- Pope Doubles Down On NATO-Ukraine Comments: Russian Invasion Was "Provoked"
Pope Doubles Down On NATO-Ukraine Comments: Russian Invasion Was “Provoked”
Pope Francis has doubled down on prior controversial statements suggesting the Russia-Ukraine conflict is largely NATO’s fault, asserting also that “war cannot be reduced to distinction between good guys and bad guys” – as the Vatican’s own headline to the interview reads.
In statements published Tuesday by the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, the Roman Catholic leaders said that the Russian invasion was “perhaps somehow provoked” while again saying there were signs that NATO had been “barking at the gates of Russia” in the run-up.
Francis and Vladimir Putin meeting in the Vatican in June 2015: Vatican News The pontiff still condemned what he called the “ferocity and cruelty of the Russian troops” while warning against a pure ‘good vs. evil’ fairytale narrative of the conflict.
Just like with his initial similar comments made at the start of May, these latest statements have triggered outrage among Western pundits who’ve called for escalating military support to Ukraine at the expense of dialogue with Moscow toward negotiating a settlement to end the war:
“We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one,” Francis said. “Something global is emerging and the elements are very much entwined.”
That’s when in the interview he provided more context to his early May statements on the war. He said that a couple months prior to the Feb.24 invasion, he met with a “wise” head of state – though Francis didn’t name him or her:
“…a wise man who speaks little, a very wise man indeed … He told me that he was very worried about how Nato was moving. I asked him why, and he replied: ‘They are barking at the gates of Russia. They don’t understand that the Russians are imperial and can’t have any foreign power getting close to them.'”
“He concluded, ‘The situation could lead to war.’ This was his opinion. On 24 February, the war began. That head of state was able to read the signs of what was happening.”
He added: “We do not see the whole drama unfolding behind this war, which was, perhaps, somehow either provoked or not prevented.”
The Pope also reiterated that the arms industry in the West is benefitting from the bloodshed: “I also note the interest in testing and selling weapons. It is very sad, but at the end of the day that is what is at stake,” he said in the interview.
Pope Francis’s refusal to condemn Putin spurs debate in Catholic Church https://t.co/ziRL2cmJdo
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) May 21, 2022
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“Someone may say to me at this point: but you are pro-Putin! No, I am not. It would be simplistic and erroneous to say such a thing. I am simply against turning a complex situation into a distinction between good guys and bad guys, without considering the roots and self-interests, which are very complex. While we witness the ferocity and cruelty of Russian troops, we should not forget the problems, and seek to solve them,” he explained.
According to Vatican News, the pontiff additionally described that even beyond Ukraine-Russian, “the world is at war…
“We see what is happening now in Ukraine in a certain way because it is closer to us and pricks our sensibilities more. But there are other countries far away—think of some parts of Africa, northern Nigeria, northern Congo—where war is ongoing and nobody cares. Think of Myanmar and the Rohingya. The world is at war. Today, for me, World War III has been declared.”
The last time he suggested the West is at least equally to blame for the unfolding Ukraine war, an avalanche of op-eds and condemnations were issued by US and Western officials suggesting that somehow liberal Pope Francis too has been ‘compromised’ by Putin (ironically a smear typically reserved for Trump or Republicans in general).
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/15/2022 – 02:45 - UK Health Agency: 99% Of Monkeypox Cases Are Gay Men
UK Health Agency: 99% Of Monkeypox Cases Are Gay Men
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A survey of monkeypox cases by the UK Health Agency has found that 151 out of 152 participants are men who “identify as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men.”
The survey found that 311 (99% of 314) cases were men, with just 3 confirmed female cases.
“One hundred and fifty-two cases participated in more detailed questionnaires, implemented from 26 May 2022, and used retrospectively,” the survey found.
“In this data, 151 of the 152 men interviewed identified as gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM), or reported same sex contact, and the remaining individual declined to disclose this information.”
📝 152 cases participated in more detailed questionnaires. All were men.
📝 151 of those interviewed identified as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men, or reported same sex contact.
🧳 Travel: 75 cases reported foreign travel within 21 days prior to symptom onset
— UK Health Security Agency (@UKHSA) June 10, 2022
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Early outbreaks of monkeypox originated at a gay sauna in Spain and a fetish festival in Belgium.
Despite monkeypox cases being overwhelmingly gay men, some critics have suggested that encouragement by health authorities for gay men who suspect they may have caught the virus to refrain from having sex is “homophobic” and a form of “stigmatization.”
As we previously highlighted, the first monkeypox patient to go public revealed that he caught the virus from having gay sex with “around 10 new partners” after being deported from Dubai for testing positive for HIV.
Despite monkeypox spreading via close contact and the World Health Organization saying summer festivals should be limited to stop the spread of the virus, a WHO spokesperson later clarified that gay pride parades should go ahead as normal.
“Though most of the world was put on lockdown over covid with tens of millions of people losing their jobs, public health authorities have made it abundantly clear that asking gay men to stop having sex with dozens of strangers to stop the spread of monkeypox is untenable,” writes Chris Menahan.
The UK Health Agency survey survey also found that 81 per cent of cases were people resident in London.
As we previously discussed, the NHS in the UK posted a message on its website urging people to not touch or consume ‘bush meat’, which is available on the black market in ethnically diverse areas of London and can cause the spread of monkeypox.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/15/2022 – 02:00 - Deprogramming From The Cult Of Wokeism: A Former SJW Speaks Up
Deprogramming From The Cult Of Wokeism: A Former SJW Speaks Up
Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
For Keri Smith, deprogramming from what she calls the cult of wokism didn’t happen overnight.
Deprogrammed with Keri Smith. (Courtesy of Keri Smith) But the behavior of her former friends within the social-justice world during the 2016 presidential election, with their support of violence, censorship, and gaslighting, certainly sped up the process, setting off a parade of red flags.
Social-justice warriors (SJW) were advocating for acts of aggression against supporters of former President Donald Trump, contradicting what she said she understood the essential nature of liberalism to be.
“It was the first indication that I might not really understand what was going on in the world,” Smith told The Epoch Times.
Today, Smith fosters conversations with guests on her YouTube channel, Deprogrammed with Keri Smith, to examine and unpack the SJW belief system and its permeation into all spheres of power and influence, including pop culture.
“I want to understand the belief system better for myself, to untangle all of it,” she said. “What did I believe about it that was true? What did I believe about it that was false?”
Approaching the topic from all angles, Smith interviews a range of people, including comedians, artists, academic scholars, and authors, as well as others like her who have abandoned their wokist ideologies to hear their stories.
Smith said she first encountered social-justice theories in the late 90s when she was a biological anthropology and anatomy major, with a minor in women’s studies, at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, when most people hadn’t heard of critical race theory.
She also worked with Amnesty International, the international non-governmental human rights organization, which held a seminar on “dismantling racism,” she said.
‘It’s a Cult That’s Very Obsessed With Language’
“These have become very common nowadays,” she said. “We learn the new concepts they push, like ‘racism and sexism are prejudice plus power.’ Looking back on it now, I realize what was happening was that this was a belief system that I was getting pulled into. But at the time, it didn’t seem like a belief system; it seemed like progressivism. I thought I was learning how the world works and learning how to end oppression.”
But slowly, like a cult, words and definitions are changed, she said.
“Because if you want to control people, you have to control the way they think. And to control the way they think, you have to control their language,” she said. “It’s a cult that is very obsessed with language.”
New phrases are created like “white privilege,” “toxic masculinity,” and “white fragility,” she said.
Like many of her peers, she left college bringing the ideology that had framed her worldview with her.
“It gave me a lens through which to see the whole world,” she said.
She called it a mutated form of Marxism that took “wealth” and replaced it with “power,” and switched out the “oppressor” and the “oppressed” with the current identity groups.
Instead of distributing wealth to equalize society, the new, mutated Marxism calls for a redistribution of power among the identity groups, she explained.
“Then, everything will be utopia,” she said.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/15/2022 – 00:05 - Another US Food Processing Plant Erupts In Flames
Another US Food Processing Plant Erupts In Flames
Another food processing plant went up in flames. According to local news Stevens Point Journal, a fire ripped through a pizza-making plant in Wisconsin on Monday.
More than 70 firefighters from multiple fire departments battled a massive fire at Festive Foods in eastern Portage County that began around 0900 local time. The American Red Cross arrived on the scene shortly after to provide food and water to firefighters. They snapped two pictures of the blaze, showing flames erupting from the facility’s roof and a column of thick dark smoke pouring into the air.
Waupaca manufacturing fire: Red Cross disaster volunteers are canteening for more than 70 firefighters & first responders on the scene of a large manufacturer fire on County Highway D. Additional details here as they’re available. pic.twitter.com/HdTT1vvLK1
— American Red Cross of Wisconsin (@RedCrossWIS) June 13, 2022
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Firefighters were able to get the blaze under control in the early evening, and damage to the food processing plant has yet to be fully assessed. However, Festive Foods’ Facebook page indicates the plant is “temporarily closed.”
“Today festive foods experienced a heartbreaking event. As many of you have seen in the news we have had a terrible fire run through our plant,” a post on Festive Foods’ Facebook read.
Festive Foods manufactures frozen pizzas for supermarkets in a 120,000 sq. feet facility and considers itself a “leading co-packer of USDA-certified frozen-topped pizza, sandwiches, dough products, and stuffed appetizers.” The company sells its products to supermarkets nationwide.
Walmart is a seller of at least one of the company’s brands.
While the fire seems insignificant, it’s part of a much larger issue of a spate of “accidental fires,” one by one, taking out America’s food supply chain over the past year (source of the list via The Gateway Pundit):
- 1/11/21 A fire that destroyed 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Fayetteville
- 4/30/21 A fire ignited inside the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Monmouth, IL
- 7/25/21 Three-alarm fire at Kellogg plant in Memphis, 170 emergency personnel responded to the call
- 7/30/21 Firefighters on Friday battled a large fire at Tyson’s River Valley Ingredients plant in Hanceville, Alabama
- 8/23/21 Fire crews were called to the Patak Meat Production company on Ewing Road in Austell
- 9/13/21 A fire at the JBS beef plant in Grand Island, Neb., on Sunday night forced a halt to slaughter and fabrication lines
- 10/13/21 A five-alarm fire ripped through the Darigold butter production plant in Caldwell, ID
- 11/15/21 A woman is in custody following a fire at the Garrard County Food Pantry
- 11/29/21 A fire broke out around 5:30 p.m. at the Maid-Rite Steak Company meat processing plant
- 12/13/21 West Side food processing plant in San Antonio left with smoke damage after a fire
- 1/7/22 Damage to a poultry processing plant on Hamilton’s Mountain following an overnight fire
- 1/13/22 Firefighters worked for 12 hours to put a fire out at the Cargill-Nutrena plant in Lecompte, LA
- 1/31/22 a fertilizer plant with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate inside caught on fire on Cherry Street in Winston-Salem
- 2/3/22 A massive fire swept through Wisconsin River Meats in Mauston
- 2/3/22 At least 130 cows were killed in a fire at Percy Farm in Stowe
- 2/15/22 Bonanza Meat Company goes up in flames in El Paso, Texas
- 2/15/22 Nearly a week after the fire destroyed most of the Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston
- 2/16/22 A fire had broken at US largest soybean processing and biodiesel plant in Claypool, Indiana
- 2/18/22 An early morning fire tore through the milk parlor at Bess View Farm
- 2/19/22 Three people were injured, and one was hospitalized, after an ammonia leak at Lincoln Premium Poultry in Fremont
- 2/22/22 The Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston caught fire after a propane boiler exploded
- 2/28/22 A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire at Nutrien Ag Solutions
- 2/28/22 A man was hurt after a fire broke out at the Shadow Brook Farm and Dutch Girl Creamery
- 3/4/22 294,800 chickens destroyed at farm in Stoddard, Missouri
- 3/4/22 644,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
- 3/8/22 243,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in New Castle, Delaware
- 3/10/22 663,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, MD
- 3/10/22 915,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Taylor, IA
- 3/14/22 The blaze at 244 Meadow Drive was discovered shortly after 5 p.m. by farm owner Wayne Hoover
- 3/14/22 2,750,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Jefferson, Wisconsin
- 3/16/22 A fire at a Walmart warehouse distribution center has cast a large plume of smoke visible throughout Indianapolis.
- 3/16/22 Nestle Food Plant extensively damaged in fire and new production destroyed Jonesboro, Arkansas
- 3/17/22 5,347,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Buena Vista, Iowa
- 3/17/22 147,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Kent, Delaware
- 3/18/22 315,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
- 3/22/22 172,000 Turkeys destroyed on farms in South Dakota
- 3/22/22 570,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
- 3/24/22 Fire fighters from numerous towns are battling a major fire at the McCrum potato processing facility in Belfast.
- 3/24/22 418,500 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
- 3/25/22 250,300 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Franklin, Iowa
- 3/26/22 311,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 3/27/22 126,300 Turkeys destroyed in South Dakota
- 3/28/22 1,460,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Guthrie, Iowa
- 3/29/22 A massive fire burned 40,000 pounds of food meant to feed people in a food desert near Maricopa
- 3/31/22 A structure fire caused significant damage to a large portion of key fresh onion packing facilities in south Texas
- 3/31/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Osceola, Iowa
- 3/31/22 5,011,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Osceola, Iowa
- 4/6/22 281,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
- 4/9/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 4/9/22 208,900 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 4/12/22 89,700 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
- 4/12/22 1,746,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska
- 4/12/22 259,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Minnesota
- 4/13/22 fire destroys East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire
- 4/13/22 Plane crashes into Gem State Processing, Idaho potato and food processing plant
- 4/13/22 77,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 4/14/22 Taylor Farms Food Processing plant burns down Salinas, California.
- 4/14/22 99,600 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 4/15/22 1,380,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Lancaster, Minnesota
- 4/19/22 Azure Standard nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire in Dufur, Oregon
- 4/19/22 339,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 4/19/22 58,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Montrose, Color
- 4/20/22 2,000,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Minnesota
- 4/21/22 A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Georgia
- 4/22/22 197,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 4/23/22 200,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
- 4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah
- 4/26/22 307,400 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
- 4/27/22 2,118,000 chickens destroyed at farm Knox, Nebraska
- 4/28/22 Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens, fires 200-plus workers
- 4/28/22 Allen Harim Foods processing plant killed nearly 2M chickens in Delaware
- 4/2822 110,700 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
- 4/29/22 1,366,200 chickens destroyed at farm Weld Colorado
- 4/30/22 13,800 chickens destroyed at farm Sequoia Oklahoma
- 5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
- 5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota
- 5/3/22 114,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
- 5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Lyon Minnesota
- 5/7/22 20,100 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
- 5/10/22 72,300 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
- 5/10/22 61,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
- 5/10/22 35,100 Turkeys destroyed Muskegon, Michigan
- 5/13/22 10,500 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
- 5/14/22 83,400 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
- 5/17/22 79,00 chickens destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
- 5/18/22 7,200 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
- 5/19/22 Train carrying limestone derailed Jensen Beach FL
- 5/21/22 57,000 Turkeys destroyed on farm in Dakota Minnesota
- 5/23/22 4,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
- 5/29/22 A Saturday night fire destroyed a poultry building at Forsman Farms
- 5/31/22 3,000,000 chickens destroyed by fire at Forsman facility in Stockholm Township, Minnesota
- 6/2/22 30,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
- 6/7/22 A fire occurred Tuesday evening at the JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay.
- 6/8/22 Firefighters from Tangipahoa Fire District 1 respond to a fire at the Purina Feed Mill in Arcola
- 6/9/22 Irrigation water was canceled in California (the #1 producer of food in the US) and storage water flushed directly out to the delta.
- 6/12/22 Largest Pork Company in the US Shuts Down California Plant Due to High Costs
- 6/13/22 Fire Breaks Out at a Food Processing Plant West of Waupaca County in Wisconsin
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 23:45 - Giant Hedge Fund Goes "Soros" On Bank Of Japan: Bets Billions That Japan, And MMT, Will Break
Giant Hedge Fund Goes “Soros” On Bank Of Japan: Bets Billions That Japan, And MMT, Will Break
Less than a week ago, we wrote that “As Yen Crash Accelerates, It Puts Catastrophic End Of MMT Experiment In The Spotlight” a less than cheerful assessment about the endgame in Japan echoed on Monday morning by Bloomberg, which wrote that “Japan Starting to Crack as Yen Tumbles With Stocks and Bonds” in which it wrote that despite the yen crashing to a 24-year low (for the same reasons we have repeated again and again, namely you can’t keep your 10Y yield at 0.25% and avoid a currency collapse in a scorching inflationary environment), Tokyo stocks were down the most since March (the plunged again on Tuesday).
Meanwhile, also on Monday, Deutsche Bank’s head of FX George Saravelos came the closest of any establishment banker to warn what we have been saying for years – the great MMT experiment is ending, and its unwind will begin in Japan, that “Guniea Pig” for all major central bank experiments (first ZIRP, first QE, first ZIRP, first central bank buying of ETFs, etc).
In a piece titled, “The printer is on overdrive“, Saravelos wrote that if the current pace of buying persists, “the bank will have bought approximately 10 trillion yen in June. To put that number in context, it is roughly equivalent to the Fed doing more than $300bn of QE per month when adjusting for GDP!”
Saravelos also echoed what we said in our preview of the end of MMT, writing that he worries that “the currency and Japanese financial markets are in the process of losing any sort of fundamental-based valuation anchor” adding that “the more global inflation picks up, the more the BoJ prints. But the more easing accelerates, the higher the need to press hard on the brake when the (inflation) cliff approaches and the more dangerous it becomes. As a result, we will soon enter a phase where dramatic and unpredictable non-linearities in Japanese financial markets would kick in.” The DB strategist concluded by asking “if it becomes obvious to the market that the clearing level of JGB yields is above the BoJ’s 25 basis point target, what is the incentive to hold bonds any more?”
Of course, without skin in the game all these perceptive observations are just that, and meanwhile – well – only money talks… and when it comes to Japan, so many have been steamrolled when their money talked and shorted Japanese bonds, only to be crushed by the world’s most famous “widowmaker” trade.
But this time is different: at least that’s the view of BlueBay Asset Management – one of the world’s biggest hedge funds – as it gears up to become this generation’s George Soros caught in a crushing battle with the
Bank of EnglandBank of Japan.As the BOJ escalates attempts to keep a lid on bond yields, BlueBay is betting that our thesis laid out in March is right, and that the central bank will be forced to abandon a policy that’s increasingly out of sync with global peers. Echoing what we said just a few days ago, Mark Dowding, BlueBay’s London-based chief investment officer, said that the BOJ’s so-called yield curve control is “untenable.”
“We have a sizable short on JGBs,” Dowding, whose firm oversees about $127 billion across hedge funds and other fixed income products, said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday. BlueBay started shorting Japan’s sovereign debt when the yen slid close to the 130 per dollar level several weeks ago, not too long after we wrote that “Yen At Risk Of “Explosive” Downward Spiral With Kuroda Trapped.“
Dowding is not the only one to agree with our core thesis that the beginning of the end of MMT will start in Japan: he joins other market veterans such as former Goldman “BRIC” economist Jim O’Neill and JPM’s Seamus Mac Gorain in predicting the BOJ will eventually alter its stance on yields, just as Australia’s central bank did last November.
As we noted on Monday, as global yields have exploded higher ahead of the Fed’s first 75bps rate hike since 1994, yields on 10-year Japanese bonds breached the upper, 25bps bound of the BOJ’s target on Monday and have remained at elevated levels even after the central bank accelerated its planned bond-purchase operations and included longer maturities.
“The last man standing continues to be the BOJ and to be honest the more the market attacks the Fed and the ECB the more likely it is that the BOJ own forward guidance (in the form of YCC) will end very messily with huge implications for global rates,” Deutsche Bank macro strategist Jim Reid added to the pile up in Tuesday note to clients.
Ten-year yen swap rates have also surged, breaking their close relationship with domestically driven yields. At over 0.50%, the former have pushed well past the central bank’s 0.25% ‘line in the sand’ for benchmark bonds, suggesting international traders believe higher yields and a policy change in Japan are inevitable.
There is “little downside to being short Japan rates via futures or yen swaps,” Dowding said. “Yield curve control is designed so that the more the Fed hikes, the more the BOJ is going to need to ease and grow its balance sheet. This is what makes it untenable.”
He is correct of course, and at some point the BOJ will pull a BOE, or SNB, and will decide that waste billions more to defend a largely arbitrary level is not worth it, at which point Japanese yields will spike higher… only instead of stopping at the next barrier, they will continue rising higher and higher, as traders from around the globe pile on in what may be the biggest central bank failure of the 21st century. Of course, it won’t be the last, because the inevitable loss by the BOJ will also be a loss for the idiotic economic theory behind much of modern economics, MMT. And when that too is discredited, all bets are off as the entire fiat financial system becomes unglued.
All this will happen… but not just yet. For now, Japan’s central bankers are dutifully defending their yield target. The central bank boosted scheduled purchases of five-to-10-year debt to 800 billion yen ($6 billion) Tuesday from an expected 500 billion yen after the benchmark yield climbed to 0.255%. It also announced an unscheduled operation to buy longer-dated debt after the 30-year yield surged to 1.28% — the highest since 2016. Japan’s central bank also bought 2.2 trillion yen worth of government notes through its fixed-rate operation on Tuesday, the biggest amount on record since the program began in 2016.
Meanwhile, since defense of YCC means continued collapse of the yen (or vice verse), the yen tumbled to a fresh 24-year low of 135.60 per dollar amid the growing policy divergence between the BOJ and the Fed.
“We do think that the BOJ will be forced to capitulate at some point,” Russel Matthews, senior portfolio manager at BlueBay, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. And while a normal response would be for the yen to spike even as yields surge, what will be the worst possible outcome is for both the yen and JGBs to both plunge at the same time.
If and when that happens, it’s game over for Japan, MMT and fiat.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 23:25 - WHO Will Rename Monkeypox To Combat Racism And Stigma
WHO Will Rename Monkeypox To Combat Racism And Stigma
The World Health Organization said Tuesday it will rename the monkeypox virus after concern that it could stoke racism and stigma.
The current name for the virus, which has infected over 1,600 people in 39 countries this year and was first reported in Africa, does not adhere to WHO guidelines that discourage the use of geographic regions or animals, Bloomberg reports.
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More than 30 international scientists said last week that the monkeypox label is discriminatory and stigmatizing, and there’s an “urgent” need to rename it. The current name doesn’t fit with WHO guidelines that recommend avoiding geographic regions and animal names, a spokesperson said.
“Failure to support and adopt the proposed nomenclature and classification may result in loss of interest in sustaining active surveillance and rapid reporting of pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potentials,” they claimed.
Those scientists suggested the name ‘hMPXV’, which they noted is just a shortened version of “monkeypox virus” in humans, would be “a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing classification.”
As The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips notes, Monkeypox has been endemic in west and central Africa since the 1970s and is usually transmitted from animals to humans, rather than through human-to-human contact. Officials have said that in the past, the smallpox-like virus is generally transmitted via rodents, squirrels, and non-human primates such as monkeys, chimpanzees, and baboons.
The ‘scientists’ also exclaimed virtuously in their letter tha there is “an increasing narrative in the media and among many scientists that are trying to link the present global outbreak to Africa or West Africa, or Nigeria,” the letter pointed out.
“As any other disease, it can occur in any region in the world and afflict anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity,” the letter added.
“As such, we believe that no race or skin complexion should be the face of this disease.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s head, confirmed Tuesday that the U.N. organization is “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes.”
A similar renaming action was taken by WHO in early 2020 after COVID-19 emerged in mainland China.
Scientists called on the international community and WHO to rename it from “Wuhan coronavirus” to COVID-19.
Finally, here’s Elon Musk chiming in…
I 🖤 The Cure pic.twitter.com/Ax8NcoIOeB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 14, 2022
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 23:05 - Rabo: The Key Questions Now Are Which Awful Choice The Fed Makes
Rabo: The Key Questions Now Are Which Awful Choice The Fed Makes
By Michael Every of Rabobank
Big Bear, Big Bird, Big Bad
So, a bear market. A BIG bear market. And a BIG bear market in almost everything.
The S&P is -22.1% year-to-date (y-t-d). The Nasdaq worse, -30.1%. Equity carnage is widespread in the US and globally too. All those who had gone long risk again, having no idea what is actually happening in the real economy, are in tears.
US 2-year Treasury yields has leaped over 60bps to top 3.40% since Friday’s CPI print, driven higher by a Wall Street Journal ‘Fed whisperer’ saying a 75bps hike this week, not July, is on the cards. That’s an entire mini-cycle. In short, most of the curve is inverted from 5s onwards, and is then also as flat as a pancake: which is how US stock and bond bulls are feeling.
In Europe, German 2-year yields leaped almost 60bps since Thursday’s ECB statement to 1.23% and 10s by 43bps to 1.76%. The last time Germany was here was almost a decade ago, when the “whatever it takes thing” was still working its temporary magic. Far more worrying for the ECB, Italian 2s soared 100bps to 2.13% and 10s 86bps to 4.18% since Lagarde’s words failed to soothe. The latter is even higher than the spike seen in the bad old days of Italian political risk in 2018, and just a month ago, said 10s were trading at 2.89%. Does anybody think the Italian economy can take that kind of increase in borrowing costs? What exactly is the ECB plan, beyond hope, prayer, rhetoric, and playing the UEFA champions league theme? To step in and buy peripheral bonds?
In Japan, the BOJ’s 10-year JGB yield peg held, barely, due to huge official bond buying. JPY had crashed through 135 before recovering slightly as offshore selling in everything saw some Japanese capital repatriated. However, given Wednesday may see the Fed go 75bps and flag more, while the BOJ on Friday will only flag more bond buying, JPY is not going to stay at these levels for long. It’s going to get much, much worse.
Australian 3-year yields are now 3.63%: just months ago they were pegged at 0.10%. Aussie 10s are at 4.10%, racing after Italy, higher than the pre-Covid peaks of below 3%. The Aussie housing gods will not be pleased with this offering.
Despite the above, commodities held up well and energy went*up*, meaning the physical cost of production/supply of almost everything from food to goods will too, with a lag. Then either wages do, and it’s a wage-price spiral; or wages don’t, and we are all much poorer. Anecdotally, funds are still chasing commodities as both an inflation hedge and a flight to safety, which makes sense. Yet it also means the Fed has to keep raising rates more than markets thought they would…. and even the threat of a 75bps hike didn’t buck that trend yesterday.
Naturally, the US dollar went up sharply. DXY is now above 105 again and shows no likely cause to head sustainably lower. That makes commodities even more expensive for everyone not using the dollar (or producing and hoarding them). The broader Bloomberg FX index incorporating emerging markets is up 7.9% y-t-d: next is surely the 2020 peak.
The crypto complex is proving to the anti-commodity as a ‘haven’ from volatility, inflation, and to preserve capital. Bitcoin alone is trading this morning in Asia at around $22,000, having been above $30,000 just 3 days ago. As one crypto-shill tweeted in 2020, “Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.” Well, higher Fed funds are pest control, and Celsius is freezing.
Watch the likes of big pension funds scramble to explain to real money clients really underwater that what lies ahead is a ‘slow-down’ or a ‘correction’. Also watch them predict this ‘unforecastable’(!) event will be rapidly reversed because their DSGE GDP models automatically mean revert to growth. Meanwhile, in the real world, if commodity (and goods) supply does not adjust upwards –which will take *years*– then there is no way to see a V-shaped growth profile without a V-shaped inflation profile to match.
Ordinarily, what we have seen in the last two sessions would be enough for a Fed U-turn. Indeed, Wednesday could still see ‘merely’ a 50bps move and a misplaced relief rally. Yet the Fed cannot U-turn properly to save 401Ks without ensuring the dollar tanks, pushing imported inflation higher, while commodities soar as an inflation hedge, and supply-side inflation becomes entrenched, with wage-price spirals to follow, i.e., structural CPI of perhaps 4-5%, not 2%.
It would also flag a staggering decline in US geoeconomic and geopolitical power. On which, a Twitter thread doing the rounds, sees @d_jaishankar note that from recent Chatham House conferences he has attended:
“I was left with the strong impression that traditional US elites are still very preoccupied with their domestic politics, and haven’t internalized the enormity of the geopolitical challenge they face. They’re trapped in the 1990s. There’s a reluctant acknowledgment that the neoliberal model is discredited, but the answers to how to address inequality, immigration, and trade is… more neoliberalism, immigration, and trade. There’s a grudging understanding that state management might be back.”
The key questions now are which awful choice the Fed makes; and if it opts to hike, if it also throws in help for key parts of the *real* economy at the same time – i.e., quasi-MMT slash China-style economics slash a pumped-up ECB acronymtastic band aid.
Many readers may find this either very uncomfortable or very hard to grasp. Allow me to use a Twitter meme to explain. @Rainmaker1973 shares, “Crested mynas, as many other birds, are born altricially, which means young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, therefore fed by parents. When they grow up, they have to learn that food doesn’t simply jump into their beaks”. Click the link and watch the myna bird walk around with its mouth open waiting for the worm to jump in.
The bird has to feed itself now. So do we. Even the mighty American Eagle will go hungry if it doesn’t realize that fact. And yet traditional economists and market participants, like big birds, are waiting for juicy returns to jump into their mouths as the Fed saves them, if not this week, then next month, next quarter, next year, etc. That may no longer be how the real world works.
A final point on this all. I am on record as saying ‘Bretton Woods 3 Won’t Work’. I reiterate that despite the present mess, it won’t, because there is nothing to ‘work’ globally – just breakdown, chaos, and even higher geopolitical tensions. Indeed, Bretton Woods 3 is just old-fashioned military mercantilism – and once upon a time, the West was very good at it. It will need to be again, and soon. That will shake markets even further as it happens. If we have a Big Bear and big birds, that geopolitical backdrop is our overarching Big Bad.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 22:45 - China Economic Data Beats Across The Board In Apparent ZeroCOVID Policy 'Victory Lap'
China Economic Data Beats Across The Board In Apparent ZeroCOVID Policy ‘Victory Lap’
In what appears like a victory lap of data showing their ZeroCOVID policy worked, every data item in tonight’s China economic deluge beat expectations in May.
While China remains the most ‘locked down’ nation in the world, and Shanghai faces re-lockdowns, May did see Goldman’s ‘Effective Lockdown Index’ fall for the communist nation…
While all the economic signals did deteriorate in May (except unemployment), they also all beat expectations…
Retail sales fall less than expected and there’s a tick higher in investment. Industrial output notably stronger, reflecting the easing of restrictions, and the surveyed jobless rate fell to 5.9%
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China Industrial Production YTD YoY BEAT: +3.3% vs +3.1% exp but WORSE from +4.0% prior
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China Retail Sales YTD YoY BEAT: -1.5% vs -1.7% exp but WORSE from -0.2% prior
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China Fixed Asset Investment YTD YoY BEAT: +6.2% YoY vs +6.0% exp but WORSE from +6.8% prior
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China Property Investment YTD YoY BEAT: -4.0% vs -4.4% exp but WORSE from -2.7% prior
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Surveyed Jobless Rate BEAT: 5.9% vs 6.1% exp and BETTER than 6.1% prior
Under the hood of today’s labor market improvements, the situation is ‘varied’ we suggest rather charitably:
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Surveyed unemployment rate of the population aged from 16 to 24 was 18.4%
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Jobless rate of those aged from 25 to 59 was at 5.1% percent
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Urban surveyed unemployment rate in 31 major cities was 6.9%
Looking through the retail sales data, there were big drops for clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, electronics, furniture, automobiles and more. Beverages, tobacco, alcohol and petroleum (probably reflecting oil prices) were among the gainers.
Simply put, today’s data provides prima facie evidence that the Chinese economy hit a bottom in April and is now slowly on the mend – Mission Accomplished Beijing?
However, not wanting to steal the jam from China’s donut too much, despite industrial output rebounding to growth territory, apparent oil demand – a leading indicator – widened its decline to 8.3%YoY in May, suggesting that more bad news is ahead in the coming months.
As Bloomberg notes, even the NBS is hinting at caution: “We must be aware that the international environment is to be even more complicated and grim, and the domestic economy is still facing difficulties and challenges for recovery.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 22:23 -
- The Economic Meltdown Has Roots In Lockdown
The Economic Meltdown Has Roots In Lockdown
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,
American’s capacity for denial is truly a thing to behold.
For at least 27 months, it should have been obvious that we were headed for a grave crisis. Not only that: the crisis was already here in March 2020.
For weird reasons, some people, many people, imagined that governments could just shut down an economy and turn it back on without consequence. And yet here we are.
Historians of the future, if there are any intelligent ones among them, will surely be aghast at our astounding ignorance. Congress enacted decades of spending in just two years and figured it would be fine. The printing presses at the Fed ran at full tilt. No one cared to do anything about the trade snarls or supply-chain breakages. And here we are.
Our elites had two years to fix this unfolding disaster. They did nothing. Now we face terrible, grim, grueling, exploitative inflation, at the same time we are plunging into recession again, and people sit around wondering what the heck happened.
I will tell you what happened: the ruling class destroyed the world we knew. It happened right before our eyes. And here we are.
Last week, the stock market reeled on the news that the European Central Bank will attempt to do something about the inflation wrecking markets. So of course the financial markets panicked like an addict who can’t find his next hit of heroin. This week already began with more of the same, for fear that the Fed will be forced to rein in its easy-money policy event further. Maybe, maybe not; but recession appears impending regardless.
The bad news is everywhere. Even in the midst of very tight labor markets and very low unemployment (mostly mythical when you consider labor force participation), companies have started to lay off workers. Why? To prepare for recession and the prospect of more economic chaos ahead.
High-flying tech giants are curbing their enthusiasm too. Facebook apparently got tricked into paying big-time news outlets to let FB users have free access to articles — no doubt to those that reinforced government propaganda, since Mark Zuckerberg volunteered his entire company to be messengers for the regime back in 2020. FB got robbed and is now rethinking. No more freebies.
This might as well be the theme of American life. No more charity. No more kindness. No more doing something for nothing. In inflationary times, everyone becomes more grasping. Morality takes a back seat and generosity is no more. It’s every man for himself. This can only get more brutal.
There was something of a psychological break last Friday on the news of the CPI. It was not better than last month. It was not the same as last month. It was worse: 8.6% year-over-year, the worst it has been in 40 years. Honestly, everyone sort of knew this already in their heart of hearts but there is something about the official announcement that codified it.
But let’s say we stack the data at two years rather than one year. What does it look like? It comes in at 13.6%. We have never seen anything like that. And it is truly starting to hurt as never before. Gas is above $5 and rents are more than $2,000 a month on average. The raises at work have stopped coming too. On the contrary, employers are expecting more productivity for ever less money in real terms.
Prices have a very long way to go to wash out the paper sloshing around the world economy. Here is the wave of printing compared with current price trends. No way is this getting better before it gets much worse.
Put it all together, especially with declining financials, along with supply-chain breakages and other economic dislocations, and this is why it feels like the walls are closing in. It’s because they are. And there truly is no way out for anyone at this point.
No one should be shocked by any of this. It was all in the cards, an outcome guaranteed by ghastly policy over two presidential administrations, all enacted by a government that knows nothing about economics and cares nothing for basic commercial and human rights. You dispense with these things and you court disaster.
And this is how you get the worst consumer confidence rating ever recorded.
What makes today different from the 1970s is the pace at which this has all unfolded. Even a year ago, administration officials were claiming that everything would be just fine. Many people believed them, despite every bit of data pointing to exactly the opposite. Truly it feels like our lords and masters believe that their fantasies are more reality than reality itself. They say it and it somehow becomes true.
Can you imagine that only last month, the Biden administration concocted the idea of establishing a “Disinformation Governance Board”? It was designed to script the truth to all social media and mainstream media outlets, censoring all dissent. The plan blew up only because it was too overtly Orwellian for public consumption. What matters here is the intent, which is nothing short of totalitarian.
Politics is good fun for many people, a real sport and a good distraction from real life. But politics becomes a very serious business once personal finance makes the good life ever less viable. Right now everyone is searching for someone to blame and most people have hit on the old guy in the White House, who they somehow believe should do something about all these problems despite a lifelong career of knowing nothing and doing nothing about anything.
What an astounding thing to see unfold before our eyes, and so quickly! The “malaise” of 1979 was a long time coming but the meltdown of 2022 has hit many people like a hurricane that somehow evaded detection from the radar. And yet it might be far from over.
In 2020 and following, money appeared like magic in bank accounts all over the country. A third of the workforce had gotten used to languishing at home, pretending to work. Students started Zooming instead of learning. Adults who had spent a lifetime embracing the normal disutilities of labor gained for the first time a vision of a life of luxury without work.
One result was a huge boom in personal savings, if only for a brief time. Some of the money was spent on Amazon, streaming services, and food delivery but also much of it landed in bank accounts as people started saving money as never before, most likely because the opportunities to spend on entertainment and travel dried up. Personal savings soared to over 30 percent. It felt like we were all rich!
That feeling could not last. Once the economy opened up again, and people were ready to get out and spend their new riches, a strange new reality presented itself. The money they thought they had was worth far less. Also there were strange shortages in goods they once took for granted. Their new riches turned into vapor in a matter of months, with each month worse than the previous month.
As a result, people had to deplete their savings and turn to debt finance just to keep up with the decline in purchasing power, even as their income in real terms turned dramatically south. In other words, government took away what it gave.
The long period of denial seems suddenly over. People of all political persuasions are fuming in anger. The crime everywhere these days is not incidental or accidental. It is a mark of civilizational decline. Something has to give and will give at some point. The ruling class in this country and their friends around the world have caused tremendous wreckage.
Here is the purchasing power of the dollar since 2018. Behold what our rulers have done!
And yet, what do our rulers have to say to us? They tell us to rely more on wind and sun — Janet Yellen’s exact words to the Senate last week. I used to think she was a smart cookie but I guess power turns even good minds to mush. Mush is exactly what they have created out of a once prosperous and hopeful nation.
The most frustrating aspect of all of this is the rampant failure to connect cause and effect. The cause should be clear: this was all kicked off by the most egregious, arrogant, irresponsible, foolhardy, and brutal policies ever perpetrated on the whole of American life, all in the name of disease control. I’ve yet to see evidence that any of the people and agencies who did this to us are willing to reassess their decisions. Quite the contrary.
There must be a reckoning.
It was not the poor, the working classes, or the person on the street who did this. These policies were not an act of nature. They were never even voted upon by legislatures.
They were imposed by men and women with unchecked administrative power under the mistaken belief that they had it all under control. They never did and they do not now.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 22:05 - New Study Concludes Lockdowns Caused At Least 170,000 Excess Deaths In US
New Study Concludes Lockdowns Caused At Least 170,000 Excess Deaths In US
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News (emphasis ours),
Yet another study has concluded that restrictive lockdowns contributed to a massive spike in excess deaths, with a 26% jump in mortality rate for working-age adults in America.
The study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that there were conservatively 170,000+ non-Covid excess deaths in the U.S. through 2020 and 2021.
The study notes that the real number is likely closer to 200,000 because over 70,000 so called “unmeasured Covid deaths,” that is people who may have died only with the virus and not from it, were not taken into account.
The researchers wrote that “Summing our estimates across causes and age groups, we estimate 171,000 excess non-Covid deaths through the end of 2021 plus 72,000 unmeasured Covid deaths. The Economist has assembled national-level mortality data from around the world and obtains a similar U.S. estimate, which is 199,000 (including any unmeasured Covid) or about 60 persons per 100,000 population (Global Change Data Lab 2022).”
[ZH: As the authors note, “This paper reports significant and historic health harms experienced in the U.S. during the pandemic, apart from those directly caused by Covid.]
They added that “While Covid deaths overwhelmingly afflict senior citizens, absolute numbers of non-Covid excess deaths are similar for each of the 18-44, 45-64, and over-65 age groups, with essentially no aggregate excess deaths of children. Mortality from all causes during the pandemic was elevated 26 percent for working-age adults (18-64), as compared to 18 percent for the elderly.”
The level of excess deaths dovetails with findings from other studies across the globe that found everywhere that locked down experienced a similar spike in mortality rates.
The NBER researchers state that “For the European Union as a whole, the estimate is near-identical at 64 non-Covid excess deaths per 100K.”
They also point out that “In contrast, the estimate for Sweden is -33, meaning that non-Covid causes of death were somewhat low during the pandemic.”
“We suspect that some of the international differences are due to the standard used to designate a death as Covid, but perhaps also Sweden’s result is related to minimizing the disruption of its citizen’s normal lifestyles,” the researchers add.
In other words, Sweden did not lock down and also did not experience an increase in non-COVID mortality rates.
Figures released by the World Health Organization last month show that Sweden had fewer COVID deaths per capita than much of Europe despite refusing to enforce strict lockdowns and mask mandates like numerous other nearby countries.
“In 2020 and 2021, the country had an average excess death rate of 56 per 100,000 – compared to 109 in the UK, 111 in Spain, 116 in Germany and 133 in Italy,” reported the Telegraph.
A study conducted by Johns Hopkins University and released in February concluded that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
“While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted,” the researchers concluded.
Reporting on the new study, the New York Times noted “the rate of death from all causes for younger adults has risen by a bigger percentage than has the rate of death from all causes for old people.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 21:25 - Tesla Shanghai Back At Full Capacity While China Mulls Additional EV Tax Breaks
Tesla Shanghai Back At Full Capacity While China Mulls Additional EV Tax Breaks
Tesla’s Shanghai plant has reportedly found itself back at full capacity, according to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology deputy Minister Xin Guobin, who made the statement during a press conference this week.
At the same conference, he talked about how China would begin an industry carbon neutrality campaign and that China is still working on deciding whether or not it will extend tax breaks for the purchase of EVs, a Bloomberg wrap up on Tuesday morning noted.
The country has been mulling whether or not to extend EV subsidies after announcing last year that it was going to conclude them in 2023. Since then, Beijing has been re-thinking the idea amidst slowing demand for autos. Less than a week ago we reported that Chinese auto sales were down 17% year over year.
China continues to face tough comps, as last year’s demand was robust due to pull forward of demand aiming to capture EV subsidies and this year has slowed again due to a new round of Covid lockdowns, we noted.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has been lamenting a “tough” Q2, blaming Tesla’s challenges on China.
We won’t know until Tesla reports its Q2, but for now one of the company’s patented leaked internal emails reportedly contains Musk warning his workers that the EV maker needs to get “back on track”.
The email reportedly says: “This has been a very tough quarter, primarily due to supply chain and production challenges in China. So we need to rally hard to recover!”
Recall, we just highlighted a Wedbush note from Dan Ives last month that said Tesla’s shutdown in China was an “epic disaster” for its June quarter. Ives said he expects to see “modest delivery softness”.
Ives also said he is expecting a “slower growth trajectory” in China into the second half of the year and called the headwinds out of Asia “hard to ignore”. He also commented that the ongoing Twitter drama “may be a distraction” for Musk at a time when his attention should be focused on dealing with Tesla’s issues.
Recall, we noted weeks ago that “no vehicles were sold in Shanghai last month [April]” as a result of the lockdown, according to an auto-seller association in the city.
Additionally, it was reported last month that Tesla would be recalling over 100,000 vehicles in China. 107,293 vehicles in China will be recalled “due to safety risks”, according to the China People’s Daily.
The recall, which relates to a defect in the central touchscreen during fast charging, “involves Model 3 and Model Y vehicles produced in the country between Oct 19, 2021, and April 26, 2022,” the report said.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 21:05 - Trump Could Launch His 2024 Presidential Campaign Next Month
Trump Could Launch His 2024 Presidential Campaign Next Month
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
Sources suggest that Donald Trump could be preparing to launch his 2024 presidential campaign as soon as next month.
According to people close to Trump, the former president wants to show closest rival Governor Ron DeSantis “who the boss is” by staging a massive July rally in Florida.
Reportedly, Trump wants a fireworks-heavy spectacular to upstage DeSantis and is already scouting potential locations near to the Florida Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee.
“One time that he did bring up the Florida [launch] scenario was quickly followed by him commenting on how terrible DeSantis was at public speaking and commanding an audience … [and that he’s] lacking in so much charisma and he’s so boring that Florida Republicans would leave Ron immediately for Trump [in a 2024 match-up],” a source told Rolling Stone.
However, some of Trump’s supporters are worried that launching the campaign too soon could overshadow the midterms and end up helping Democrats.
“The clearest, cleanest path is to have a cage-match rematch,” one source told NBC.
“If you have that rematch too early, it could actually help Biden a little bit.”
“Trump in modest doses has been good for Trump,” they added.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Democrats are panicking at the thought of Biden once again going up against Trump for the 2024 presidential election.
“They have watched as a commander in chief who built a reputation for gaffes has repeatedly rattled global diplomacy with unexpected remarks that were later walked back by his White House staff, and as he has sat for fewer interviews than any of his recent predecessors,” reported the New York Times.
The latest poll, conducted by Blueprint Polling, shows Trump beating Biden by a margin of 44%-38% in a hypothetical run off.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 20:45 - High Octane Gas Has Never Been This Expensive Versus Regular As Supply Crunch Crushes East Coast
High Octane Gas Has Never Been This Expensive Versus Regular As Supply Crunch Crushes East Coast
In a time of rising gasoline demand and refinery bottlenecks, the US could use more octane as the spread between premium gas (octane level of 93) and regular gas (octane level of 87) has blown out.
Premium fuels eliminate engine knock in high-performance vehicles that have high compression engines. For most vehicles, using regular gas is advised and cheaper. Wholesale premium fuel sells for 62.50 cents more per gallon, a record high.
Bloomberg explains the blowout of the spread is due to “low supplies of octane,” which may exacerbate gasoline supply tightness this summer for premium fuel, adding it could send regular and mid-grade gas higher, contributing to further price increases.
“Expensive octane and shortages in conversion-unit capacity are plaguing global gasoline supply. Although gasoline cracks are moderating as refiners return from turnarounds in June, thin stocks this summer mean there is little buffer ahead,” according to a report from Energy Aspects.
So there’s a situation where gasoline demand continues to increase in peak driving season as refiners are constrained by octane availability, which has made supplies for premium fuels less abundant, driving up gas bills for luxury car owners. Those thinking of trading down for mid-grade or regular in a luxury car to save 60 cents a gallon might want to rethink the move. Extended use of regular gas could result in engine problems down the road.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 20:25 - Cass: Freight Shipments Bounce Back In May, Expenditures Dip From Record Highs
Cass: Freight Shipments Bounce Back In May, Expenditures Dip From Record Highs
By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves
Freight shipments bounced back in May as transportation costs retreated from record highs, according to a report from Cass Information Systems.
The shipments component of the Cass Freight Index increased 5.4% from April (4% higher on a seasonally adjusted basis), which more than recouped April’s 2.6% decline. Compared to 2021, shipments were 2.7% lower “on a tough comparison.”
“After a nearly two-year cycle of surging freight volumes, two key drivers of growth for the freight cycle — goods consumption and inventory restocking — are faltering,” ACT Research’s Tim Denoyer commented.
The shipments index is now on par with the 2019 downturn, up only 0.6% compared to May of that year. If normal seasonality holds, the index will be 2% higher year-over-year in June and flat to up 1% for all of 2022.
“The news from the retail sector and in the oil markets suggest that’s probably optimistic, but at this point, it’s a pretty stable environment, no major downturn,” Denoyer said.
Last month, retail heavyweights Walmart and Target both warned they were holding too much inventory, which would likely weigh on margins. Last Tuesday, Target cut expectations further for its fiscal second quarter as the company looks to “right-size its inventory.”
Increasing markdowns, culling excess inventory and canceling orders forced Target to cut its operating margin forecast by more than half for the period that will conclude at the end of July. The company still expects to perform at a level better than pre-pandemic averages in the back half of its fiscal year.
Table: Cass Information Systems. SA (seasonally adjusted) Cass’ expenditures subindex fell 4.9% (down 5.9% seasonally adjusted) from the record set in April. The index measures the total amount spent on freight. With shipments up more than 5%, that means rates were down 10%. However, the month-over-month “noise on rates is largely mix, with more LTL and less TL in the data set.”
Compared to 2021, May expenditures were up 27.5%. That was the lowest year-over-year increase in the subindex since March 2021. Tough comps to the prior year are in store for the rest of the 2022, which “will naturally slow these y/y increases.” For instance, the index was 56.4% higher year-over-year in June 2021.
Assuming normal seasonality the remainder of the year, the index would increase 19% year-over-year for 2022, versus an expected 24% full-year increase just a month ago.
Inferred rates, or expenditures divided by shipments, were up 31% year-over-year during the month but down 9.8% from April.
“It’s tempting to see this as a sign that freight costs have peaked, and on a y/y basis that is true, as inferred rates will slow all the way to 13% y/y in June on normal seasonality. Supply/demand fundamentals have certainly turned looser this year, so it wouldn’t be an unreasonable conclusion,” Denoyer said. “However, the drop was largely due to mix, and with fuel prices still adding upward pressure, the descent is not straightforward.”
He did say the recent decline in spot rates, excluding fuel, “portends a downcycle on the horizon.”
“2022 has featured a big improvement in driver availability and a flattening of freight demand. This is a deflationary combination, though it will take several months to filter from the spot market into contract rates.”
Inferred rates have also been propped up by incremental miles as freight has been forced onto the road due to a congested rail complex. However, with intermodal volumes “uniquely poised” to grow year-over-year in the second half of 2022, excess freight miles will be reduced, placing additional downward pressure on the inferred rates, Denoyer said.
Cass’ Truckload Linehaul Index increased 0.9% sequentially in May and 13.2% year-over-year. The linehaul index excludes fuel and accessorial charges.
Commenting on bid season and the correlation between spot and contract rates, Denoyer said, “With the large declines in spot rates coming just ahead of the big spring contract season, the lead time between spot and contract may be compressed somewhat.
“Growing evidence of weaker goods consumption, rising services substitution and rebuilt inventories, with some categories now overstocked, was perhaps the most impactful news in freight this month.”
He also noted that capacity is continuing to step higher as the industry has added 27,300 new trucking jobs over the last two months.
Data used in the Cass indexes is derived from freight bills paid by Cass, a provider of payment management solutions. Cass processes $37 billion in freight payables annually on behalf of customers.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 20:05 - Philadelphia House Republicans Start Impeachment Proceedings Against DA Larry Krasner
Philadelphia House Republicans Start Impeachment Proceedings Against DA Larry Krasner
Pennsylvania House Republicans have seen enough of the chaos and lawlessness in Philadelphia and have moved to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. They are starting proceedings this week, CBS Philly reported.
Reps. Josh Kail, Torren Ecker, and Tim O’Neal are leading the charge to start the hearings, citing Philadelphia’s “unchecked crime and violence” as the reason. Recall, just last week, three people were killed after a shooting on South Street, a popular weekend hangout and tourist attraction to the city.
The Reps. are “circulating a co-sponsorship memo for supporters of Articles of Impeachment and believe it will receive bipartisan support,” the CBS report says.
Kail commented: “We fully anticipate this to be a bipartisan effort, we fully anticipate to gather quite a bit of support amongst this effort because quite honestly the dereliction of duty and the failure of Larry Krasner is well known across the commonwealth.”
Krasner He continued: “We did not arrive at this decision lightly or easily. In fact, we are taking this action after we have taken significant steps to pass legislation that addresses violent crime in Philadelphia by ensuring our current laws are enforced.”
“We are starting this process now because the unchecked violent crime in Philadelphia has reached a breaking point due to the willful refusal by District Attorney Krasner to enforce existing laws,” he added.
The Reps. continued, in a statement: “Across the country, people are standing up to unchecked and uncontrolled violence and lawlessness allowed because of radical politicians in district attorneys’ offices, like Larry Krasner.”
“Just last week, city businesses said they are thinking of relocating because of spikes in crime. Philadelphia is Pennsylvania’s major economic engine, a tourist attraction, and the birthplace of our freedoms. If unchecked crime is keeping businesses and tourists from visiting and locating in Philadelphia, it impacts Pennsylvania as a whole,” they concluded.
.@EckerRep and other lawmakers announce the start of the impeachment process of Phila. District Attorney Larry Krasner @CBSPhilly pic.twitter.com/G3O78gLeZJ
— Matt Petrillo (@MattPetrillo) June 13, 2022
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 19:45 - Biden's Mandates For Increased Production Of Ethanol Are Wrong-Headed
Biden’s Mandates For Increased Production Of Ethanol Are Wrong-Headed
Authored by Mark Hendrickson via The Epoch Times,
On Friday, June 3, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will require American refiners to blend a record amount of ethanol and other biofuels into the country’s fuel supply.
Reactions were mixed.
Corn farmers in Iowa, where more than 40 percent of each year’s corn crop is turned into fuel, were happy.
Many environmentalists, oil refiners, and yours truly were dismayed.
There’s nothing inherently strange about President Joe Biden flying into Iowa to crow about mandating increased production of corn-based ethanol and E15 (motor fuel with a 15 percent ethanol content instead of the usual 10 percent). President Donald Trump did almost exactly the same thing four years before, flying into Iowa, a major corn-growing state, the month before mid-term elections to announce E15 mandates.
(The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the implementation of E15 mandates, saying that the administration didn’t have that authority under the Clean Air Act.)
What’s unusual about Biden’s move is its timing.
Not only are the mid-term elections still five months away, but normally E15 is banned in the summer months due to the fact that burning it increases smog. In the name of reducing atmospheric emissions of a non-pollutant—the CO2 emitted from burning gasoline—the president is waiving longstanding anti-pollution regulations to allow increased smog this summer.
…
Americans are already feeling the pinch of food inflation every time they go to the grocery store. Biden talks about getting inflation under control, but his desire to use more farmland to grow corn for fuel instead of people food belies his rhetoric. Increasing mandates for ethanol at a time of soaring food prices is more than insensitive; it’s cruel.
…
The problem here is that Team Biden is obsessed with crushing American fossil fuel production. They would much rather have Americans burn ethanol than refined petroleum in their vehicle engines. That’s a dubious policy in the best of times, but at a time of critical global food shortages, it’s obscene.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 19:25 - Pilot Murder-Suicides Account For Growing Share Of Airline Crashes
Pilot Murder-Suicides Account For Growing Share Of Airline Crashes
As if there weren’t enough to worry about these days, a new report from Bloomberg spotlights a persistently-lurking risk to air travelers: suicidal airline pilots.
That peril was underscored by the March crash of a China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 that killed 132 people. The jet’s bizarre trajectory immediately prompted suspicions of murder-suicide: From cruising altitude, the Boeing 737-800 lurched into a near-vertical dive, plunging more than 25,000 feet in two terrifying minutes, and information from the flight data recorder shows the dive was initiated with the cockpit controls.
Video taken from the ground captured the jet hurtling nose-first to the earth like a dropped dart:
According to Bloomberg’s calculations, pilot murder-suicides represent the second-largest cause of civilian aviation deaths over the last decade—however, “if the China Eastern crash is confirmed as the latest such suicide, it will mean that deaths due to intentional acts have exceeded all other causes since the start of 2021.”
Of course, the smaller the time sample, the more likely one is to observe extraordinary results. Regardless, though, it’s clear that—with aircraft malfunctions and pilot errors happily causing far fewer deaths than just two decades ago—pilot murder-suicides account for an increasingly large proportion of fatalities.
Surveys of airline pilots show their rate of suicide contemplation mirrors the rate for the general public, with 4 to 8% having thought about it. Detection of such tendencies is exceedingly difficult, and past perpetrators of suicide flights generally gave no clue of what they were contemplating.
Notable confirmed or suspected pilot murder-suicide flights include:
- Germanwings Flight 9525 (2015). In a case where hindsight is agonizing, a copilot who was treated for suicidal ideation locked the pilot out of the cockpit and adjusted the autopilot to fly the Airbus 320-211 into a mountain in the French Alps northwest of Nice. The copilot had concealed his psychological problems from the airline.
- Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (2014). A Boeing 777-200ER traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing turned around just before reaching Vietnam and flew over the Indian Ocean, where it’s believed to have crashed. The airplane’s transponder was turned off around the time it deviated from the plan. Despite the most expensive search in aviation history, the airplane has never been found—only pieces that drifted great distances.
- LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 (2013). Halfway to its destination, an Embraer E190 twinjet crashed into a national park in Namibia. Investigators determined that, after locking his copilot out of the cockpit, the pilot manually adjusted the autopilot settings. The cockpit voice recorder captured the sound of banging on the cockpit door.
- EgyptAir Flight 990 (1999). Thirty minutes after departing New York’s JFK airport, a Boeing 767-300 suddenly went into a rapid descent in which it approached the speed of sound. It then leveled and gained altitude before going into its final, fatal descent. NTSB investigators determined a copilot asked to take over the controls. When the captain went to the restroom, the autopilot was disconnected. When the pilot returned, he asked “What’s happening? What’s happening?” The copilot repeatedly replied, “I rely on God.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 19:05 - Boudin Recall Reveals Democrats' Rift With Minority Voters
Boudin Recall Reveals Democrats’ Rift With Minority Voters
Authored by Sausan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics.com,
As the dust has settled in the days since a political earthquake hit California with the landslide recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a distinct voting pattern has emerged.
Precinct-by-precinct voting maps show minority voters backing the recall in much higher numbers than college-educated, affluent white progressives, with very few exceptions. It’s not difficult to understand why, California political analysts across the spectrum tell RealClearPolitics.
Minority communities suffer more when crimes rates are soaring than insulated wealthier neighborhoods with more protections and money for security.
“While we are fewer in number [than in the city’s past], we saw more African Americans resist the narrative that you have to reject this recall, it’s racist, it’s not progressive, it’s about conservatism, and they’re trying to dupe you,” Andrea Shorter, spokeswoman for Safer SF Without Boudin, the largest Boudin recall group, told RCP.
“We’re looking around, and a lot of the bodies that are stacking up, whether it’s from fentanyl or from violent assaults from folks who should not have been on our streets…are people of color.”
Under different circumstances, Shorter and Boudin would have been aligned in their pursuit of criminal justice reform. Shorter has spent 25 years in San Francisco as a community organizer and political strategist specializing in criminal and juvenile justice reform, gender equity, and LGBTQ workplace inclusion. But the city’s interwoven problems of homelessness, high crime, and rampant drug dealing had brought Shorter to a breaking point with liberal orthodoxy.
“There’s this romantic notion of what being a progressive means versus the reality of policies that are not having a positive impact on our lives,” she said.
“When there are open-air drug markets in the Tenderloin – well, who’s getting hurt by that? We’re all getting hurt, but it’s mostly people of color that are hurt.”
San Francisco is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country; its residents speak more than 100 languages. Asians make up roughly a third of the city’s population, with a large percentage of its business owners anchored in Chinatown, which voted 68% in favor of the recall.
Several high-profile Asian community leaders helped spearhead the recall, including Mary Jung, former chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, and Leanna Louie, a small-business owner and veteran who was one of 60 Asian Americans assaulted on the streets of San Francisco in 2021 – more than a six-fold increase from 2020.
Louie began volunteering with a community-run task force to patrol Chinatown’s neighborhood when shop owners began experiencing a significant uptake in burglaries and vandalism.
“There’s two kinds of people in San Francisco. Ones who were victims and ones who are about to be victims, if Chesa doesn’t get recalled,” Louie told Newsweek days before the recall.
“Most people who come by us have already had their cars smashed in several times, their houses broken into or their [businesses] have been vandalized.”
Shorter and others point to an alarming statistic: Fentanyl overdoses in San Francisco killed more people than COVID over the last year. While the surging fentanyl crisis killed nearly 500 people last year, Boudin’s office reportedly did not secure a single conviction for dealing the deadly opioid for cases filed during 2021.
Boudin’s office notched just three total convictions of “possession with intent to sell” drugs in 2021 – two for methamphetamine and one for a case including heroin and cocaine. By contrast, Boudin’s predecessor, George Gascón, who is now the DA in Los Angeles (and is facing his own recall election in November), oversaw more than 90 drug-dealing convictions in 2018.
While Boudin, a former public defender, has blamed billionaire conservatives for funding the effort to toss him from office, voting patterns tell a different story. Boudin lost nearly every heavily minority neighborhood in the city, except Mission District, which has historically served as the center of the Hispanic community but has been gentrified with the dot-com boom and young urban professionals moving into the area.
Garry South, a longtime California Democratic political consultant , said people are fed up with the brazen attacks on the streets at all hours of the day and night. South, who outlined his thoughts in a Friday CalMatters op-ed, doesn’t foresee a widespread movement of minority voters toward the Republican Party. He asserts that voters are simply expressing a desire for a basic level of public safety.
“There’s an old political adage that conservatives are liberals who have been mugged,” South said.
“I think that’s too simplistic when it comes to California. These minority voters are still going to vote Democratic in the fall. It’s just that they are fed up.”
“There’s a reason we call DAs prosecutors – that’s their primary job – to prosecute people who commit crimes,” South continued.
“It’s not to act like public defenders. We already have those. The role of the DA is not to be a social welfare agency coming up with excuses for criminals.”
South warns against connecting San Francisco’s lopsided Boudin recall to billionaire businessman Rick Caruso’s surprise besting of Democratic Rep. Karen Bass by three percentage points in the Los Angeles mayoral race. Caruso, a Republican who changed his registration to Democrat before he announced his mayoral run, and Bass will meet in a runoff in November in a race that has focused mainly on crime and homelessness.
Caruso has pledged to hire 1,500 new police officers within his first term and build 30,000 shelter beds in his first 300 days. Bass’ plan to reduce crime has focused mainly on criminal justice reform and combating “conditions that lead to crime,” although she has pledged to be “smart on crime” if elected.
To South, Bass simply could not compete with Caruso’s ability to self-finance. The real estate developer has spent nearly $41 million so far in the race, at least $10 million of which was devoted to ads bashing Bass on everything from rising crime to missed House votes to a dust-up over largesse from the University of Southern California. (Bass received a USC scholarship worth $95,000 while serving in Congress.)
“That’s a terrible return on investment – he spent $41 million and got 41% of the vote, and she spent 4 [million] and got 38%,” South said. “He outspent her 10 to one. In November, when there will be much larger turnout and younger turnout, I don’t think he pulls it off.”
But there are signs that Bass is also having trouble with minority voters despite her history as a community activist and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. A survey conducted by political polling group BSP Research between April 20 and May 3 suggested Caruso was more popular than Bass among registered Latino voters, a crucial demographic in Los Angeles. Caruso also had a favorable rating of 47% compared to Bass’ 44%. A more recent UC- Berkeley Institute poll, taken in late May, found that roughly half of black men had planned to vote for Caruso in Tuesday’s primary.
In mid-May, legendary Long Beach rapper Snoop Dogg reached out to Caruso and offered his endorsement, saying that he was doing so because of Caruso’s work with “Sweet Alice” Harris, a beloved community organizer in Watts who also endorsed Caruso. A few days later, Clarence Avant, a music industry mogul who introduced then-Sen. Barack Obama to Southern California’s political and entertainment circles, also endorsed Caruso. A Los Angeles Times op-ed suggesting Bass was having trouble with black men noted that Avant’s wife, Jacqueline, was murdered last year during an invasion of their Beverly Hills home.
To Republicans, it’s a no-brainer: California residents of all political stripes and ethnicities are fed up with rampant crime and homelessness.
“I think you can conclude that neighborhoods most impacted by crime and homelessness are going to vote on those issues,” Rob Stutzman, who served as deputy chief of staff for former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, told RCP. “Neighborhoods that bear the brunt of this – they’re going to vote to have order restored in their communities, and of course urban Democrats in these big cities need to be wary of that.”
Stutzman called Boudin a “dead coyote that ranchers shoot and throw over the fence with the other coyotes to look at as a warning.”
Caruso, he predicted, will be able to compete for support in the Latino, Asian, and black communities, because Los Angeles has become so dysfunctional in recent years, especially concerning the city’s homelessness problem. While crime has been soaring in many parts of the country in recent years, homelessness is particularly vexing for California with its “drug dens” flowing with crime.
“It’s just snowballing here, and you don’t feel you’re in the United States in a lot of these places. Every big California city is dealing with it – Fresno, Sacramento, cities all throughout eastern Los Angeles County. These issues transcend partisanship because it has to do with fundamentally how do you feel when you walk outside your door, drive down your street and around your neighborhood?”
Voters should listen carefully to the substance and not just the talking points on issues of crime and homelessness, Stutzman warned. Boudin’s recall will likely spur a seismic shift in rhetoric from Democrats across the state and the country, but fundamental policy changes must be made to change the status quo.
If Bass and other Democrats don’t switch from a “housing-first priority to shelter-first, and if counties cannot deliver basic services” to help people with drug and mental health issues rehabilitate and get off the streets, it’s just more of the same, he said.
“Rhetoric is what people have been hearing in this state now for year after year after year, including from the governor, and the problem keeps getting worse,” he said. “So, if people feel like their vote matters on this like it did in San Francisco, yeah, they’re gonna cast it.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 18:45 - Over 100 Injured After Iran Chemical Plant Explosion Emits Toxic Gas
Over 100 Injured After Iran Chemical Plant Explosion Emits Toxic Gas
Over 100 have been injured after a large explosion ripped through a chemical factory in southern Iran on Monday, which injured over 100 people – most of them who may have inhaled ammonium or other chemicals that leaked from the plant.
Citing state media, the Associated Press reports that “a leak from an ammonium tank caused the blast on Monday evening in the southern city of Firouzabad in Fars province, located about 770 kilometers (480 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.”
Image: local media Video circulated of large plumes of white and gray smoke plumes coming from the burning factory. Local authorities closed roads and alerted nearby residents over the potential chemical hazard.
“According to the chief of the provincial health department, Vahid Hosseini, out of 133 injured who were taken to local hospitals, mostly factory workers, 114 were later released after treatment,” the AP continues.
Mehr news agency identified that the site is a sodium bicarbonate plant – which is a common ingredient in cleaning and other household products.
رسانههای ایران دوشنبه 23 خرداد به نقل از خلیل عبدالهی، مدیرکل مدیریت بحران استانداری فارس گزارش کردند در پی وقوع انفجار و آتشسوزی در کارخانه کربنات سدیم کاوه در شهرستان فیروزآباد، تاکنون 101 نفر بر اثر نشست یکی از مخازن و انتشار گازهای سمی دچار مصدومیت و مسموم شدهاند. pic.twitter.com/HUDwCKY5nj
— العربیه فارسی (@AlArabiya_Fa) June 13, 2022
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Local authorities are citing leak in one of the chemical tanks as the likely initial cause of the explosion, but anytime there’s a major incident like this, it gives way to intense speculation among outside observers over Israel’s past acknowledged sabotage operations targeting sensitive nuclear, military, and industrial facilities.
The AP for example observes, “Sensitive military and nuclear sites in Iran have also been the target of attacks over the past years, which Iran has blamed on Israel.”
Aftermath of the chemical plant blaze, after firefighters put the fire out…
ویدیو از داخل کارخانهی کربنات سدیم فیروزآباد: pic.twitter.com/CXGTk31T9d
— +۱۵۰۰تصویر (@1500tasvir) June 14, 2022
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But there’s also the reality that after years of US-led sanctions, the Islamic Republic is struggling with ageing and failing parts and infrastructure.
“Iran occasionally reports incidents of fires or explosions at industrial sites affecting the country’s infrastructure that are mainly blamed on technical failures,” the AP notes. “Years of economic sanctions by the West have blocked Iran’s access to original spare parts and new equipment.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/14/2022 – 18:25
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