May 17

Today’s News 17th May 2021

  • Russian Navy Says It's Closely Monitoring UK & French Warships In Black Sea
    Russian Navy Says It’s Closely Monitoring UK & French Warships In Black Sea

    Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday said that its Black Sea Fleet is now closely monitoring a British Royal Navy patrol vessel which just entered the Black Sea. 

    “The forces and means of the Black Sea Fleet have started tracking the activities of the Trent patrol vessel of the British Navy, which entered the Black Sea waters on May 16,” a statement from Russia’s defense ministry said of its Black Sea Fleet operations.

    Via Royal Navy

    The HMS Trent passed through the Bosporus Strait on Sunday, after a month ago the UK said its navy was planning to send patrols to the region in response to Ukraine tensions and the prior Russian troop buildup in Crimea and along the border. The Kremlin confirmed it’s since withdrawn the additional forces, which numbered in the many tens of thousands. 

    Regardless it appears to the UK is seeking to send a “message” against another potential near future Russian troop build-ups or large scale drills in the region. 

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    Further according to TASS the Russian fleet is monitoring a French military vessel as well, since it entered the waters about five days ago.

    “On May 11, the report said the Black Sea Fleet started keeping a close eye on the French Navy’s patrol ship Commandant Birot, which had entered the Black Sea,” the report said.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/17/2021 – 02:45

  • A Primer For The Propagandized: Fear Is The Mind-Killer
    A Primer For The Propagandized: Fear Is The Mind-Killer

    Authored by Margaret Anna Alice via Off-Guardian.org,

    “Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”

    – George Orwell

    The noose is dangling gently around our necks. Every day, they cinch it tighter. By the time we realize it’s strangling us, it will be too late.

    Those who – gradually and gleefully – sacrifice their freedoms, their autonomy, their individuality, their livelihoods, and their relationships on the altar of the “common good” have forgotten this is the pattern followed by every totalitarian regime in history.

    Everyone wonders how ordinary Germans could have been manipulated to participate or stand dumbstruck while their government was transformed into a genocidal juggernaut. This is how. Read Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler memoir to see how this can happen anywhere—including here.

    Everyone wonders how Russians could have permitted and even zealously reported fellow citizens for imprisonment and execution under Article 58, the penal code invented to incarcerate anyone who dared express the slightest whisper of noncompliance under Stalin’s homicidal state. This is how. Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s meticulously documented The Gulag Archipelago to witness this progression of authoritarian lunacy.

    Everyone wonders how Hutus could have suddenly started axing their Tutsi neighbors to death after being inundated with waves of anti-Tutsi propaganda from Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines. Read Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

    The list goes on. And on. And on. From Machiavelli’s The Prince to Étienne de la Boetie’s The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude to Edward Herman’s and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent (and accompanying documentary) to BBC’s The Century of the Self, mechanisms of mass control have been chronicled for millennia.

    George Orwell wrote,

    As far as the mass of the people go, the extraordinary swings of opinion which occur nowadays, the emotions which can be turned on and off like a tap, are the result of newspaper and radio hypnosis.”

    Can you imagine what master propagandist Edward Bernays would have done with access to today’s mainstream media conglomerate combined with the global surveillance infrastructure of Big Tech? And you really think that’s not happening now—with another century of psychological, neurological, and technological research under their belts?

    The present ability to curate reality and coerce obedience is unprecedented, far beyond what Orwell envisioned in 1984, Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, Huxley in Brave New World, and Burgess in A Clockwork Orange.

    A textbook example of Problem Reaction Solution, the current tsunami of worldwide hysteria is the latest and potentially most threatening example of mass control in history.

    The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining—despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative.

    Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic.

    Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.

    Cultivate and wield our cognitive biases—especially ingroup bias, conformity bias, and authority bias—against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too busy squabbling amongst each other to recognize and unite against those corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful to extract our resources for their own gain.

    This ideological mass psychosis is religion—not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.

    Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

    He also said:

    “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”

    The next time you’re watching the news, reading a social media post, listening to a friend repeat a scripted talking point, pay attention. Learn to identify the earmarks of propaganda, the clickbait used to trigger your emotions, the mechanisms employed to engineer your cognitive biases.

    Don’t let your pride prevent you from seeing—and admitting—the Emperor is naked. We are losing our last sliver of opportunity to resist authoritarianism.

    This is not a partisan issue. Those who wish to control us have made it such because disunited lemmings are easier to steer than independent, critical thinkers.

    This is a human issue. This is about crushing the middle class—the backbone of a democratic republic—and transferring trillions from the middle and lower classes to the ruling plutocracy. This is about demolishing the foundations of a free society and building it back—not better, but better-controlled.

    I will close by recommending a series of illuminating videos on menticide (“the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person’s values and beliefs … to induce radically different ideas”) throughout history by Academy of Ideas. This analysis of mass psychosis is nonpartisan and of value to every thinking human being.

    Dare to question. Dare to disbelieve. Dare to defy ideology in favor of science while you still can.

    *  *  *

    NOTE: This originated as a response to a Nextdoor.com post titled, “So many people think these Covid rules are for our safety but it’s really about control.” By the time I finished writing it, the post had vanished.

    *  *  *

    Originally published under the same title at Margaret Anna Alice Through the Looking Glass.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/17/2021 – 02:00

  • Just Whose Coast Is The Coast Guard Guarding?
    Just Whose Coast Is The Coast Guard Guarding?

    Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via AntiWar.com,

    Most Americans likely assume that the mission of the U.S. Coast Guard is to protect the coasts of the United State from maritime threats. Increasingly, though, that is no longer true, as Coast Guard vessels and personnel now routinely operate thousands of miles from the US homeland. Moreover, they frequently are not engaged in “defensive” missions, but are instead part and parcel of Washington’s arrogant force projection around the world.

    The traditional missions were not always sensible or achievable ones, to be sure. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Coast Guard cutters were tasked with trying to intercept shipments of liquor trying to reach thirsty consumers in the United States. Not surprisingly, that mission proved to be utterly futile and frustrating. More recently, the Coast Guard (along with other agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration) has pursued a similar quixotic effort to intercept vessels carrying cargoes of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other currently illegal drugs. Indeed, the Coast Guard itself boasts that it is “the nation’s first line of defense” against drug smugglers.

    During both prohibition crusades, such efforts have proven more symbolic than substantive. Authorities confiscate only about 10 percent of the targeted contraband, and bootleggers and drug traffickers simply write-off such losses as part of the normal cost of doing business. Attempts to hype successful intercepts do not change that economic reality.

    The Coast Guard’s level of success on another mission is scarcely better. Although most illegal migrants try to enter the United States over land (primarily through the US border with Mexico), a significant number attempt to enter by landing in boats of their own or as the human cargo of professional smugglers. An unlucky minority are intercepted, but most people fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries for a better life in the United States reach their destination, despite the Coast Guard’s best efforts.

    As misguided as some of those traditional missions might be, they at least involve operations in waters close to the United States. However, more and more of the Coast Guard’s time, budget, and personnel are devoted to operations far from America’s shores.

    Late last month, a Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Hamilton entered the Black Sea as part of the US Navy’s show of strength against Russia. According to a Navy press release, that part of the voyage took place “after Hamilton conducted logistics visits to Naples, Italy and Rota, Spain. The US Coast Guard is conducting a routine deployment in US Sixth Fleet, working alongside Allies, building maritime domain awareness, and sharing best practices with partner nation navies and coast guards.” That doesn’t sound like a mission that had any relevance to the defense of America’s coasts.

    Via ABC News/US Coast Guard

    Wall Street Journal reporter Gordon Lubold likewise missed the underlying irony in the lead paragraph of his April 26, 2021, story about another Coast Guard operation: “A group of boats from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps harassed two US Coast Guard ships earlier this month in the Persian Gulf.” Later, the story mentioned that US military officials charged that one Iranian vessel had come within 70 yards of the US ship in “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuvers. Neither Lubold (nor anyone else) bothered to ask what a US Coast Guard ship was doing 6,000 miles from home operating as part of a hostile display of force close to another country’s coastline. An objective observer might conclude that the Iranian ships were the ones defending their country from a maritime threat.

    The Coast Guard is even more active in the western Pacific as part of Washington’s effort to contain China’s power. In late 2020 and early 2021, two of the service’s most advanced cutters were deployed to those waters. Wall Street Journal reporters Lucy Craymer and Ben Kesling noted that their location was “nearly 4,000 miles closer to Shanghai than it is to San Francisco.” In 2019, a Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Bertholf, even transited the extraordinarily sensitive Taiwan Strait to show US military backing for Taiwan’s resistance to China’s growing pressure. Lyle Morris, a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corporation, asserts that “the biggest transition [in US security strategy in the Pacific] has been the Coast Guard’s more overt signaling about its role in the great power competition with China.”

    Some of the official rationales for these new missions are transparently disingenuous. The US Coast Guard cutter Kimball just completed a multi-week mission to “counter illegal fishing” in the “Philippine Sea.” That body of water is much better known as the South China Sea, and the ship was there as tangible evidence of Washington’s support for Manila in its increasingly tense territorial dispute with China over islands there.

    One should be able to insist that the architects of Washington’s imperial foreign policy at least practice truth in labeling. It is no longer clear that the Coast Guard’s dominant focus is to protect America’s coasts. Even though the service is officially part of the Department of Homeland Security, it increasingly operates as an adjunct of the Navy in projecting US power around the world. It is an Orwellian euphemism to portray it as an agency dedicated to coastal defense when it routinely performs such offensive functions thousands of miles from home.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/17/2021 – 00:00

  • As COVID Concerns Ease, DHS Reminds Americans Terrorists May Attack At Any Time
    As COVID Concerns Ease, DHS Reminds Americans Terrorists May Attack At Any Time

    Be afraid, very afraid.

    That appears to be the message from the Biden administration.

    As they cede “control” over the populace’s fear of COVID to the reality of a virus that doesn’t spread outdoors, or on surfaces, or via mask-blocking droplets and are increasingly unable to ‘scientifically’ explain the political problem that non-restrictive states have not suffered measurably different outcomes from lockdown states; the timing of the latest fear-filled Department of Homeland Security’s ‘National Terrorism Advisory System’ Bulletin is questionable at best.

    DHS is warning that terrorists may attack as COVID restrictions ease across the US, citing social media platforms and online forums used by perpetrators to spread their violent rhetoric.

    “Today’s terrorism-related threat landscape is more complex, more dynamic, and more diversified than it was several years ago. We know that providing timely and useful information to the public is critical as we all work together to secure the homeland.  With the issuance of today’s NTAS Bulletin, we are advising the public to be vigilant about ongoing threats to the United States, including those posed by domestic terrorism, grievance-based violence, and those inspired or influenced by foreign terrorists and other malign foreign influences,” said Secretary Mayorkas.

    “In this evolving threat environment, DHS is redoubling our efforts to detect and disrupt all forms of foreign and domestic terrorism and targeted violence, while safeguarding privacy protections, civil rights, and civil liberties.”

    As a reminder, in February, Secretary Mayorkas designated combating domestic violent extremism as a National Priority Area for the first time.

    As Robert Higgs wrote, fear, like every other “productive” resource, is subject to the laws of production. Thus, it cannot escape the law of diminishing marginal productivity: as successive doses of fear-mongering are added to the government’s “production” process, the incremental public clamor for governmental protection declines. The first time the government cries wolf, the public is frightened; the second time, less so; the third time, still less so. If the government plays the fear card too much, it overloads the public’s sensibilities, and eventually people discount almost entirely the government’s attempts to frighten them further.

    So it’s time to change the tune from ‘fear’ of a biological virus to fear of a much more insidious belief-based virus (belief in anything but the establishment narrative of anything).

    By keeping the population in a state of artificially heightened apprehension, the government-cum-media prepares the ground for planting specific measures of taxation, regulation, surveillance, reporting, and other invasions of the people’s wealth, privacy, and freedoms. Left alone for a while, relieved of this ceaseless bombardment of warnings, people would soon come to understand that hardly any of the announced threats has any substance and that they can manage their own affairs quite well without the security-related regimentation and tax-extortion the government seeks to justify.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 23:30

  • Former Professor Sentenced To 37 Months In Prison For Using Federal Grants To Aid China’s Medical Research
    Former Professor Sentenced To 37 Months In Prison For Using Federal Grants To Aid China’s Medical Research

    By Cathy He of The Epoch Times,

    A biomedical professor has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for carrying out a scheme to use millions of dollars in federal grant money to advance research in China, according to the Justice Department.

    Zheng Songguo, a former professor at Ohio State University (OSU), pleaded guilty in November to lying on his National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications, in order to use $4.1 million in research grants to develop the fields of rheumatology and immunology for China, the department said.

    Zheng Songguo

    He was arrested last May in Anchorage, Alaska, as he was preparing to board a charter flight to China in an attempt to flee the United States. When taken into custody, he was carrying multiple items, including two laptops, three cell phones, several USB drives, several bars of silver, expired Chinese passports for his family, and deeds for property in China.

    The judge also ordered Zheng to pay more than $3.4 million in restitution to the NIH and about $413,000 to OSU.

    “For years the defendant concealed his participation in Chinese government talent recruitment programs, hiding his affiliations with at least five research institutions in China,” Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division said in a statement.

    The case is among a string of federal actions targeting academics who collaborate with Chinese institutions while receiving research funding from U.S. taxpayers. Many of these cases involve researchers who allegedly hid their participation in Chinese state-backed recruitment programs, such as the “Thousand Talents Plan,” which U.S. officials say serve as a vehicle for the transfer of U.S. research and know-how to China.

    “American research funding is provided by the American taxpayer for the benefit of American society—not as an illicit gift to the Chinese government,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

    Zheng admitted to making false statements in his NIH grant applications, hiding his participation in Chinese state-sponsored talent plans, and masking his collaboration with a Chinese university, prosecutors said.

    The former professor led a team conducting autoimmune research at OSU and Pennsylvania State University. According to court documents, while employed at OSU, Zheng was also working at the Third Affiliated Hospital at Sun Yat-Sen University, a state-controlled school in southern China’s Guangdong Province. The university’s homepage named him as an expert under the Thousand Talents Plan court documents said. The website is no longer accessible.

    Prosecutors said that Zheng had been participating in a Chinese talent plan since 2013. Since then, he used research conducted in the United States to benefit the Chinese regime.

    According to court documents, at times, Zheng was receiving money from both the NIH and China’s National Natural Science Foundation of China, which is managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

    Zheng didn’t disclose these conflicts of interest to his U.S. employers or the NIH.

    Last June, a former chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department was indicted on charges of making false statements about funding he received from the Thousand Talents Plan while working on sensitive U.S. research. He has pleaded not guilty.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 23:00

  • 48 Shot, Including 2 Police Officers In Another Out Of Control Chicago Weekend
    48 Shot, Including 2 Police Officers In Another Out Of Control Chicago Weekend

    Yet another deadly Chicago weekend has seen shootings soar with as of Sunday mid-evening 48 people shot since Friday night, including 5 killed from their wounds. “A violent weekend in Chicago left at least 48 people shot in separate incidents, including two police officers who were wounded on Sunday morning when they responded to a ShotSpotter detection alert, authorities said,” ABC News reports in a mid-evening update.

    Tragically this included a 2-year old girl who was wounded after a vehicle pulled up beside the one she was riding in the backseat of and opened fire. Thankfully she survived the ordeal after being wounded with a bullet to the leg.

    This adds to an already record-smashing year as Newsweek observed at the start this month: “In Chicago, 956 people were shot in the first four months of 2021—217 more than the same point in 2020, which was a record-setting year for shootings in the Illinois city.”

    Via AP

    On Sunday the Chicago Sun-Times detailed some among the growing casualty list from shootings as follows…

    • In the weekend’s latest fatal shooting, a man was shot dead Saturday afternoon in Woodlawn on the South Side… The 21-year-old was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
    • Early Saturday morning, two people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting at a party in Gresham on the South Side.
    • Several people were at a gathering in the 7800 block of South Loomis Boulevard when a gunman opened fire shortly after 3 a.m., according to police.
    • A 26-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead, police said.
    • A 21-year-old was also struck in the head and taken to the same hospital, where he later died, police said.

    And in once instance police arrested an 18-year old male with a rifle fleeing on foot in an urban neighborhood street after gunshots rang out, only to later find that a man was shot in the head and died in the same vicinity, which is now under investigation. 

    On Sunday morning two police officers were shot after they approached a suspect who “immediately began firing a gun at the officers,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown told a news briefing. Thankfully their wounds were considered minor, and both are “stable, recovering and in good condition.”

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    Chicago’s situation echoes that of many other liberal-run cities, where crime has run rampant since last summer’s “peaceful protests,” which consisted of property damage, assaults, looting, and lighting cities on fire.

    Police and emergency responders are no doubt bracing for another likely violent summer, given civic leaders in many of the hardest-hit cities appear content to simply continue the same failed policies while simply blaming endemic and “structural” inequalities, leading to more rhetoric and proposals of “banning the police” and other insane measures. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 22:30

  • New Video Reveals Capitol Police Officer Giving Protesters Permission To Enter Building
    New Video Reveals Capitol Police Officer Giving Protesters Permission To Enter Building

    Authored by Julie Kelly via American Greatness (emphasis ours)

    A newly-obtained video shows United States Capitol Police officers speaking with several January 6 protestors—including Jacob Chansley, the so-called “Q shaman”—inside the Capitol that afternoon.

    One officer, identified in the video and confirmed by charging documents as Officer Keith Robishaw, appears to tell Chansely’s group they won’t stop them from entering the building. “We’re not against . . . you need to show us . . . no attacking, no assault, remain calm,” Robishaw warns. Chansley and another protestor instruct the crowd to act peacefully. “This has to be peaceful,” Chansley yelled. “We have the right to peacefully assemble.”

    Watch:

    The video directly contradicts what government prosecutors allege in a complaint filed January 8 against Chansley: “Robishaw and other officers calmed the protestors somewhat and directed them to leave the area from the same way they had entered. Chansley approached Officer Robishaw and screamed, among other things, that this was their house, and that they were there to take the Capitol, and to get Congressional leaders.”

    Chansley later is seen entering the Senate chambers with a police officer behind him; he led several protesters in prayer and sat in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair. (The man in the yellow sweatshirt is William Watson, a drug dealer out on bond. He was arrested in January.)

    Chansley is not charged with assaulting an officer; he faces several counts for trespassing and disorderly conduct. He has been incarcerated since January, denied bail awaiting trial. He has no criminal record.

    American Greatness obtained the video from RMG News. The 44-second clip is reportedly part of a much longer video that has yet to be released.

    * * *

    Meanwhile:

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 22:00

  • "Where's My Wife's Car?": UFC Star Beneil Dariush Calls Out Elon Musk After His Fight On UFC 262
    “Where’s My Wife’s Car?”: UFC Star Beneil Dariush Calls Out Elon Musk After His Fight On UFC 262

    In addition to dealing with the entire bitcoin community, who is none too pleased with him at the moment, Elon Musk also got a “special” shoutout during UFC 262 when Beneil Dariush called him out on national television for late delivery of a Tesla. 

    Dariush beat aging UFC star Tony Ferguson before taking to the mic to ask Musk: “Where’s my wife’s car, bro?”

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    “I wanna call somebody out,” Dariush said after the fight to Joe Rogan. “I wanna call out your buddy, Elon. Elon Musk, where’s my wife’s car, bro? I’ve been waiting six months. I’ve had the baby, I need a good car, I gotta protect my daughter. Let’s go Elon, get me my car.”

    He then dedicated his fight win to to everyone “affected by Marxist ideologies,” according to RT. 

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

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    Post-fight, Dariush was told that Elon Musk was on the board of UFC’s parent company, Endeavor.

    Dariush wasn’t phased, replying: “I’m sorry, Elon, but I’m not sorry. I’m sticking with what I said.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 21:30

  • Hedge Fund CIO: "Trading Is Truly An Awful Pursuit"
    Hedge Fund CIO: “Trading Is Truly An Awful Pursuit”

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    Anecdote

    “What are you thinking about markets here?” asked the entrepreneur, wedging the question into our conversation, but working hard to sound barely interested.

    I laughed, unable to contain it. “Oh, so you really called to ask about bitcoin,” I said, smelling his quiet panic.

    “Well, you know, yeah basically, I mean what do think about all this stuff going on?” he asked, not wanting anything other than reassurance.

    “You don’t get to make a lot of money without enduring an even greater amount of pain – that’s just the way the universe works,” I explained, having a little fun while trying to be helpful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not someone who enjoys the suffering of others. It’s just that I’ve endured so much of it myself that when I observe it in people who casually trade, thinking it’s fairly easy, I find it funny they believe trading somehow defies natural law.

    Ask an athlete or actor how much pain they endured in exchange for glory. Ask an artist or entrepreneur the depth of their sacrifice, made in exchange for even a chance at greatness. You’ll hear stories of endless hours, repeated failures, humiliation, tortured lives, often nearly destroyed.

    And never in those fields is there a guarantee of ultimate success. Quite the opposite – the odds are stacked heavily against survival, let alone triumph. In any game that does not award participation trophies, it can work no other way.

    “This week was nothing compared to what you’ll need to endure in the years to come. Three negative headlines hit a market filled with leveraged retail longs,” I explained, sensing longer-term silver linings in each piece of bad news.

    “It was the kind of week that can get even fairly committed traders to puke, cutting out the source of their pain. That’s how markets operate – trading is truly an awful pursuit,” I said.

    “And you should generally hope for news that’s just bad enough to maintain the wall of worry, without being fatal. It’s only after the news becomes universally good, volatility collapses, and leveraged carry traders start picking up pennies that you should really worry.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 21:00

  • Police Across America Brace For Another Violent Summer
    Police Across America Brace For Another Violent Summer

    Donald Trump may not be president anymore, but that won’t stop Anitfa and BLM from getting their riot willies out this summer in response to any number of social justice triggers.

    To that end, the Wall Street Journal reports that police departments across the country are “bulking up patrols and implementing new tactics to prepare for what they say could be a violent summer” as states lift COVID-19 restrictions – as if they had any impact on last year’s summer of leftist violence. Also cited is a spike in firearm purchases during the pandemic as gun crimes spiral out of control in major cities.

    Shootings and homicides in big U.S. cities are up this year again after rising last year. In the last three months of 2020, homicides rose 32.2% in cities with a population of at least one million, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report.

    In New York City, the number of homicides has reached 146 for the year so far, an increase of 27% from 115 during the same period in 2020. In Dallas, police have counted 75 homicides this year, up from 58 during the same period last year. Chicago police have recorded 195 homicides, up from 160 in the year-ago period. -WSJ

    And while y/y crime stats spiking 12 months after the country was locked down is may seem like more of a ‘no shit’ than anything else, keep in mind that New York saw its most violent summer last year since 1996. Meanwhile, the country currently finds itself extremely polarized over more than just police reform, as ongoing tensions in the Middle East have spilled over into US streets, and anti-lockdown activists around the world have been fiercely protesting economy-killing pandemic measures – which we imagine our ‘wise and benevolent’ leaders like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) won’t hesitate to re-implement if COVID-19 even thinks about surging again.

    “We’re coming out of the pandemic, life is starting again and more people are going to be out on the street,” said James Shea, Jersey City NJ director of public safety, adding that the city decided to increase the deployment of officers on foot patrol in high-crime areas, as well as expanded the department’s closed-circuit video system.

    In Dallas, more officers will be deployed this summer to hot-spots of criminal activity as part of the city’s Violent Crime Reduction Plan, according to Police Chief Eddie Garcia.

    In New York, the NYPD will dispatch 200 additional officers and add patrols to 100 blocks in the city with the most gun violence, according to the report, after last year’s chaos. Additional officers have also been deployed to Manhattan business districts in recent weeks, including Times Square, where a recent shooting left three bystanders – including a 4-year-old girl – were injured.

    “The warmer months always usually give us more problems when it comes to violence,” said NYPD Chief of Department, Rodney Harrison, who added that gang activity accounts for around half of the shootings in the city – while officers struggled to solve cases during the pandemic due to the NYPD’s strained relationship with residents amid demonstrations against police brutality.

    Year-to-date, shootings in New York City are up 86% over 2020, from 242 to 451.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 20:30

  • Microsoft Board Members Wanted Gates Gone In 2019 After Investigation Into Sexual Relationship
    Microsoft Board Members Wanted Gates Gone In 2019 After Investigation Into Sexual Relationship

    Update (1920ET): In a Sunday night bombshell, the Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft’s board of directors wanted Bill Gates gone following an internal investigation into an inappropriate sexual relationship with a female Microsoft employee.

    The investigation, conducted in late 2019, was launched after the woman in question – a Microsoft engineer, blew the whistle over a years-long sexual relationship she had with Gates – right around this time that Gates’ relationship with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had spilled into the public sphere and Melinda Gates began exploring divorce.

    During the probe, some board members decided it was no longer suitable for Mr. Gates to sit as a director at the software company he started and led for decades, the people said. Mr. Gates resigned before the board’s investigation was completed, another person familiar with the matter said. -WSJ

    “Microsoft received a concern in the latter half of 2019 that Bill Gates sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000,” said a spokesman for the company. “A committee of the Board reviewed the concern, aided by an outside law firm to conduct a thorough investigation. Throughout the investigation, Microsoft provided extensive support to the employee who raised the concern.”

    Bill and Melinda Gates announced earlier this month that they were ending their 27-year marriage because, according to Melinda, the marriage was “irretrievably broken.” She had been working with attorneys since at least 2019 to end it according to the Journal. And while the couple hasn’t revealed what prompted the split, the Journal also reported that Bill’s dealings with Epstein was a ‘source of concern.’

    Members of the Microsoft board became aware in late 2019 of the letter from the female engineer, who demanded changes to her Microsoft job and also shared details of her relationship with Mr. Gates, the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Nadella and other senior executives were aware of the woman’s allegations, some of the people said.

    Some board members asked about Mr. Gates’s dealings with Mr. Epstein, one of the people said. Board members were told the relationship was focused on philanthropy and nothing more, this person said.

    In December 2019—before the end of the probe—Mr. Gates was re-elected to Microsoft’s board at the annual shareholder meeting. As more became clear about the matter, board members were concerned Mr. Gates’s relationship with the woman had been inappropriate and they didn’t want a director associated with this situation in the wake of the #MeToo movement, the people said.

    As part of her discussions with Microsoft, the employee asked that Ms. French Gates read her letter, people familiar with the matter said. It couldn’t be learned whether Ms. French Gates read the letter.

    The question is – who knew what, and when? Either way, looks like Gates will be eating bugs for one for the foreseeable future.

    *  *  *

    Bill Gates is being urged to come forward with evidence about his former pedo-pal Jeffrey Epstein, after their years-long relationship continued after Epstein was a known pedophile – and has been cited by anonymous sources as a key factor in Melinda Gates’ decision to divorce him, which she began pursuing in 2019 after Gates’ relationship with Epstein came under the spotlight. 

    Attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represents nine Epstein accusers, told The Sun that Gates should step up and volunteer any information on Epstein and his associates that might help in the ongoing investigation into Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ‘Madam.’

    “Why are you taking business meetings with a person like that? I question anyone’s moral character who chooses to take business meetings with someone who’s exhibited that kind of behavior and admitted to that type of behavior.” said Kuvin, adding “With Bill Gates, his wealth and investigatory powers, I find it incredibly hard to believe that he would not have known the full extent of the allegations that have been brought against Epstein here for that.”

    Attorney Spencer Kuvin represents nine Epstein accusers

    “Remember there’s an ongoing investigation regarding Ghislaine Maxwell,” Kuvin continued. “So if Mr. Gates, has information that could assist in that investigation, I would say he should step forward.”

    Gates, much like Prince Andrew, has denied any wrongdoing, and has sought to distance himself from the dead ‘financier’ despite evidence that the two were much closer than he claims.

    “I met him [Epstein]. I didn’t have any business relationship or friendship with him,” Gates previously claimed.

    Yet, according to the New York Times, Gates and Epstein met at least six times, including visits to Epstein’s New York mansion on ‘multiple occasions,’ staying at least once into the night.

    Later that spring, on May 3, 2011, Mr. Gates again visited Mr. Epstein at his New York mansion, according to emails about the meeting and a photograph reviewed by The Times.

    The photo, taken in Mr. Epsteins marble-clad entrance hall, shows a beaming Mr. Epstein in blue-and-gold slippers and a fleece decorated with an American flag flanked by luminaries. On his right: James E. Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive, and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. On his left: Mr. Nikolic and Mr. Gates, smiling and wearing gray slacks and a navy sweater. –New York Times

    Curiously, Gates adviser Boris Nikolic (pictured below) was named as a fallback executor in an will Epstein amended days before his August 10 death in a Manhattan jail cell. 

    “We know historically that numerous other people that and took meetings with Epstein after his conviction, we’re just slowly peeling away the layers of this onion of the numerous individuals, high profile individuals that continued with their social and business relationships with that scene after his convictions,” said Kuvin. “There are academic institutions and business individuals that were continuing associations with Epstein after his conviction in admissions about what he’d done to young girls.“

    While Gates has come under renewed fire for his relationship with Epstein, he’s also been accused of creepy workplace behavior.

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    Will Bill come forward?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 20:24

  • America's Housing Future Remains Murky At Best – Part 1
    America’s Housing Future Remains Murky At Best – Part 1

    Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

    The housing market in America is not one but many markets that generally share a few common threads. In America, the government, coupled with a slew of builder and Realtor associations control the housing narrative. Housing prices in Canada have been on fire for years now we are seeing this type of buying frenzy spreading to America.  This has allowed some buyers to ignore the reality that soaring lumber prices over the past 12 months have caused the price of an average new single-family home to rise by $35,872, according to the National Association of Home Builders. 

    The two questions that loom large are, who is buying these houses and where are they coming up with the cash to make such offers? Part of this is driven by the government continuing to cloak itself in the guise of being a good and kind friend to first-time buyers and helping them buy homes. This has helped move many a buyer into a home they can’t afford, cannot take care of, or simply don’t need. The long-term ramifications of such policies have destroyed many lives by putting people under tremendous financial pressure and taken its toll on neighborhoods across America.

    Buyers And Sellers Should Beware

    This buying frenzy has brought a lot of money into housing with the promise of weaseling out a profit. This means the housing sector is in some ways begun to mimic the auto sector with a “Buy here, Pay here” group opening on every corner. It has also created a massive industry where houses are bought to “flip,” This generally means buyers put a few dollars into glossing over flaws and place the house back on the market at a much higher price looking for a gullible buyer that doesn’t understand the poor product beneath the glitter.

    One trend that has grown rapidly is the “Cash for Keys” market where houses are sold to people with little money down. These deals are often structured more like a lease with an option to buy with a contract that includes a great deal of small print tilted completely in the seller’s favor. The means they sell you a house that is overpriced, milk everything they can out of the buyer, and wait to take it back so they can start the scheme all over again. Common sense dictates that to maximize profits they must really be hammering any foolish buyer willing to go down this path.

    Just yesterday a woman and her son that had lived in an apartment at my complex for eight years moved back in after several months in one of these houses. She described the four months in the house as a “horrible ordeal.” This includes things like, unexpectedly large utility bills as well as receiving estimates for needed repairs that shook her to her core. Maintenance costs can be substantial and something the average person leasing never has to deal with because they are usually included in the rent.

    The argument that the “housing game” is a racket and moves on the promise of “big money” is highlighted by several facts. For those accepting this argument, in some ways, this can be linked to the World Economic Forum’s 2030 agenda that states in 2030 you will own nothing and be happy. In the piece below, Krystal Ball of the Rising explains why the housing market is booming for those in the upper-middle class. She opines what it means for costs of homes in the future. Seven minutes into this YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBb9zf_zWvU) starts a rant, ending with, “however this ends up ordinary people are going to get screwed.”

    Many of the messages being promoted as common knowledge do not pass serious scrutiny. As I wrote this post I tried to do a bit of additional research to supplement what I know as a contractor and apartment owner. What I found was more like a pack of lies and half-truths spun to fit an agenda. Those of us in the trenches and with our boots on the ground often see things from a different perspective than what is being presented by the media.

    An interesting piece by Emma Diehl (https://www.homelight.com/blog/how-many-homes-does-a-realtor-sell-a-yea…) of the Homelight.com blog points out that in the U.S., there are over 2 million active real estate licensees and 1.3 million Realtors®, or real estate licensees who’ve taken an extra step to become certified members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This means, some agents may sell a single house per year for their friend, while others such as Ben Caballero, have built empires to facilitate thousands of sales annually using sophisticated tech systems. 

    In 2013, CareerBliss announced that being a real estate agent is the single most satisfying job a person could have. This led many people into this line of work. The fact is, most realtors are hard-pressed to make a decent living. This is something we are seldom told and supports the idea much of what we are told about the housing sector is hype and pure bunk. This is supported by the numbers put out by Statista which reported there were 683 thousand houses sold in the United States in 2019. This is the largest figure since 2008 but when divided by the number of real estate licensees does not mean multiple sales for each.

    While the market has responded to the housing needs of higher-income households, trends suggest a growing inability or desire to supply housing that is affordable for middle and working-class people. It appears developers have little interest in, or they simply can’t afford to add anything but luxury units. It should be noted that at the same time many houses in America sit empty or underutilized and we are hearing about a lack of new listings. I attribute this to sellers holding units off the market because they think prices will rise, they owe more for the house than they can get, or they fear the selling process will be complicated.

    Many economists may use housing starts as an indicator of the health of the economy but such numbers are only a small part of a much larger picture. This number reflects many things other than just the number of new houses under construction or started in a given period. The data is generally divided into three categories: single-family houses, townhouses or small condos, and apartment buildings with five or more units. Still more important than just the number of units being built and the type is who is buying these units and why.

    Affordability Is A Growing Issue

    While people talk about the cost of buying a home more attention should be directed towards the ability of the buyer to maintain the home after they purchase it. Another factor looming large in this sector of the economy centers on affordability. When it comes to affordability, much depends on which part of the country you live but in many coastal and popular areas prices remain high. Even with current rates by the time you add in rising real estate taxes and other costs new homes are expensive.  

    Not only are new home prices are on the rise but so are real estate taxes and other fees. There is nothing inexpensive about a new home. Sadly, even the construction is often suspect, while code enforcement has increased, many of the items used in new construction no longer outlive the mortgage a buyer takes on. Whether replacing a door after just a few years or windows, it seems everything is expensive and nothing matches the original design. My house is over a hundred years old and still has the same doors and windows. How many homes built thirty years ago support this claim, enough said. 

    While the number of permits and building starts give some indication on the direction of housing, this is a complicated and this fickle market that is subject to attitudes and economic factors which can change on a dime. Adding to the recent discussion are claims of people buying homes away from big cities in an effort to escape growing violence and the effects of covid-19, this is interlaced with stories about surging gun sales.

    New Construction Is Still Below 2008 Levels

    The chart to the right shows that new construction is still below 2008 levels. Much of the new construction has been in apartments and not single-family dwellings. In much of the country, housing units are being built using cheap money flowing from the Fed and Wall Street under the idea that if it is built “they will come.”

    Home-ownership, a large part of the America dream, has been in decline. It could be argued that demographics are not greatly supportive of higher prices, it is also difficult to ignore the fact that when people “double-up” fewer homes are needed. This adds credence to the argument that if prices rise it most likely will be as a result of inflation. Today, huge discrepancies exist in the cost of housing in the various markets across America and while price variations are not uncommon they should be seen as a red flag and reason for caution.  

    While many people claim the formation of new households and pent-up demand drives this construction I beg to differ. I contend it is a combination of too much money looking for a safe place to hide. Unnoticed by many Americans is how money from Wall Street has entered this arena and is pushing out the average American. One thing is certain that when inflation raises its ugly head and interest rates increase, housing construction will suffer. The intention of this post is to dispel and explore some of the myths and trends surrounding the future of housing while causing people to think about this subject. Hopefully, it has added some clarity to the discussion.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 20:00

  • "Ever Heard Of Paypal?": Elon Musk Has Epic Meltdown Arguing With Bitcoin Fanatics
    “Ever Heard Of Paypal?”: Elon Musk Has Epic Meltdown Arguing With Bitcoin Fanatics

    With Elon Musk’s “stand” against bitcoin last week, claiming that Tesla would not longer accept the coin for payments due to the environmental impact of mining it, the Tesla CEO quickly wound up doing an about-face in terms of his popularity with bitcoin fanatics. 

    And that “new” relationship was on full display Sunday when the Tesla CEO had an epic meltdown after a spat that started with podcast host Peter McCormack. The spat sent cryptos crashing:

    And subjected Musk to ridicule…

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    It began when McCormack had written a thread to Musk, accusing him of “trolling” with his support of Dogecoin, which led Musk to respond:

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    This set off the coining community, with Dogecoin creator @BillM2K asking of Musk’s comment: “Do you see what being a toxic idiot does to your coin and community?”

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    Musk’s response also opened the door for a spat wherein he called bitcoin “highly centralized” and boasted “Hey cryptocurrency ‘experts’, ever heard of PayPal? It’s possible…maybe…that I know [more] than you realize about how money works”. 

    To which McCormack replied…

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    Musk’s meltdown drew additional jeers from all over Twitter. Max Keiser wasted no time with critiquing Musk’s arguments and went directly for an ad hominem shot at his mother, Maye Musk. Others claimed Musk was ready to “rage quit” bitcoin.

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    Well known Tesla critic @TeslaCharts chimed in:

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    Others accused Musk of not being able to stay in his lane…

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    Max Keiser joked that Elon made Peter Schiff, who he is notoriously at odds over bitcoin with, rational.

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    Finally, one Twitter user summed up Musk’s “cradle to grave” experience with bitcoin:

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    When one user suggested Musk should dump his bitcoin as a result of the treatment he was getting, Musk replied “indeed”:

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    This caused the following headline to hit the Bloomberg terminal: “MUSK IMPLIES TESLA MAY SELL OR HAS SOLD BITCOIN HOLDINGS”.

    The headline and the spat had Bitcoin trading with a $45,000 handle by mid day Sunday.

    Recall, after Elon Musk royally pissed off cryptoworld by announcing that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin last week (just three months after Tesla announced they would take it), Dogecoin co-creator, Jackson Palmer, slammed Musk in a now-deleted Tweet, calling him a ‘self-absorbed grifter.’

    Musk’s announcement caused a brutal selloff in most cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin – which fell precipitously during the Tesla founder’s lame appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he called himself the “Dogefather” and pumped the digital coin while also calling it a “hustle.”

    So goes the new state of the crypto world…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 19:50

  • The $100 Million New Jersey-Based Hometown Deli Has Fired Its Wrestling Coach CEO
    The $100 Million New Jersey-Based Hometown Deli Has Fired Its Wrestling Coach CEO

    Last month, we highlighted when fund manager David Einhorn pointed out a New Jersey deli that was trading with an insane market cap of over $100 million as one of the hallmarks of the bubble the market is in. Einhorn wrote:

    “Strange things happen to all kinds of stocks. Last year, on one day in June, the stocks of about a dozen bankrupt companies roughly doubled on enormous volume. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported a boom in penny stocks.

    Someone pointed us to Hometown International (HWIN), which owns a single deli in rural New Jersey. The deli had $21,772 in sales in 2019 and only $13,976 in 2020, as it was closed due to COVID from March to September. HWIN reached a market cap of $113 million on February 8. The largest shareholder is also the CEO/CFO/Treasurer and a Director, who also happens to be the wrestling coach of the high school next door to the deli. The pastrami must be amazing. Small investors who get sucked into these situations are likely to be harmed eventually, yet the regulators – who are supposed to be protecting investors – appear to be neither present nor curious.”

    The deli was subsequently covered in the news – as was its mysterious CEO Paul Morina, who doubled as both a wrestling coach and school principal (as you do when you’re a $100 million company CEO). 

    And now, it looks as though – for one reason or another (perhaps due to the spotlight) – the company has decided to move forward from the “talents” of Morina, who has been fired as CEO, according to CNBC. 

    The company’s majority shareholders voted to remove him and “the company’s only other executive, vice president and secretary Christine Lindenmuth, who works with Morina as an administrator at nearby Paulsboro High School,” CNBC wrote. 

    Recall, back in late April, we noted that the deli was linked to another shell company whose stock recently exploded, E-Waste. That company, which has multiple connections to Hometown, announced its President had resigned last week. 

    E-Waste is a self-admitted shell company and had total assets of about $183,000 and liabilities of $412,400 as of its most recent SEC filings. It posted a net loss of $58,000 for the 9 months ended November 30. The company’s own filings state it was created in 2012 “to develop an e-waste recycling business” but “was not successful in its efforts and discontinued that line of business.”

    It has been a shell company since then and has been looking to “engage in a business combination with a private entity whose business presents an opportunity for its shareholders.”

    But E-Waste’s stock, like Hometown’s, had recently rocketed to a high of $10.25 per share. It put the company’s market cap at over $100 million. 

    Not unlike Hometown Deli, E-Waste also had little ongoing business. Yet this didn’t stop Hometown Deli from lending E-Waste $150,000 late last year – even while the deli was closed due to the pandemic. E-Waste CEO John Rollo also had an interesting former gig for someone in the waste business: he worked another job as a patient transporter at a northern New Jersey hospital, at a healthcare system CNBC says he’s still employed at. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 19:30

  • This Is Not The Inflation You Are Looking For, Move Along
    This Is Not The Inflation You Are Looking For, Move Along

    “This is not the inflation you are looking for. Move along.”

    In recent weeks a veritable cottage industry of financial experts has cropped up, seeking to defuse ever louder fears that the burst in inflation observed in the past month is “transitory” and won’t impact the Fed’s medium-term thinking or its timeline for tapering/liftoff (not least of all due to the growing political blowback against soaring inflation as captured in “Biden Aides See Political, Not Economic, Peril in Inflation Data” and “Inflation fears grow for White House“). The latest to hammer the “transitory” point is Goldman economist David Mericle who has doubled down on the bank’s sanguine view on inflation, writing in a Sunday note that the data surprises of the past two weeks “have left our Q1 2022 forecast for the start of QE tapering unchanged” adding that “if our taper timeline is right, then liftoff will probably not be on the table for about two years.” This is because the bank’s economists believe that that the inflation risks that matter most for the Fed’s rate hike decisions are not those that have emerged in the past few weeks, but rather those “that will remain relevant at a multiyear horizon.”

    So what are those multiyear horizon inflationary risks? Let’s dig in.

    First, we start with Goldman concession that inflation is indeed running amok:

    The last ten days produced a flurry of startling data surprises that added fuel to inflation fears: a 0.7% increase in average hourly earnings in April and even larger gains in low-wage industries, the largest increase in core CPI in 40 years, and a 0.4pp jump in the University of Michigan’s measure of long-term household inflation expectations to the highest level in a decade

    That said, when looking at last week’s show-stopping CPI print, which Goldman admits was “a huge upside surprise” it is one of little lasting significance according to the Goldman and here’s why. As shown in the next chart which decomposes the largest increase in the core since 1981 by category, the main contributors fall into two groups:

    1. travel and related services categories where prices are experiencing quick reopening rebounds from deeply depressed levels, and
    2. goods categories like used cars where a pandemic-induced demand surge has run headfirst into temporary shortages, production bottlenecks, and supply chain disruptions. In contrast, other large core service categories remained soft in April.

    While these forces might also generate high inflation prints in coming months – as the full normalization of prices in pandemic-depressed categories like airfares as reopening progresses would add another 30bps to core CPI and 15bps to core PCE, while supply chain disruptions including the semiconductor shortage also remain severe, as shown in the next chart and their impact on goods prices has probably not yet run its course…

    … Goldman again trots the familiar party line that “these disruptions and shortages look unlikely to boost inflation on net beyond this year”.

    Many arose because producers initially made the natural assumption last year that demand would fall in a recession, as it usually does. Instead, fiscal support boosted household incomes and the unavailability of services led to a surge in demand for goods, resulting in the supply-demand imbalances that have pushed up prices. But this problem should be resolved from both directions over the rest of the year: producers are ramping up to meet demand and consumers are increasingly free to shift their consumption basket back toward services. And encouragingly, the most prominent example of the current supply chain disruptions—the shortage of microchips for autos—is set to fade later in Q2.

    It remains to be seen if the chip shortage somehow resolves itself in the next month, but until we wait here is another chart from Goldman, this time showing the impact of reopening effects and temporary shortages on the year-on-year rate of core inflation, which Goldman believes is likely to peak in April and May, and should gradually fade later this year and will turn negative next year as prices in categories such as used cars normalize from their current elevated levels.

    Here Goldman is quick to counter that its observations do not mean that there are no inflation fears. After all, just hours earlier we discussed another Goldman note according to which the bank saw “substantial home price appreciation for at least a couple more years”, in which the bank projected that we projected “that shelter inflation will exceed 4% in 2023, a higher rate than at any point in the prior economic cycle”, even surpassing the housing bubble of 2006-2007.

    How does one reconcile the two? As Goldman’s econ team explains, it’s not that there are no inflation fears “but rather that investors should focus on the right risks, those that could have more lasting significance.“

    Going down the list, Goldman starts off with the broadest upside inflation risk which is the possibility that fiscal support, pent-up savings, and easy financial conditions could persistently push demand well above potential GDP, leading to a serious inflationary overheating: “our forecast instead implies that GDP will rise about 1% above our estimate of potential, which we would view as consistent with inflation rising moderately but not dramatically above 2%.”

    Here, Goldman notes that “so far the consumer spending data appear roughly consistent with our expectations” and the next chart shows that Goldman’s consumer spending tracker jumped after both rounds of stimulus checks, but that spending is now running about 3% above the pre-pandemic level, meaning it is only about 1% above the pre-pandemic trend (Friday’s disappointing retail sales only confirmed this hypothesis). In other words, while further reopening is likely to raise spending, the boost from the stimulus checks is likely to continue to fade.

    Next, Goldman lists three specific upside risks that could have more meaningful and lasting consequences for inflation and monetary policy than the current post-pandemic price spikes.

    Risk #1: A sharper rise in wage growth

    The first risk is that wage growth could rise to a much faster pace than reached last cycle if current signs of worker shortages and labor market tightness prove more persistent than many expect. The starting point for wage growth is unusually high for an economy emerging from a recession. The next chart shows that Goldman’s composition-adjusted wage growth tracker barely slowed from its pre-pandemic pace and remains at about 3% year-on-year.

    Adding fuel tot he fire, a number of recent labor market indicators hint at an acceleration. Average hourly earnings rose 0.7% in April, wage growth is up sharply over the last year in low-wage industries and industries with particularly tight labor markets, and lower-wage workers report much higher pay expectations for potential jobs.

    Moreover, a range of other indicators discussed here, such as a very high job openings rate, a high quits rate, worker surveys reporting that it is easy to find a job, and employer surveys reporting that it is hard to find workers, all point to a very tight labor market where workers have the upper hand.

    Incidentally, even Goldman has no problems identifying the reason for this record labor market imbalance: as the bank admits, “the underlying reason seems to be that effective labor supply is much more constrained than the 6.1% unemployment rate suggests, owing to unusually generous unemployment insurance benefits and lingering virus-related impediments to working” but “we expect both of these temporary factors to fade by the fall, which should relax these supply constraints and cool the current wage pressures.”

    Risk #2: A multi-year boom in home prices boosts rent inflation

    The second risk is one we discussed earlier, namely that a multiyear boom in US home prices could drive shelter inflation much higher. The chart below shows that shelter inflation has fallen during the pandemic, and Goldman’s shelter inflation tracker suggests that rent growth should remain modest for the time being.

    But the shelter category is highly cyclical and is very likely to accelerate as the economy improves and the effects of temporary pandemic drags like eviction moratoriums fade. On top of this, Goldman expects that a national housing shortage will fuel substantial house price appreciation for at least a couple more years. Bottom line: “the tightest national housing market since the 1970s nevertheless poses some additional upside risk.”

    Risk #3: Temporary price spikes raise inflation expectations substantially

    The third risk noted by Goldman is that the current price spikes caused by temporary pandemic effects could have a more lasting impact if they raise long-term inflation expectations substantially (i.e. transitory proves to be non-transitory). Last week brought hints in this direction, including a 0.4% jump in the University of Michigan’s measure of long-term household inflation expectations, a modest increase in long-term inflation expectations in the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and further increases in market-implied inflation compensation.

    Goldman’s own monthly version of the Fed’s index of Common Inflation Expectations (CIE) has risen further to 2.08% in a preliminary May reading. The Fed’s index is smoothed, and if the underlying measures held steady at their current levels, the bank estimates that the CIE would eventually rise to 2.1%.

    Another point to note is that at least half of the rebound over the last year appears to reflect mundane co-movement with gasoline and other energy prices, which correlate strongly even with longer-term expectations. The remainder of the increase likely reflects other factors, such as the latest price spikes and the Fed’s new average inflation targeting framework. So far, Goldman concludes, that “the increases are healthy, indeed, as Chair Powell said at his last press conference, the Fed’s new framework will only succeed in centering inflation on the 2% target if it succeeds in boosting inflation expectations.” But if the CIE moved well above its historical range as news of sharp prices increases makes headlines this year, Goldman warns of upside risk to its own inflation forecast.

    Finally, what does all this mean for Goldman’s inflation outlook and what the Fed will do next?

    As Goldman’s economists conclude, all three of these sources of upward pressure on inflation are expected to materialize to some degree in the years ahead. Indeed, each of them is an essential contributor to our forecast that core PCE inflation will reach 2.1% by end-2022, 2.15% by end-2023, and 2.2% by end-2024, higher numbers than reached last cycle and enough to generate liftoff in early 2024.

    But, as a surprisingly cautious Goldman concedes in its final paragraph, “each of the three factors discussed above also carries some additional upside risk that we take seriously and watch closely in our Monthly Inflation Monitor. While another month of rapidly rising airfares or used car prices would probably not change our medium-run inflation views much, substantial surprises on these three key risks likely.“

    In closing, it’s worth reminding readers that earlier today Morgan Stanley’s economists also warned that there is just one substantial threat to the “red hot global recovery”, and that would of course be inflation, i.e., “the biggest threat to this cycle is an overshoot in US core PCE inflation beyond the Fed’s implicit 2.5%Y threshold – a serious concern, in my view, which could emerge from mid-2022 onwards” but like Goldman, MS economists don’t see much risk of runaway (or hyperinflation) just yet and is why Morgan Stanley’s chief US economist Ellen Zentner still expects the Fed to signal its intention to taper asset purchases at the September FOMC meeting, to announce it in March 2022 and to start tapering from April 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 19:09

  • Druckenmiller: "There's Been No Greater Engine Of Inequality Than The Fed"
    Druckenmiller: “There’s Been No Greater Engine Of Inequality Than The Fed”

    After his status-quo-shattering appearance on CNBC this week, during which he warned that “Fed policy is endangering the dollar’s reserve status,” billionaire fund manager Stan Druckenmiller spoke to The USC Marshall Center for Investment Studies’ Student Investment Fund Annual Meeting via Zoom, and shocked the on-lookers with his frank assessment of our current perceptions and realities.

    After The Bank of Canada sheepishly admitted this week that “some of the monetary policy tools it is using to address the COVID-19 pandemic, such as quantitative easing (QE), could widen wealth inequality,” Druckenmiller drops the proverbial hammer on all the hedged-speak (“could”), and blasts that

    “I don’t think there has been a greater engine of inequality than the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States… so hearing the Chairman [Powell] talking about visiting homeless shelters is very rich indeed…”

    The outspoken fund manager went on to note that “everyone wealthy that I know is making fortunes” because “this guy [Powell] is printing money like there’s no tomorrow” adding that the kids is Harlem are not benefitting from money-printing but wealthy people are, exclaiming that

    “…for the life of me I can’t understand why the left is so excited about money-printing when all the data shows that the people who benefit from money-printing are rich people.”

    “The odds-on bet is that we’re going to have inflation,” he continues:

    “and inflation is going to hurt poor people, again, a lot more than rich people.”

    How does this all end?

    “The asset bubble which [Powell] is blowing up into unbelievable proportions busts before the inflation ever really manifests itself, that’s what happened in the housing bubble in 08/09. We never really got to the inflation because the asset bubble burst… not dis-similar to what happened in 1929.”

    And Druck reminds us all, “there is no one, no group, that will be hurt more by a bust than the poor… they will be first in line to get screwed.”

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    Can’t believe it’s true? Take a look…

    While publicly glorified by the media as “heroes” and “saviors” of the economy, Sven Henrich pointed out earlier that the true impact of Fed policy is much more sinister.

    Inflation, as Druckenmiller rightly points out hurts the poor the most as living expenses take up most if not all of their monthly budgets.

    Watch the full Druckenmiller discussion here.

    This revelation to some (not all) came after his earlier-in-the week, WSJ Op-Ed that “keeping emergency settings after the emergency has passed carries bigger risks for the Fed than missing its inflation target by a few decimal points. It’s time for a change.”

    Pointing out, rather awkwardly that The Fed’s independence is supposed to act as a counterbalance to these political whims.

    “America’s deep divisions also make the central bank’s independence crucial. Fighting inequality and climate change are very far from the Fed’s central mission.”

    The long-term risks from asset bubbles and fiscal dominance dwarf the short-term risk of putting the brakes on a booming economy in 2022.

    “If they want to do all this and risk our reserve currency status, risk an asset bubble blowing up, so be it. But I think we ought to at least have a conversation about it,” Druckenmiller said.

    “If we’re going to monetize our debt and we’re going to enable more and more of this spending, that’s why I’m worried now for the first time that within 15 years we lose reserve currency status and of course all the unbelievable benefits that have accrued with it,” he added.

    Central banks have been the root of a lack of confidence in dollar stability.

    “5-6 years ago I said Crypto was the solution in search of a problem. That’s why I didn’t play crypto the first wave because we already have the dollar, why do we need crypto for?

    The problem has been clearly identified. It is Jerome Powell and the rest of the world’s central bankers. There is a lack of trust.“

    Druckenmiller is not alone in his acknowledgement that The Fed is at the heart of driving wealth inequality in America as even left-leaning Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, admitted:

    “The low-interest environment increases inequality by increasing the wealth of people who are well off.”

    As ProPublica reports, economists are beginning to view the interplay of the Fed’s actions and inequality in a new light. Central bankers used to think that “we didn’t have to worry about inequality when we did monetary policy,” Olivier Blanchard, former director of research for the International Monetary Fund, said during a December virtual forum sponsored by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Blanchard said he has since come to believe that monetary policy does impact economic inequality because a change in interest rates has “major, major distribution effects between borrowers and lenders, between asset holders and not.”

    “Inequality is a cumulative process,” said Karen Petrou, author of “The Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America” and managing partner of the Washington-based consulting firm Federal Financial Analytics.

    “The richer you are, the richer you get, and the poorer you are, the poorer you get, unless something puts that engine in reverse,” she said.

    “That engine is driven not by fate or by untouchable phenomena such as demographics but most importantly by policy decisions.”

    Bernanke, currently a fellow at the Brookings Institution, admitted in a 2017 Brookings paper that:

    “all else equal, higher stock prices mean greater inequality of wealth.”

    Janet Yellen, now Treasury secretary, asked in a 2014 speech whether income inequality is “compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history,” but she largely defended ultra-low rates during a Q&A at a 2013 conference of business journalists.

    Older savers were “suffering from low returns on their CDs,” she said, but “they have children and they have grandchildren” who will benefit from the stronger economy.

    Except, as Druckenmiller began this diatribe, as the Fed pumps more money into the financial system by buying Treasury securities and indirectly supporting federal stimulus programs, the run-up in stock markets is likely to continue – and leave people even further behind than they already were.

    Glaring and expanding wealth inequality is destructive to society. While there will always be inequality and successful capitalism should rightfully reward those that work hard and come up with great business concepts the artificial exponential enrichment of the few by a “government created agency” (Jay Powell) is not in the purview of the Fed’s mandate.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 18:30

  • New York's Pride March Bans Police Officers From Marching
    New York’s Pride March Bans Police Officers From Marching

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    One of the oldest celebrations of the LGBTQ community in the world has been New York City’s annual Pride celebration. The parade began 51 years ago and has long been a symbol of the strength, defiance, and pride of this community. The whole idea was to show the full spectrum of LGBTQ influence, participation, and expression in our society. This year, however, activists have decided to discriminate against one group: police officers.

    In a parade that was found to reject discrimination in every form, the organizers have told the Gay Officers Action League and other such groups that they will not be allowed to march. Their presence is viewed as a threat to others in the parade and a denial of a “safe space” for LGBTQ members. It is hard to imagine a more antithetical position for the parade in excluding officers who are part of the community and who want to publicly stand with other LGBTQ members.

    The organizers have announced that police and corrections officers will be barred from participating in the parade until at least 2025.  They declared “The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason.”

    The Gay Officers Action League, an organization of L.G.B.T.Q. police, denounced the decision on Friday night. In addition, the NYPD is being asked to remain at least a block away from all events to ensure a safe environment for participants.

    Activists have long opposed police participation and cite the anti-police riot  outside the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan. However, the police participants have marched to show that the NYPD does not just support the LGBTQ community but includes officers from the community. It is the very rejection of the image of the Stonewall Inn riot and a testament to the progress made not just by the LGBTQ community but the NYPD.

    Nevertheless, Beverly Tillery, the executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project insists that “[t]he issue is, how do we make Pride safe for the people who feel the most marginalized and have often been left out of the conversations about how Pride is run?”

    It is a terrible setback and insult for officers and their predecessors, who had to sue for the right to march in uniform and did so for the first time in 1996. They have fought to diversify the ranks of the NYPD and show that there are officers not just supportive but part of the LGBTQ community. That would seem an incredibly powerful and reassuring message to send to community members. The growing numbers each year showed the progress that has been achieved since 1978 when New York City mayor Ed Koch banned discrimination in police hiring on the basis of sexual orientation (over the objection of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association).

    On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy and Linda Rhodes called for an annual march  for all “Homophile organizations.” The march was envisioned as a statement against exclusionary limits of every kind for members of the community:

    We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.

    We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support.

    GOAL is one such organization and shows how much has changed since this call for a unifying celebration of everyone within this community. It was created in 1982 and each year around 200 of its members and their families participated in the march.

    They have now been told that they are not welcomed as a perceived threat to their own community. I cannot think of a message more counter to traditions or values of the annual parade.  A movement based on inclusion has now embraced exclusion as a defining value.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 18:00

  • Following The 'Science'? CDC Shifts From "Impending Doom" To 'You're Free' In 6 Weeks
    Following The ‘Science’? CDC Shifts From “Impending Doom” To ‘You’re Free’ In 6 Weeks

    At the end of March, amid absolutely no signs of trouble whatsover in “the data” – and after the establishment excoriated the “neanderthal thinking” of several red states for ‘prematurely’ and ‘recklessly’ lifting their COVID restrictions, freshly-appointed CDC Director Rochelle Walensky went “off-script” (though if one watches here eyes it appears she is very much reading a script) to warn the public about her “impending doom” following a very modest rise in COVID cases and hospitalizations.

    “Right now, I’m scared,” Walesky, choking back tears, exclaimed.

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

    Fauci doubled-down with the doom finger-pointing…

    “I think the reason we’re seeing this plateauing and the increase that I hope doesn’t turn into a surge is because we are really doing things prematurely right now with regard to opening up.”

    At the time we pointed out that Walensky’s level of fearmongering is disgusting and disingenuous and the American people are growing more and more insensitive to such evocations.

    Now, just 6 weeks later, as all the doomsaying, fearmongering, panic-inducing double-speak was proven completely misplaced, and amid political pressure from even the leftest of leftists to “do something”, the masks are off and freedom (for the vaccinated) is offered back to ‘we, the people’.

    Just two weeks after announcing a mask revision on April 27 to allow people who are fully vaccinated to do most things outdoors, with some precautions – again amid political pressure from an increasingly confused American public –  CDC announced it revised its mask guidance again, now enabling those who are fully vaccinated to forgo wearing masks both indoors and outdoors.

    “Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities — large or small — without wearing a mask or physically distancing,” said Walensky.

    “Based on the continuing downward trajectory of cases, the scientific data on the performance of our vaccines and our understanding of how the virus spreads, that moment has come for those who are fully vaccinated,” she continued.

    The message from the CDC could not have changed more drastically in this brief 45 days period…

    Source: Bloomberg

    And if the goal of the ‘big lie’ of impending doom was to ‘encourage’ scared Americans to get vaccinated or die, once again the ‘science’ in the data shows it didn’t work either as daily vaccination rates have basically trended lower since Walensky’s scaremongering…

    Source: Bloomberg

    As Stephen Miller notes, Fauci said on Mother’s Day (one week ago) that the country would not be close to back to normal until a year from now, including masks… and today, he told CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday that:

    “the accumulation of all of those scientific facts, information and evidence brought the CDC to make that decision, to say, now when you’re vaccinated, you don’t need to wear a mask, not only outdoors, but you don’t need to wear it indoors.”

    Amazing what politics science can do!?

    But Walensky assures the country that, “We followed the science here.”

    Political science?

    In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Walensky was asked what went into the CDC’s decision to shift from its previous position on wearing masks. As host Chris Wallace noted, as of Wednesday night, Walensky was still arguing that fully vaccinated Americans should continue to wear masks indoors. On Thursday, however, the updated CDC guidelines stated that those who have been fully vaccinated “can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic” and do not have to wear a mask or socially distance in most indoor and outdoor settings.

    Wallace then pointed to the “increasing pressure” from the public and members of Congress, such as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who expressed during a Senate hearing “incredible frustration” with an apparent disconnect between science and health officials who say they follow science.

    “Can you state flatly to the American people that pressure had nothing to do with the abrupt shift in the CDC guidelines?” Wallace asked.

    “Yes, I can,” Walensky responded. “I can tell you it certainly would have been easier if the science had evolved a week earlier and I didn’t have to go to Congress making those statements, but I’m delivering the science as the science is delivered to the medical journals.”

    “And, you know, it evolved over this last week, the cases came down over the last two weeks,” she continued. “I delivered it as soon as I can when we had that information available.”

    Walensky’s comments also come as the CDC faces allegations that it changed its school reopening guidelines under the influence of American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second-largest teachers’ union in the United States. According to numerous emails obtained by the New York Post, AFT reviewed a draft of those guidelines, and the CDC adopted at least two of the union’s recommendations nearly verbatim in the final release.

    “Recently released emails reportedly show that the CDC has been taking its cues from teachers’ unions instead of following the science,” a group of four Republican members of Congress wrote in a letter to Walensky, demanding explanation regarding the NY Post exposé.

    “This political interference has resulted in months-long delays in the opening of schools to the detriment of American children.”

    Science, schmience!

    Of course there are some who refuse to believe the CDC’s “new science” – that masks are not required because outdoor spread is for all intent and purpose non-existent for anyone and indoor spread from or to the vaccinated is negligible at worst – and choose to continue to signal their virtue…

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

    And of course, AOC told her instagram followers…“Personally I’m going to keep wearing my mask in shared indoor public spaces…it’s also a nice accessory when you don’t want to do all your make-up…”

    “Science-deniers?”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 17:55

  • The Fed Is Going To Make A Mistake
    The Fed Is Going To Make A Mistake

    Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

    Well, that didn’t work out as planned. Last week, we said:

    “Notably, the ‘money flow buy signal’ seemed to cross; however, we need some follow-through action on Monday to confirm. As shown, the uptick in money flows did allow us to add some exposure to portfolios in holdings we had taken profits in with the previous ‘sell’ signal.”

    Well, that follow-through failed to occur. Not only did the “buy signal” not trigger, but the market also broke down through the previous consolidation range. As I said, it did not work out as planned. The last exposure we took on is now pressuring the portfolio momentarily, but we should benefit from the turn if we are correct.

    With markets deeply oversold on a short-term basis, with signals at levels that generally precede short-term rallies, the rally on Thursday and Friday was not unexpected. Notably, the S&P 500 did hold support at the 50-dma and rallied back into the previous trading range. Furthermore, institutional investors have cut their exposures by 50% in just two weeks, primarily big tech, which provides fuel for a rally.

    We will hold exposures at current levels for now. However, instead of looking for a more extended rally into mid-summer, we suspect this rally will be pretty short-lived.

    As stated last week, overall, the market trend remains bullish, so there is no need to be overly defensive. We still expect to see a deeper correction as stimulus fades from the system in the next month. At that point, we will become more defensive in positioning as the peak of economic growth and earnings becomes more apparent.

    An Inflation Primer

    On Thursday’s “3-Minutes” video, I review the recent inflation numbers to put them into perspective. While there is some panic over the headline numbers, there are valid reasons to expect inflationary pressures to be transient.

    As stated above, we expect inflation to subside later this year, along with economic growth.

    As such, we continue to focus on our risk management accordingly for now. If we are correct in our assessment about the roll-off effect of stimulus and liquidity, we could well see bonds outperform stocks in 2022. We are watching very closely as we currently hold minimal duration in our fixed-income portfolios. If we begin to see the very negative sentiment on bonds reverse, as inflationary pressures subside, we could well see an excellent buying opportunity.

    The problem for the markets is the Fed is going to be late.

    Rates Doing The “Fed’s Work”

    In last week’s message, we said:

    “Over the next couple of months, there will be an evident surge in inflation, which the Fed wanted. However, that surge in inflation may come in a lot “hotter” than they anticipated. If that occurs, bond yields will jump higher, effectively “tightening” monetary policy very quickly.”

    Such is what we saw on Thursday as bond yields jumped to nearly 1.7%. While rates did fall back mildly on Friday, the rise in rates from the August lows increases the cost of capital. (Chart shows the percentage increase in rates versus the annual inflation rate,)

    Given the long and highly correlated history of GDP, Inflation, and Interest Rates, it is no surprise to see rates pacing inflation currently. As noted in “No, Bonds Aren’t Over-Valued.”

    “As shown, the correlation between rates and the economic composite suggests that current expectations of sustained economic expansion and rising inflation are overly optimistic. At current rates, economic growth will likely very quickly return to sub-2% growth by 2022.”

    Note: The “economic composite” is a compilation of inflation (CPI), economic growth (GDP), and wages.

    At the peak of nominal economic growth over the last decade, interest rates rose to 3% as GDP temporarily hit 6%. However, rates correctly predicted that economic growth would return to its long-term downtrend, and inflation would decline. Bonds were right as the economy fell into recession in 2020.

    Once again, economists predict 6% or better economic growth, yet interest rates are roughly 50% lower than previously. The bond market is screaming that:

    • Economic growth will average between 1.75% and 2% over the next few years; and,

    • Deflation still trumps inflation.

    Moreover, the Fed is manipulating inflation expectations.

    The Fed Is Driving Inflation Expectations

    In recent months, market participants continue to rely heavily on implied inflation expectations. The reliance led to much media-driven commentary relating to allocation decisions in the “inflationary environment.” From that analysis, investors piled into materials, energy, and financial companies, which did indeed provide short-term outperformance. The more deflationary sectors of technology, staples, and utilities, not surprisingly, underperformed.

    The problem is that the “market-based” expectations aren’t market-based at all. The first graph below shows the massive amounts of inflation-protected Treasury bonds and notes. Such large purchases create distortions in the very market investors are relying on for inflationary information. Instead, the Fed is skewing the implied inflation calculations.

    The following chart from our analyst, Nick Lane, shows the history of these purchases and the impact on inflationary expectations.

    Just as the Fed’s monetary interventions distorted signals in the asset market, those interventions are now distorting signals in the TIPs market.

    In other words, investors depend on signals from the market to allocate capital and adjust allocations. However, when those signals get manipulated, false readings can lead to significant future dislocations when reality collides with fantasy.

    Such is why the Fed will make a mistake.

    The Fed Is Going To Make A Mistake

    As discussed, the “base effects” (comparison versus last year’s data) make price inflation appear much higher than it is. The graph below puts the CPI indexes in context with their trends of the previous five years.

    Currently, the broad CPI index is only .011% above its trend. The Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, is 1.06% above its trend. If the inflationary impulse is transitory and dies out over the next few months, inflation data will end close to where it was pre-pandemic.

    The Fed is now potentially in a difficult position with inflationary “expectations” rising, caused by their actions, which  increases the risk of a “policy mistake.” 

    Given the Fed waited so long into the economic cycle to hike rates they weren’t able to gain much of a spread before the economy contracted. Historically, there have been ZERO times the Federal Reserve hiked rates that did not negatively affect outcomes.

    The problem for the Fed is that the bond market is not worried about surging inflation. Despite economic growth expectations of as much as 6%, interest rates are trading below 2%. Given the close correlation shown above, it is a message you should not dismiss quickly.

    The “real economy” is heavily debt-financed, and as such, cannot withstand substantially higher rates. Consequently, the Fed is caught between hiking rates to quell transient inflationary pressures, thereby deflating the most significant asset bubble in financial history, or doing nothing and hoping no one pushes the “big red button.”

    Unfortunately, history is full of instances where someone panicked.

    Portfolio Update

    “The road to hell gets paved with good intentions.” – Unknown

    As noted above, our attempt to “front-run” our “money flow signal” did not work out as planned as the signal did not turn.  While we did not take on a tremendous amount of exposure, the increased exposure to the decline mid-week was certainly not part of our plans.

    As is always the case, technical analysis works best when you wait for the signals to occur. While a harsh lesson to relearn, the damage was minimal. With market risk reduced, our entry levels should perform over the next couple of weeks.

    Timing is always the tricky part.

    As Michael Lebowitz concluded in “Fortify Your Wealth:”

    “Given the economic climate and extreme market risks and rewards, we continue to take an agnostic view of markets. We do not get wed to opinions of economic activity or inflation, or how they may steer markets. 

    Paying top dollar for assets requires independent thinking and careful attention to market activity. From the brightest traders on Wall Street to the halls of the Federal Reserve and in the studios of the self-anointed media economic experts, there is zero appreciation for the potential of massive forecasting errors.”

    Historically, investors get rewarded for going against the crowd. Such is especially the case when the masses are in agreement on what the future holds.

    “When all experts agree, something else is bound to happen.” – Bob Farrell.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 05/16/2021 – 17:00

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