Today’s News 19th April 2021

• Spanish Police Raided 3D-Gun Factory And Found Cache Of Weapons And Bomb-Making Material 
  Spanish Police Raided 3D-Gun Factory And Found Cache Of Weapons And Bomb-Making Material 

  People have been making 3D-printed guns at home for nearly a decade, but in the last few years, 3D printed technology, blueprints of weapons, and materials have rapidly evolved that allows anyone to print AR-15s, AKMs, semi-automatic pistols, and others with no serial number, no registration, no background check.

  These weapons are also known as “ghost weapons” due to their untraceable nature. Criminals are embracing ghost guns and even creating manufacturing facilities. 

  Reuters reports Spanish police busted a 3D-printed weapons factory that produced illegal and untraceable firearms in the country. 

  Spanish police raided the illegal weapons workshop in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands and arrested two people in possession of weapons and explosives. 

  Spain’s National Police said police found 3D-printing equipment that could print lowers for weapons. They also found machinery that could manufacture gun barrels in under two minutes, leading authorities to believe the rate of weapons produced at this factory could be staggering. 

  

  Police confiscated the components for 19 3D-printed weapons and chemicals that could be used for manufacturing explosives. 

  Reuters said, “there were also manuals on terrorism, urban guerilla warfare, and white supremacist literature.” 

  Spain’s National Police kept the police weapons factory raid a secret since Sept. 14 until police released details on Sunday. 

  Governments around the world are scrambling to clamp down on 3D-printed weapons.

  The Biden administration recently declared war on ghost guns. Anyone can purchase a 3D printer and download weapon CAD files online, such as ones from the 3D-printed website CTRL-Pew, and build a 100% homemade semi-automatic rifle that shoots 9 mm ammo and can survive thousands of rounds. 

  Since ghost guns have been so disruptive in the Western world, governments are expected to take action against them. The question is, how? What are they going to do, ban printers? 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/19/2021 – 02:45

• Balance Of Power In The Black Sea: Will The Montreux Convention Prevail?
  Balance Of Power In The Black Sea: Will The Montreux Convention Prevail?

  Authored by Brian Kalman exclusively for SouthFront,

  The current deterioration of any hopes of a lasting “ceasefire” in the eastern Ukraine, have brought not only the long smoldering conflict back into the forefront of global media attention, but have also presented an opportunity for several geopolitical rivals to take advantage of the situation for their own perceived benefit. Russia responded rapidly to immediate signals from the Kiev government that it fully intended to explore yet another military campaign to resolve the long-standing stalemate in the Donbass and a possible invasion of the Crimean Peninsula.

  On March 29th, the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) officially adopted Resolution No. 5312, which is a clear departure from the Minsk Agreement and labels Russia as the unequivocal aggressor and responsible party for the conflict. Within days, the Ukrainian Armed Forces began moving large amounts of heavy equipment and materiel up to the line of contact and advanced some units within the demilitarized zone. The Zelensky government made very public calls for support from NATO, the United Kingdom and the United States, which were reciprocated in short order. Russia responded with warnings to Kiev to deescalate, coupled with deployments of military units along the south-eastern border with Ukraine, and reinforcement of units tasked with safeguarding the Crimea.

  

  Within a week of the provocative parliamentary vote, over 100 former Turkish Navy officers committed their signatures to an open letter criticizing the Erdogan government’s decisions related to maritime matters and demanded that he maintain Turkey’s commitment to the Montreux Convention. Ten former admirals that signed the letter were swiftly arrested and painted as traitors planning a governmental coup. This story was briefly covered by corporate media, but quickly dropped off the radar. Was this incident aimed at undermining the Erdogan government, or a diplomatic ploy created by the Erdogan government? There are ample reasons to support either assertion. The timing of the incident, in close relation to developments vis-à-vis Russian and Ukraine, are far from coincidental.

  Erdogan himself has made a number of statements regarding his administration’s willingness to re-evaluate whether the Montreux Doctrine should be revised or abandoned. Most of these comments were linked to media questions regarding the proposed Istanbul Canal, a $10 billion project that would construct a canal parallel to the busy Bosporus Strait. The Istanbul Canal project has been proposed off and on since 2011, with referrals for proposals from likely contractors solicited since 2013. But why the sudden reinjection of the topic of the Montreux Doctrine in such a dramatic fashion now? The timing seems far from a coincidence.

  

  Although logical allies against a common rival, President Erdogan harbors his own designs for Crimea that do not include Ukraine. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

  Is Turkey signaling a possible departure from the international compact, signed in 1936, as an attempt to put pressure on Russian efforts to defend Crimea and respond to NATO assurances of support for Ukraine? What benefits would be achieved by Turkey pulling out of the treaty? Ukrainian president Zelensky made an official visit to Turkey and met with Erdogan on April 10th to discuss defense cooperation amongst numerous other topics. Erdogan reiterated his administrations commitment to Ukraine’s national sovereignty yet saw the Minsk Agreement as the vehicle to achieve a solution to the current impasse. He also voiced support for the official inclusion of Ukraine as a full member of the NATO alliance in the future. More than a few mixed messages to say the least.

  Montreux Convention: A Brief Overview

  The Regime of the Straits as first adopted by signatories in 1936 in Montreux, Switzerland attempted to govern the movement of commercial and military traffic through the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits. This treaty once adopted, replaced the previous Lausanne Treaty of 1923. Clearly a major diplomatic victory for Turkey, the nation maintained sovereignty over the maritime territory of the Bosporus Strait, Strait of Dardanelles, and the Sea of Marmora and gave it the ability to close this major maritime traffic lane to any belligerent of Turkey in time of war. More importantly, it has minimized the ability of any nation whose territory does not border the Black Sea to transit significant amounts of naval warships into the Black Sea. This was a major concern of many of the signatories at the time of its adoption at the onset of the Second World War, chief amongst them the Soviet Union.

  

  The strategically important maritime bottleneck that is controlled by Turkey and governed by the Montreux Convention. Approximately 50,000 vessels a year move through this waterway, along with 3 million barrels of oil every day.

  On one hand, aggregate tonnage limitations imposed on non-Black Sea powers severely limits the size and total number of surface warfare vessels that can transit the straits and enter the Black Sea, and these vessels can only remain in the Black Sea for a period of 21 days. On the other hand, the limitation on movements of vessels through the straits does affect the naval movements of the Black Sea nations. The movement of submarines is significantly hampered by Article 12 as follows:

  Black Sea Powers shall have the right to send through the Straits, for the purpose of rejoining their base, submarines constructed or purchased outside the Black Sea, provided that adequate notice of the laying down or purchase of such submarines shall have been given to Turkey.

  Submarines belonging to the said Powers shall also be entitled to pass through the Straits to be repaired in dockyards outside the Black Sea on condition that detailed information on the matter is given to Turkey.

  In either case, the said submarines must travel by day and on the surface, and must pass through the Straits singly.

  Understanding how the limitations imposed by the Montreux Convention affect Russian submarine movements illustrate a major challenge for Russian submarine deployments in the Mediterranean. A Russian naval base capable of major repair, supply and retrofitting is required outside of the Dardanelles (such as Tartus, Syria) is required to facilitate a sustained Russian submarine presence in the Mediterranean.

  An additional limitation of significance is the agreement’s prohibition of the transit of aircraft carriers. The Montreux Convention describes an aircraft carrier under Annex II:

  Aircraft Carriers are surface vessels of war, whatever their displacement, designed or adapted primarily for the purpose of carrying and operating aircraft at sea. The fitting of a landing-on or flying-off deck on any vessel of war, provided such vessel has not been designed or adapted primarily for the purpose of carrying and operating aircraft at sea, shall not cause any vessel so fitted to be classified in the category of aircraft carrier.

  One of the reasons why the Soviet Union classified the Kiev class and Kuznetsov class vessels as “heavy aircraft carrying cruiser” was to circumvent this restriction. Their primary armament comprised of ant-aircraft missiles and anti-ship missiles, with the small complement of Yak-38 VTOL meant for fleet defense. The acceptance of the heavy aircraft carrying cruiser moniker under the Montreux Convention arguably required the acquiescence of friendly Turkey, especially one that was a NATO member.

  Throughout the 85-year history of the convention, the Black Sea has remained largely demilitarized and stable, with the Black Sea states keeping modest fleets in this maritime area. Even during World War II, Turkey’s neutrality and administration of the convention greatly limited the injection of large naval fleets into the Black Sea. Coupled with the impediment of Gibraltar, Nazi Germany only introduced small numbers of patrol boats and submarines to the region, with these having to make most of the transit overland, requiring them to be assembled and launched from Axis controlled territory along the coast.

  2021: Ukraine Conflict Reignition?

  As the situation along the conflict line in eastern Ukraine continues to further deteriorate, and the statements coming out of Ukraine, NATO and the U.S. become exceedingly provocative, the likelihood of a significant armed conflict reigniting on an even larger scale increase with each passing day. Russia has voiced its concerns and made its “red lines” know to all, has mobilized a large amount of personnel and military hardware, and positioned it close to the border with eastern Ukraine. It has reinforced the defense of Crimea significantly. Russia has conducted its movements of troops and materiel quite overtly, with no attempts to conceal them. This clearly communicates the Russian movements are in fact a reaction to developments in the region and a are designed as a deterrent, not the signs of a premeditated offensive as the corporate media would have the world believe.

  By contrast, the United States has sent numerous military transport aircraft loaded with unknown payloads to Ukraine in the past few days. Although the flights were not hidden per se, questions regarding their purpose were not answered by various Biden Administration press secretaries. This can hardly be seen as an attempt to achieve strategic ambiguity, as the U.S. has been supplying Ukraine with billions of dollars in military aid since the conflict began in 2014. The United States requested transit approval from Turkey of the Straits for two U.S. Navy warships 15 days ahead of the proposed transit as required by the Montreux Convention. Turkey granted the request. Although the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet routinely sends warships into the Black Sea and had three vessels in the area during the previous month, the official reasons given for this deployment were that the U.S. was providing a show of support for Ukraine and attempting to provide “stability” in the region. After a call between presidents Biden and Putin on April 15th, the U.S. Navy rescinded its transit request. This was a welcome step toward de-escalation.

  

  USS Carney DDG 64 during a previous naval deployment that took her into the Black Sea and an official visit to the port of Odessa, Ukraine in 2017. She is currently in drydock undergoing a full modernization overhaul in Jacksonville, FL.

  All the above developments are happening with the backdrop of the commencement of NATO operation Defender Europe 2021 back on March 15th. As the training exercise ramps up in May it will engage approximately 28,000 personnel from 27 participating countries. Approximately 20,000 of these troops will be deployed from the U.S., along with heavy equipment shipped to the continent for the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team and 3rd Infantry Division. The majority of armored vehicles and war materiel will be mobilized from pre-position depots in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Exercises will simulate and test the response to a Russian invasion of NATO members and friendly nations, i.e., Ukraine. Exercises will take place in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine.

  Quite ironically, Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, NATO’s supreme allied commander stated after last year’s Defender Europe 2020 that,

  “We’ve seen a fair amount of response from Russia. They’re not overly pleased with Defender Europe 20. We’re concerned mostly about the readiness of our forces and we’re doing all that in accordance with international law.”

  Somehow it is acceptable for the U.S. to move tens of thousands of troops and equipment thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to conduct military exercises on foreign soil, yet it is unacceptable for Russia to conduct similar exercises on its own soil, yet both are clearly in accordance with international law. Could General Wolters grasp that Russia’s displeasure might be influenced by the long list of broken promises related to NATO expansion into previous Warsaw Pact nations over the past thirty years? How about Operation Barbarossa of 1941, which saw a massive invasion of the nation by Nazi Germany, Bulgaria, and Romania, with Hungary and Italy also participating to a greater degree after the initial operation? Russia learned a tragic lesson in this case and one that it will never allow to happen again. Perhaps it would help for General Wolters to crack the binding of a history book or two about Russia in the near future.

  What Role will Turkey Decide to Play?

  Turkey has a multitude of options open to it in case the current conflict in Ukraine develops into open warfare between Ukraine and Russia. President Erdogan is a very shrewd and calculated politician, who would undoubtedly hedge his bets and alter Turkey’s strategic position as the situation developed. Turkey’s strategic calculus would depend largely on the level of response exhibited by Russia in its reaction to any move by Kiev to break the stalemate in the Donbass region, or any direct military threat on Crimea. A direct move on Crimea is highly unlikely, as Russia was totally unambiguous as to its stance in 2014. It will fight to maintain Crimea even if it means nuclear war.

  

  Russia has been slowly modernizing the Black Sea Fleet. The Admiral Makarov pictured above is one of three Project 11356 FFGs commissioned and stationed there in the past few years.

  Turkey would wait and gauge the NATO response to any Russian reaction to Kiev’s escalation. If NATO moved forcefully and resolutely, Turkey would likely maintain the status quo and honor its responsibilities under the Montreux Convention up until such point that either NATO or Russia gains a clear advantage. Turkey is a NATO member and is bound by the treaty; however, Ukraine is not a member, and thus Turkey has no obligation under Article 5 to defend it, especially if Ukraine initiates hostilities. A propaganda war facilitated by western corporate media would be used to frame any conflict as a case of a Russian invasion to allow for NATO to initiate a conflict to defend a non-member state. If NATO gained a clear advantage, Turkey would align itself unequivocally with the military bloc, declare Russia a belligerent party to Turkey and bar all Russian naval and maritime traffic in the Straits as per the mechanisms available in the Montreux Convention. Turkey would cut off the major supply route from Russia to its forces stationed in Syria and would likely escalate the military situation in Syria in conjunction with NATO. This would only lead to a much wider conflict.

  If Russia were to gain an early and clear advantage, Turkey would most likely remain “neutral” and maintain the status quo regarding the Montreux Convention; however, it would likely engage in covert warfare against Russia in both the Crimea and Syria via its proxies in both regions to take advantage of Russia’s immediate focus on Ukraine. It could also reignite the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Its commitment to proxy warfare would be gauged by the pace and level of any Russian military success. Even in the case of an overwhelming victory on the part of Russia, I see little likelihood of Turkey abandoning the Montreux Convention and the adoption of a more favorable transit agreement with Russia. In regard to controlling this strategically important maritime bottleneck, Turkey holds all the cards. Russia has been keenly aware of this reality since the agreement was ratified in 1936. Alongside its desire to maintain an advantage in the natural gas trade to Europe, it is also for this reason that Russia has invested so much in stabilizing Syria and defeating Western/Saudi/Gulf Emirate efforts to eliminate Russia’s most viable naval base of operations in the Mediterranean Sea in Tartus, Syria.

  The Future of the Montreux Convention

  There is very little chance of a major change in the status of the Montreux Convention in the immediate future. The greater possibility is that an open conflict between Russia and Ukraine would be the catalyst for Turkey and NATO to use the agreement to weaken Russia’s position in Syria, where it would be of greatest effect. Erdogan has been very measured in his public statements regarding possible hostilities in Ukraine. While hosting an official state visit with President Zelensky and voicing support for Ukraine’s sovereignty (including Crimea), he has also voiced his support for the Minsk Agreement as the mechanism to resolve the issue; however, public statements are often quite different than the discussions that take place behind closed doors.

  The Montreux Convention was perhaps the greatest political victory for Turkey in the past century, and President Erdogan undoubtedly grasps this reality. If the Istanbul Canal project ever actually breaks ground, it is a winning proposition for Turkey economically, although there are several ecological and civic planning concerns that pose a major challenge to the project. Such a project, if successful will bring all the economic benefits that both the Panama and Suez Canals have provided for Panama and Egypt. Although there is a natural, navigable waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, this waterway is constricted and limited in the traffic volume that it can handle.  If a man-made canal can significantly reduce voyage transit time, shippers stand to save significant amounts of money by utilizing it. The time saved equates to fuel savings, possible reduction of overtime labor costs in the next port of call or may determine if a vessel operator meets the contractual terms of a charter party. Russia aims to leverage the same advantages in promoting its own Northern Sea Route.

  

  If Turkey ever completes the proposed Istanbul Canal it would alleviate some of the maritime traffic congestion in the Bosporus Strait and provide a large amount of revenue for the state.

  With or without the proposition of the Istanbul Canal, the Montreux Convention is a major strategic advantage for Turkey and the NATO Alliance, as long as Turkey remains a member state. For Russia it is a double-edged sword. Assuming Turkey remains an ally or a neutral party, it severely limits the ability of any foreign power to introduce a viable naval threat to the Black Sea and Russia’s vital national interests in the region. In any scenario where Turkey becomes an active belligerent in any hypothetical conflict, Russia is forced to take decisive and overwhelming action to rest control of these navigable waterways from Turkey or else surrender its access to the Mediterranean. Turkey, Russia and NATO all clearly understand this strategic reality, and have been rational and logical enough to accept it. By so limiting the available options for naval escalation, the Montreux Convention continues to provide stability and ensure a naval balance of power in the region.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/19/2021 – 02:00

• Escobar: So Who Wants A Hot War?
  Escobar: So Who Wants A Hot War?

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

  It’s a scorpion battle inside a vortex of distorted mirrors inside a circus. So let’s start with the mirrors in the circus.

  

  The non-entity that passes for Ukrainian Foreign Minister traveled to Brussels to be courted by US Secretary of State Blinken and NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg.

  At best, that’s circus shadowplay. Much more than NATO advisers in a frantic revolving door in Kiev, the real shadowplay is MI6 actually working very close with President Zelensky.

  Zelensky’s warmongering script comes directly from MI6’s Richard Moore. Russian intel is very much aware of all the fine print. Glimpses were even carefully leaked to a TV special on the Rossiya 1 channel.

  I confirmed it with diplomatic sources in Brussels. British media also got wind of it – but obviously was told to further distort the mirrors, blaming everything on, what else, “Russian aggression”.

  German intel is practically non-existent in Kiev. Those NATO advisers remain legion. Yet no one talks about the explosive MI6 connection.

  Careless whispers in Brussels corridors swear that MI6 actually believes that in the case of a volcanic but as it stands still preventable hot war with Russia, continental Europe would burn and Brexitland would be spared.

  Dream on. Now back to the circus.

  Oh, you’re so provocative

  Both Little Blinken and NATO straw man Stoltenberg parroted the same script in Brussels after talking to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.

  That was part of a NATO “special meeting” on Ukraine – where some Eurocrat must have told a bunch of extra clueless Eurocrats how they would be carbonized on the spot by Russian TOS-1 Buratino’s terrifying explosive warheads if NATO tried anything funny.

  Listen to the sound of Blinken yappin’: Russian actions are “provocative”.

  Well, his staff certainly did not hand him a copy of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu examining step by step the deployment of the annual US Army DEFENDER-Europe 21: “The main forces are concentrated in the Black Sea and Baltic region.”

  Now listen to the sound of Stoltenberg yappin’: We pledge “unwavering support” to Ukraine.

  Woof woof. Now go back to play in your sandboxes.

  No, not yet. Little Blinken threatened Moscow with “consequences” whatever happens in Ukraine.

  Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov’s infinite patience is nearly Daoist. Sun Tzu’s Art of War, by the way, is a Daoist masterpiece. Peskov’s answer to Blinken: “It is simply not necessary for us to go around forever proclaiming: ‘I am the greatest!’ The more one does this sort of thing, in fact, the more people doubt it…”

  When in doubt, call the irreplaceable Andrei Martyanov – who always tells it like it is. The Crash Test Dummy gang in D.C. still does not get it – although some Deep State pros do.

  Here’s Martyanov:

  As I am on record constantly – the United States never fought a war with its Command and Control system under the relentless sustained fire impact and its rear attacked and disorganized. Conventionally, the United States cannot win against Russia in Europe, at least Eastern part of it and Biden Admin better wake up to the reality that it may, indeed, not survive any kind of escalation and, in fact, modern Kalibrs, 3M14Ms, as a matter of fact, have a range of a 4,500 kilometers, as well as 5,000+ kilometer range of X-101 cruise missiles, which will have no issues with penetrating North American airspace when launched by Russia’s strategic bombers without even leaving the safety of Russia’s airspace.

  The Patrushev effect

  The circus went on with the phone call from “Biden” – that is, Crash Test Dummy with an earpiece and a teleprompter in front of the phone – to President Putin.

  Call it the Patrushev effect.

  In his stunning interview to Kommersant, Triple Yoda Patrushev mentioned a very civilized late March phone call he had with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Of course there’s no smokin’ gun, but if anyone would come up with the face-saving idea of a Biden-Putin phone call that would have been Sullivan.

  The spin from Washington and Moscow is only slightly divergent. The Americans highlight that “Biden” – actually the deciding combo behind him – wants to build “a stable and predictable relationship with Russia, consistent with US interests.”

  The Kremlin said that Biden “expressed interest in normalizing bilateral relations.”

  Away from all this fog, what really matters is Patrushev-Sullivan. That has to do with Washington telling Turkey that US warships would be transiting the Bosphorus towards the Black Sea. Sullivan must have told Patrushev that no, they won’t be “active” in Donbass. And Patrushev told Sullivan, OK, we won’t incinerate them.

  There are absolutely no illusions in Moscow that this putative Biden-Putin summit in a distant future will ever take place. Especially after Daoist Peskov had made it very clear that “no one will allow America to speak with Russia from a position of strength.” If that sounds like a line straight out of Yang Jiechi – who made shark fin’s soup out of Blinken-Sullivan in Alaska – that’s because it does.

  Kiev, predictably, remains stuck in circus mode. After getting sharp messages from Mr. Iskander, Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Buratino, they changed their mind, or at least pretend to, and are now saying they don’t want war.

  And here comes the intersection between circus and the serious stuff. The “Biden” combo never said, explicitly, on the record, that they don’t want war. On the contrary: they are sending those warships to the Black Sea and – circus again! – designating an envoy, Ministry of Silly Walks-style, whose only job is to derail the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

  So the cliffhanger – like a teaser for Snowpiercer – is what happens when Nord Stream 2 is completed.

  But before that, there’s something even more momentous: next Wednesday, on his speech to the Russian Security Council, President Putin will lay down the law.

  It’s Minsk 2, stupid

  Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has struck a much less Daoist note than Peskov: “The United States is our enemy, doing everything to undermine Russia’s position in the international arena, we do not see other elements in their approach to us. These are our conclusions”.

  That’s stone to the bone realpolitik. Ryabkov knows the Hegemon’s “non agreement-capable” mindset inside out. So an added dimension to his observation is its direct connection to the only solution for Ukraine: the Minsk 2 agreements.

  Putin reiterated Minsk 2 on his live teleconference with Merkel and Macron – and certainly to “Biden” in their phone call. The Beltway, the EU and NATO are all aware of it. Minsk 2 was signed by Ukraine, France and Germany and certified by the UN Security Council. If Kiev violates it, Russia – as a member of the UNSC – must enforce it.

  Kiev has been violating Minsk 2 for months now; it refuses to implement it. As a faithful Hegemon satrapy, they are also not “agreement-capable”. Yet now they are seeing the – firepower – writing on the wall if they as much as think of starting a blitzkrieg against Donbass.

  The open secret in the whole Ukraine/Donbass wilderness of mirrors under the circus tent is of course China. Yet Ukraine, in a sane world, would not only be part of a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridor, but also part of the Russian Greater Eurasia project. China specialist Nikolai Vavilov recognizes the importance of BRI, but is also certain Russia is above all defending its own interests.

  Ideally, Ukraine/Donbass would be inserted in the overall revival of the Silk Roads – as in internal Central Eurasian trade based and developed taking into consideration Eurasia-wide demand. Eurasia integration – in both the Chinese and Russian vision – are all about interconnected economies via inter-regional trade.

  So it’s not by accident that the Hegemon – on the verge of becoming an irrelevant player across Eurasia – is going no holds barred to harass and try to smash the continental integration by all means available.

  In this context, manipulating a failed state to meet its own doom is just (circus) business.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 23:40

• Where COVID Cases Are Growing The Fastest
  Where COVID Cases Are Growing The Fastest

  COVID-19 cases are growing in many countries around the world, but, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, some are hit harder than others. Numbers by Johns Hopkins University published on Our World in Data show that among the highly affected countries with rising case numbers are several with successful vaccination campaigns, highlighting the need to not rely on vaccination alone to combat the coronavirus.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Chile still recorded an average of 377 new infections per one million of population on Thursday despite having given out 67 vaccine doses per 100 people – the equivalent of 40 percent of the population having received at least one vaccine dose and 27 percent having been fully vaccinated.

  The same phenomenon is happening in Bahrain (60 doses per 100 people as of April 15) and Qatar (41 doses). 

  According to Our World in Data this places the countries towards the top of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 23:15

• What The CDC's VAERS Database Reveals About "Adverse" Post-Vaccine Reactions
  What The CDC’s VAERS Database Reveals About “Adverse” Post-Vaccine Reactions

  Authored by Megan Redshaw via ChildrensHealthDefense.org,

  Data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the number of injuries and deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID vaccines revealed reports of blood clots and other related blood disorders associated with all three vaccines approved for Emergency Use Authorization in the U.S. — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J). So far, only the J&J vaccine has been paused because of blood clot concerns.

  

  VAERS is the primary mechanism for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.

  Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received through a specified date, usually about a week prior to the release date. Today’s data show that between Dec. 14, 2020 and April 8, a total of 68,347 total adverse events were reported to VAERS, including 2,602 deaths — an increase of 260 over the previous week — and 8,285 serious injuries, up 314 since last week.

  

  Of the 2,602 deaths reported as of April 8, 27% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination, 19% occurred within 24 hours and 41% occurred in people who became ill within 48 hours of being vaccinated.

  In the U.S., 174.9 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of April 8. This includes 79.6 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine, 90.3 million doses of Pfizer and 4.9 million doses of the J&J COVID vaccine.

  This week’s VAERS data show:

  • 19% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.

  • 55% of those who died were male, 43% were female and the remaining death reports did not include gender of the deceased.

  • The average age of those who died was 77 and the youngest death was an 18-year-old. There are a few reported deaths in children under 18, but these reports contained errors.

  • As of April 8, 408 pregnant women had reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 114 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.

  • Of the 678 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported, 59% of cases were reported after Pfizer-BioNTech vaccinations, 38% following vaccination with the Moderna vaccine and 24 cases (4%) of Bell’s Palsy were reported with J&J.

  • There were 77 reports of Guillain-Barré Syndrome with 55% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 40% to Moderna and 10% to J&J.

  • There were 20,021 reports of anaphylaxis with 47% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine, 46% to Moderna and 7% to J&J.

  Reports of blood clotting disorders in VAERS

  Children’s Health Defense queried the VAERS data for a series of adverse events associated with the formation of clotting disorders and other related conditions. VAERS yielded a total of 795 reports for all three vaccines from Dec. 14, 2020, through April 8.

  Of the 795 cases reported, there were 400 reports attributed to Pfizer, 337 reports with Moderna and 56 reports with J&J — far more than the eight J&J cases under investigation, including the two additional cases added Wednesday.

  As The Defender reported today, although the J&J and AstraZeneca COVID vaccines have been under the microscope for their potential to cause blood clots, mounting evidence suggests the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also cause clots and related blood disorders. U.S. regulatory officials were alerted to the problem as far back as December 2020.

  CDC ignores The Defender, no response after 39 days 

  According to the CDC’s website, “the CDC follows up on any report of death to request additional information and learn more about what occurred and to determine whether the death was a result of the vaccine or unrelated.”

  On March 8, The Defender contacted the CDC with a written list of questions about reported deaths and injuries related to COVID vaccines. We requested information about how the CDC conducts investigations into reported deaths, the status of ongoing investigations reported in the media, if autopsies are being done, the standard for determining whether an injury is causally connected to a vaccine, and education initiatives to encourage and facilitate proper and accurate reporting.

  After many attempts to get a response from the CDC, 22 days after our initial outreach a representative from the CDC’s Vaccine Task Force responded, saying the agency had never received our questions — even though the employees we talked to several times said their press officers were working through the questions we sent.

  We provided the questions again and set a new deadline of April 7. We’ve reached out multiple times since, but the representative has not answered our emails or returned our calls.

  On April 15 we called the CDC’s general media line again and were told they had our list of questions and were unsure why the representative told us she never received them. We were told the COVID response team would be informed and that we should follow up in a few days.

  It has been 39 days since we first reached out and have yet to receive answers to our questions.

  Johnson & Johnson paused over reports of blood clot

  On April 15, The Defender reported that a healthy 43-year old man in Mississippi suffered a stroke hours after being vaccinated with J&J’s COVID vaccine. Brad Malagarie, father of seven, had received the vaccine a little after Noon and was found unresponsive by co-workers at his desk.

  Also on April 15, the  Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the Ohio Department of Health is monitoring the investigation into what may have caused a 21-year-old University of Cincinnati student to die suddenly last Sunday, about a day after he received the J&J vaccine.

  Alicia Shoults, a spokeswoman for the state health department, said the agency is waiting for the completion of a Hamilton County coroner’s report, and “if necessary,” further guidance from the CDC.

  The two news stories came just days after federal health officials paused the J&J vaccine.

  As The Defender reported April 13, the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) called for a temporary but immediate halt to the use of J&J’s COVID vaccine while the agencies investigated the vaccine’s possible link to potentially dangerous blood clots.

  In a joint statement, the agencies said the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was reviewing clinical data gathered on six women, one who died, between the ages of 18 and 48 years who developed blood clots after receiving the single-dose J&J vaccine.

  On April 14, the ACIP held an emergency meeting to vote on whether to lift the pause on J&J’s vaccine or change recommendations for its use. As The Defender reported, the ACIP postponed the vote, extending the pause pending further analysis of data relating to blood clots. The ACIP said it would reconvene for a vote in one week to 10 days.

  That same day, J&J revealed two more cases of blood clots — one that occurred in a 25-year-old man who suffered a cerebral hemorrhage during a clinical trial and another case of deep-vein-thrombosis in a 59-year-old woman.

  In its review of J&J’s submission for Emergency Use Authorization in February, the FDA initially urged further surveillance of a slight “numerical imbalance” in blood clotting events after receiving the shot. At the time, it was concluded there was “insufficient” data to determine “a causal relationship” with the vaccine and the drugmaker resumed the trial.

  As The Defender reported April 12, the rollout of J&J’s COVID vaccine has not been smooth. At the beginning of the month the vaccine maker had to throw out 15 million doses of its vaccine after they were contaminated with AstraZeneca vaccine ingredients at an unapproved manufacturing plant in Baltimore.

  The vaccine maker also has been plagued with shutdowns of its vaccine sites prior to the vaccine being paused, multiple reports of COVID breakthrough cases and criticism over its CEO’s $30 million pay package while the company pays out billions for its role in the opioid epidemic.

  CDC, multiple states report ‘breakthrough’ COVID cases among fully vaccinated

  Cases of fully vaccinated people getting COVID, referred to as “breakthrough” cases, continue to make news.

  Calling it a “really good scenario,” the CDC yesterday reported 5,800 cases of COVID in fully vaccinated people. Of the 5,800 cases, 396 required hospitalization and 74 people died, the CDC said.

  The CDC said it was “keeping a close eye” on the cases, but that breakthrough cases are to be expected. Tara Smith, a professor of epidemiology at the Kent State University College of Public Health in Ohio, told NBC News:

  “This is a really good scenario, even with almost 6,000 breakthrough infections. Most of those have been mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic. That’s exactly what we were hoping for.”

  On April 12, the Houston Health Department reported 142 breakthrough cases of COVID that occurred in fully vaccinated people since January, according to ABC 13 News. Vaccine recipients received either two doses of Moderna or Pfizer, or one dose of J&J. The report ruled out those who were said to have contracted the virus 45 days before their second scheduled shot date.

  Houston Health Department said there were 2.46 positive cases out of every 10,000 fully-vaccinated people and it was unclear if those who tested positive contracted the original strand of COVID or a newer variant.

  Last month, The Defender reported on breakthrough cases in Washington, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, New York, California and Minnesota. On April 6, The Defender reported on 246 breakthrough cases in Michigan, which included three people who died.

  Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 22:50

• Goldman: The Economic Surge Is Starting To Flare Out… And Markets Are Starting To Price It In
  Goldman: The Economic Surge Is Starting To Flare Out… And Markets Are Starting To Price It In

  A year ago, Goldman Sachs wrote about an adage that came to characterize the market’s response to the pandemic: “investors can not afford to wait for the resolution to a problem that they know will be resolved.” And a year later, around the time Wall Street decided that covid is now behind us, the resolution is well and truly underway in the US with 38% of Americans having already received a first shot of the vaccine

  

  … and nearly 80% of all Americans 65 and older having received at least one dose.

  

  And signs of how the economy may respond to this resolution are already starting to crop up — especially this week.

  • March Retail Sales grew almost 10% M/M, helped also by a fresh round of stimulus checks sent out to shoppers
  • The number of people filing for jobless benefits in the latest week also fellnsharply to 576k from 769k a week prior
  • And business sentiment — which had already bounced off its low — showed further improvement with the Philly Fed rising to 50.2 from 44.5 a month ago and the Empire Manufacturing Index jumping to 26.3 from 17.4

  Interestingly, as Goldman’s Chris Hussey writes, Friday’s University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey disappointed, rising less than expected to 86.5 from 84.9 a month ago due to subdued expectations about the future…

  

  … perhaps as a result of 1-year inflation expectations soaring.

  

  When coupled with March’s blockbuster retail sales report, Goldman writes that “it may suggest that the stimulus-driven spending surge is already starting to flare out.” But it might also reveal how stimulus checks are hard-pressed to erase the longer-term memory of a 1-year+ pandemic-fueled lockdown.  The survey’s current economic conditions component rose by 4.2pt to 97.2. But the expectations index remained unchanged at79.7. As Goldman suggests, “it may be that consumers will need to live and feel ‘normal’ for more than just a shopping trip to the mall before fully embracing a post-pandemic era.“

  On one hand, this last point could be encouraging for markets as it suggests the reopening may have legs. But just how long those legs are is an increasingly hot topic of conversation. As Goldman strategist Alessio Rizzi warned in a separate note, we are probably entering the last stage of pricing the growth acceleration.

  

  To be sure, the market action last week may point to signs that the reopening trade could be already starting to fade.

  • Yields on 10-year US Treasuries have fallen about 10 bp this week to 1.57%.
  • Three of the best performing sectors in the S&P 500 this week were traditionally defensive ones: Healthcare, Real Estate, and Utilities.
  • A look at Goldman’s 19 stocks to focus on when we get a vaccine shows declines this week in particularly reopening sensitive categories like airlines (UAL and BA) and entertainment (FUN and IMAX).
  • The Financials sector is among the worst performers this week despite what on paper looked to be an extraordinary quarter of reported profits for the large money center banks.

  Putting all this together, Hussey writes that “in a week in which the US made significant progress in its recovery, we learned that business sentiment is only improving while more people are getting their job back and Banks reported strong profits through March, the procyclical trade showed signs of getting a little ‘long in the tooth’.”

  Indeed, as the Goldman strategist concludes, we may now be in a mirror image from one year ago today, when “investors find out that they can not afford to wait for the fading of a recovery that they know will eventually fade.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 22:25

• How To Start A War
  How To Start A War

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

  Wars often arise from uncertainty. When strong powers appear weak, truly weaker ones take risks they otherwise would not. 

  

  Sloppy braggadocio and serial promises of restraint alternatively trigger wars, too. Empty tough talk can needlessly egg on aggressors. But mouthing utopian bromides convinces bullies that their targets are too sophisticated to counter aggression.

  Sometimes announcing “a new peace process” without any ability to bring either novel concessions or pressures only raises false hopes—and furor. 

  Every new American president is usually tested to determine whether the United States can still protect friends like Japan, Europe, South Korea, Israel, and Taiwan. And will the new commander-in-chief deter America’s enemies Iran and North Korea—and keep China and Russia from absorbing their neighbors?

  Joe Biden, and those around him, seem determined to upset the peace they inherited. 

  Soon after Donald Trump left office, Vladimir Putin began massing troops on the Ukrainian border and threatening to attack.

  Putin earlier had concluded Trump was dangerously unpredictable, and perhaps better not provoked. After all, the Trump Administration took out Russian mercenaries in Syria. It beefed up defense spending and upped sanctions.

  The Trump Administration flooded the world with cheap oil to Russia’s chagrin. It pulled out from asymmetrical missile treaties with Russia. It sold sophisticated arms to the Ukrainians. The Russians concluded that Trump might do anything, and so waited for another president before again testing America.

  In contrast, Biden too often talks provocatively—while carrying a twig. He has gratuitously called Putin “a killer.” And he warned that the Russian dictator “would pay a price” for supposedly interfering in the 2020 election. 

  Unfortunately, his bombast follows four years of a Russian-collusion hoax, fueled by a concocted dossier paid for by 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton. Biden and others swore Trump was—in the words of Barack Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper—a “Russian asset.”

  If Biden seeks to provoke a nation with 7,500 deliverable weapons, he is certainly not backing up his rhetoric with force.

  He has cut military aid to Ukraine. And Biden may well decrease the Pentagon budget.  

  He seems to have forgotten that Trump was impeached for supposedly imperiling Ukraine, when in fact he sold to it the very weapons Biden and others in the Obama Administration had vetoed.

  While Biden was talking loudly to Putin, his administration was serially humiliated by China. Beijing’s diplomats dressed down their American counterparts in a recent meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. They gleefully recycled domestic left-wing boilerplate that a racist America has no moral authority to criticize China.

  If Trump was unpredictably blunt, Biden is too often predictably confused. And he appears frail, sending a message to autocracies that America’s commander-in-chief is not fully in control. 

  Biden has not, as he promised, demanded from China transparency about the origins of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan. By summer, that Chinese-birthed plague may have killed 600,000 Americans.

  More disturbing, as Russia puts troops on the Ukrainian border, China simultaneously flies into Taiwanese air space, testing its defenses—and the degree to which the United States cares.

  For a half-century, American foreign policy sought to ensure that Russia was no closer to China than either was to the United States.

  Now the two dictatorships seem almost joined at the hip as each probes U.S. responses or lack thereof. Not surprisingly, North Korea in late March suddenly resumed its firing of missiles over the Sea of Japan.

  In the Middle East, Biden inherited a relatively quiet landscape. Arab nations, in historic fashion, were making peace with Israel. Both sides were working to deter Iranian-funded terrorists, like Hezbollah and extremists in Syria, the West Bank, and Yemen. 

  Radical Palestinians were no longer beneficiaries of U.S. aid. Iran itself was stagnating by sanctions and recession. Its arch terrorist mastermind General Qasem Soleimani was killed by U.S. bombing. 

  The United States left the Iran deal that was a prescription for certain Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon. The theocracy in Tehran, the chief sponsor of terror in the world, was in its most fragile condition in its 40 years of existence.

  Now U.S. diplomats bizarrely express an interest in restoring cordial relations with Iran, rebooting the Iran deal, and dropping sanctions against the regime. If all that happens, Iran will likely get a bomb soon. 

  More importantly, Tehran may conclude that the United States has distanced itself from Israel and moderate Arab regimes. One of two dangers will then arise. Either Iran will feel it can up its aggression, or its enemies will conclude they have no choice but to take out all Iranian nuclear facilities.

  Biden would do well to remember ancient American diplomatic adages like speaking softly while carrying a big stick, keeping China and Russia apart, being no better friend—or worse enemy—and letting sleeping dogs lie.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 22:00

• A Third Of Workers In San Fran Will Not Return To The Office
  A Third Of Workers In San Fran Will Not Return To The Office

  While we have been writing more of late about corporations returning to the office and life (slowly) starting to return back to normal, not everybody is going to be making the trek back into the office. 

  Only about 38% of currently employed San Francisco workers said they would be making the human-shit-filled hobble back to the office five days a week. This number is down from the 58% who made the commute prior to the pandemic. 

  The data is according to a poll commissioned by regional business group Bay Area Council, and reported by Bloomberg.

  

  The poll revealed that about a third don’t plan to return to the office in the same way they did prior to the pandemic and that about 16% of workers plan to work remotely after Covid, up from 10% pre-Covid. 

  Ultimately, this will result in about 384,000 less people driving or taking mass transit to work daily. 

  Jim Wunderman, President and CEO of the Bay Area Council, concluded: “Work and commute patterns have undergone dramatic changes over the past year, changes that will continue to evolve in the months ahead as the pandemic hopefully slips into our rearview mirror.”

  Recall, in mid March, we wrote that Goldman Sachs had told its employees they would be returning to the office by the summer. Like its much-larger rival JPM, Goldman moved to start bringing traders and investment bankers back to the office last year, leading to some headline-grabbing trading-floor COVID outbreaks.

  

  According to Reuters, Goldman CEO David Solomon informed staff during an all-hands Zoom call last month that the bank’s thousands of workers, who have mostly been working from home, will be back in offices by the summer.

  The NYC-based investment bank has nearly 40K employees around the world and its push to return to offices has been gaining steam internationally. Many of the bank’s roughly 10K workers in India are already returning to offices in Bengaluru and Mumbai from the hometowns where they spent the pandemic. In London, traders, investment bankers and others can get tested for COVID-19 in booths scattered around the building.

  Additionally, just two weeks ago, we reported that Wells Fargo would also have its employees back to the office this year, aiming for a September 6 return date.

  The bank announced in late March that it plans on bringing its workers back to its offices after Labor Day, due to the “increasing availability of vaccines”. The bank says it is hoping for operations to return to normalcy after September 6, according to Reuters. Wells says it is still evaluating whether or not to allow certain businesses or functional subgroups to return to work before labor day. 

  Wells Fargo noted that about 200,000 employees have been working from home, and about 60,000 from offices, during the pandemic.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 21:35

• Antifa "Panicking" About Police Informant Inside Network: Andy Ngo
  Antifa “Panicking” About Police Informant Inside Network: Andy Ngo

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  Members of the infamous Antifa cell in Portland are anxious after an informant in their midst gave information to police, leading to arson charges, Antifa expert Andy Ngo says.

  “They’re panicking because this may possibly mean that somebody has infiltrated high… and there’s a lot at risk, because this is a criminal cartel,” Ngo said Saturday on NTD’s “The Nation Speaks.”

  “And if there’s somebody in there and they don’t know who it is who’s informing on them, it could bring down the entire cell,” Ngo added.

  “I’m hopeful that that will happen, although I’m not sure if there’s the political will for the investigators to actually go through and fully investigate all the links and ties that this individual suspect has. But this is at least a little bit of good news in regards to months and months of really terrible things happening in Portland with no changes happening.”

  Portland has seen repeated rioting since the spring of 2020. At least some of the violence has been linked to members of Antifa, a far-left, anarcho-communist network that has carried out violent acts in cities across the country.

  Last week, prosecutors announced they were charging Alma Raven-Guido, a 19-year-old who has attended multiple riots, with arson, criminal mischief, and rioting—all felonies.

  Raven-Guido is accused of pouring flammable liquid onto a fire that had been started at the building housing the Portland Police Association, a police union, during a riot on April 13. That liquid “resulted in the fire growing,” Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt said.

  A witness saw one of the bottles Raven-Guido use catch fire and start melting and also told police that they saw her place the three bottles into a backpack. In a court document, a police officer described the witness as “the informant.”

  Portland police officers found an accelerant and lighters when they arrested Raven-Guido shortly after the fire was set. They also found her to be in possession of a crow bar, spray paint, and heavy marker.

  

  In this image from video, a fire is seen at the Portland Police Association building in Portland, Ore., on April 13, 2021. (KPTV)

  The fire caused an estimated $25,000-plus damage to the police union building. Daryl Turner, executive director of the union, said in a statement that no one was inside the building when it was set on fire and that neighboring homes were not damaged.

  The arsonists were “a splinter group of rioters” who broke off from a peaceful march, Turner said.

  Slogans favored by Antifa were scrawled on the side of the building, including “ACAB,” an anti-police acronym.

  A court-appointed attorney for the defendant, who was released after being arraigned last week, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Antifa network in Portland does not have a public-facing brand, such as a spokesperson.

  After publications started reporting on the informant’s information helping lead to Raven-Guido being charged, a lot of Antifa members on social media “were trying accuse one another, saying, ‘who was it?’” Ngo, the journalist who has tracked the network for years, was beaten by alleged members in 2019, and later left the United States because of threats, told NTD.

  “And they’re really scared, so they’re locking down their social media accounts so that you can’t see what they’re saying anymore,” he added.

  Screenshots shared by Ngo on Twitter, and other posts that are still publicly available, show people wondering about who informed on Raven-Guido.

  “Somebody sold us out. Somebody sold every single one of us out. There’s somebody out there that would rather send a 19 year old indigenous person to prison than protect a single one of us. [expletive] you. Absolutely [expletive] you. I hope we find out who the [expletive] you are,” one wrote.

  “So where did this happen and what’s that snitches address?” another posted.

  Another user shared a meme that stated, “snitches get stitches.”

  Ngo said he’s hopeful that the anxiety that has set in among Antifa members will lead to a decrease in the violence in Portland.

  “I think that the group of people who are organizing, carrying out the violence is relatively small. So they stand a lot to lose actually if there’s going to be a high level of distrust within the ranks and Portland Police and even federal authorities have not been effective at clamping down on the violence in Portland, which is still ongoing to this day,” he said. “But hopefully, this—Antifa’s own paranoia—can be their undoing. One can hope.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 21:10

• JPMorgan: Clients Are "Increasingly Nervous", Fear "A Market Pullback In May Or June"
  JPMorgan: Clients Are “Increasingly Nervous”, Fear “A Market Pullback In May Or June”

  Much to the delight of bulls everywhere, the past month has been a relentless meltup in stocks, commodities, cryptos, and – paradoxically over the past week when we have been bombarded with stellar economic data – Treasurys as well.

  After dumping at the end of March to a low of 3,843, spoos have seen an almost flat-line diagonal move higher over the past three weeks, hitting an all time high of 4,183 on Friday (trading a little softer over the weekend following the crypto rout) following one blockbuster economic data point after another, and a solid start to earnings season to boot.

  

  If one looks purely at technicals (i.e., lines drawn on a chart which somehow predict stuff), the latest ramp was to be expected, but appears to be reaching an exhaustion point with just 10 points to go until resistance is hit.

  

  There is another technical reason (we’ll ignore fundamentals because when the Fed continues to inject $120BN per month and when the joke cryptocurrency Dogecoin goes exponentially higher “just because”, it’s clear that fundamentals don’t matter), the rally may be coming to an end: as of this moment a near record 96% of S&P stocks are trading above their 200DMA, which is the highest in more than 20 years, and the last time it happened – in Sept of 2009…

  

  … the S&P was 5% lower in 2 weeks, and unchanged a year later. Then again, the current period – when central banks are openly PPTing everything and will defend stocks at any and all cost – can’t really be compared to any other period in the past. Offsetting the negative charts is the well-known fact that April is historically the strongest month for stocks, green 89% of the time over the past 10 years and 75% of the time over the past 20.

  Another factor will be earnings season why by all counts will be stellar… but probably not stellar enough as absolute perfection is already priced in as recent bank earnings demonstrated.

  Which may explain why in his Friday Market Intelligence note, JPMorgan’s Andrew Tyler writes that while the “bull case remains intact” he warns to “keep an eye” on growing divergence in the sleep VIX relative to the spiky MOVE Index (which would imply a VIX in the mid-30s)…

  

  … as well as the CBOE’s put/call ratio…

  

  … as “the combination seems to suggest an increasing nervousness among investors.”

  As Tyler adds, “this dovetails with client conversations that, while expecting a robust earnings season, increasingly worry about potential market pullback in May/June” and urges his readers to recall that last week none other than JPM’s resident in house Marko Kolanovic recommended staying long risk but adding hedges.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 20:49

• China: Still Recovering, But Losing Steam
  China: Still Recovering, But Losing Steam

  By Raphie Hayat of Rabobank

  Still recovering, but losing steam

  Summary

  • China’s economic growth surged to 18.3% y/y, broadly in line with expectations

  • A big part of this is due to the lower base in Q1 2020

  • Although the overall first quarter growth was driven by production, more recent data suggests that services are taking over, while production growth is slowing

  • We think the recovery will lose steam as the initial pent up demand dies out and because policy support is being scaled back

  • Moreover, trade will not help economic growth as much as it did in the past few months as China’s trading partners are slowing coming out of the pandemic and are requiring less working-from-home and other coronavirus-related exports from China.

  • That is why we stick to our GDP forecast of 7.7% this year

  • Despite the relative positive short term outlook, we remain gloomier for the long term as China’s ageing population, high debt load, weakening productivity growth and increasing international tensions will keep growth below the levels of the past 15 years

  Services are taking over

  China’s National Bureau of statistics (NBS) released Q1 GDP figures, which showed that GDP growth accelerated to 18.3% y/y, up from 6.5% y/y in Q4 2020 (figure 1). This was broadly in line with the Bloomberg consensus of 18.5% y/y although higher than our own estimate of 16.3% y/y. The main driver of the first quarter growth was industry and construction, which grew by 24.4% y/y, while services grew by 15.6% y/y (figure 2). However, the monthly data suggests that services growth has taken over, while production growth is coming down.

  

  Industrial production growth has moderated to 14.1% y/y in March (down from 35.1% y/y in January/February) while real retail sales growth has kept pace at 33% y/y (slightly down from 34% y/y growth in January/February). Admittedly, retail sales suffered more and longer than industrial production during the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China, which means base affects play a more prominent role for retail sales than production (figure 3). However, a high frequency indicator such as cinema box office sales corroborates that domestic demand is holding up. Cumulative daily cinema box office sales were CNY 1.56 bln for the first 14 days of April, which is comparable to the CNY 1.54 bln level over the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, industrial capacity utilization has come down a bit, from 78% in Q4 2020, to 77.2% in Q1 2021 (figure 4). Another indicator that points to slower industrial activity going forward is fixed asset investments, which slowed to 25.6% y/y in March, from a 35% y/y increase in January/February (figure 4). Investment activity is a better indicator of businesses confidence in the future and is also more sensitive to the monetary policy stance (on which we will come back later). Taken together, this indicates that services have taken from industry as the growth driver, at least in the short term.

  

  Unemployment is falling, but it’s of limited use as an indicator

  The surveyed urban unemployment rate came in at 5.3%, edging lower from 5.5% February, which is in line with the over economic recovery picture (figure 5).

  

  However, official unemployment figures do not adequately take into account the 300 mln rural migrant workers in China (which is about a third of China’s labour force) that are not counted as unemployed if they are not officially registered as an urban resident (because of the hukou registration system that). The flipside is that underlying improvements in the labour market are not seen in the unemployment figures as well (if rural migrants without hukou do go back to work, that will not be counted as a reduction in unemployment as they were not counted as being unemployed in the first place). In any case, official unemployment figures do not give an accurate picture of China’s labour market, so retail expenditure related data matters more to gauge the health of the economy.

  Trade reflects asynchronicity between China and the rest of the world

  From the trade side, we have already seen data coming out weaker than expected on the export side and stronger than expected on the income side in March. Namely, March Chinese exports grew by 30.6% y/y, and imports by 38.2% y/y in March, which means China’s net exports declined substantially to 14 bln USD (down from 38 bln USD in February).

  This partially reflects the fact that China was the first country in the world to experience the coronavirus outbreak, a couple of months before the virus spread to the rest of the world. As such its exports dipped initially due to supply side effects (since factories wore closed), but rebounded shortly after as China contained the virus relatively quickly, while the rest of the world was going closing down (figure 6). Now that the rest of the world is slowly starting to open up again, the initial boost for Chinese products is diminishing. In addition, China has benefitted from an initial surge in demand for ‘pandemic related products’ such as those related to working from home (computers, laptops and mobile phones) and protective equipment (such as face masks). That demand seems to be coming down (figure 7), which is reflected in the headline trade figures.

  

  We expect China’s exports to moderate further in the coming months as its trading partners slowly move back to normal and will require less products related to containing the coronavirus and working from home. That means net exports will likely be less of a driver for economic growth in China for the rest of the year.

  What do we expect for the coming year?

  For the coming quarters, we expect consumer demand growth to moderate as a considerable part of the “pent up demand” has already come to fruition, while production growth will slow. In addition, reduced policy support from the monetary as well as fiscal side will keep a lid on economic growth. From the fiscal side, Chinas recent government budget targets a fiscal deficit of 3.2% of GDP, which is relatively conservative. From the monetary side, China’s recent Five Year Plan targets growth of the money supply (M2) to be in line with nominal GDP growth, while there have been reports that China’s central bank (the PBoC) has asked banks to cap lending at 2020 levels. Indeed, there are already hints that credit growth is slowing. Total Social Financing (TSF, a measure of broad credit growth in China) has dropped from 13.3% y/y in February to 12.3% in March, the lowest growth rate in TSF since April 2020. We think this reduced policy support will keep a lid on economic growth this year.

  Altogether this GDP report and the observations above mean that we have not adjusted our GDP growth forecast for this year (7.7%).

  The main downside risks to our short term outlook are (i) increasing tensions between China and the US, EU, Japan, Australia or India. Such tensions could lead to sanctions on Chinese businesses and tariffs on Chinese exports, which will cut into China’s economic growth. In addition, the recent rise in SOE and corporate defaults could lead to financial instability. Finally, an unexpected resurgence of the coronavirus (for example via a new strain) will lead to containment measures again and hurt domestic demand.

  One possible upside risk is that China’s coronavirus restrictions are wound down faster than we currently envisage, boosting domestic demand quicker and more than we expect. China’s coronavirus restrictions were one of the toughest globally, but have now come down to below most G7 countries, while coronavirus cases are not materially increasing anymore. In that sense, similar to other countries, containment measures remain a key element to watch for the short term outlook.

  

  Long term outlook

  Our longer term outlook remains that economic growth will slow significantly in China (to 4% by 2025). As we recently argued (here), China is facing an ageing population (which is actually projected to start shrinking from 2030 onwards, according to US Census data), a very high debt load (335% of GDP), increasing tensions with several countries (which will hurt exports as well as limit needed imports) and weak productivity growth.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 20:20

• Meet The Crypto Billionaire That Wants To Make Stock Trading 24 Hours A Day
  Meet The Crypto Billionaire That Wants To Make Stock Trading 24 Hours A Day

  29 year old billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was fed up with how crypto traded, so he did something about it: he started his own crypto exchange, FTX, which now processes $10.7 billion in trades per day. 

  His exchange lets people not only trade equities 24 hours a day, but also bet on props like whether or not Donald Trump will retake the presidency in 2024, according to a recent profile by the Wall Street Journal. It became popular due to Bankman-Fried’s commitment to donating 1% of its revenue to charity – and keeping the exchange reliable. 

  Recently, FTX made news when it bought the naming rights to the former American Airlines Arena – the home of the Miami Heat – for $135 million. The offshore exchange is “far more exciting” than Coinbase to many crypto traders because it operates outside the reach of U.S. authorities and offers both cryptos and derivatives.

  It was the first to offer tokenized stocks, which allows people to track the value of shares of companies like Tesla and GameStop outside of regular trading hours. These tokenized stocks are still only a small market, but crypto fans see them as a way to break stocks free of normal trading hours.

  Bankman-Fried is hopeful regulators eventually allow his products: “Nothing operates 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week. There’s actually a lot of room to innovate in stock exchanges.”

  

  Skeptics point out that, not unlike crypto itself, the products are new and should be taken with a grain of serious salt. Lee Reiners, executive director of the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke University, said: “These are very novel and complex instruments. These things are destined to blow up at some point, and then FTX will be in the hothouse with regulators and law enforcement.”

  FTX’s tokens can “be redeemed for the actual underlying shares at a regulated German investment firm, CM-Equity AG, which helps keep the price of the tokens in line with the actual stocks,” the Journal reports. 

  Rich Rosenblum, president of GSR, a crypto trading firm, said of FTX: “They’ve certainly pushed the envelope in terms of products and the speed with which they’ve been able to launch products.” 

  

  If they were to trade in the U.S., there’s a high chance they would be regulated by the SEC. Since the exchange is overseas, it isn’t beholden to U.S. regulations yet. 

  However, this doesn’t mean it won’t eventually be. The Journal points out that last October, “federal prosecutors charged the founders of BitMEX, another offshore crypto exchange, with violating anti-money-laundering laws because of its failure to register with U.S. regulations while allegedly turning a blind eye to Americans using its platform.”

  It’s tough not to think FTX could be subjected to similar scrutiny. 

  FTX says it has processed $10.7 billion in trades on an average day, which makes it one of the world’s top crypto exchanges. Coinbase, for comparison, has handled about $2.6 billion in daily trades this month – but doesn’t offer derivatives.

  

  FTX has made Bankman-Fried one of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $8.7 billion, much of which is made up of his stake in FTX and various tokens. 

  The 29 year old formerly studied physics at MIT and almost wound up with a career in academia. He launched his own crypto firm, Alameda Research, in 2017 during the early stages of the bitcoin boom. His wealth has allowed him to support organizations like OpenAI, which focuses making sure AI stays an asset – and not a threat – to the human race. 

  He also donated to President Biden’s campaign. He said of the current President: “I’d love to talk to him about crypto regulation. But I don’t think he gives a shit.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 19:55

• Have Chinese State Banks Quietly Bought $180 Billion In Gold?
  Have Chinese State Banks Quietly Bought $180 Billion In Gold?

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Live commentator and author

  Three things we learned last week:

  1. U.S. Treasury scrutinizes Chinese state banks for possible hidden currency intervention

  While Janet Yellen’s Treasury Department refrained from labeling China as a currency manipulator in its semi-annual currency report, it again zeroed in on the role of Chinese state banks in the foreign-exchange market. It noted that China’s net foreign exchange settlement, which it considers a more comprehensive proxy for intervention because it includes the activities of China’s state-owned banks, surged to about $180 billion last year. But the PBOC’s foreign exchange assets, which historically track the settlement data, stayed flat.

  

  The Treasury cautioned that it’s not clear what’s driving the unusual divergence between the two data sets, which used to provide roughly similar estimates of the direction and size of China’s currency intervention. While acknowledging that the difference could be due to commercial reasons, it’s also possible that these banks intervened on behalf of the PBOC to cover the central bank’s tracks, the Treasury said (ZH: or, it is the case that China has been stealthily accumulating some $180 billion in gold, as discussed last Friday in “Beijing Greenlights Purchases Of Billions In Bullion“).

  “Overall, this development highlights the need for China to improve transparency regarding its foreign exchange intervention activities,” the Treasury Department wrote in a report released Friday. “Compared to other major economies, especially in Asia, China is increasingly an outlier with respect to its non-disclosure of foreign exchange market intervention.”

  The Treasury raised similar concerns in its previous report. This won’t be the last time we hear about the issue.

  2. Besieged Huarong got some reprieve

  Dollar bonds of China Huarong Asset Management Co. rallied after financial regulators sought to ease investors’ concerns that the nation’s largest bad-debt manager may be heading for default. Huarong’s operations are normal and the company has ample liquidity, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said Friday. Chinese regulators asked banks not to withhold loans to help stabilize to Huarong’s cash flow, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

  It’s clear that Beijing wants to keep Huarong from becoming China’s “Lehman moment”, even as it works to remove the perception of a blanket guarantee supporting state-owned companies.

  The uncertainties remain, with Huarong’s perpetual bonds trading at about 73 cents on the dollar. But so far, the contagion has been limited as the domestic funding market remains calm.

  

  3. Global growth is accelerating

  China’s economy strengthened in the first quarter as consumer spending rose more than expected. In the U.S., economic data from retail sales to manufacturing surveys also surged. In Europe, vaccine rollouts are starting to speed up. Meanwhile, bond yields remain contained as traders have pared back their expectations for central bank hikes.
  No wonder global stocks keep smashing records.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 19:30

• Former Temple Business School Dean Charged Federally For Manipulating School Ranking Data
  Former Temple Business School Dean Charged Federally For Manipulating School Ranking Data

  The former dean of Temple’s Fox School of Business is being charged with federal crimes after being ousted due to an investigation that found the school “manipulated data” to become the number one ranked MBA program in the country.

  Former dean Moshe Porat was indicted on one count each of conspiracy and wire fraud, according to NBC Philadelphia. His lawyer “vigorously” denied the charges. 

  Isaac Gottlieb, a statistics professor, and Marjorie O’Neill, who submitted data to magazines that rank college programs, were also named in the indictment, according to the report. 

  Temple’s online MBA had been ranked top in the nation by U.S. News and World Report since 2015. The university stayed at the top of the list for 3 years after that and used its ranking to attract students and win donations. 

  Porat allegedly hand picked a small group of employees to focus on the rankings, including stat professor Gottleib, who was also to reverse engineer the magazine’s ranking criteria. Porat appointed O’Neill as the sole liaison between the university and the magazine. 

  The indictment “claims Fox manipulated data in its part-time MBA program, conflating its data with other programs to drive better rankings,” NBC reported.

  

  U.S. News called out Temple’s online MBA data and stripped the school of its ranking. Temple was then forced to pay the U.S. Department of Education $700,000 and later settled a class action suit by offering $250,000 in scholarships.

  Temple called Porat the “mastermind” of the fraud and asked him to resign. 

  Attorney Carolyn P. Short wrote in court papers: “He conceived it, controlled it and kept it hidden, only to try later to cover it up. M. Moshe Porat bears personal responsibility for the Fox School’s intentional submission of false ranking data.”

  Porat says he is being used as a scapegoat by Temple. His lawyer commented: “We are disappointed that, after cooperating with the government in its investigation, the United States Attorney’s Office decided to bring these charges, which Dr. Porat vigorously denies.”

  “Dr. Porat dedicated forty years of his life to serving Temple University, first as a faculty member, and ultimately as Dean of the Fox Business School, and he did so with distinction. He looks forward to defending himself against these charges and to clearing his name,” the statement continued.

  The kicker? Porat is still a tenured professor at the university and is making $316,000 per year. He hasn’t taught a class or published research since 2018. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 19:05

• Biden Blames Russia For The Exact Same "Interference" That US Corporate Media Is Guilty Of
  Biden Blames Russia For The Exact Same “Interference” That US Corporate Media Is Guilty Of

  Authored by Michael Tracey via substack,

  Deliberately vague weasel-word terms like “election interference” and/or “influence” gained such purchase in the past four-to-five years for a simple reason: the deliberate vagueness allowed people in power — elected officials, pundits, Intelligence Community functionaries — to claim unspecified expertise on a supposedly emerging range of threats.

  

  The threats were portrayed as particularly scary because of their alleged potential to Undermine Our Democracy. Consequently, these power-wielding people acquired a potent tool in their arsenal to accuse political enemies, whether foreign or domestic, of contributing to the proliferation of new and scary threats. The accusations were so deliberately vague that it was almost impossible to ever rebut them; sometimes even retweeting a meme was sufficient to be implicated in a foreign plot to destroy the very foundations of America. If an act so trivial as clicking one’s mouse on a social media post could be spun as abetting a foreign-backed “interference” or “influence” scheme, then that created an endless number of booby-traps for you to walk into.

  So there was nothing new about the suite of anti-Russia charges promulgated Thursday by the US federal government, and parroted as usual with maximum credulity across the US media ecosystem. The charges were again predicated on the idea that Russian “interference” and/or “influence” is an extremely foreboding test for the survival of US Democracy. Taking bold action, the Treasury Department levied sanctions against a bunch more Russians for their claimed nefarious behavior in carrying out this interference/influence — a fulfillment of Joe Biden’s oft-stated campaign pledge that under his watch, Russia would finally “pay a price” for allegedly engaging in such activities. Donald Trump, it was thought, had been appallingly lax in his resolve to confront this threat; now, a new sheriff is in town.

  Leaving aside the question of whether it’s prudent to assume that Janet Yellen is suddenly in possession of a foolproof methodology for attributing the provenance of “cyber operations” to specific foreign individuals and nation-states, it’s worth emphasizing what exactly is being alleged in the statement. The Treasury Department document reads: “Outlets operated by Russian Intelligence Services focus on divisive issues in the United States, denigrate US political candidates, and disseminate false and misleading information.” 

  Noting that these same characteristics could be just as easily applied to US corporate media outlets is so blindingly self-evident as to almost be redundant. Were there not “outlets” during the 2020 election that were “focused” on “denigrating” Donald Trump? Or for that matter, Joe Biden? Do “divisive issues” not tend to be “focused on” by these same outlets as a basic precept of their core business model?

  Controversy = clicks/views, which equals revenue.

  Everyone knows this.

  Yet when scary Russian outlets are said to employ this same logic in their own content-production enterprises, it magically becomes dangerous enough to justify all manner of punitive government and corporate action. Including but not limited to: censorship purges, tighter regulation of online speech, and, as Biden announced Thursday, sanctions and expulsion of diplomats. “Disseminating false and misleading information”? The entire US media just got caught “disseminating” a fake story about Russians putting bounties on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan. If you’re truly concerned about the dissemination of “false and misleading information” having deleterious effects on the health of US political culture, your first target should be CNN.

  One of these supposedly-scary Russian “outlets” identified by the Treasury Department is the website SouthFront. (Gee, way to give them far more publicity than they could’ve possibly generated on their own. I’m sure more than .001% of Americans had heard of this obscure website before this week.) SouthFront is alleged to have committed the grave crime of having “sought to promote perceptions of voter fraud” after the 2020 election. I wrote extensively at the time about how the “perceptions of voter fraud” promoted by Trump and his media allies were mostly ill-founded, overblown, and illogical, and it’s true that consumers of fraud-obsessed media coverage often became more-than-a-little deranged. But that’s not the point: the point is whether or not promoting these theories constitutes some sort of terrifying “interference” that requires a forceful punitive response. In which case, the entirety of US right-wing media could be deemed as complicit, requiring vast state-backed retaliation (which may well be the long-term goal). Promoting ill-founded perceptions of political events might be bad, but it doesn’t generally rise to the level of Democracy-Threatening Existential Crisis unless you have some other motivation for raising it to that level.

  In any event, Biden declared a “national emergency” with respect to this vague threat, on the ground that Russia had violated the “sacred” nature of US presidential elections by way of these website postings — even though the criteria invoked would apply to an infinitely wide array of US “outlets” that do exactly the same thing. Nonetheless, it’s henceforth an “emergency” to be on the lookout for irrelevant amateur websites like SouthFront. (Aside: Does anyone really view as “sacred” America’s multi-year presidential election rituals, into which billions of unregulated dollars are poured? Most Normies seem to be actively disdainful of presidential election melodrama and the attention/resources these rituals consume, rather than worshipful of their “sacredness.”)

  In his remarks, Biden also introduced what is possibly an even vaguer term than “interference” or “influence” to describe this horrifyingly ever-present threat: Russia, he alleged, was guilty of “engagement in our elections.” And again, this “engagement” was said to consist of Russian Government-backed websites publishing posts about issues related to the 2020 US presidential election. 

  So now we have an official “national emergency” declared vis-a-vis Russia’s conduct in orchestrating website posts, which has in turn been lumped into another “emergency” that apparently encompasses the ongoing escalation of conflict in Eastern Ukraine — a geopolitical domain Joe Biden has always taken a keen interest in. And this is largely being received not as an ominous development in US relations with a nuclear-armed power, but instead as a cheerful sign that the US has returned to asserting its rightful global dominance.

  One neat trick of this whole rhetorical framework is that foreign “interference,” “influence,” and “engagement” will obviously never be completely curtailed, especially if these things consist of internet postings. Therefore, the framework authorizes a perpetual war-like footing against Russia (or whatever country is next in the line of sight) which is especially convenient if you are interested in waging a New Cold War to garner whatever benefits (political, military, economic) you calculate comes with doing so. The rationale for keeping this ridiculous tit-for-tat going in perpetuity is clear — but don’t expect much clarity on that score from the US media, which always takes delight in blaming scary foreign entities for partaking in the exact same Democracy Undermining behavior that it’s guilty of itself.

  *  *  *

  Subscribe to Michael’s Substack here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 18:40

• Another "Explosive Eruption" Detected At St. Vincent Volcano In Eastern Caribbean
  Another “Explosive Eruption” Detected At St. Vincent Volcano In Eastern Caribbean

  The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) reports a volcanic eruption has been detected at La Soufriere on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent Sunday afternoon. 

  

  “At 4:49 pm on 18/04/21, there was another explosive eruption at LS. It’s been 52 hours since the last explosive event. There have now been at least 30 identifiable explosive events since the start of this eruptive phase. We continue to monitor and will provide an update in this evening’s advisory,” CDEMA stated. 

  The La Soufrière volcano erupted today, April 18th 2021 at 4:49pm

  Please see the detailed update from @uwiseismic #RegionalResponse #cdema #disastermanagement #disasterpreparedness #lasoufriere #stvincentandthegrenadines pic.twitter.com/FChh8Pi9jj

  — CDEMA (@cdemacu) April 18, 2021

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

  SkyAlert, a Mexico-based early earthquake warning company, posted a video of the alleged eruption. It said a “high eruptive column and possible pyroclastic surges,” adding that “thousands of people are still sheltered in lower-risk areas.”

  Esta tarde se registró una nueva erupción vulcaniana (tipo de erupción) en el volcán #LaSoufriere en la isla San Vicente. Alta columna eruptiva y posibles oleadas piroclásticas.

  Miles de personas aún permanecen refugiadas en zonas de menor riesgo. pic.twitter.com/4d4WqRMK4c

  — SkyAlert (@SkyAlertMx) April 18, 2021

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

  The latest explosive eruption showed up on satellite imagery. 

  The latest explosive eruption today on the island of Saint Vincent. #LaSoufriere pic.twitter.com/cmMlQ1UBdh

  — George Waldenberger (@GWaldenWFTV) April 18, 2021

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

  St. Vincent’s National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) released a statement that “ash clouds are moving towards the south and west of the island. “Alert level remains RED,” NEMO warned. 

  

  Last week, tens of thousands of residents were evacuated from the island’s northern region, where La Soufriere is located. 

  

  At the moment, the island is completely covered with ash from multiple eruptions.

   Before And After 

  

  Before And After 

  

  Here is more devastation from the ashfall. 

  

  The entire Caribbean island is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis. The ashfall from eruptions has contaminated the island’s water supply and decimated crops. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 18:19

• “It’s Totally Insane. Someone Made A Million On Dogecoin With His Stimulus Check"
  “It’s Totally Insane. Someone Made A Million On Dogecoin With His Stimulus Check”

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “What happened with Dogecoin Dad?” asked Jackson on FaceTime. I smiled. Dogecoin jumped from $0.06 to $0.47 – a 7.8x weekly jump to a $60bln+ market cap.

  

  “It’s totally insane,” he said Friday night, back from lacrosse practice, sitting down to study, life as a plebe. “Are your buddies trading crypto now?” I asked.

  “One supposedly made a million on Dogecoin with his stimulus check,” said Jackson, eyes wide.

  “Not possible Jax, at today’s panic high it was up just 77x this year, and you guys only got $1,400 checks,” I said.

  “He bought it with last year’s stimulus,” explained Jackson.

  “Still doesn’t add up. Dogecoin is only up 165x since the beginning of 2020,” I said, shrugging, the meaning of money quietly slipping away.

  * * *

  Those things that make the least sense are where you discover opportunity, risk too. They are opposite sides of the same thing: Change.

  So any truly interesting conversation explores things that boggle the mind. My favorite enigma in the physical world is quantum entanglement, which I’m convinced hints at something utterly extraordinary. But I leave that mystery to those a million times smarter, which frees my time to search for things that might make money. Sounds shallow. Empty. I know. Mara reminds me often. But the human mind is the universe’s greatest enigma and when you connect 8.5bln of them the possible futures are more uncertain than any particle being split at CERN. When put that way, exploring the profound uncertainty flowing from mass human psychology seems less meaningless.

  That’s not to say things always appear uncertain. Most of the time, tomorrow looks indistinguishable from today. Which is to say, boring. During those periods, leveraged investment strategies that bet on recent correlations persisting well into the future tend to do well. So in recent years, when massive firms built upon such strategies struggled for reasons few could quite explain, it was a sign of change. Risk. Opportunity.

  When equity factors started experiencing 10,000-year floods every other month, it was another sign.

  Our political division in a pandemic, a sign. The horned Shaman in America’s capitol. GameStop. Signs. Study market history and you find that in periods of quantum change, those things that make the least sense but show mysterious momentum (both up and down) present the greatest opportunities.

  Beeple sold an NFT for $69.3mm in March. Literally everyone saw it as a sign of a bubble. Perhaps everyone is right. But I’m more interested in exploring whether the accelerating emergence of soaring valuations in things that make little sense represents a historic change, a future that few can barely imagine, let alone grasp.

  Particularly when such powerful incumbent industries and institutions so vocally resist. And Coinbase went public, briefly touching a $100bln valuation.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 18:00

• Hedge Funds Are Getting The Hell Out Of New York In Favor Of Florida
  Hedge Funds Are Getting The Hell Out Of New York In Favor Of Florida

  Given the state of New York City throughout the last year – the draconian lockdowns, the neverending proposal of new and more invasive taxes, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez turning away new businesses and insulting corporate America at every chance she gets and well…just about everything Bill de Blasio has done – can anyone really blame hedge funds for taking their business elsewhere?

  The inevitable is happening, the free market is speaking. Hedge funds are taking their business to Florida, a new Bloomberg report notes. 

  Many who read Zero Hedge already know this: we have constantly been documenting the ongoing exodus to Florida as names like Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Apollo Global Management Inc. and Point72 Asset Management are all taking steps to move operations out of the state (or at least diversify operations). 

  

  Timothy Noonan, a law partner at Hodgson Russ who specializes in tax residency issues, recently told Bloomberg: “There definitely is an unprecedented migration of high-net-worth taxpayers from New York City, and some of them are taking their businesses with them. With rates set to go up, they are ready to get out.”

  While there is optimism about tourism and leisure providing a much-needed cash infusion back into New York, it’s going to be tough to not take into account the hole that many wealthy defectors will leave in the city’s budget. Florida, on the other hand, doesn’t have a state income tax. 

  Elliott Management Corp. “has seen several of its highest-paid executives leave Manhattan” in favor of Palm Beach while Scott Shleifer, co-founder of the private equity unit at the $40 billion Tiger Global Management, also just bought a $132 million home in Palm Beach. Dan Sundheim, who runs $20 billion D1 Capital Partners, is also relocating toward Miami. 

  

  George Sweeting, deputy director of the city’s Independent Budget Office, said: “We’ve had high taxes and it hasn’t driven all the multi-millionaires out. We don’t know what the limit is. At what point does it become more than people are willing to pay? Theoretically there is some point there.”

  Thanks, George. It’s called the Laffer Curve and it’s been around for a hundred years. Let us know what you find out.

  Meanwhile, in some instances, hedge fund partners will move to Florida but keep staff and operations in New York. They will owe some New York taxes, but likely not as much as they would have otherwise. Bloomberg points out exactly how important the discussion of taxes are to smaller firms:

  “Take the example of a manager who makes $10 million per year. In New York City, they would have paid more than $1.1 million in state and local taxes last year, and more like $1.2 million this year after the tax hike. By moving to Florida, the manager avoids that charge every year, as well as about $400,000 annually that their firm owes to the city’s 4% unincorporated business tax.

  The savings are even bigger for the most successful managers. In addition to hiking the top rate on single filers earning more than $1.1 million — from 8.82% to 9.65% — the state added two new brackets: income above $5 million will be taxed at 10.3% and $25 million at 10.9%. Adding these to the city’s top rate of 3.88%, rich New York City residents now face marginal rates of 13.5% to 14.8%, surpassing the 13.3% top rate in California, previously the U.S.’s highest.”

  

  Taxpayers in New York earning $10 million or more paid 17% of income taxes in 2018, the report says. In New York City alone, about 1,800 people earned at least $10 million in 2018 and were responsible for 18.5% of the city’s tax revenue, equating to roughly $2.1 billion.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 17:35

• Obama's Chief Energy Scientist Disputes The Climate-Change Propaganda-Peddlers
  Obama’s Chief Energy Scientist Disputes The Climate-Change Propaganda-Peddlers

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

  After a stint at the Obama Energy Department, Steven Koonin reclaims the science of a warming planet from the propaganda peddlers.

  

  Beyond the Hype

  Please consider the Wall Street Journal report How a Physicist Became a Climate Truth Teller

  Barack Obama is one of many who have declared an “epistemological crisis,” in which our society is losing its handle on something called truth. 

  Thus an interesting experiment will be his and other Democrats’ response to a book by Steven Koonin, who was chief scientist of the Obama Energy Department. Mr. Koonin argues not against current climate science but that what the media and politicians and activists say about climate science has drifted so far out of touch with the actual science as to be absurdly, demonstrably false.

  Mr. Koonin is a Brooklyn-born math whiz and theoretical physicist, a product of New York’s selective Stuyvesant High School. He would teach at Caltech for nearly three decades, serving as provost in charge of setting the scientific agenda for one of the country’s premier scientific institutions. Along the way he opened himself to the world beyond the lab.

  From deeply examining the world’s energy system, he also became convinced that the real climate crisis was a crisis of political and scientific candor. He went to his boss and said, “John, the world isn’t going to be able to reduce emissions enough to make much difference.”

  His thoughts seem to be governed by an all-embracing realism. Hence the book coming out next month, “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.”

   “I’ve been building models and watching others build models for 45 years,” he says. Climate models “are not to the standard you would trust your life to or even your trillions of dollars to.” Younger scientists in particular lose sight of the difference between reality and simulation:

  For the record, Mr. Koonin agrees that the world has warmed by 1 degree Celsius since 1900 and will warm by another degree this century, placing him near the middle of the consensus. Neither he nor most economic studies have seen anything in the offing that would justify the rapid and wholesale abandoning of fossil fuels, even if China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and others could be dissuaded from pursuing prosperity.

  The public now believes CO2 is something that can be turned up and down, but about 40% of the CO2 emitted a century ago remains in the atmosphere. Any warming it causes emerges slowly, so any benefit of reducing emissions would be small and distant. Everything Mr. Koonin and others see in the science suggests a slow, modest effect, not a runaway warming. If they’re wrong, we don’t have tools to apply yet anyway. Decades from now, we might have carbon capture—removing CO2 directly from the atmosphere at a manageable cost.

  Even John Kerry, Joe Biden’s climate czar, recently admitted that Mr. Biden’s “net-zero” climate plan will have zero effect on the climate if developing countries don’t go along (and they have little incentive to do so). Mr. Koonin hopes that “a graceful out for everybody” will be to see the impulse for global climate regulation “morph into much more impactful local environmental action: smog, plastic, green jobs. Forget the global aspect of this.”

  Slow Modest Impact

  The above article is right in line with my stated belief all along. 

  I do not doubt the temperatures have risen a degree. I do mock the associated fears.

  I am highly skeptical of radical models and I also mock the notion that the world as we know it will soon end and that climate change is the “existential threat of our time” as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has stated.

  I am not at all convinced that climate change is totally or mostly man-made but actually that is irrelevant. 

  Science suggests a slow modest impact. The models anticipate another rise in the oceans of 1 inch by 2050. Heck call it 3 or 4 inches and expect a foot by 2099 if you like.

  50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts and What Actually Happened

  Let’s review 50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts and What Actually Happened

  2014 John Kerry: “We have 500 days to Avoid Climate Chaos” discussed Sec of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabious at a joint meeting.

  I list 21 predictions and what actually happened. 

  What Happens When Ice Melts?

  Please factor in the cooling impact of melting ice on ocean temperatures. No one has decent models of ocean cooling.

  Nature Magazine reports Melting Ice Could Slow Global Temperature Rise.

  If there is a solution, it will be a free market solution not a solution by politicians hyperventilating about something that is now too late to stop and would be worth the cost even if we could stop it.

  Name Calling Coming Up

  Note that if you Don’t Accept 100% of the Climate Change Story and You Get Labeled a Racist

  Koonin knows he will get an avalanche of name-calling that befalls anybody trying to inject some practical nuance into political discussions of climate.

  The article had a nice finishing touch: “My married daughter is happy that she’s got a different last name,” said Koonin.

  To finish on the practical side, barring a major technological breakthrough,  Global Net Zero Climate Change Targets are ‘Pie in the Sky’

  Don’t worry, the world will still be here 50 years from now.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 04/18/2021 – 17:10

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