable about the case.

    “He was very concerned about having it and taking it with him because it was the road map” of Russiagate.

    Transgressions range from Justice Department surveillance of domestic political targets without probable cause to the improper unmasking of a pre-election conversation between a Trump official and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to WMD-style manipulation of intelligence for public reports on alleged Russian “influence activities.”

    The CNN report claimed intelligence officials were concerned about the disclosure of “sources and methods that informed the U.S. government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election.”

    They should be concerned.

    The story of how a team “hand-picked” by CIA Director John Brennan relied on “cooked intelligence” to craft that January 6th, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment is the subject of tomorrow’s story, the last in this three-part series.

    Corruption, not tradecraft, is what officials are desperate to keep secret.

    The ”missing binder” story has several variants.

    Sources offer differing answers on the question of whether anything of consequence is missing. They give mixed accounts of Trump’s frantic last efforts to declassify Russia-related material.

    But nearly everyone Public and Racket spoke to agreed that the tale obscured a broader and more important story.

    Dating back to the release of the so-called “Nunes memo” in 2018 exposing the corruption of the FISA application process, senior intelligence officials, including Trump’s CIA Director, Gina Haspel, have repeatedly blocked attempts to declassify information about the Trump-Russia investigation.

    They had good reason to obstruct the release of these documents.

    The documents in question are said to contain information about the legal justification for those investigations, or more specifically, the lack of justification, among other things. Should more of that information be made public, it might implicate a long list of officials in serious abuses.

    Questions like these may be answered if the 10-inch thick binder of sensitive documents about the origins of the Russia probe is made public.

    Fear for reputations and careers, not national security, is what has intelligence officials panicked.

    …

    Investigators wanted to declassify their findings before Trump left office, but the CIA “would not cooperate.” Investigators, a source told Public and Racket, “created a binder that blew up the assessment but couldn’t get it out because the CIA controlled it.”

    …

    Subscribers to Public substack can read the astonishing full report here…

    TOMORROW: NEW BOMBSHELL ON CONTENTS OF SECRET JANUARY 2017 “INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT” OF RUSSIAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 22:45

  • House Probing Whether Biden Raided Grandkids' Bank Accounts In 'Unusual' Money Transfers
    House Probing Whether Biden Raided Grandkids’ Bank Accounts In ‘Unusual’ Money Transfers

    New evidence in the House GOP’s ongoing efforts to get to the bottom of the Biden family’s tangled web of payments and bank accounts have uncovered new evidence suggesting money transfers to President Joe Biden from his grandchildren, Just the News reports.

    “In one of the interviews — that we haven’t I don’t believe disclose the transcript yet — the witness made reference to an account we didn’t know about. We’re researching that account,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told Just the News, No Noise, adding that the information may eventually lead Congress to subpoena Biden’s personal bank and credit card records.

    “They also said that that account could have possibly been paid with some infusion from the grandchildren.“

    According to Comer, the flow of money from a grandchild to a grandfather would be unusual, if true.

    “Now, I don’t know about you. But I don’t know anyone in the world whose grandchildren have ever deposited money into a savings account for their elderly grandfather,” said Comer. “But now, maybe I’m wrong. But that’s something we’re certainly looking into.”

    Comer wouldn’t go into who the witness was, however another Congressional insider told the outlet that it came from a longtime Hunter Biden business associate. The same source said they expected the transcript of the interview to be released later this week or early next week.

    In recent weeks the Committe has made progress interviewing a laundry list of Biden associates:

    Comer’s committee has completed several closed-door interviews with Hunter Biden associates including energy executive Tony Bobulinski, Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, and Rosemont Seneca partners Devon Archer and Eric Schwerin. Bobulinski’s and Schwerin’s transcripts have not yet been released.

    Emails on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop indicated Schwerin had access to some information about Joe Biden’s finances when he was vice president, including a tax refund from Delaware that was being routed from father to son.

    Comer said his committee has begun to request access from banks and others to Joe Biden’s personal financial records and that lawmakers were prepared to obtain them by subpoena if necessary. -Just the News

    According to former Biden associate Tony Bobulinksy, “Joe Biden was the brand” Hunter and pals were selling.

    “We certainly have a lot of questions about he achieved how he (Joe Biden) accumulated so much wealth so quickly,” said Comer. “The public explanation behind that doesn’t add up with most people’s calculators. We’re certainly looking into some of these new accounts. We’ve requested some information, that you know is the first step in being able to successfully subpoena bank records. So stay tuned to that.”

    Read the rest of the report here…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 22:25

  • Are The Feds Buying Gun Data On Private Citizens Without A Warrant? 
    Are The Feds Buying Gun Data On Private Citizens Without A Warrant? 

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    The Biden Administration has shown time and time again how they weaponize federal law enforcement agencies against gun owners.

    A recent report by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security highlighted how several DHS component agencies, including the Secret Service, bought Americans’ phone location data without a court order.

    Several other agencies, including the IRS, FBI, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, also admitted to using data brokers to sidestep American’s Fourth Amendment rights.

    Under normal circumstances, a Judge would need to issue a warrant to collect this kind of data, but in this case, private companies act as a middleman between your data and the government by scraping anywhere that personal data is publicly available. Government lawyers have decided that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to Americans’ personal data — if the government buys it from data brokers.

    Using the same quasi-legal methods used to obtain phone location data, federal law enforcement agencies may have already targeted gun owners by purchasing email lists and data sets that contain location, name, and other personal information from data brokers.

    Several sites promote their extensive list of “Shooting Fanatics,” “Concealed carry licensed gun owners,” and even “New York City Gun Owners”! These lists are perfect targets for an administration focused on attacking the individual right to keep and bear arms.

    With these lists, the Biden Administration’s law enforcement agencies could purchase and misuse the personal information of millions of gun owners without a single warrant or court order.

    It is crucial to close the Section 702 FISA loophole that allows Federal agencies to collect this data on American gun ownership without a warrant. By allowing agencies to buy sensitive information rather than following the judicial process, it makes mockery of the constitutional promise of protection against unreasonable search and seizures. 

    That is why Gun Owners of America encourages all members of Congress to sign onto Rep. Davidson’s bills ending this warrantless surveillance. Over 30 House Representatives have already signed a letter urging leadership to close this loophole.

    Gun Owners of America endorses Representative Warren Davidson’s Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act and the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Surveillance Act. Congress must act to protect Americans’ Second and Fourth Amendment rights.

    *   *   *

    We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 22:05

  • Japan Enters Recession With Nikkei About To Hit All Time High
    Japan Enters Recession With Nikkei About To Hit All Time High

    It’s not like anyone actually believes it any more, but if anyone needed the most clear and concise proof that there is no, zero, zilch connection between the economy and stock market, look no further than Japan where the Nikkei has more than doubled from the covid lows and is about to breach its all time bubble highs set in in the last days of 1989… and moments ago Japan entered a recession. In fact, From its generational low set a decade ago, the Nikkei has almost quadrupled even as Japan’s economy has slumped into recession three times!

    So anyway, confirming that only central banks matter in a world where the economy clearly does not, moments ago Tokyo reported that Japan’s economy “unexpectedly” contracted for a second quarter at the end of 2023, slipping into recession and significantly clouding the Bank of Japan’s path toward ending its negative interest rate policy (as it was supposedly preparing to do, even if it really had no intention at all of hiking).

    Japan’s GDP shrank at an annualized pace of 0.4% in the final three months of last year, following a revised 3.3% contraction in the previous quarter, as both households and businesses cut spending. Economists had expected the economy to expand by 1.1%.

    According to Bloomberg, the data also confirmed that Japan’s economy slipped to fourth-largest in the world in dollar terms last year. Germany – which is also in recession but has at least learned how to manipulate its data and is pretending to not be in contraction at this moment – is now has the world’s third-largest economy.

    Hilariously, the striking miss – and slide into contraction – will “complicate” the BOJ’s case to conduct the first rate hike in Japan since 2007, a step most economists surveyed last month predicted the bank will take by April, but it clearly won’t be doing any time now. Pretending like it still has control, the BOJ’s policy board has recently ramped up discussions surrounding an exit from the subzero rate policy and sought to assure markets that a rate hike wouldn’t signal a sharp shift in policy.

    What is laughable is not that the BOJ won’t be hiking – it never planned on doing that anyway since tightening would immediately blow up its entire bond market – but that despite NIRP, endless QE and purchases of equity ETFs, Japan has still gone through three recessions in the past decade. Of course, recessions don’t matter for the market; what does are central banks, and since the BOJ has injected trillions over the same decade, well… that’s why stocks are where they are now.

    Thursday’s data underscored the case for keeping policy loose by reflecting Japan’s reliance on external demand. Net exports contributed 0.2% to growth. Exports jumped in December, led by automobiles to the US and chip manufacturing gear to China. Inbound tourism, classified as service exports, also saw continued growth, with the number of visitors setting a record for the month in December.

    At the same time, domestic consumption has been crushed, and the figures showed that domestic activity remains anemic, with inflation crimping spending as private consumption subtracted 0.2 percentage point, and as households contend with rising costs of living tightened their budgets.  Making things worse, household spending fell 2.5% in December versus a year earlier, a 10th straight month of declines, as wage gains lagged inflation.

    This is why the BOJ is completely trapped, as unless it does hike rates, and thus pushes the economy into an even deeper contraction and sparks a bond market crisis to boot, the yen continue to plummet and runaway inflation will turn into hyperinflation.

    In fact, the only thing Japan has going for it is that the population is too old and diapered to start a revolution at the cartoonish and incompetent government and central bank which will do nothing as hyperinflation slowly takes hold.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 21:45

  • Let The Illegals 'Serve'?
    Let The Illegals ‘Serve’?

    Authored by Casey Carlisle via RealClearMarkets.com,

    A couple of the podcasters I listen to have recently quoted Thomas Sowell, who says that there are no solutions—only tradeoffs.  Since catastrophic 2020, it’s clear that Sowell’s words have already been forgotten, and because this is an economics article, I’ll call out those—regardless of political affiliation—who’ve forgotten Sowell’s wise words. 

    With the immigration issue raging, some have suggested that illegal immigrants should be able to gain citizenship via ‘service’ in the military. 

    I’ll argue why that’s a good idea – and a bad one.

    Speaking of a solution (which doesn’t exist), I’d very much like to see an end to the U.S. regime’s pointless and proxy wars, but again, I’m discussing tradeoffs, not solutions. 

    Last year, I argued that low rates of military enlistment are actually a good thing, but again, hoping for the solution that is an imploding Department of Defense requires dreaming, not tradeoffs. 

    It is those low rates of military enlistment that have spurred some to advocate filling the gap with illegal immigrants. 

    And why not? 

    The regime won’t simply stop waging war due to a lack of interest from those it parasitizes.

    “But, but, but,” conservatives seem to groan, “dying in pointless wars is an honor reserved for my children, not illegals.” 

    So very odd.  And depressing. 

    We happily pay others to do the “dirty” jobs we’d rather not do, so why do the right of center yearn to work such a lousy job? 

    Also, each illegal ‘serving’ in the military frees one citizen to help defend the border, about which, in my opinion, conservatives are justifiably enraged.  I’ve also seen Olympus Has Fallen, but are conservatives aware that it’s not a documentary?  Even if illegals taking over the military were an actual concern, the tradeoff would be to make the military weaker and, therefore, less of a threat to its own citizens.  Afterall, the current president keeps reminding us that one needs an F-16, not an M-16, to fight the regime, so a smaller military might prevent a sitting president from saying something so ludicrous, insulting, and obnoxious. 

    If the regime doesn’t meet its enlistment goals, will it simply call it quits and bring the troops home? 

    The question answers itself, and I’d think those on the right would prefer illegals in the military over legal conscription.

    For those on the political left who’ve been calling for ‘service’ as a path to citizenship, why would illegals put their lives on the line for citizenship when they’re already treated better than citizens? 

    Yes, leftists have also forgotten tradeoffs, and maybe they never learned of them in the first place.  One works a job for a paycheck; exertion, one hopes, is commensurate with compensation. 

    However, if one were offered a salary for no slog—ask any parasite—the job will go unworked. 

    That is precisely what liberals seem to be suggesting. 

    “Citizenship?” illegals seem to ask, “we’re doing just fine being illegal.” 

    This proposal, emanating almost entirely from those who are left of center, not only ignores tradeoffs but incentives as well.  Where’s the incentive for citizenship when illegal immigrants can get a driver’s license and, in some cities, are about to be granted suffrage?  It also seems that those on the left aren’t at all curious as to why rates of military enlistment have plummeted, despite the regime’s problem being seen as a possibility back in 2020. 

    This proposal is a tradeoff that trades something for nothing.

    The lack of regard for tradeoffs seems to contribute to the deteriorating political climate.  When half of the country wants to force their solutions on the other half, is it any wonder why politics is so ugly? 

    If there’s only one solution, most will be unhappy, but that’s exactly what politics does and is why I loathe it. 

    Politics eviscerates tradeoffs and, therefore, voluntary exchange.  No, a new president with a different set of solutions won’t save us; he’ll merely shift the misery to another tribe, which is why if there were fewer and fewer aspects of our lives that the regime controls, tradeoffs would help relegate policy solutions to where they belong—the realm of fiction.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 21:25

  • Russia's Man In Washington? Putin Says He Prefers Biden Over Trump
    Russia’s Man In Washington? Putin Says He Prefers Biden Over Trump

    Headed into election season, it is perhaps only natural and entirely to be expected that the mainstream media will hyperventilate over every side remark that Vladimir Putin makes on what’s shaping up to be a Trump vs. Biden match in November. Russian ‘interference’ is no doubt always looming darkly on the horizon, we are told.

    The Russian leader’s Wednesday response to a question asked in a state media interview has triggered an avalanche of headlines Wednesday night. When asked to choose his preference for the next US president, Putin answered Joe Biden, and explained this is due to the 81-year old Democratic incumbent being a “more experienced, predictable, an old-school politician.” Is this Putin doing some hilarious trolling after years of the Russian interference narrative pushed by the Dems?…

    The esteemed, weighty, and acclaimed Financial Times is among the many outlets that seem confused: “Vladimir Putin has said Joe Biden would be a better US president for Russia than Donald Trump and dismissed concerns over his counterpart’s age and acuity for the role,” FT writes.

    “Putin’s comments late on Wednesday marked his first foray into this year’s presidential election as tensions between Democrats and Republicans rise over the White House’s efforts to send more military aid to Ukraine,” the publication continues. Putin also dismissed any concern over Biden’s age and mental acumen, but acknowledged the political rhetoric in the US is “getting more and more vicious” on this.

    Putin went on in the interview to state that Russia is ready and willing to “work with any US leader who wins the trust of the American people.”

    Putin in his response appeared to take opportunity to possibly make a passing joke about President Biden’s ability to fulfill the office…

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    Putin noted that back when he met Biden in Switzerland in 2021, it was the case that even at that time people “talked about him being incapacitated, but I saw nothing of the kind.”

    He added: “Yes, he was peeking at his papers, to be honest, I was peeking at mine, not a big deal.”

    We have to ask: does this make Biden “Putin’s man in Washington”? After all, the world was just now told told straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth that Biden is the ‘better’ American president for Russian interests.

    And yet we won’t hold our breath for the CNN articles on “why Putin would want Biden to win in 2024”… 

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    But assuming Putin’s response voicing his preference for another Biden presidency wasn’t either trolling or playing some 4-dimensional chess, the emphasis on Biden being more “predictable” is an interesting one. After all, Trump and his supporters have often said that it’s Trump’s very unpredictability which makes world leaders and US rivals fear him. 

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    This fresh commentary from Putin also becomes interesting to think about in recalling President Barack Obama’s infamous hot mic moment with outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2021. Obama had personally assured Medvedev he will have “more flexibility” to deal with difficult US-Russia issues after the US presidential election.

    Maybe this what Putin had in mind in calling Biden and the Democrats more ‘predictable’…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 21:05

  • Cases Of Debilitating POTS Condition Rise After COVID-19, But New Research Points To Possible Treatment
    Cases Of Debilitating POTS Condition Rise After COVID-19, But New Research Points To Possible Treatment

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    For the estimated 1 to 3 million Americans living with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), standing up can trigger a racing heartbeat, lightheadedness, and fainting that’s relieved only by sitting or lying down.

    But a new clinical trial offers a glimmer of hope for those desperate for relief. Researchers may have uncovered a novel, nonpharmaceutical way to manage this debilitating syndrome on the rise nationwide.

    (SciePro/Shutterstock)

    Pandemic and Vaccines Contribute to Uptick in POTS

    POTS cases notably rose following the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine rollout, both of which are known to impact heart health. Some evidence suggests that 2 percent to 14 percent of COVID-19 survivors are later diagnosed with POTS.

    A December 2022 study in Nature Cardiovascular Research found links between COVID-19, mRNA vaccines, and POTS. It revealed COVID-19 patients are five times more likely to develop POTS down the road than those who got POTS after vaccination.

    “Our results identify a possible association between COVID-19 vaccination and incidence of POTS,” the authors wrote. “Notwithstanding the probable low incidence of POTS after COVID-19 vaccination, particularly when compared to SARS-Cov-2 post-infection odds.”

    A March 2023 review of studies also suggested a “significant percentage” of COVID-19 patients developed POTS within six to eight months of infection, though the exact mechanisms connecting the two remain unclear.

    Nerve Stimulation Benefits POTS Patients

    Led by Dr. Stavros Stavrakis of the University of Oklahoma (OU) College of Medicine, a new clinical trial published in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology explored whether stimulating the vagus nerve—a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system—could relieve POTS symptoms.

    The vagus nerve starts in the brain, passes through the heart and lungs, and ends in the intestines. This nerve controls functions such as digestion, breathing, and heart rate. Targeting it could address a major POTS symptom: rapid heartbeat upon standing.

    For the trial, 26 participants were randomly assigned to receive either electrical stimulation of the auricular branch of the vagus nerve via an ear clip device or a placebo treatment for one hour daily over two months. Using double-blind methods, neither researchers nor participants knew who received the actual stimulation.

    Those treated with vagus nerve stimulation had a significant 15-beat-per-minute reduction in rapid heartbeat after standing compared to the control group.

    The benefits also included a decrease in adrenaline surge and systemic inflammation, both of which are associated with the condition, Dr. Stavrakis told The Epoch Times.

    The treatment also decreased adrenaline surges and inflammation associated with POTS, according to Dr. Stavrakis. There was evidence it reduced autoantibodies linked to POTS, “at least for some patients,” he noted.

    “I would say these results are promising, and we need more studies, obviously, but they are exciting results and we have a mechanistic explanation why it worked, which makes it more valuable,” Dr. Stavrakis said.

    Wireless Device May Provide At-Home POTS Relief

    Currently, POTS is treated with drugs like midodrine, ivabradine, fludrocortisone, and modafinil. Modafinil is prescribed to treat excessive sleepiness caused by narcolepsy but is sometimes used to treat brain fog associated with POTS. The only nonpharmaceutical therapies for the condition are lifestyle changes such as exercising more and increased fluid and salt intake.

    Dr. Stavrakis, a 15-year veteran of POTS research, said he envisions a future where patients seamlessly integrate vagus nerve stimulation into their routine using wireless earbud-like devices. This would deliver treatment without compromising quality of life.

    Dr. Stavrakis added he was working on securing approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the device, but the process may exceed one year. The device is functional, and gathering more data will expedite its release, he noted.

    Vagus Nerve Stimulation Shows Potential Beyond POTS

    Dr. Stavrakis previously studied the use of vagus nerve stimulation to treat atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat). He found it reduced atrial fibrillation by 85 percent compared to untreated patients. His next steps are larger trials for both POTS and atrial fibrillation to better understand the treatment’s efficacy, ideal patients, and long-term benefits.

    Additionally, a review of clinical trials shows promise for vagus nerve stimulation in treating treatment-resistant depression. A stimulator implanted on the neck’s left vagus nerve is already approved for epilepsy. It sends mild electric pulses to calm irregular brain activity that causes seizures.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 20:45

  • Supreme Court Orders Special Counsel To Respond To Trump Immunity Appeal
    Supreme Court Orders Special Counsel To Respond To Trump Immunity Appeal

    US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered the Department of Justice to respond to former President Trump’s claim that he has presidential immunity in his ongoing Jan. 6 election case in Washington D.C.

    The move comes after the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn Judge Tanya Chutkan’s refusal to dismiss the case based on Trump’s immunity claim – and less than a week after the Supreme Court heard Trump’s appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, which ruled that he was disqualified from appearing on the state’s ballot.

    Roberts gave Special Counsel Jack Smith until Feb. 20 to respond, pointing to a broader urgency for the Court to address relatively untested legal issues that could have a significant impact on the 2024 presidential election.

    “[A] panel of the D.C. Circuit has, in an extraordinarily fast manner, issued a decision on President Trump’s claim of immunity and ordered the mandate returned to the district court to proceed with President Trump’s criminal trial in four business days, unless this Court intervenes (as it should),” reads Trump’s Feb. 12 filing, requesting that the appellate court’s decision be stayed.

    Jack Smith, meanwhile, has asked the Supreme Court to skip appellate proceedings and fast-track the case, claiming that “only” the Supreme Court could “definitively resolve” the immunity claims, The Epoch Times reports.

    President Trump is asking for the Supreme Court to halt the appellate decision because it incorrectly ruled that presidential immunity didn’t apply to Mr. Smith’s prosecution of him.

    His attorney, D. John Sauer, had argued in January that the Constitution required presidents first face impeachment and trial by Congress before they could be criminally prosecuted within Article III courts. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit unanimously rejected his arguments, stating that” ‘[c]oncerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government’ compel the rejection of his claim of immunity in this case.”

    The judges also ruled that “any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

    The issue of presidential immunity is a relatively untested area of law – however in 1982, the Supreme Court held in Nixon vs. Fitzgerald that the president has “absolute immunity” from civil liability which extends to the “outer perimeter” of his official duties.

    The appellate court, however, held that Trump exceeded these bounds.

    “Former President Trump’s claimed immunity would have us extend the framework for Presidential civil immunity to criminal cases and decide for the first time that a former President is categorically immune from federal criminal prosecution for any act conceivably within the outer perimeter of his executive responsibility,” reads the lower court’s opinion.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 20:25

  • US Treasury Official Destroys 'Crypto Funds Terrorists' Narrative
    US Treasury Official Destroys ‘Crypto Funds Terrorists’ Narrative

    Remember this panic-stricken tirade from Senator Liz Warren on the dangers of unregulated, decentralized crypto funding terrorists…

    “…we need new laws to crack down on crypto’s use in enabling terrorist groups, rogue nations, drug lords, ransomware gangs, and fraudsters to launder billions in stolen funds, evade sanctions, fund illegal weapons programs, and profit from devastating cyberattacks,

    …oh, and centralized financial system entity CEO Jamie Dimon does not like the decentralized asset…

    “If I were the government I’d close it down,” he exclaimed in a congressional hearing.

    “The actual use cases are sex trafficking, tax avoidance, money laundering, terrorism financing. It’s not just people buying and selling bitcoin,” he told CNBC’s Joe Kernen later.

    …oh, and SEC Chair Gary Gensler covering his slimy ass after being forced by public interest – and the law – to ‘allow’ spot bitcoin ETFs…

    Bitcoin is “a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware, money laundering, sanction evasion, and terrorist financing.” 

    Well, surprise, surprise, they are all full of shit.

    As many of you may remember, we showed why this was a false narrative in words and pictures for those with learning disabilities in Washington:

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    But, just in case you didn’t believe us, today, no lesser member of the great and good than U.S. Department of Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) Brian Nelson told the truth about the de minimus relative scale of crypto-financed terror during a House Financial Services Committee hearing. (full transcript here)

    Specifically, Nelson testified on Wednesday that terrorist group Hamas has received very little support in digital assets – countering earlier reports that it got tens of millions in crypto.

    As a reminder, CoinDesk reports that just after Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel last year, crypto was quickly blamed for helping fund such brutal killing.

    While the Wall Street Journal in October had tied tens of millions of dollars in crypto payments to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others, citing a blog post by analytics firm Elliptic that was later edited, the account represented a misunderstanding of what assets actually fell into the hands of terrorists.

    The Journal had largely revised the initial reporting after blockchain analytical firms Elliptic and Chainalysis offered data to refute it.

    “…we do not expect the number is very high particularly…” Nelson replied to Congressman Tom Emmer (MN-06)’s question on just how much crypto actually got into the hands of Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad?

    “To be clear, Hamas is using crypto in relatively small amounts compared to what’s been widely reported,” Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) prompted Nelson at the Wednesday hearing.

    “That’s our assessment,” Nelson answered, additionally clarifying that those groups have their eyes on other methods of support, adding that:

    “… we also assess that terrorists frankly prefer to use traditional products and services.”

    But, ironically, having admitted all that fearmongering about terrorists using crypto to finance their efforts to blow up the world was false (or a giant exaggeration at best), Nelson then proceeded to ask for more funding to watch out for terrorist funding via crypto, and had said in his earlier, prepared remarks that the government is “focused on disrupting these groups’ ability to leverage digital assets.”

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    We won’t be holding our breath for Lizzy’s apology…

    But, from this day forth, whenever this bullshit narrative is unfurled by those with ulterior motives (control, power, career), please refer them to Brian Nelson.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 19:45

  • Over 100 Chinese Websites Pose As Local News Outlets In 30 Countries: Report
    Over 100 Chinese Websites Pose As Local News Outlets In 30 Countries: Report

    Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    At least 123 Chinese websites are disguised as local news outlets in 30 countries to disseminate pro-Beijing disinformation, according to a recent report from Citizen Lab, a digital watchdog at Canada’s University of Toronto.

    “The campaign is an example of a sprawling influence operation serving both financial and political interests, and in alignment with Beijing’s political agenda,” Alberto Fittarelli, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, wrote in his Feb. 7 report.

    The logo of CGTN Europe is pictured on a sign outside an office block that houses the offices of China Global Television Network in Chiswick Park, west London, on Feb. 4, 2021. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

    He called the campaign “Paperwall,” which he defined as “a large, and fast growing, network of anonymous websites posing as local news outlets.” The United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the UK, France, Brazil, Turkey, and Italy were among the 30 countries allegedly targeted by the campaign.

    To disguise themselves as legitimate local news outlets, Paperwall websites often used local references as part of their names, such as Eiffel Post and Provence Daily for two French-language websites. Other website names included British FT targeting the UK, Sendai Shimbum and Fujiyama Times for Japan, Daegu Journal and Busan Online for South Korea, and Roma Journal and Napoli Money for Italy.

    The lone website targeting the U.S. audience was UpdateNews.Info, a domain name registered in July 2019 and the first Paperwall website to be registered, according to the report.

    Citizen Lab researchers said the campaign’s effect has been “negligible so far,” given the “minimal traffic” toward the websites and the lack of social media amplification or visible mainstream media coverage.

    However, the report warned that the campaign shouldn’t be considered harmless—it can “eventually pay enormous dividends once one of those fragments is eventually picked up and legitimized by mainstream press or political figures.”

    Content

    Paperwall websites also “regularly republish content, verbatim, from legitimate online sources in the target country” to make their sites appear legitimate, according to the report. For example, the report includes a screengrab of the Eiffel Post website republishing an article from the French daily newspaper Le Parisien.

    These websites also featured verbatim reposts of content from China’s state-run media, such as China Global Television Network, the global arm of state broadcaster China Central Television, according to the report.

    A significant portion of these websites’ content originated from Times Newswire, according to Mr. Fittarelli.

    “We found evidence that Times Newswire regularly seeds pro-Beijing political content, including ad hominem attacks, by concealing it within large amounts of seemingly benign commercial content,” the report reads.

    Times Newswire and another newswire service called World Newswire were found to be at the center of a China-linked influence operation called “HaiEnergy,” reported in 2023 by cybersecurity firm Mandiant. Using newswire services and paid-for influences, HaiEnergy distributed its content to subdomains of legitimate U.S.-based news outlets as “press releases,” effectively promoting pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda via U.S. media outlets.

    “Similarly to what was stated by Mandiant for the HaiEnergy campaign, we cannot currently attribute Times Newswire to the same operators as PAPERWALL,” the report states.

    However, according to the report, Citizen Lab looked into the hosting IP addresses of Times Newswire and Paperwall domains, and they led back to Tencent, a Chinese tech company based in China’s southern city of Shenzhen.

    The report identified Hong Kong virologist Yan Limeng as an example of a victim who has faced targeted attacks originating from Paperwall websites.

    “The attacks on her by PAPERWALL were unsubstantiated, aimed at her personal and professional reputation, and completely anonymous,” the report states.

    Paperwall websites also promoted conspiracy theories, such as allegations that the United States conducted biological experiments on locals in Southeast Asian countries, according to the report.

    PR Firm

    The campaign was attributed to Shenzhen Haimaiyunxiang Media Co. Ltd., also known as Haimai, a public relations and marketing firm based in Shenzhen, China, according to the report. This attribution was based on the report’s analysis of digital infrastructure links between the company and Paperwall sites.

    “This is therefore an incriminating finding, proving that both PAPERWALL domains had been set up by the same operators as the Haimai assets,” the report states.

    Haimai advertises on its website the sale of promotional placement services in multiple countries and languages, according to the report.

    “The role and prominence of private firms in creating and managing influence operations is hardly news,” the report states, adding that “China—previously exposed for having resorted to this proxy category in large influence operations, including the cited HaiEnergy—is now increasingly benefiting from this operating model, which maintains a thin veil of plausible deniability, while ensuring a broad dissemination of the political messaging.

    “It is safe to assume that PAPERWALL will not be the last example of a partnership between private sector and government in the context of Chinese influence operations.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 19:25

  • 1 Dead, 22 Injured After Shots Fired At Chiefs Super Bowl Parade
    1 Dead, 22 Injured After Shots Fired At Chiefs Super Bowl Parade

    Update (1920ET): 

    Kansas City Fire Department Chief Ross Grundyson states the number of people with gunshot wounds has risen to 22. He said one person had died, and eight others had life-threatening injuries.

    Grundyson said his team is still working on a “total number of victims.” 

    The Kansas City Chiefs organization released a statement about the shooting: 

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    Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas told reporters:

    “Today was tragic for everyone who was part of it,” Lucas said. “I had the chance to talk to my wife just a moment ago, who said ‘we became part of a statistic of too many Americans — those who have experienced or been part of or connected to a mass shooting.’ That is something that I hope we all recognize is highly problematic for all of us.”

    Grundyson noted: “Right now, we do not have a motive, but we are asking those who may potentially have any kind of information, a witness, or a video to contact police.” 

    Earlier, police said two gunmen were arrested.

    *    *    * 

    Update (1630ET):

    The Kansas City Fire Department announced that one individual has died and nine others have been injured in a shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, during the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade. 

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    Officials told ABC News that three victims are in critical condition, five are in serious condition, and one has non-life-threatening injuries. 

    The shooting took place near Union Station as Chiefs fans were leaving the parade. 

    “About 1 million paradegoers and 600 law enforcement officials were expected at Wednesday’s celebration,” ABC noted. 

    An earlier report stated police detained two gunmen. 

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    *    *    * 

    Chaos erupted at the Kansas City Chiefs Superbowl parade on the streets of Kansas City, Missouri, on Wednesday afternoon after reports of a shooting. 

    “Shots have been fired around Union Station. Please leave the area,” Kansas City Police posted to X.

    “We need people to exit the area as quickly and safely as possible and avoid the parking garage in order to facilitate treatment of shooting victims,” police said, adding, “Many of you have footage of many officers securing union station, they are working to provide for the safety of everyone inside union station and expedite care of those injured.”

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    Daily Mail states, “Two gunmen have been detained after shots rang out at the Kansas City Chiefs Superbowl parade, sending thousands fleeing as the celebration descended into chaos.” 

    Other reports state that “several people were struck by gunfire.” 

    Based on information from Breaking911 on X, this is the current situation: 

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    Videos posted on X show fans scrambling for safety. 

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    *Developing… 

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 19:17

  • Pakistan's Khan Decries "Daylight Robbery" As Rivals Form Coalition Govt, Nominate Shehbaz Sharif
    Pakistan’s Khan Decries “Daylight Robbery” As Rivals Form Coalition Govt, Nominate Shehbaz Sharif

    Pakistan’s army-backed Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have announced an agreement to form a coalition government, despite the currently jailed ex-PM Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PIT) emerging as clearly the single most popular ‘winner’ from the Feb.8 elections. No party singularly won an outright majority of seats in parliament, however.

    Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s PPP confirmed that it would help Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League elect a prime minister. Meetings to form an alliance began Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning it was widely being reported that former PM Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of Nawaz, has been nominated.

    AFP: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (C) along with his younger brother and former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif (R) and his daughter Maryam Nawaz (L) attend a gathering with supporters in Lahore.

    Crucially, these are the very two parties who were in the coalition that ousted then PM Imran Khan from power in 2022, after which he was slapped with literally over 100 charges of corruption. Khan’s supporters have said we are witnessing a process whereby the military and its political allies are ‘stealing’ an election, after Khan’s PIT was already barred from the election, with its candidates forced to run as independents.

    The election results saw independents backed by Khan’s PIT take 93 out of 266 directly-elected seats. The PML-N won 75 seats with the PPP taking 54 seats.

    “The parties present here are almost two-thirds of the house that has been elected,” PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif told reporters in the press conference which announced the new coalition. 

    Interestingly, Sharif gave a nod to Khan and his significant base of supporters, saying the coalition will be willing to talk to him. “Forget and forgive; forgive and forget – come, let’s join hands for the betterment of the country,” he said. “Sacrifice self-interests set the issue of egos aside.”

    However, Khan from prison has blasted “stolen votes” and condemned the “misadventure” of his enemies forming a coalition against him once again.

    “Such daylight robbery will not only be a disrespect to the citizens but will also push the country’s economy further into a downward spiral,” the former Pakistan leader said on social media.

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    Pakistani law allows up to 21 days after an election for the new parliament to convene, upon which time a new prime minister is elected and sworn in.

    Sharif was viewed going into the election as the clear front-runner. He’s seen as the “military’s man” in Islamabad, while Khan’s legacy has sought to be erased by those same elite powers.

    As we detailed previously, the hotly contested election has been marred by political violence and acts of terrorism of the past several days, which has even included bombings at polling stations and attacks on political offices. 48 hours of violence going into Thursday’s voting saw over 35 people killed and scores wounded.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 19:05

  • Medicine Now Diagnoses The Non-White 'Oppressed' With An Oppressive Case Of 'Weathering'
    Medicine Now Diagnoses The Non-White ‘Oppressed’ With An Oppressive Case Of ‘Weathering’

    Authored by John Murawski via RealClear Wire,

    In 1986, an upstart public health researcher named Arline Geronimus challenged the conventional wisdom that condemned the alarming rise of inner-city teen pregnancies. While activist minister Jesse Jackson and health care leaders were decrying the crisis of “babies having babies” as a ghetto pathology, Geronimus contended that teenage pregnancy was a rational response to urban poverty where low-income black people have fewer healthy years before the onset of heart problems, diabetes, and other chronic conditions.

    Although Geronimus’ claims gained little traction at the time, the concept she pioneered – “weathering” – eventually became a foundation for the social justice ideology that is now upending medicine and social policy. She has stated in interviews and in her writings that the term “weathering” was intended to evoke the idea of erosion and resilience.

    A white professor at the University of Michigan whom The New York Times hailed last year as an “icon,” Geronimus has combined race theory with data and statistics to argue that the chronic stress of living in an oppressive, white-majority society causes damage at the cellular level and leads to obesity and other health conditions, resulting in shorter life expectancies for African Americans. In more than 130 published studies, she has expanded the weathering hypothesis from an explanation of poverty harming one’s health into a dystopian sociological worldview that identifies middle-class assimilation and professional striving within the “American Creed” of hard work as the silent killers of people of color.

    “Living life according to the dominant social norms of personal responsibility and virtue is not universally health promoting,” Geronimus wrote in a Harvard Public Health essay last year. “On the contrary: if you’re Black, working hard and playing by the rules can be part of what kills you.”

    The subject of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and thousands of citations, the weathering hypothesis is now widely taught in public health schools and accepted as perhaps the most plausible scientific explanation of how American society grinds down black and brown bodies. And the weathering paradox – that “relatively young people can be biologically old” – is now influencing policy decisions at all levels of governance.

    Geronimus’ hypothesis was the foundation of many of the policy decisions of the White House COVID-19 health equity task force. In New Hampshire, the governor’s COVID-19 Equity Response Team issued a report and recommendations in 2020, citing weathering (and “racial battle fatigue”) as documented and established realities of American life. Weathering was recently extended beyond American people of color and accepted as evidence in federal courts to win early release of non-white detainees, some as young as their 30s, who were deemed to be prematurely aged and therefore at higher risk for COVID complications.

    Some critics are beginning to push back against what they see as the heavy-handed, COVID-era politicization of healthcare. Ian Kingsbury, research director at Do No Harm, a nonprofit that seeks to keep identity politics out of medicine, said the uncritical acceptance of the weathering hypothesis as factual science has created an aura of invincibility.

    “Unfortunately, judges and other policymakers look to academic journals to be authoritative and trustworthy voices on what is evidence and what is science,” said Kingsbury. “And so you sneak this stuff in there and, unfortunately, as far as a lot of people are concerned, you’ve created knowledge.”

    More broadly, Boston University public health dean Sandro Galea warned in a new book, “Within Reason: A Liberal Public Health for an Illiberal Time,” that his profession has veered into overcorrection and revolutionary excess. Galea doesn’t name names in his book, but he rebukes public health advocates for favoring political narratives over empirical data, denying the reality of social progress, and fixating on a utopian quest “to create a world free of risk.”

    Geronimus did not respond to emails requesting an interview for this article.

    The rise and reach of Geronimus’ weathering hypothesis – a once obscure and idiosyncratic idea that is becoming conventional wisdom in medicine – provides a window into how activist rhetoric and social justice ideology pioneered by feminist, queer, and critical race theorists are recasting healthcare as a Machiavellian power struggle between the privileged and the oppressed.

    The public health field has long focused on “social determinants of health,” such as one’s environment and socioeconomic status, as contributors to health outcomes. The weathering hypothesis takes political empowerment to the next level, by medicalizing social relations and politicizing medicine. Weathering prefigured the recent flood of medical research that centers race in public policy and supplies the rationale for such moves as 265 public authorities declaring racism as a public health crisis; health officials jettisoning colorblindness and prioritizing people of color for COVID vaccinations and heart treatment; and medical schools training future doctors in social justice activism.

    In her 2023 book, “Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society,” Geronimus sweeps across time and space, omnisciently diagnosing celebrities and public figures with weathering. She claims it explains why Martin Luther King Jr. had the damaged heart of a 60-year-old when he was assassinated at age 39 and why Fannie Lou Hamer died of breast cancer and complications of hypertension at age 59. She asserts that the trauma of being black in America is one reason why tennis greats Serena Williams had life-threatening blood clots at age 36, and why Arthur Ashe had a heart attack at age 36.

    “Success comes at a spectacularly high health cost for those who have to fight the hardest to achieve it in the context of a society that doesn’t value them,” Geronimus stated in her book. “Structural violence is insidious, pervasive, and fateful. It is the fundamental cause of weathering, and it is entirely ignored in the age-washing narrative.”

    It is amply documented that African Americans of all social classes have worse health outcomes, earlier onset of chronic diseases, and average life expectancies reported as five to six years less than whites. Weathering science, as Geronimus calls it, measures various biomarkers of what is presumed to be psychosocial stress – such as cortisol levels, telomere lengths, cytokine storms, and allostatic loads – to make the case that on average black adults are as much as 10 years older biologically than white people of a comparable chronological age.

    But the data is complicated, requires interpretation, and doesn’t always add up. For example, in a 2021 study, a gerontology scholar at the University of Southern California assessed 13 measures of epigenetic aging. It found that some of the measures indicate accelerated aging among African Americans, while others indicate slower aging for African Americans. Epigenetics refers to the way genes function or malfunction under environmental stress and cultural conditions; most of these “epigenetic clocks” associate accelerated aging with obesity and lifetime smoking. This research, noting “the lack of expected effects of race and ethnicity,” suggests that there is no gold standard for measuring premature aging, and that weathering research is highly sensitive to the variables and measures that researchers select.

    Nevertheless, Geronimus compares the African American experience of living and working among white people to the fight-or-flight adrenaline rush of a prehistoric human fleeing a cheetah – except, she says, that a 21st-century black person in a majority white society is trapped in that high-stress mode all day, every day, without reprieve, resulting in a flood of stress hormones that dysregulate the body.

    Fluent in the language of social justice activism, Geronimus describes American society as a relentless onslaught of “microaggressions,” “othering,” “existential insults,” “daily indignities,” “voice erasure,” “identity threat” and other forms of “cultural oppression” that lead to early death. In response to those ever-present dangers in “the privileged space known as whiteness,” black people are constantly forced to adopt “high effort coping strategies” that Geronimus describes as “identity management” and “identity safety.” In a 2015 study titled “Black Lives Matter,” Geronimus and her co-authors estimated that racism and weathering caused 2.7 million “excess black deaths” in the United States between 1970 and 2004, a death toll of genocidal proportions.

    This one-dimensional way of analyzing social relations has the effect of privileging the stress of those presumed to be oppressed, said Stanley Goldfarb, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school and founder and chairman of the Do No Harm nonprofit.

    “The problem with the theory is that these hormones and these stress responses don’t know what skin color you have,” Goldfarb said. “The point is: What’s unique about their stress? The point isn’t that stress is bad. The point is you decided that your stress is unique and different from everybody else’s stress.”

    Still, weathering is an attractive explanation to researchers because the link between psychosocial stress and physical wear and tear is consistent with lower life expectancy for African Americans and lower-income people.

    Moreover, the hypothesis is “very intuitive” to economists because of its similarity to modeling health depreciation, and to social scientists who seek explanations of differential outcomes, said economist Robert Kaestner, a University of Chicago public policy professor who co-authored a weathering study with Geronimus in 2009.

    However, weathering studies do not actually measure stress or racism, but only correlate biological metrics back to the weathering hypothesis. The scientific conundrum is that the same biological evidence that supports weathering could also be “consistent with a lot of other things,” Kaestner said in a phone interview. “It’s always a measurement problem.”

    “Weathering is a hypothesis, still in search of definitive evidence,” Kaestner said. “I’ve never seen one [study] – including my own – where it’s a definitive study that this really is a smoking gun that racism or prolonged psychosocial stress causes adverse health outcomes.”

    Stress and racism are assumed as the causes of overeating, smoking and other unhealthy habits, in large part because the public health field and medical research steer clear of explanations that are genetic, biological, behavioral or cultural – which would violate the rule that prohibits blaming the victim.

    “That the chronic cascade of stress hormones in the bloodstream may also physiologically propel us toward eating ‘comfort’ foods high in fats and sugars, or to turn to alcohol or other drugs for relief, only makes this problem all the worse,” Geronimus writes in her book.

    This leaves only one permissible option: structural oppression. A reader of these studies will be struck by the absence of alternative explanations.

    “They’re writing a story about weathering. I’m going to leave it at that,” Kaestner said. “It’s a widely held view that this is in fact what’s happening. There’s tons of these correlation studies that really don’t get anywhere near documenting a causal relationship, but if you write enough of them, it becomes conventional wisdom in the public health community.”

    Still, the hypothesis can exert hypnotic powers on acolytes. Last year, during a burst of media fascination in Geronimus’s book, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that Geronimus “presents a staggering accumulation of evidence to show how daily discrimination grinds people down and all too often leads to debilitating illness and early death.”

    Less than three weeks later, the Guardian ran another article about weathering, in which Geronimus convinced a black reporter that there’s no escape from the weathering trap without restructuring modern societies.

    “By the end of our conversation I feel trapped – hyperaware of all the ways my social identity as a member of a black minority exposes me to stressors,” the Guardian writer ruminated. “Am I trapped?”

    “I think there are things you can do that will make a difference, but you are stuck being weathered,” Geronimus responded. “And it really will take other kinds of structural changes for weathering not to happen.”

    Geronimus asserts that the totalizing nature of white society renders conventional prescriptions for good health – diet and exercise – as naive and possibly dangerous.

    “Exercise can be beneficial, but a Black person considering taking a run will be unlikely to forget that Ahmaud Arbery was shot to death while jogging because he was Black,” she writes in reference to a 2020 fatal policing incident in Georgia. “And how can a Black person relax into restorative sleep knowing Breonna Taylor was shot to death by police [in Louisville, Kentucky in 2020] as she slept in her own apartment?”

    Geronimus offers one possibility of a safe space for black people in a 2020 study, co-authored by one of her former students. The paper claims that black students who enroll or attend a historically black college or university are shielded from racism and therefore 35% less likely to develop obesity, diabetes or related cardiovascular symptoms than black kids who attend a “predominantly white institution.”

    The conclusions are extrapolated from a sample of 727 black participants in a national health survey. The health benefits, she reported, are even more pronounced for black people who grow up in racially segregated neighborhoods – a finding that flies in the face of decades of research that links racial segregation to racial disparities across a wide swath of measures, from education to net worth.

    The influence of the weathering hypothesis – especially the claim that racism has profound effects on biology and epigenetics – can even be seen in research that ostensibly challenges Geronimus’ hypothesis.

    In 2021, Harvard University sociologist Ellis Monk published a study concluding that black-on-black in-group prejudice – known as “colorism” – can have a pernicious effect on the physical health of African Americans for common conditions and ailments, such as hypertension, diabetes, stroke, heart trouble, vision loss, hearing loss, cancer and kidney problems.

    One could interpret colorism as undermining the racial power theories of the weathering hypothesis, but Monk interprets colorism as a form of white supremacy.

    “One way that white supremacy proceeds, or racial domination proceeds, is by recruiting members of the stigmatized category as agents in the system,” Monk explained in a 2018 colloquium at Harvard, an interpretation repeated in his research. “That’s the way the system works.”

    Geronimus’ more recent research concludes that people of color are not the only victims of weathering. She has expanded the hypothesis to include working-class Appalachian whites who experience poverty and social stigma, and to Ashkenazi Jews who were persecuted in Europe or stigmatized by antisemitism in this country. She cites her father as an example, describing how he donned his psychological armor every day to go to work among gentiles at his bench job in a bacteriology laboratory, and died in his 60s of an inflammatory disease that affected multiple organs, including the lungs and heart.

    The continued expansion of the weathering hypothesis is gaining traction. Geronimus writes that in 2020 she was asked by immigration attorney Kari Hong to submit expert testimony on weathering in support of early release petitions for immigrant asylum seekers who were being held in detention. Hong argued to federal judges that these foreign-born detainees were “biologically older than their chronological age” and should be released “just as senior citizen detainees.”

    According to the New York Times, Hong won early release for “all seven detainees,” based on Geronimus’ weathering testimony. Those cases are sealed under federal court rules, and Hong did not respond to emails, but according to limited public information, most were Hispanic or African. And some were in their 30s and had no symptoms or diagnosis. Although weathering is still most commonly used in connection with African Americans, its expansion to other groups is both true to Geronimus’ original concept and a reflection of her growing influence.

    A hypothesis first developed to correct what she saw as moral judgment and victim-blaming of the black underclass developed into an expansive theory of the United States as a soul-crushing, body-destroying totalitarian hellscape she has ominously called “the surround.”

    In a 2015 paper she and her co-authors described the “the surround” as a clandestine program of cultural brainwashing that operates by means of “phantasms” that implant a virtual social reality into the brains of unsuspecting victims through the imposition of culture and power.

    The paper, does, however, suggest that health equity for the oppressed is attainable through a total immersion in social activism: “Counter narratives, oppositional gaze development (or critical consciousness raising), and protest.”

    Ultimately, the subject of weathering is linked to a whole range of progressive moral concerns – from the gender binary to climate change. And the solutions that Geronimus proposes in her book include a return to “collectivism” – in the form of extended, multigenerational, cross-household, women-centered kinship networks.

    “Contrary to popular opinion and accepted wisdom,” she writes, “healthy aging is a measure not of how well we take care of ourselves but rather of how well society treats and takes care of us.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 18:45

  • Berkshire Cuts Stake In Apple And Paramount, Dumps DR Horton, Adds To Energy Giants Chevron And OXY
    Berkshire Cuts Stake In Apple And Paramount, Dumps DR Horton, Adds To Energy Giants Chevron And OXY

    In what was a rather uneventful quarter for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the massive hedge fund made only a few modest changes to its portfolio in Q4 2023, which as of Dec 31, 2023 was valued as $347.4 billion (at least the long book, short positions don’t have to be disclosed).

    Among the notable changes, Berkshire sold out of its entire stake in homebuilder DR Horton (valued at $641MM in Q3), Markel ($234MM), StoneCo ($114MM) and Globe Life ($90MM).

    The fund also reduced its holdings in its top position Apple, by 10 million shares, cutting the total stake from 915.6MM to 905.6MM shares, although since the value of the underlying shares actually rose from $157 billion to $174 billion, the reduction was probably due to size limitations.

    Berkshire also trimmed its holdings of Paramount Global by 30 million shares, or 32.4%, from 93.7 million to 63.3 million shares (which sent the stock down 6% after hours), and slashed its stake in HP Inc by 77.7% (or 80 million shares), from 102.5 million to 22.9 million shares.

    Finally, while Berkshire did not reveal any new positions, it added to its holdings in energy giants Chevron – an increase of 14.4% to 126 million shares – and Occidental, which rose by 8.7% to 243.7 million shares. The fund also added 30.6 million shares to its existing small stake in Sirius XM, bringing it to a total of 40.2 million shares, or $220 million as of Dec 31.

    The full Q4 breakdown is shown below.

    Source: SEC 13F.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 18:25

  • The Establishment Still Doesn't Get Trump
    The Establishment Still Doesn’t Get Trump

    Authored by Sean Trende via RealClear Wire,

    A few weeks ago, a “Morning Joe” panel concluded that if Donald Trump were to become the Republican nominee (spoiler alert: he will), Republicans will lose in the fall. This is by no means a unique sentiment – former House Speaker Paul Ryan expressing this idea here, journalist Bernard Goldberg wondering if Trump is trying to lose here, and so forth.

    As I read these analyses, I wonder if I’ve somehow been transported back to 2016, when such takes were de rigueur. Here in 2024, we know that Donald Trump won in 2016 and came close to winning in 2020. He carried Republican senators across the finish line in both years, and the GOP gained House seats in 2020, much to the surprise of most election analysts. And, at a comparable time in the campaign cycle when he trailed Hillary Clinton by 4.5 points in the RCP Average and Joe Biden by 5.6 points, Trump actually leads Biden by 1.9 points in national polling.

    My goal here isn’t to rehash the arguments over whether Trump can win – I think that’s plain enough. Nor is it to make a case Trump should win; anyone who has followed me on Twitter over the past decade knows my opinion on that. Rather, it’s to talk about the continued blindness of the old power structure of the GOP regarding Trump’s allure.

    The bottom line is that Trump’s appeal isn’t geared toward white college educated voters, which leaves us unable to see its foundations. For decades, as Michael Barone has pointed out, the GOP was defined in large part as the party that “the system” benefited, while the Democrats were a collection of outsiders. That began to shift in 1992, when Bill Clinton began a full-frontal assault on Republican hegemony among the “winners.” Over time, the appeal of Democratic nominees increasingly tilted toward that message, and away from the older “outcasts” approach.

    So for decades, college-educated whites have been in a situation where both parties were largely focusing their messages on them. Yes, Democrats had more of a populist approach, and yes, Republicans would always have candidates with a bit of a patrician air, but overall the focus was on winning the suburbs.

    It is a bit jarring, then, to have a Republican nominee like Trump suddenly tailor his appeal toward people who think the system doesn’t benefit them. It’s an interesting strategic shift to disengage in large part from the fight over college-educated whites. It also has its pluses and minuses. One of the major pluses, and this is overlooked by college-educated Republicans who believe that the party’s message should still be geared toward them, is that Trump succeeded where the old GOP failed: by winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and then very nearly winning them a second time in 2020. Iowa and Ohio were where GOP dreams once went to die; now they are solidly red states.

    This gets to the final point that I think the old GOP establishment hasn’t fully digested: The revolt of the party’s former base isn’t without a rational basis. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the excuse for not fully enacting a conservative agenda was that Republicans never controlled the House. Fair enough. Then, in 2000, the GOP won the “trifecta” for the first time since the 1950s. That ended after a few months when a Republican senator from Vermont – whom the GOP had supported in his 2000 reelection bid – switched parties. Republicans won the trifecta again in 2002, and expanded those majorities in 2004.

    Yet at the end of the Bush years, what did Republicans have to show for it? Expiring tax cuts, the GOP’s reputation on foreign policy in tatters, No Child Left Behind, TARP, and an expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs. This wasn’t really what conservatives had been promised.

    There was also the revolt against comprehensive immigration reform, which was repeated in 2013. The old GOP’s response? To go all-in for Jeb Bush, whose main bona fides were his commitment to immigration reform and ability to modulate his Spanish accent depending on the audience.

    I personally favor immigration reform and think TARP is one reason I light my house with electricity and not candles today. But the point of politics is that you must appeal to a broader polity which may not always desire the “best” policies. It was beyond obvious by 2015 that the GOP polity’s desires were very different from the establishment’s desires, which sometimes seemed geared toward winning over the votes of three people in think-tank cubicles (two of whom were voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson anyway).

    Whatever else you might say about Donald J. Trump (and there is much to say), his appeal is fundamentally different than previous Republican candidates. But it is not narrower.

    All of this is to say that of course Donald Trump can win again. More importantly, if the GOP establishment/remaining NeverTrump portion of the GOP wants to have a say in Republican politics in the future, they really need to work on figuring out why.

    Sean Trende is senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics. He is a co-author of the 2014 Almanac of American Politics and author of The Lost Majority. He can be reached at strende@realclearpolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter @SeanTrende.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 18:05

  • What AI CapEx Boom? World's Biggest Network Provider Slashes Jobs As Tech-Spend Sinks
    What AI CapEx Boom? World’s Biggest Network Provider Slashes Jobs As Tech-Spend Sinks

    If NVDA et al. are all going to the moon on CapEx (yes we know its GPU/CPU spend) then why is the world’s largest manufacturer of computer networking equipment slashing jobs after a slowdown in corporate tech spending wiped out its sales growth.

    Presumably all those GPUs/CPUs need to be ‘networked’ to each other and the world?

    We asked ChatGPT, just to be sure…

    The expansion of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the increasing demand for GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) have significant implications for networking companies like Cisco, primarily through indirect relationships that stem from the broader ecosystem of data centers, cloud computing, and internet infrastructure.

    Here’s how these connections unfold:

    • Increased Data Center Needs: AI and GPU-intensive tasks require substantial computational power, which is often provided by data centers. As companies and institutions deploy more AI models, the demand for data center capacity increases. Networking equipment, such as switches, routers, and security appliances provided by companies like Cisco, is critical for the operation, reliability, and efficiency of these data centers.

    • Enhanced Network Requirements: AI applications, especially those relying on real-time data analysis and decision-making (like autonomous vehicles or IoT devices), necessitate robust, low-latency networks to function effectively. The growth in AI applications can drive demand for advanced networking technologies, including those supporting higher speeds and lower latency. Cisco, being a leading provider of networking equipment, stands to benefit from this trend as organizations upgrade their networks to support AI applications.

    • Cloud Computing Expansion: Many AI models are trained and deployed in the cloud due to the vast computational resources required. This has led to an expansion of cloud infrastructure, where Cisco’s networking solutions play a crucial role in connecting and securing cloud environments. As cloud providers expand their infrastructure to accommodate AI workloads, they need to invest in networking gear, benefiting manufacturers like Cisco.

    • Edge Computing Growth: AI applications often require processing at the edge of the network to reduce latency. This necessitates a distributed network architecture, where data is processed closer to where it is generated rather than being sent back to a central data center or the cloud. Cisco and similar companies offer solutions for edge computing, including networking equipment that can handle the demands of AI-driven applications at the edge.

    • Security Concerns: With the expansion of AI and increased connectivity, security becomes even more critical. AI systems themselves can be targets for cyberattacks, and they also increase the complexity of IT environments. Networking companies like Cisco, which also provide cybersecurity solutions, are crucial in securing the data and the pathways it travels across.

    In summary, while Cisco and similar networking companies are not directly involved in the production of AI models or GPUs, the expansion of AI and the demand for GPUs are tied to increased requirements for networking infrastructure. This, in turn, can drive business for companies like Cisco that provide the necessary networking hardware, software, and services to support these growing technologies.

    So, back to CSCO results…

    Having already lowered the bar at the last earnings, the giant tech company has said that it’s been hit by a temporary “pause” in orders from customers who are busy installing equipment they’ve already acquired.

    In Cisco’s fiscal second quarter, which ended Jan. 27, revenue fell 6% to $12.8 billion. That was the company’s first contraction in three years. Profit was 87 cents a share, minus some items. Analysts had estimated revenue of $12.7 billion and earnings of 92 cents a share.

    Analysts expect demand for Cisco’s products to remain under pressure, as clients in the telecom industry restrict spending as do cloud companies that are prioritizing clearing their excess inventory of networking gear.

    This led the tech giant to cut its fiscal third quarter sales to $12.1-$12.3 billion (down from the $13.1 billion consensus), and slash profit expectations to 86c/share from 92c/share. For the full year, revenue expectations were cut to $51.5 – $52.5 billion (from $53.8 – $55 billion consensus).

    But the CEO was very confident…

    “We delivered a solid second quarter with strong operating leverage and capital returns,” said Chuck Robbins, chair and CEO of Cisco.

    “We continue to align our investments to future growth opportunities. Our innovation sits at the center of an increasingly connected ecosystem and will play a critical role as our customers adopt AI and secure their organizations.”

    Investors have been waiting to see how much Cisco will benefit from surging spending on artificial intelligence computer systems.

    Earlier this month, it announced it’s working with chipmaker Nvidia Corp. to help corporate clients more easily deploy AI.

    But, if that’s such a great opportunity, why is the company cutting 5% of its global workforce?

    Apparently, the restructuring is to focus on high-growth areas, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month.

    However, judging by the market’s reaction, the forecast adds to concern that businesses are reining in tech spending.

    CSCO’s shares are down 6% after hours – back at their lowest since November’s earnings plunge…

    Maybe we are just too old and dumb to realize that chatbots don’t need to be networked?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/14/2024 – 17:45

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