Today’s News 22nd January 2021

• Smith: Will Biden's Presidency Be A Catalyst For Secession… Or Worse?
  Smith: Will Biden’s Presidency Be A Catalyst For Secession… Or Worse?

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  Over the past few months I have written a handful of articles which discussed what would probably happen if Joe Biden actually entered the White House and launched his administration. My initial belief was that Trump would refuse to concede and that this would be a trigger for national chaos blamed on conservatives, but I have also noted that Biden’s entry is almost just as disruptive, as it sends a signal to the political left that it is “open season” on anyone that disagrees with their ideology.

  

  Of course, conservatives are not going to simply sit still and be purged and abused, they are going to strike back, and this sets the stage for a number of events and outcomes, some of which are completely unpredictable, even for establishment globalists.

  First, though, we need to address how Biden and the globalists are going to create chaos so that they can then demand their own brand of “order”.

  In my article ‘A Biden Presidency Will Mean A Faster US Collapse’, published in October, I outlined why the ongoing economic crisis will accelerate in the wake of a Biden takeover. More specifically, I predicted that Biden would implement a federal covid lockdown, probably within the first year of his presidency, similar to the Level 4 lockdowns implemented in Europe and Australia. Biden may lure Americans into complacency with promises of “relief” and less restrictions in his first couple months, but he will then use the rather convenient news of “covid mutations” to bring in even harsher mandates.

  Such a lockdown, if Americans submit, would mean an even larger spike in unemployment, a loss of hundreds of thousands of small businesses as well as a huge loss in tax revenues for some states (mostly blue states).

  Another scenario is that Biden leaves the lockdowns in the hands of state governments, but pursues a nationwide program for medical passports. The passport, of course, would require people to take the vaccine and accept contact tracing apps on their phones; meaning 24/7 surveillance on the public. At least 30% of Americans have said in polling that they will refuse the vaccines outright. Another 60% have said they are wary of the vaccines and need proof of their effectiveness. So, the medical passports will lead to millions of people being denied participation in the mainstream economy and collapse happens anyway.

  In other words, the elites are going to try to hold the economy hostage while telling the public that if we don’t accept medical tyranny it will be OUR FAULT if the system breaks down.

  The economic crisis, however, started long before the pandemic, long before Biden and long before Trump. It has been building since the credit crash of 2008, and in the 12 years since, the Federal Reserve and other central banks have been pumping out trillions in stimulus while encouraging non-stop debt accumulation. Right before the beginning of the pandemic, the US was suffering from the highest corporate debt in history, the highest consumer debt in history as well as the highest national debt in history.

  What we are witnessing right now is the final phase of a collapse scenario that was more than a decade in the making, and Biden is about to help finish the job.

  Biden will no doubt seek to hyperinflate the dollar in the name of offsetting the losses and keep things afloat for a short time, but the real agenda will be to trigger price spikes in goods as well as eventually killing the dollar altogether. No amount of stimulus will stop the crash that has already been set in motion; the bailout measures from this point on are Kabuki theater, a show put on for the masses to make us believe that the government and the banks “did everything they could” to save us. The elites have no intention of stalling or stopping the collapse; their “great reset” demands it.

  One’s initial assumption would be that Biden would then take the blame for the economic crisis, but it appears that the establishment is going to set up a Herbert Hoover narrative and lay all the blame squarely on Trump and conservatives. In the past I have noted that Trump’s trajectory was very similar to Herbert Hoover’s, in that he was a business mogul and Republican that pushed for corporate tax cut policies and also extensive tariff’s.

  Hoover also served only one term, taking the blame for the crash of 1929 and the advent of the Great Depression, even though the crash was primarily caused by the Federal Reserve’s ultra low interest rates and easy money, followed by a series of rate hikes (a fact which former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke would later openly admit to in 2002). This launched the three term dominion of Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the most communistic presidents in our history and the initiator of socialist programs which have since buried the American public in Quadrillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.

  Biden’s latest statements indicate he will be introducing numerous executive orders to “correct the mistakes of the Trump administration”, thereby implanting the idea that whatever happens next is Trump’s fault. The “Reset” globalists and their central banking partners will have to bring down the US economy very quickly under a Biden White House. Why? Because if they wait, or if they try to drag out the collapse and the worst happens a few years down the road, Biden and the globalists will get the blame. They MUST crash the old world order now so that Trump and conservatives can be saddled with the consequences.

  The strategy seems to be this:

  • Demonize conservatives as much as possible as quickly as possible so that our purge from social platforms can be rationalized.

  • When we are incapable of defending ourselves in the public sphere because we have been removed from the internet, the establishment and leftists can blame us for everything going wrong.

  • The public would have no access to any other points of view or contradictory facts and evidence because the alternative media will be gone.

  • We become the monsters, the bogeymen and the source of all American suffering.

  We didn’t fall into the trap of supporting martial law measures during the BLM riots, so this must be Plan B.

  Will their plan work? I doubt it. Just as the globalist rollout of the pandemic lockdowns and medical tyranny is failing to gain traction in the US as huge numbers of people refuse to take the questionable vaccines, I suspect millions upon millions of Americans are already savvy to the propaganda schemes of the establishment and will not buy in. But, that doesn’t mean the elites won’t try it anyway.

  In early November in Issue #47 of my newsletter, The Wild Bunch Dispatch, I war gamed the Biden scenario extensively and concluded that if he was to enter the White House it would have to be followed by a massive erasure of conservative media platforms from the internet. I stated that:

  “If Biden does indeed enter the White House and take control of the presidency, expect certain consequences right away: A complete full spectrum censorship campaign of conservative news sources will be undertaken by tech companies and government. There is no way Biden and the democrats could keep control of the situation while conservatives are able to share information in real time. Do not be surprised if web providers suddenly start kicking conservative sites off their servers, just as Bitchute (a YouTube alternative) was kicked off their server for 24 hours on election night.”

  This is already happening, and Biden hasn’t even stepped foot into the role of “commander and chief” yet. The coordinated effort by Big Tech to remove Parler, a Twitter alternative, from the web completely was not all that surprising. Luckily, Parler will be back up and running by the end of the month, but the censorship campaign is only going to get worse from here on. Biden WILL support and defend the censorship efforts by Big Tech and the fascist marriage between government and the corporate world will be complete.

  To summarize, the globalists have to silence us before they can effectively demonize us. The truth is on our side; facts and logic are on our side. They can’t win the war of ideas if we are allowed to speak; this is why they are so desperate to silence us.

  Sweeping gun control measures will be issued by Biden, but only after the conservative purge from the internet is close to finished. If conservatives are isolated from one another in terms of communication, this makes it harder to organize a defense against aggressive gun confiscation. Biden will most likely try to exploit Red Flag gun laws first, this would allow federal agencies to declare anyone to be “a threat to public safety” without due process, and have their guns taken away preemptively.

  There is an obvious outcome to all of these actions and I don’t think it’s far fetched to suggest that conservative counties and states will demand secession. At the very least, conservatives are going to continue to relocate to red states and red counties, just so they can continue to do business and make a living without government interference. There’s no way that most conservatives controlled states or counties are going to submit to federal lockdown mandates or medical passports, and economies in conservative regions are going to remain stable because of this while blue states are going to crumble.

  Biden will seek to retaliate against conservative controlled areas of the country in response.

  There comes a point when it is impossible for those that value freedom, logic and reason to live side-by-side with those that are irrationally obsessed with control. The American constitutional framework in particular was designed to prevent collectivism from overriding individual liberties, but if the system is sabotaged through subversion and the Bill of Rights is violated, then maintaining the system is no longer plausible.

  The best option for a number of reasons is to separate. Secession is often referred to as “running away” from a cultural problem, but this is an ignorant way of looking at it.

  We are reaching a stage right now in the US where it will be virtually impossible to voice political concerns without risking retribution. If you are a conservative, you will be targeted.

  If conservatives and moderates migrate away from leftist controlled areas and congregate in red states or red counties, then it will be difficult for leftists to attack them for voicing their views. If your employer is a conservative, then he’s not going to care if a leftist mob demands you be fired. If you own a business in a conservative community, then the people that live there will continue as your customers regardless of what leftists say about you.

  Conservatives and moderates MUST start to physically separate from the political left. We must remove ourselves from the blood sucking parasites that have attached themselves to us. This allows us to remain free to think and speak as we like, and it takes all power away from leftists to hurt us by disrupting our means of making a living.

  Secession is a more extreme measure, but it WILL become necessary if leftists refuse to accept that we are no longer participating in their games of fear and subterfuge. Leftists are collectivist by nature, and collectivists see people as property. Walking away is not an option in their minds. So, though we might successfully separate, this would only be the beginning of the battle.

  The important thing is to first make sure that conservatives KNOW that there are places they can go where their civil rights are valued and defended. If conservatives feel completely isolated and alone, many will give up, go dark and pray they are not discovered. This is unacceptable.

  The advantage of secession is clear; by separating, conservatives force the enemy to come to them, on ground they have prepared. The leftists will be the aggressors by default. They will try to present the situation otherwise, but it won’t matter. We will have the moral high ground as well as the superior strategic position.

  There are multiple narratives that will be used to demonize the secession movement beyond the terrorism angle. In particular, I think the government and the media will try to tie secession to “foreign entities”. In other words, they will claim the secession movement is being funded or supported by Russia, or some other foreign power. This is what almost every government in history has done when faced with a viable secession or rebellion that could threaten their control – They accuse the people that want to separate of being agents for evil outsiders.

  It doesn’t matter.

  Conservatives cannot live with leftists, their cultism and zealotry has made it impossible. And, we will not live under a globalist tyranny built around their reset agenda. Separation allows us to consolidate for defense, and protects us economically. It is the only way to ensure that we remain free.

  The globalists and the leftists will try to stop us; they can’t help themselves. They are insane, after all. This will lead to a war many of us have been expecting for quite some time. At the very least, with separation and secession we will be in the best possible position to stop them. If we remain isolated from each other, the fight will be over before it even begins.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 23:40

• After Two Weeks Of Sleeping On Cold Marble, Congress Boots National Guard To Local Parking Garages
  After Two Weeks Of Sleeping On Cold Marble, Congress Boots National Guard To Local Parking Garages

  After two weeks of sleepless nights protecting Washington DC from an alleged inauguration threat that never materialized, thousands of National Guardsmen were booted from Congressional grounds on Thursday, where they were forced to sleep on marble floors, and have instead been forced to take their rest breaks in nearby parking garages, according to Politico.

  

  The unexplained move comes after ‘dozens’ of lawmakers posed for photo ops with the troops.

  “Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed,” said one Guardsman, who said their unit was abruptly kicked out of the Dirksen Senate Office building into a nearby parking garage with no internet reception, one electrical outlet, and a two-stall bathroom for 5,000 troops.

  

  Here’s a video from the parking garage where 5,000 members of the National Guard who were guarding the Capitol are being forced to stay. pic.twitter.com/bREUxt1tRi

  — Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 22, 2021

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

  All National Guard troops were told to vacate the Capitol and nearby congressional buildings on Thursday, and to set up mobile command centers outside or in nearby hotels, another Guardsman confirmed. They were told to take their rest breaks during their 12-hour shifts outside and in parking garages, the person said.

  Prominent lawmakers from both parties took to Twitter to decry the decision and call for answers after POLITICO first reported the news Thursday night. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, tweeted: “If this is true, it’s outrageous. I will get to the bottom of this.” –Politico

  This is so wrong on every level. Would they allow their sons and daughters to sleep in a cold parking lot? There is no reason for them to be there. @SenateGOP @SenateDems

  — Code of Vets ™ (@codeofvets) January 22, 2021

  In response to the report, several lawmakers have expressed (or feigned) outrage, with several offering the use of their offices to Guardsmen.

  This is absolutely unacceptable and despicable treatment of our brave and dedicated National Guard who answered the call to serve.

  We need to demand answers now and this needs to be fixed immediately. https://t.co/FyNUpFYJyX

  — Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) January 22, 2021

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

  If the guardsmen need space, we all have empty office space right now. I’ll offer mine up in a heartbeat. I’m talking to colleagues now to identify more space.
  https://t.co/y9G8MTruao

  — Martin Heinrich (@MartinHeinrich) January 22, 2021

  Yeah this is not okay.

  My office is free this week to any service members who’d like to use it for a break or take nap on the couch. We’ll stock up on snacks for you all too.

  (We’re in the middle of moving offices and it’s a bit messy so don’t judge, but make yourself at home!) https://t.co/JyEvC4kg6o

  — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 22, 2021

  According to some Guardsmen who spoke with Politico, there was no clear reason given for the eviction – though one said it that it may have been over a complaint that some troops were not wearing masks, though said that wasn’t the case.

  “We have strict guidance that masks are to be worn at all times unless soldiers are eating and drinking.”

  Another Guardsman speculated that “There really may be an important reason for us to vacate and it just hasn’t been well communicated yet.“

  The troops are particularly concerned about being packed in tight quarters with limited bathroom access during a pandemic. At least 100 Guardsmen have tested positive for Covid, according to two Guardsmen. Some are quarantining in hotels.

  A spokesperson previously declined to provide a specific number for troops who have tested positive for Covid. –Politico

  According to Guard spokesman Matt Murphy, “As Congress is in session and increased foot traffic and business is being conducted, Capitol Police asked the troops to move their rest area,” adding “They were temporarily relocated to the Thurgood Marshall Judicial Center garage with heat and restroom facilities. We remain an agile and flexible force to provide for the safety and security of the Capitol and its surrounding areas.”

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 23:20

• Huge Interest In Pizza-Making Robot As COVID Accelerates "Social Distancing Kitchens"
  Huge Interest In Pizza-Making Robot As COVID Accelerates “Social Distancing Kitchens”

  COVID-19 will accelerate technological change that will bring the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence to many industries.

  In particular, the restaurant industry, and how one Seattle startup is automating pizza kitchens. 

  The Picnic Pizza System was rolled out at 2019’s CES technology conference in Las Vegas. The robotic pizza-maker fully automates the process of making a pizza. It can make hundreds of customized pizzas, each with different toppings, along with different sizes. 

  

  Precision automation allows for consistency in the pizza-making process and minimal food waste, consider food prices are skyrocketing to several year highs. 

  Picnic CEO Clayton Wood told KING-TV Seattle that the coronavirus pandemic might have been the catalyst to spur the restaurant industry to begin automating kitchens. 

  “There’s a unique labor problem in that you can’t have people working shoulder to shoulder in a kitchen, so if you want to produce volumes of food like you do for delivery, you’ve got to produce those orders quickly and with consistency,” Wood said. 

  

  Since the pandemic, Picnic has received large investments, allowing the startup to increase its pizza-making robot’s production. The first robot was shipped last week. 

  Wood said, “we’ve received a lot of interest from all over the foodservice sector, with large and small customers including pizza restaurants, corporate food services, ghost kitchens, food trucks, and convenience stores.”

  He also said that operators’ real benefit is not just “labor savings” but also consistency in the product, adding that it allows commercial kitchens to social distance. 

  However, he did say the robot is not intended to displace jobs but designed to support restaurants and workers in delivery and carry out.

  “It’s a ‘co-bot’ where people still work alongside the machine,” Wood said.

  Under the guise of the virus pandemic, the restaurant industry will have to adapt to strict social distancing measures enforced by governments, and one way to do this is through automating how food is prepared in kitchens. This means millions of jobs will be taken over by robots in this decade. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 23:00

• Build Back Bitter
  Build Back Bitter

  Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

  It’s over everyone, you can sleep easy again – the party of peace, tolerance, and reconciliation is back in power. Amen. And Awomen.

  They claim they want to heal and unify the nation.

  But clearly the only way to do so is to create enemies lists and silence anyone with dissenting opinions.

  For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked,

  “Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future?”

  Robert Reich, Labor Secretary under Clinton, and adviser to Obama, Tweeted,

  “When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission [to] name every official, politician, executive and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.”

  Chris Hayes, an MSNBC host agreed saying, 

  “The most humane and reasonable way to deal with all these people, if we survive this, is some kind of truth and reconciliation commission.”

  And Dick Costolo, the former CEO of Twitter, said,

  “Me-first capitalists … are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I’ll happily provide video commentary.”

  Clearly social media companies like Twitter are a big part of the efforts to unify the nation.

  

  Twitter deleted 70,000 accounts using the trespassing of the Capitol as an excuse.

  Amazon Web Services removed the alternative social media site Parler from its servers, while Apple and Google deleted Parler from their app stores.

  Facebook and Reddit joined the purge, feverishly removing content that they don’t want their users to see.

  Stripe, PayPal, and Visa announced they would stop processing payments to certain politicians and non-profits guilty of thought crimes.

  Yesterday I read in the completely fair and objective media that simply acknowleding this tech purge makes one a conspiracy theorist.

  Axios news wrote a segment titled, Right wing’s new conspiracy: “The silencing”.

  They went on to say that only crazy conspiracy theorists believe that there are efforts to silence conservative voices.

  In other words, if you believe what you can see with your own eyes, you’re a conspiracy theorist.

  Most recently, for example, Harvard has purged Congresswoman Elise Stefanik from its advisory board.

  Stefanik’s crime? She publicly questioned voting irregularities in the 2020 election.

  Now, some people may think that she’s a terrible person because of her beliefs. And in fairness it’s Harvard’s right to choose whoever they want for their board.

  But now there’s a petition from the woke Harvard mob to revoke her degree, effectively erasing her existence from the institution.

  They want to cancel her. Yet even merely acknowledging that this is happening now makes you a conspiracy theorist according to the media.

  The left’s cries of “de-fund the police” have turned to “fund the secret police,” as lawmakers reintroduce “domestic terror” bills to create new units under the Department of Homeland Security to monitor American “extremism”.

  But the #assassinatetrump and #killtrump hashtags that Twitter has allowed since 2016— that’s totally fine free speech!

  During the summer BLM riots, looting Target stores and burning down police stations were acts of courage.

  They even literally declared an independent autonomous zone and took over government buildings. Yet no one in the media ever used the words insurrection, sedition, or treason.

  AOC praised these mostly peaceful protests and said the entire point of them is “to make people feel uncomfortable.”

  But if you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable that 25,000 troops are in the nation’s capital, along with tanks and attack helicopters, then you’re a (you guessed it!) conspiracy theorist.

  Remember, though, ignorance is strength, so we should probably just obey the experts.

  Trust in Social Security to provide retirement. Trust the Federal Reserve to improve the economy. Trust the media to tell the truth. Trust that the tech companies will continue to allow your free speech.

  Or… as an alternative… make your own Plan B.

  *  *  *

  On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 22:40

• Aramco's Carbon Emissions Could Be "Nearly Double" What The Company Discloses
  Aramco’s Carbon Emissions Could Be “Nearly Double” What The Company Discloses

  It was no secret that leading up to Saudi Arabian Oil Co.’s IPO in 2019 that the company touted its low emissions compared to other producers.

  Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said while the company was doing its roadshows: “Not because our crude is cleaner than other crudes globally. It’s because of our standards. Even though our numbers are great, climate change is critical for the world.”

  But now, it appears the company may have “failed to provide a complete picture”, according to a new Bloomberg report. The report says that Aramco fails to account for emissions generated from many of its refineries and petrochemical plants. 

  Inclusive of the omissions, Bloomberg estimates that the company’s carbon footprint would “nearly double”, and that Aramco would add as much as 55 million metric tons of CO2 to its annual tally. 

  Now that investors “need to be able to put a price on the climate risks that they are running in their portfolios,” as one commodity researcher put it, the carbon footprint numbers can easily turn into a “red flag”. 

  When Bloomberg reached Aramco for questioning, the company replied: “We have a clear and deliberate path to increase the scope and details of [emissions] disclosure.” It said its current number “reflects emissions from those assets where Aramco has the accountability and ability to manage and control emissions.”

  

  The company gets away with its current disclosures by pointing to the process of extracting the oil in Saudi Arabia. It will often cite studies that show that extraction of Saudi oil generates the second lowest amount of emissions in the world.

  But this fails to capture the emissions that are generated from refining the crude, a crucial process for making the “black gunk” into sellable products like jet fuel or gasoline. The company instead only chooses to report emissions from facilities it wholly owns and that are inside of the kingdom.

  It can use tricky accounting to obscure the numbers because many of its refineries are joint ventures, overseas, or both. When Bloomberg accounted for those emissions, it showed a “range for 2019 emissions between 75 million tons and 113 million tons.” The company, in response, said “We do not comment on emissions on an asset-by-asset basis.”

  Those numbers would put Aramco near emissions parity with names like Exxon Mobil, despite the fact that Exxon extracted and refined about a third of what Aramco did in 2019. This means Aramco is cleaner, but not to the degree the company has led on. 
  

  Many companies, including Exxon and Aramco, often have more detailed forecasts for emissions internally than they disclose. But most of the time, figures for individual assets and properties stay under the radar unless prompted by a government agency, the report notes:

  The Aramco-owned Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, for example, reports annual emissions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It has a capacity to refine more than 600,000 barrels per day and produced 5.4 million tons of emissions in 2019. Those figures weren’t included in the company’s 2019 data, since Motiva is located outside Saudi Arabia.

  Meanwhile, the ESG bug is catching up not only with U.S. investors, but also in Saudi Arabia, where its exchange recently announced plans to launch an ESG index. 

  While investors are looking for more environmentally friendly investments, Aramco is on the verge of doubling “its refining network’s capacity to handle as much as 10 million barrels a day by 2030.”

  Bloomberg notes that “much of those emissions wouldn’t have been disclosed under the company’s past reporting practices”.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 22:20

• Honduran Caravan Blocked By Government Forces; Migrants Plan Protest Against 'Narco-Dictator' President
  Honduran Caravan Blocked By Government Forces; Migrants Plan Protest Against ‘Narco-Dictator’ President

  A caravan of Honduran migrants were stopped by the region’s security forces, denying an estimated 8,000 Hondurans an opportunity to make a northbound run for the US border in the hopes that the Biden administration would welcome them with open arms.

  

  The caravan was repelled by a coordinated, multi-national military operation which included Honudran forces, according to Reuters. Guatemalan security sent  who sent over 4,500 Hondurans – including more than 600 children, back to Honduras over the last week.

  

  According to the report, the migrants are blaming Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who has also come under fire from US prosecutors over accusations of links to drug cartels. Angry caravan participants will be holding a protest at the capital Tegucigalpa on Friday.

  Among them was 18-year-old Isaac Portillo, who said he felt so desperate upon his forced return to Honduras that he contemplated suicide.

  Like other returned migrants, Portillo’s despair quickly turned to anger. He plans to join a march on the capital Tegucigalpa on Friday – only one week after he tried to flee his shattered country.

  “We’re going to oust this narco-dictator,” he said. “I already have my group ready.” –Reuters

  Earlier this month, US prosecutors accused Hernandez of taking bribes from drug traffickers, which comes after his brother was convicted of drug trafficking last year in a US court.

  

  Hernandez claims the accusations have originated from drug traffickers who are angry at his government’s recent crackdown on criminal networks.

  The protesters aren’t buying it, however, and have been using social media such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook to call for Hernandez’s ouster.

  The angst over the caravan comes amid a perfect storm of a pandemic-driven economic contraction, and what many are calling a poor government response to back-to-back hurricanes in November that caused nearly $2 billion in damages – forcing more than 90,000 people to evacuate to emergency storm shelters.

  “All I wanted to do was find work (abroad) so I could help my family and put my little sister back in school,” said the 18-year-old Portillo, who says his family received zero support from the government after the hurricanes.

  His father had already lost his job as a security guard when pandemic-related restrictions devastated the economy and his 14-year-old sister had to abandon her studies as the family sank deeper into poverty.

  After being deported by Guatemalan authorities this week, Portillo once again found himself living under the bridge where he and his family sought refuge after their home was destroyed in November’s floods. After he said the government threatened to evict them, the family fled again, this time to a relative’s home. –Reuters

  According to Tonatiuh Guillen, the former head of Mexico’s immigration institute, suggested that ongoing frustration over the stoppage of caravans could boil over.

  “It’s a pressure cooker.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 22:00

• Japan PM Denies Report Claiming 'Doomed' Olympics Will Be Canceled
  Japan PM Denies Report Claiming ‘Doomed’ Olympics Will Be Canceled

  Update (2150ET): Japan has denied the Times report, as Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga saying on Friday that he is ‘determined to realize the Tokyo Olympics,’ according to Reuters. Suga told parliament that he would work closely with the IOC and Tokyo.

  *  *  *

  Senior members of the Japanese government have privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics won’t happen this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and efforts have now shifted on securing the Games for the 2032 Olympics – the next available opportunity, according to The Times, whose source added that the winter virus spike ‘tipped the balance’ and forced Japan into a state of emergency.

  

  According to a senior member of the ruling coalition, there is agreement that the Games, already postponed a year, are doomed. The aim now is to find a face-saving way of announcing the cancellation that leaves open the possibility of Tokyo playing host at a later date. “No one wants to be the first to say so but the consensus is that it’s too difficult,” the source said. “Personally, I don’t think it’s going to happen.” -The Times

  That said, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Japanese Government continue to maintain publicly that the Games can proceed – as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told parliament this week that “We will have full anti-infection measures in place and proceed with preparation and with a determination to achieve the Games that can deliver hope and courage throughout the world.”

  If the Olympics are indeed canceled, it would be a financial disaster for Japan, after the country spent at least $25 billion on preparations for the event – with around 75% of that coming from public funds.

  The aim now is to maintain the façade of battling determinedly to go ahead in the hope that when they are inevitably cancelled the 2032 Games will be given to Tokyo out of sympathy.

  Paris is due to host the Games in 2024 and Los Angeles has been chosen as the venue for 2028. A decision on which city will stage the Olympics in 2032 is expected to be taken by 2025. -The Times

  “Suga is not emotionally invested in the Games,” the source told The Times, adding “But they want to show that they are ready to go, so that they will get another chance in 11 years. In these circumstances, no one could really object to that.”

  The Olympics have only been canceled three times in the past; 1916, 1940 and 1944, all due to world wars. The Tokyo games were originally slated for 2020, only to be moved to 2021 after Australia and Canada announced they would not send athletes amid the pandemic.

  “If someone like President Biden was to say that US athletes cannot go, then we could say, ‘Well, now it is impossible’,” said the senior source.

  The current position of the IOC is to hold a televised Tokyo Olympics with no spectators – only athletes, which would allow the Committee to maintain its lucrative broadcast rights. The Japanese government, however, would lose out on ticket sales – causing former Primer Minister Yoshiro Mori to rule out the televised-only option.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 21:49

• JPMorgan Tries To Slam Bitcoin Again, Fails Spectacularly
  JPMorgan Tries To Slam Bitcoin Again, Fails Spectacularly

  In its third attempt to talk down bitcoin in the past two months (see here for attempt #1, and  attempts #2), and one which may be succeeding for the time being with bitcoin sliding below $30,000 on Thursday night, erasing all of its YTD gains…

  

  … JPMorgan has published a report aimed at all those bitcoin investors who buy the cryptocurrency for its “diversification” benefits. And in what may come as very bad news for anyone who is buying bitcoin on the assumption that it will serve as a hedge to massively overvalued risk assets, the report published by head of cross-asset strategy John Normand, finds that not only is bitcoin “the least reliable hedge during periods of acute market stress) but because of its popularity among momentum chasing retail investors (who just refuse to HODL), it actually accentuates broad market drawdowns. Which, of course, is obvious to anyone who saw what bitcoin did during the March crash when it lost half its value in days.

  Before we go into the details of the report, JPMorgan first gives bitcoin its due (something which its CEO refused to do back in 2017 when he warned that any JPM employee caught trading bitcoin would be fired). As Normand writes, “whether cryptocurrencies are judged eventually as a financial innovation or a speculative bubble, Bitcoin has already achieved the fastest-ever price appreciation of any must-have asset to which it is often compared (chart 1), such as Gold (1970s), Japanese Equities (1980s), Tech stocks (1990s), Chinese Equities (2000s), Commodities (2000s) and FANG stocks (2010s).”

  

  Each of these predecessors began with a compelling narrative and a tagline (“honest money” for Gold, “Japanese economic miracle” for Nikkei, “dot-com revolution” for Nasdaq, “a billion Chinese consumers” for China Equities, “supercycle” for Commodities and “secular growth” for FANGs), and each delivered extraordinary price momentum that challenged standard valuation models at that time. Each also delivered at least one, high-volatility price crash during the price discovery process that reversed more than half the market’s previous gain. Amusingly, while the JPM strategist is basically calling all these phenomena bubbles, he amusingly admits, that “several of these markets (Gold, Nasdaq, Chinese Equities, FANGs) were later vindicated via further all-time highs.”

  Needless to say, so has bitcoin which rose above $40,000 just a few days ago, and despite its recent “crash”, it still trading at a level that was a never before seen all time high… some three weeks ago.

  So, as Normand rhetorically asks, why bother considering hedging with an asset as unconventional and high-volatility as cryptocurrencies?

  He gives a few reasons. One is that “extraordinary monetary and fiscal stimulus over the past year has created one of the broadest and earliest valuation problems of the past 25 years (chart 2), which creates general concerns about portfolio vulnerability to a macro or policy shock.” This can be seen in the chart below showing the near record number of markets whose valuations are more than one std deviation about their long-term average.

  

  In short, JPM is conceding that stocks, and other risk assets, which have market value of over $100 trillion are a bubble, one which can be pricked by any number of “spoilers.” These spoilers range from somewhat familiar ones such as an inability to tame COVID, a destabilizing rise in inflation, a debt-related aftershock, significant regulatory tightening, renewed US-China or US-North Korea conflicts; to the as-yet unseen ones such as an economically debilitating cyberattack or an economically- significant climate catastrophe in a large economy. Another reason to hedge with bitcoin is that the collapse in DM Bond yields to negative levels in Japan and Europe and to only 1% in the US has limited their role as a defensive hedges in global portfolios and forced investors to focus on a range of second-best substitutes across Equities and FICC (Quality stocks, EM Bonds FX hedged, USD vs EM FX, JPY vs any currency, Gold), with cryptocurrencies considered by some to be the private and digital alternative to Gold.

  

  Amusingly, even in a report which seeks to debunks bitcoin’s diversification abilities, the JPM analyst writes that “Bitcoin improves long-term portfolio efficiency, but its contribution will probably diminish as its mainstreaming increases its correlation with cyclical assets. And crypto continues to rank as the least reliable hedge during periods of acute market stress. “

  Sidestepping the fact that anyone who bought bitcoin and held over the past several years is now exorbitantly rich (and with zero concerns about bitcoin’s diversification capabilities), Normand then observes that developments “over the past year and particularly during the COVID-19 recession, have confirmed this view on the distinction between long-term efficiency and short-term risk management. As a stand-alone asset, cryptocurrencies remain several times more volatile than core asset markets, with 3M realized volatility of 90% compared to about 20% on US Equities and Gold” (chart 3 above).

  But herein lies the problem, because when coupled with extraordinary returns in some years, crypto has often generated a much higher Sharpe ratio on average than core markets like Equities or hedge assets like Commodities in general and Gold specifically (chart 7).

  

  Obviously, these averages when cryptos makes tremendous gains, obscure stretches like 2019-20, when crypto proves less efficient than its nearest competitor Gold. Thus, according to JPM the debate over whether Bitcoin or Gold can deliver superior volatility-adjusted returns remains unresolved, unlike some other quite reliable relationships informed by decades of performance trends. Amusingly, according to JPM, US High Yield Credit, for example, “is almost always more efficient than Equities for taking exposure to the US corporate earnings cycle (chart 8), while EM Corporates (CEMBI) and Sovereigns (EMBIG) almost always dominate Local Currency Bonds (GBI-EM in USD terms) for trading EM cycles. And, of course, those who trade any of these non-bitcoin assets would likely end up paying JPM a hefty commission on these trades, whereas purchase of bitcoin tend to make the likes of Coinbase richer. Which, a cynical person, may say is the reason behind JPM’s continued bashing of cryptos.

  But we digress. So in its latest attempt to denigrate bitcoin, JPM then goes on to point out that far from a viable risk hedge, “the mainstreaming of cryptocurrencies – particularly with retail investors – appears to be raising its correlation with all cyclical assets (Equities, Credit, Commodities, the EM complex). If sustained, this development could erode diversification value over time.”

  True… but said “mainstreaming” of crypto will also push its price higher. Much higher, especially considering just how narrow its penetration is among both institutional investors and the broader investing public. So if one is asked if they would be willing to stick with a few harrowing roller-coaster rides – with zero diversification to such other bubble assets as stocks – if the endgame is bitcoin above $100,000, we are confident that absolutely everyone would respond affirmatively.

  What is even more amusing, is that in the very next sentence the JPM strategist seems to observe a fact that refutes his own conclusion, to wit:

  Table 1 refreshes correlations amongst cryptocurrencies (proxied by Bitcoin), major asset classes and conventional portfolio hedges (Treasuries, TIPS, Gold and Yen). Measured over a five year sample (top half of table), cryptocurrencies’ co-movement with all markets remains low and seems to highlight their potential diversification value. Indeed, Bitcoin’s correlation coefficients range from 0 to 0.2 and would seem to position it better than the Yen or Gold for hedging purposes.

  Which is odd since the whole purpose of the JPM paper is to show that bitcoin is not a good hedge and yet, lo and behold, it turns out to be the best hedge, even if over the past year these correlations have doubled or tripled, coinciding with surging interest in access products such as the Grayscale BTC Fund (chart 10). And yet, even after their rise, JPM still finds that “many pairwise correlations remain moderate (around 0.4)”, which again confirms that bitcoin is arguably the best hedge around. Still this is “concerning” to Normand who notes that “this trend bears watching.” Sure… as does bitcoin’s ascent from 0 to $40,000 in just a few short years, making billionaires out of all its early adopters.

  

  Perhaps realizing that he is not helping his own argument, Normand then cuts to the chase and asks if bitcoin will act as a defensive asset and rise (or remain flat) when stocks selloff. Not surprisingly, he finally finds something that “validates” his thesis:

  For tactical investors focused on risks that could crystalize over the next year, the better test of hedge effectiveness is whether a defensive or quasi-defensive asset rallies when Equities experience a material drawdown of perhaps 10% on Global Equities. On this measure, Bitcoin ranks 7th out of 10 alternatives, including: US Treasuries, USD vs EM Currencies, JPY vs USD, CHF vs EUR, Gold, S&P Quality stocks vs Value, EM Local Currency Bonds and UG High Grade. The first five in this list (Treasuries through Gold) are the most conventional and could be backtested further over at least two decades. The last two (EM Bonds with an FX hedge, US High Grade Credit) are potential, emerging hedges on a view that the COVID recession has sponsored two regime changes that alter these asset classes’ correlation with Equities during a crisis. One is that many EM central banks (though of moderate-debt economies) will cut interest rates, and the other is the Fed will buy High Grade Credit. The risk-return properties of these two markets will not approximate what Treasuries delivered when yields were higher and therefore offered greater offsets to declining stock markets during a crisis. But the behavior of EM Bonds and HG Credit could still change enough post-COVID to qualify them as potential diversifiers in a world with few good options.

  Here, finally, Normand has successfully goalseeked a chart that fits his narrative, and notes that “for each of these assets, chart 13, chart 14 and table 2 show returns and success rates (the percentage of Equity drawdowns in which the hedge rallied) during the 20 largest Global Equity corrections of the past decade. Bitcoin ranks as the worst in terms of median returns (-5%) and the third worst in terms of success rate (42%).”

  

  Ok so bitcoin sells off as much as or more than stocks do during risk off periods. But why is that any news? And why does JPM even care about bitcoin’s diversification abilities, when instead one should look at it from a very different lens: bitcoin – and all crypto – are merely extremely volatile, ultra-high beta assets which rise much more than stocks during times of massive liquidity injection and drop at or near the pace that stocks drop when liquidity is withdrawn. Over the long run, this means that bitcoin will always win. There is no advanced calculus that one needs to figure this out.

  In fact, the best explanation of what is going on – and one that JPMorgan will never admit – came from Howard Wang, a former Bridgewater analyst, who put is simply: “Bitcoin Is A Giant Bubble… But The Global Fiat System Is An Even Bigger Bubble.” In fact, Wang’s short note is far more relevant than Normand’s meandering ramblings. Here’s what he said:

  Investors are forced to hold $18 trillion of negative yielding debt while $trillions are being printed all around the world. Investors are drowning and are grabbing onto cryptocurrencies as a lifeline.

  While the sustained low yields will increase prices and suppress expected returns across all markets, many investors will choose the unknown expected returns of risky assets over the guaranteed losses in bonds. Like panicked prey chased by predators, investors prefer to hide in markets that either have no fundamental metrics, like Bitcoin, or assets with growth stories that leave ample room to imagination, like Tesla.

  In the short-term, there is still a lot of dry powder from stimulus checks and some institutions are also making the leap into the crypto space. So this Bitcoin party could continue as long as rates remain low and the printing press hot.

  Bitcoin is the flip side of the same coin as fiat currencies, pun intended. Its long-term fate depends on the future of our fiat system. Since the 1980s, deflationary pressures have suppressed interest rates and ultimately necessitated money printing around the world. As long as this trend continues, investors will run away from guaranteed losses in government bonds. Capital will flee up the risk spectrum, pushing up prices, dropping yields and producing asset bubbles along the way.

  As long as the world is flooded with money and safe assets offer poor compensation, Bitcoin will be relevant. Volatility and asset bubbles will be a fact of life. Calling the tops of these bubbles will be difficult because the fiat currency yard stick by which we measure prices is itself in a bubble.

  That’s all one really needs to know, and any attempts to talk down bitcoin – as JPMorgan has been steadfastly doing for the past few months, whether with hopes of buying some lower or merely talking bitcoin holders out of the asset and transferring them to more conventional holdings where JPM can charge a commission – will prove futile as long as central banks keep rates at zero and inject hundreds of billions of liquidity (while massively diluting existing fiat) into the system. It’s as simple as that.

  Actually, buying bitcoin does provide one extra, and absolutely critical, benefit: as even JPMorgan admits, it is the perfect hedge to the financial collapse that always follows such periods of unprecedented monetary experimentation and runaway money printing:

  Relative to any other asset class or portfolio hedge, cryptocurrencies would uniquely protect portfolios against a simultaneous loss of faith in a country’s currency and its payments system, because they are produced and they circulate outside conventional and regulated channels (chart 6).

  

  And, as Normand concludes: “as insurance (or a lottery ticket) against dystopia, some exposure to these assets could be always justified irrespective of liquidity and volatility concerns.“

  Well, in this insane world where everyone should be seeking insurance against “dystopia”, we would be delighted to own as much of the cryptocurrency as we possibly can, “irrespective of liquidity and volatility concerns”. So just like your boss back in 2017, thanks for making the decisive case for bitcoin yet again, John.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 21:40

• Federal Court Blocks Obamacare Mandate Forcing Doctors To Perform Transgender Surgery
  Federal Court Blocks Obamacare Mandate Forcing Doctors To Perform Transgender Surgery

  Authored by Janita Kan via The Epoch Times,

  A federal court has ruled to protect some doctors and health care providers from being penalized for refusing to perform gender transition procedures on the grounds of religious belief.

  

  In a decision a day before Joe Biden took the oath of office, United States District Court Chief Judge Peter D. Welte from North Dakota granted a request to block the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from enforcing an Obamacare mandate that compels medical professionals and healthcare providers to perform gender transition services.

  In 2016, the HHS issued a rule interpreting Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which prohibits certain forms of discrimination in healthcare, including sex discrimination.

  The rule prohibited insurers and third party administrations from offering or administer health plans with gender-transition exclusions. The regulation also prohibited a healthcare provider from refusing to offer medical services for gender transitions if that provider offered comparable services to others.

  The rule did not provide an exemption for religious grounds, arguing that Title IX’s religious exemptions only apply to an educational context. The department at the time also argued that “a blanket religious exemption could result in a denial or delay in the provision of health care to individuals and in discouraging individuals from seeking necessary care.”

  The department instead explained that it would consider religious exemptions on an individualized case-by-case basis for claims under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

  An order of Catholic nuns, a Catholic university, and Catholic healthcare organizations challenged the mandate under the RFRA, while the state of North Dakota joined the lawsuit to challenge the mandate under a federal law known as the Administrative Procedure Act that governs rulemaking by administrative agencies.

  The mandate was previously put on hold by a federal judge in North Dakota and was struck down in 2019 by another federal court in Texas. Under the Trump administration, HHS passed a new rule aimed at walking back the mandate. However, the 2020 rule was blocked by separate challenges in other courts.

  Welte said in his decision that the plaintiffs have shown “an entitlement” for injunctive relief, saying that a violation under the RFRA is comparable to the deprivation of a First Amendment right.

  “The Catholic healthcare entities’ refusal to perform or cover gender-transition procedures is predicated on an exercise of their religious beliefs protected by the First Amendment,” Welte said (pdf).

  “Absent an injunction, [plantiffs] will either be ‘forced to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs’ by performing and covering gender-transition procedures ‘or to incur severe monetary penalties for refusing to comply,’” he added.

  Attorney Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at Becket, a religious organization representing the plaintiffs, said the court’s decision “recognizes our medical heroes’ right to practice medicine in line with their conscience and without politically motivated interference from government bureaucrats.”

  “These religious doctors and hospitals provide top-notch medical care to all patients for everything from cancer to the common cold,” Goodrich said in a statement.

  “All they’re asking is that they be allowed to continue serving their patients as they’ve done for decades, without being forced to perform controversial, medically unsupported procedures that are against their religious beliefs and potentially harmful to their patients. The Constitution and federal law require no less.”

  During his campaign, Biden had vowed to push LGBTQ rights as part of his agenda, including coverage for care related to gender transitioning and surgery. He signed an executive order on his first day as president to prevent discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual discrimination.

  Xavier Becerra, who has been tapped by Biden to lead the HHS, had previously argued in favor of using taxpayers’ money to provide transgender individuals in North Carolina with coverage for gender transitioning surgery and treatment.

  Some religious liberty advocates and people of faith are worried that the religious freedom protections implemented by the Trump administration could be rolled back under a Biden administration.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 21:20

• American Hotels Experienced Worst Year Ever
  American Hotels Experienced Worst Year Ever

  According to STR, Inc, a hotel industry market data firm, 2020 was absolutely the worst year on record for hotels as industrywide profits fell to zero, as the virus pandemic and resulting government-enforced social distancing measures kept travelers at home. 

  STR’s latest report said the US hotel occupancy rate was 44% for the year, down from 66% in 2019. This was the lowest occupancy rate on record. In an earlier STR report, we noted weeks ago that the industry had one billion unsold room nights for the first time, surpassing the record of 786 million in 2009.

  Even though S&P Global Ratings warned a few months back that the hotel industry’s recovery may not occur until 2023, STR now believes a recovery in occupancy rates back to 2019 levels may not occur until 2024. 

  Best Western CEO David Kong recently told CNN that “If we don’t get a vaccine soon and business doesn’t return, it’s going to get much worse.”

  With the vaccine rollout slower than anticipated, along with a rampant virus, leisure travel will most likely remain depressed in the first quarter of 2021. 

  Commercial-real estate experts at Trepp outlined last month that the overall credit performance of commercial real estate loans tied to hotels continues to show “pandemic related stress.” 

  Even with the industry crushed by the pandemic, stimulus, vaccine hope, and the reopening trade have backstopped BBB- tranche of the CMBX Series 9 index (overly exposed to malls and hotels) from falling lower. 

  

  There’s no real timetable to say when corporate travelers will start booking hotel rooms again, considering the proliferation of work-at-home and Zoom calls. There could be a permanent decline in traveling due to the virus pandemic, resulting in an unprecedented wave of hotel foreclosures. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 21:00

• The Coming New Order
  The Coming New Order

  Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

  For many years, a handful of people have postulated that those who control industry, finance and governments are essentially the same people – a cabal of sorts that have, over generations, solidified their relationships in order to gain greater wealth and power, whilst systematically making things ever more difficult for the free market to exist.

  But why should this be? Surely, corporate leaders are more ardently capitalist than anyone else?

  Well, on the surface, that might appear to make sense, but once a significant position of power has been achieved, those who have achieved it recognize that, since they’ve already reached the top, the primary concern changes. From then on, the primary concern becomes the assurance that no others are able to climb so high as they have.

  

  At that point, they realise that their foremost effort needs to be a push toward corporatism – the merger of power between government and business.

  This is a natural marriage. The political world is a parasitic one. It relies on a continual flow of funding. The world of big business is a study in exclusivity – the ability to make it impossible for pretenders to the throne to arise. So, big business provides the cash; government provides protective legislation that ensures preference for those at the top.

  In most cases, this second half of the equation does not mean a monopoly for just one corporation, but a monopoly for a cabal – an elite group of corporations.

  This corporatist relationship has deep roots in the US, going back over one hundred years. To this day, those elite families who took control of oil, steel, banking, motor vehicles and other industries a century ago, soon created a takeover of higher learning (universities), health (Big Pharma) and “Defense” (the military-industrial complex).

  Through legislation, the US was then transformed to ensure that all these interests would be catered to, creating generations of both control and profit.

  Of course, “profit” should not be an evil word, but under crony capitalism, it becomes an abomination – a distortion of the free market and the death of laissez faire economics.

  Certainly, this sort of collectivism is not what Karl Marx had in mind when he daydreamed about a workers’ paradise in which business leaders retained all the risk and responsibility of creating and building businesses, whilst the workers had the final word as to how the revenue would be distributed to the workers themselves.

  Mister Marx failed in being objective enough to understand that if the business creator took all the risk and responsibility but gave up the ability to decide what happened to the revenue, he’d never bother to open a business. Even a shoeshine boy would reject such a notion and elect to go on the dole, rather than work.

  Mister Marx sought more to bring down those who were successful than to raise up those who were not, yet he unwittingly created a new idea – corporate collectivism – in which the very people he sought to debase used the appeal of collectivist rhetoric to diminish both the freedoms and wealth of the average worker.

  On the surface, this might appear to be a hard sell – to get the hoi polloi into the net – but in fact, it’s quite easy and has perennially been effective.

  Hitler’s New Order was such a construct – the promise to return Germany to greatness and the German people to prosperity through increasingly draconian laws, warfare and an economic revolving door between government and industry.

  Of course, a major influx of capital was required – billions of dollars – and this was eagerly provided by US industry and banks. Heads of New York banks not only funded Nazi industry; families such as the Fords, Rockefellers, Morgans, etc., sat on the boards of German corporations.

  The Nazi effort failed, as they underestimated the Russian will to fight to the death. (Eighty percent of all German Army deaths were due to the Russian campaign.)

  But those in New York were able to regroup and be first in the queue for the restructuring of German industry after the war and, ultimately, profited handsomely.

  But most significantly, the idea of corporatist collectivism did not die. Even before the war, the same group of families and corporations had drawn up the plan for Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

  Mister Roosevelt was a dyed-in-the-wool Wall Street man and a director of New York banks. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he created, as president, a revolving door that favoured large corporations, whilst the average American was consciously kept at the subsistence level through government entitlements.

  The scam worked. Shortsighted Americans not only were grateful; they deified him for it.

  Likewise, John Kennedy’s New Frontier sought to revitalize the concept, as did Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society: Give the little people entitlements that keep them little. Tax smaller businesses and create a flow of tax dollars to the elite industries, who, in turn, provide monetary favours to the political class.

  The Green New Deal is merely the latest corporate collectivist scheme on the list.

  Corporate collectivism can be defined as a system in which the few who hold the legal monopolies of finance and industry gain an overriding control over all others, and in so doing, systematically extract wealth from them.

  Today, this system has become so refined that, although the average American has a flat screen TV and an expensive smartphone, he cannot raise $400 to cover an emergency that occurs in his life. He is, for all practical purposes, continually bankrupt, but still functioning in a zombie-like existence of continual dependency.

  This, on the surface, may not seem all that dangerous, but those who cannot buy their way out of a small emergency are easily controlled. Just create an emergency such as an uber-virus and that fact will be illuminated quickly.

  In order to maximise compliance in a population, maximise their dependence.

  As stated above, this effort has been in play for generations. But it is now reaching a crescendo. It’s now up to speed in most of the former Free World and those who hold the strings are ready for a major step forward in corporate collectivism.

  In the coming year, we shall see dramatic changes appearing at a dizzying rate. Capital controls, migration controls, internal movement controls, tax increases, confiscation of assets and the removal of “inalienable” rights will all be coming into effect – so quickly that before the populace can even grasp the latest restrictions, new ones will be heaped on.

  As this unfolds, we shall witness the erosion of the nation-state. Controls will come from global authorities, such as the UN, the IMF and the WEF. Organisations that have no formal authority over nations will increasingly be calling the shots and people will wonder how this is possible. Elected officials will increasingly become mere bagmen, doing the bidding of an unelected ruling class.

  The changes that take place will be not unlike a blanket that is thrown over humanity.

  The question then will be whether to, a) give in to this force, b) to fight it and most likely fall victim to it, or c) seek a means to fall outside the perimeter of the blanket.

  *  *  *

  Unfortunately most people have no idea what really happens when a government goes out of control, let alone how to prepare… The coming economic and political crisis is going to be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we’ve seen in the past. That’s exactly why New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video. Click here to watch it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 20:40

• Sequoia To Pay Interested Employees In Bitcoin
  Sequoia To Pay Interested Employees In Bitcoin

  With increasingly more institutions converting some (or in the case of MicroStrategy, most) of their cash equivalents into bitcoin, one key spoke of an all-bitcoin corporate ecosystem remained elusive: actual payment to employees in bitcoin. That changed today when Sequoia Holdings, not the hedge fund but the “employee-owned provider of high-end software development and engineering services centered on improving the analytic, collection, collaboration and sharing of data”, announced that it is now giving employees the option to receive a portion of their salary in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

  “We’re excited to offer the members of our team this new benefit,” said T. Richard Stroupe, Jr., co-founder and CEO of Sequoia. “Many of our employees are enthusiastic supporters of cryptocurrency, and we’re happy to help them gain exposure to this trillion-dollar asset class.”

  Under the new program, Sequoia employees may elect to defer a portion of their salary into Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, or the Ethereum platform’s ether. The company is partnering with a third-party payroll processing firm to withhold taxes and convert the remainder into cryptocurrency, which will be held in a digital wallet administered by the payroll processor.

  The mechanism is similar to how an employee would defer a portion of his or her salary toward a 401(k) retirement savings plan. In this case, though, the deferral is after tax.

  Russell Okung, an offensive tackle for the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, recently made headlines for becoming the first professional football player to receive a portion of his salary in Bitcoin, in much the same way that Sequoia employees may elect to.

  “Cryptocurrency has emerged as an important alternative to traditional investments like stocks and bonds,” Stroupe said. “We’re proud to give the members of our team the ability to easily invest in cryptocurrency and build their savings.”

  Of course, any employees who chose to be paid in bitcoin are urged to have nerves of steel because while the cryptocurrency has exploded in the past year, it has suffered a sharp drop in the past few days, which for those with little patience could serve to quickly tame any enthusiasm of continued payment in the cryptocurrency.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 20:20

• Argentine Central Bank's Sudden Dollar Shortage Sparks Fears Of Mass Corporate Credit Crisis
  Argentine Central Bank’s Sudden Dollar Shortage Sparks Fears Of Mass Corporate Credit Crisis

  Despite Emerging Markets’ recent surge higher on the heels of a dumping dollar and massive global liquidity injections, at least one country is facing crisis rather than crescendo.

  MSCI Emerging Market stocks have soared…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  YPF, a 99-year-old oil company that some have called Argentina’s flaghship company, is threatening a large-scale default on its bonds after the central bank refused to let YPF buy the full amount of dollars it needed to pay notes coming due in March.

  “The central bank’s message is pretty clear,” said Santiago Barros Moss, a TPCG analyst in Buenos Aires.

  “There just aren’t enough dollars in Argentina for corporates right now.”

  The last few months have seen the peso collapse (despite a weaker USDollar) to 86/USD – a record low – making the dollar-debt payments for Argentina’s corporations exceedingly expensive.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And that – along with the fact that global oil markets have collapsed – led YPF to send a press release in the dead of night laying out a plan to saddle creditors with losses in a debt exchange.

  Implicit in its statement, as Bloomberg reports, was a threat that traders immediately understood – failure to reach a restructuring deal could lead to a flat-out suspension of debt payments – and they began frantically unloading the shale driller’s bonds the next morning. Today, some two weeks later, the securities trade as low as 56 cents on the dollar.

  “The central bank’s decision really put YPF between a rock and a hard place,” said Lorena Reich, a corporate-debt analyst at Lucror Analytics in Buenos Aires.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Argentina’s cash crunch couldn’t come at a worse time for YPF, which was already facing a drop in demand because of the pandemic.

  The task is even more urgent as the South American winter approaches with YPF unable to meet domestic gas demand, meaning Argentina will have to boost imports – and fork over precious hard currency – in the middle of a global spike in prices.

  But, as Bloomberg notes, the central bank’s refusal to sell YPF the dollars it needs to pay its obligations, despite the company’s earlier efforts to refinance its short-term debt, is a bad sign for all overseas corporate bonds from Argentina, according to the financial services firm TPCG.

  The concern is that if the country’s flagship company isn’t eligible to buy dollars at the official exchange rate as the bank seeks to hold onto hard-currency reserves, no one else will be either.

  And this, among other reasons, is why The Fed must keep injecting dollars into the world… or face this kind of crisis from DMs as well as EMs.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 19:40

• Senate Dems File Ethics Complaint Against Cruz, Hawley For Objecting To Electoral Results
  Senate Dems File Ethics Complaint Against Cruz, Hawley For Objecting To Electoral Results

  Congressional Democrats – who objected to the electoral results for the last three GOP presidents – have filed an ethics complaint against GOP Senators. Ted Cruz (TX) and Josh Hawley (MO) for objecting to the Electoral College results.

  

  “The Senate Ethics Committee should investigate their conduct to fully understand their role. The actions of which we know demand an investigation and a determination whether disciplinary action is warranted. Until then, a cloud of uncertainty will hang over them and over this body,” wrote Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Ron Wyden (OR), Tima Smith (MN), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Mazie Hirono (HI), Tim Kaine (VA) and Sherrod Brown (OH).

  The complaint wants the Ethics Committee to investigate whether Cruz and Hawley failed to “[p]ut loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department,” or if they engaged in “improper conduct reflecting on the Senate” linked to the January 6 Capitol ‘riot.’

  The Democratic senators also outlined several questions they believed should be probed as part of an Ethics Committee investigation including if they were in touch with coordinators for the rally, if they encouraged any “insurrectionist” acts or if they “engaged in criminal conduct, or unethical or improper behavior.”

  “While it was within Senators’ rights to object to the electors, the conduct of Senators Cruz and Hawley, and potentially others, went beyond that,” they wrote in the letter to Ethics Committee leadership. 

  Cruz and Hawley, two potential 2024 presidential contenders, have denounced the mob that breached the Capitol but they’ve also stood by their decisions to object to the Electoral College results from Arizona and Pennsylvania, respectively. –The Hill

  During the counting of electoral votes, Cruz objected to Arizona’s results, while Hawley objected to Pennsylvania’s results following the Capitol attack, when a group of Trump supporters and at least one prominent member of BLM breached the Capitol building and occupied it for a brief period of time before leaving on their own.

  The Democratic Senators are also asking the Ethics Committee to “offer recommendations for strong disciplinary action, including up to expulsion or censure, if warranted by the facts uncovered.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 19:20

• McConnell Lays Out Trump Impeachment Trial Timeline As GOP Rep Files Articles Against Biden
  McConnell Lays Out Trump Impeachment Trial Timeline As GOP Rep Files Articles Against Biden

  While the left is split between wanting to hammer the final nail in Trump’s coffin (through the Senate impeachment trial) and tending to its aggressive agenda of new laws, spending, and government control, U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) issued a statement today regarding his proposed timeline for the first phases of an impeachment trial of former president Trump.

  “I have sent a proposed timeline for the first phases of the upcoming impeachment trial to Leader Schumer and look forward to continuing to discuss it with him.

  “Senate Republicans are strongly united behind the principle that the institution of the Senate, the office of the presidency, and former President Trump himself all deserve a full and fair process that respects his rights and the serious factual, legal, and constitutional questions at stake. Given the unprecedented speed of the House’s process, our proposed timeline for the initial phases includes a modest and reasonable amount of additional time for both sides to assemble their arguments before the Senate would begin to hear them.

  “At this time of strong political passions, Senate Republicans believe it is absolutely imperative that we do not allow a half-baked process to short-circuit the due process that former President Trump deserves or damage the Senate or the presidency.”

  

  Specifically, Leader McConnell shared the following proposed pre-trial timeline with the Republican Conference today:

  When the articles arrive, the House Managers would exhibit (read) the articles to the Senate, Senators would be sworn in the Members as the Court of Impeachment, and would issue a summons to former President Trump.  While we do not know what day the Managers will choose, Leader McConnell has asked for this to occur on Thursday, January 28. 

  Former President Trump would have one week from that day to answer the articles of impeachment (February 4).  The House’s pre-trial brief would also be due then.

  The President would then have one week from the day he submits his answer to submit his pre-trial brief (February 11).  That means former president Trump has fourteen total days from when we issue the summons to write his pre-trial brief.  The House would also submit its replication on this date.

  The House would then have two days to submit their rebuttal pre-trial brief (February 13).  

  This approach tracks the structure of the Clinton and Trump pre-trial processes. 

  The periods between due dates are longer than in 1999 or 2020, but this is necessary because of the House’s unprecedented timeline.

  So far we have not seen any response from Senate Democrat Leader Schumer, but we do note the timing is ironic as (in what appears to be more PR stunt than anything else) freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced via Twitter video Thursday that she’s filed articles of impeachment on President Joe Biden.

  I just filed Articles of Impeachment on President @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/mcwEEkKiHL

  — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) January 21, 2021

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

  As SaraACarter.com’s Jennie Taer reports, Rep. Greene earlier pledged on Newsmax on January 13 to do so on the first day of Biden’s presidency, as reported.

  “We cannot have a President of the United States that is willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency and be easily bought off by foreign governments, foreign Chinese energy companies, Ukrainian energy companies. So on January 21st, I will be filing articles of impeachment on Joe Biden,” said Rep. Greene.

  “On behalf of the American people – on January 21st I will be filing articles of impeachment on Joe Biden.”

  “We have to make sure our leaders are held accountable,” says @mtgreenee. https://t.co/VlT7z8drtO pic.twitter.com/aOh9GOdN1E

  — Newsmax (@newsmax) January 14, 2021

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

  As w3e noted, while this is unlikely to proceed, that did not stop Democratic Reps such as Al Green from incessantly posting articles during Trump’s term (as early as May 2017).

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 19:11

• Intel Released Earnings Early Because Hacker "Stole Financially Sensitive Information" From Its Website
  Intel Released Earnings Early Because Hacker “Stole Financially Sensitive Information” From Its Website

  Something unexpected happened at exactly 3:47pm this afternoon: that’s when wire services like Bloomberg reported Intel’s Q4 financial results, some 13 minutes ahead of the scheduled release time.

  

  Some speculated that the early release was a fat finger from an overzealous intern who sent the news to Businesswire a few minutes early. Others, such as us, joked that Intel just couldn’t contain its excitement at the impressive earnings report which sent the formerly beaten down stock surging to its June highs.

  INTC really couldn’t wait to share the good news

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 21, 2021

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

  Turns out it was neither, because according to the FT, Intel said it was the victim of a hacker who stole financially sensitive information from its corporate website on Thursday, prompting the company to release its earnings statement ahead of schedule.

  CFO George Davis told the Financial Times that the chipmaker believed an attacker had obtained advanced details about a strong earnings report it was due to publish after the market closed; upon discovery of the problem, Intel published its formal earnings announcement with the official release coming out six minutes before the market closed.

  “An infographic was hacked off of our PR newsroom site,” Mr Davis said. “We put [our earnings] out as soon as we were aware.”

  The CFO said that the leak was the result of an illicit action that had not involved any unintentional disclosure by the company itself.

  An Intel spokesperson added: “We were notified that our infographic was circulating outside the company. I do not believe it was published. We are continuing to investigate this matter.”

  Actually it was published, and are speculating, it appears that the reason Bloomberg managed to report the company’s results even before the 6 minute early release is because it managed to scrape the hacked Intel’s inforgraphic at 348pm, which laid out the company’s key highlights.

  

  As noted earlier, the earnings revealed an unexpectedly strong bounce in Intel’s sales of chips for PCs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, as more people bought laptops to work and study from home, as well as more powerful gaming PCs. Specifically, the volume of PC chips Intel sold jumped 33% in the quarter, a period in which tech research group IDC said the number of machines shipped globally had risen by 26 per cent, to cap the strongest year for the PC industry in a decade.

  Although Intel’s revenue slipped 1 per cent in the fourth quarter, to $20bn, that was $2.5bn ahead of Wall Street expectations. Revenue from PC chips rose 9 per cent, to $10.9bn.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 19:00

• 2021: More Troubles Likely
  2021: More Troubles Likely

  Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

  Most people expect that the economy of 2021 will be an improvement from 2020. I don’t think so. Perhaps COVID-19 will be somewhat better, but other aspects of the economy will likely be worse.

  Back in November 2020, I showed a chart illustrating the path that energy consumption seems to be on. The sharp downturn in energy consumption has occurred partly because the cost of oil, gas and coal production tends to rise, since the portion that is least expensive to extract and ship tends to be removed first.

  At the same time, prices that energy producers are able to charge their customers don’t rise enough to compensate for their higher costs. Ultimate customers are ordinary wage earners, and their wages are not escalating as rapidly as fossil fuel production and delivery costs. It is the low selling price of fossil fuels, relative to the rising cost of production, that causes a collapse in the production of fossil fuels. This is the crisis we are now facing.

  

  Figure 1. Estimate by Gail Tverberg of World Energy Consumption from 1820 to 2050. Amounts for earliest years based on estimates in Vaclav Smil’s book Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospectsand BP’s 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy for the years 1965 to 2019. Energy consumption for 2020 is estimated to be 5% below that for 2019. Energy for years after 2020 is assumed to fall by 6.6% per year, so that the amount reaches a level similar to renewables only by 2050. Amounts shown include more use of local energy products (wood and animal dung) than BP includes.

  With lower energy consumption, many things tend to go wrong at once: The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Protests and uprisings become more common. The poorer citizens and those already in poor health become more vulnerable to communicable diseases. Governments feel a need to control their populations, partly to keep down protests and partly to prevent the further spread of disease.

  If we look at the situation shown on Figure 1 on a per capita basis, the graph doesn’t look quite as steep, because lower energy consumption tends to bring down population. This reduction in population can come from many different causes, including illnesses, fewer babies born, less access to medical care, inadequate clean water and starvation.

  

  Figure 2. Amounts shown in Figure 1, divided by population estimates by Angus Maddison for earliest years and by 2019 United Nations population estimates for years to 2020. Future population estimated to be falling half as quickly as energy supply is falling in Figure 1. World population drops to 2.8 billion by 2050.

  What Is Ahead for 2021?

  In many ways, it is good that we really don’t know what is ahead for 2021. All aspects of GDP production require energy consumption. A huge drop in energy consumption is likely to mean disruption in the world economy of varying types for many years to come. If the situation is likely to be bad, many of us don’t really want to know how bad.

  We know that many civilizations have had the same problem that the world does today. It usually goes by the name “Collapse” or “Overshoot and Collapse.” The problem is that the population becomes too large for the resource base. At the same time, available resources may degrade (soils erode or lose fertility, mines deplete, fossil fuels become harder to extract). Eventually, the economy becomes so weakened that any minor disturbance – attack from an outside army, or shift in weather patterns, or communicable disease that raises the death rate a bit – threatens to bring down the whole system. I see our current economic problem as much more of an energy problem than a COVID-19 problem.

  We know that when earlier civilizations collapsed, the downfall tended not to happen all at once. Based on an analysis by Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov in their book, Secular Cycles, economies tended to first hit a period of stagflation, for perhaps 40 or 50 years. In a way, today’s economy has been in a period of stagflation since the 1970s, when it became apparent that oil was becoming more difficult to extract. To hide the problem, increasing debt was issued at ever-lower interest rates.

  According to Turchin and Nefedov, the stagflation stage eventually moves into a steeper “crisis” period, marked by overturned governments, debt defaults, and falling population. In the examples analyzed by Turchin and Nefedov, this crisis portion of the cycle took 20 to 50 years. It seems to me that the world economy reached the beginning of the crisis period in 2020 when lockdowns in response to the novel coronavirus pushed the weakened world economy down further.

  The examples examined by Turchin and Nefedov occurred in the time period before fossil fuels were widely used. It may very well be that the current collapse takes place more rapidly than those in the past, because of dependency on international supply lines and an international banking system. The world economy is also very dependent on electricity–something that may not last. Thus, there seems to be a chance that the crisis phase may last a shorter length of time than 20 to 50 years. It likely won’t last only a year or two, however. The economy can be expected to fall apart, but somewhat slowly. The big questions are, “How slowly?” “Can some parts continue for years, while others disappear quickly?”

  Some Kinds of Things to Expect in 2021 (and beyond)

  [1] More overturned governments and attempts at overturned governments.

  With increasing wage disparity, there tend to be more and more unhappy workers at the bottom end of the wage distribution. At the same time, there are likely to be people who are unhappy with the need for high taxes to try to fix the problems of the people at the bottom end of the wage distribution. Either of these groups can attempt to overturn their government if the government’s handling of current problems is not to the group’s liking.

  [2] More debt defaults.

  During the stagflation period that the world economy has been through, more and more debt has been added at ever-lower interest rates. Much of this huge amount of debt relates to property that is no longer of much use (airplanes without passengers; office buildings that are no longer needed because people now work at home; restaurants without enough patrons; factories without enough orders). Governments will try to avoid defaults as long as possible, but eventually, the unreasonableness of this situation will prevail. The impact of defaults can be expected to affect many parts of the economy, including banks, insurance companies and pension plans.

  [3] Extraordinarily slow progress in defeating COVID-19.

  There seems to be a significant chance that COVID-19 is lab-made. In fact, the many variations of COVID-19 may also be lab made. Researchers around the world have been studying “Gain of Function” in viruses for more than 20 years, allowing the researchers to “tweak” viruses in whatever way they desire. There seem to be several variations on the original virus now. A suicidal/homicidal researcher could decide to “take out” as many other people as possible, by creating yet another variation on COVID-19.

  To make matters worse, immunity to coronaviruses in general doesn’t seem to be very long lasting. An October 2020 article says, 35-year study hints that coronavirus immunity doesn’t last long. Analyzing other corona viruses, it concluded that immunity tends to disappear quite quickly, leading to an annual cycle of illnesses such as colds. There seems to be a substantial chance that COVID-19 will return on an annual basis. If vaccines generate a similar immunity pattern, we will be facing an issue of needing new vaccines, every year, as we do with flu.

  [4] Cutbacks on education of many kinds.

  Many people getting advanced degrees find that the time and expense did not lead to an adequate financial reward afterwards. At the same time, universities find that there are not many grants to support faculty, outside of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) fields. With this combination of problems, universities with limited budgets make the financial decision to reduce or eliminate programs with reduced student interest and no outside funding.

  At the same time, if local school districts find themselves short of funds, they may choose to use distance learning, simply to save money. This type of cutback could affect grade school children, especially in poor areas.

  [5] Increasing loss of the top layers of governments.

  It takes money/energy to support extra layers of government. The UK is now completely out of the European Union. We can expect to see more changes of this type. The UK may dissolve into smaller regions. Other parts of the EU may leave. This problem could affect many countries around the world, such as China or countries of the Middle East.

  [6] Less globalization; more competition among countries.

  Every country is struggling with the problem of not enough jobs that pay well. This is really an energy-related problem. Instead of co-operating, countries will tend to increasingly compete, in the hope that their country can somehow get a larger share of the higher-paying jobs. Tariffs will continue to be popular.

  [7] More empty shelves in stores.

  In 2020, we discovered that supply lines can break, making it impossible to purchase products a person expects. In fact, new governmental rules can have the same impact, for example, if a country bans travel to its country. We should expect more of this in 2021, and in the years ahead.

  [8] More electrical outages, especially in locations where reliance on intermittent wind and solar for electricity is high.

  In most places in the world, oil products were available before electricity. On the way down, we should expect to see the reverse of this pattern: Electricity will disappear first because it is hardest to maintain a constant supply. Oil will be available, at least as long as is electricity.

  There is a popular belief that we will “run out of oil,” and that renewable electricity can be a solution. I do not think that intermittent electricity can be a solution for anything. It works poorly. At most, it acts as a temporary extender to fossil fuel-provided electricity.

  [9] Possible hyperinflation, as countries issue more and more debt and no longer trust each other.

  I often say that I expect oil and energy prices to stay low, but this doesn’t really hold if many countries around the world issue more and more government debt as a way to try to keep businesses from failing, debt from defaulting, and stock market prices inflated. There is a danger that all prices will inflate, and that sellers of products will no longer accept the hyperinflated currency that countries around the world are trying to provide.

  My concern is that international trade will break down to a significant extent as hyperinflation of all currencies becomes a problem. The higher prices of oil and other energy products won’t really lead to any more production because prices of all goods and services will be inflating at the same time; fossil fuel producers will not get any special benefit from these higher prices.

  If a significant loss of trade occurs, there will be even more empty shelves because there is very little any one country can make on its own. Without adequate goods, population loss may be very high.

  [10] New ways of countries trying to fight with each other.

  When there are not enough resources to go around, historically, wars have been fought. I expect wars will continue to be fought, but the approaches will “look different” than in the past. They may involve tariffs on imported goods. They may involve the use of laboratory-made viruses. They may involve attacking the internet of another country, or its electrical distribution system. There may be no officially declared war. Strange things may simply take place that no one understands, without realizing that the country is being attacked.

  Conclusion

  We seem to be headed for very bumpy waters in the years ahead, including 2021. Our real problem is an energy problem that we do not have a solution for.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 18:40

• Suddenly Optimistic Fauci Sees Pandemic "Plateauing," Feels "Liberated" Under Biden Admin
  Suddenly Optimistic Fauci Sees Pandemic “Plateauing,” Feels “Liberated” Under Biden Admin

  Summary:

  • Washington DC revives indoor dining after inauguration
  • French Prez warns permanent immunity should not be assumed
  • Biden says US cases plateauing, as Biden Admin “liberates”
  • EU leaders call for more lockdowns, curfews
  • Even Dr. Fauci has agreed that it appears US cases are “plateauing”
  • UK blocking entry fri  ifal ris 
  • Goldman data shows COVID hospitalizations may be trending lower
  • US cases, hospitalizations decline; deaths at highs
  • Hungary first in EU to approve Russian vaccine
  • UAE also approves Russian vax
  • Dr. Fauci confirms US commitment to Gates-backed vaccine program
  • Ireland latest in Europe to extend lockdown
  • Saudi Arabia, UAE complain of vaccine supply delays
  • UK suffers deadliest day yet

  * * *

  Update (1415ET): We’ve seen a flurry of new coronavirus news reported published early this afternoon, beginning with a slight ray of hope for Washington DC residents after a difficult week. On Friday, the inauguration-related “pause” on dining in public will be lifted, allowing Americans to eat indoors, so long as the capacity is 25% of total.

  Elsewhere, vaccine skepticism is once again the name of the game in France on Thursday, where President Emmanuel Macron warned French politicians and the French people not to assume that the virus will simply disappear once vaccinations are complete.

  In other news, a reporter grilling Joe Biden about the US’s weak vaccination targets elicited a frustrated response from Biden, who raged “Give me a Break!” at the reporter in question. Here’s how that went down.

  REPORTER: “You set the goal at 100 million vaccines, is that high enough? Should you set the bar higher? That’s basically where the US is right now.” BIDEN: “When I announced it, you all said that it’s not possible. Come on. Give me a break, man”.

  As if the press hasn’t already fawned over Biden enough…but we digress. In other news, Biden insisted that wearing masks until April may help save 50K lives, another number apparently pulled out of a hat.

  Finally, Dr. Fauci said Thursday that it looks like new cases in the USA might actually be plateauing, despite the holiday surge we were promised by him a few months ago. But where is this more optimistic frame of mind based on? Well, the diminutive doctor admitted that he feels “liberated” by Biden.

  NEW: Dr. Fauci on TRUMP vs. BIDEN approach to science:

  “The idea that you can get up here and…let the science speak, it is somewhat of a liberating feeling.” pic.twitter.com/HKBuu7gEL7

  — John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) January 21, 2021

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

  The data would appear to bear that out.

  

  Finally, in Europe, where travel bans, curfews and lockdown extensions continue (even as Bavaria bucks the trend in Europe) the UK is now banning arrivals from Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Across the continent, EU leaders are agreeing that lockdown measures need to be strengthened, despite the growing body of evidence that they do little to stop the spread of the virus, according to a massive peer-reviewed study that hit recently.

  They’re even agreeing that across the Continent, all leisure and business travel must be curbed, at least for now. In the Netherlands, PM Mark Rutte has unsurprisingly managed to convince residents that a travel ban is ready,

  And so much for all the mutant strains that policy makers have used to justify new lockdowns in the US, because Bloomberg’s data shows cases are now falling in the vast majority of the US. In 42 US states, the seven-day case average has fallen more than 10% from a week earlier, while the other four had more modest drops, according to Covid Tracking Project data. Overall, the US seven-day average is down 20% from a week ago, to 192,825, because the drop is much greater in some states, down 39% in Missouri, for instance.

  * * *

  Yesterday was a mixed bag for the US on the COVID front: After the US topped 400K COVID deaths earlier this year, the US saw a new daily record number of deaths to coincide with Biden’s inauguration. Meanwhile, the WHO finally acknowledged that the “conspiracy theorists” were right about the COVID “case-demic”, and that Ct overmagnification during PCR testing might be producing many false positives.

  

  On Monday, it appears more evidence is beginning to emerge that COVID hospitalizations in the US are seeing a trajectory-shift which should feed through to lower mortality numbers in the weeks ahead, according to models produced by analysts at Goldman Sachs.

  

  An analysis of how vaccinations are impacting hospitalizations shows that there is a correlation between growing vaccination numbers, and lower hospitalizations.

  Before introducing a second chart, the Goldman team writes that it “analyzed hospitalizations for the 25 largest states (by population) representing 88% of all US hospitalizations. We find there has been a 55% correlation between the vaccinations as of the beginning of the year and the YTD decline in hospitalizations. This further supports the connection between recent vaccinations and the decline in hospitalizations.”

  

  As the COVID Tracking Project data show, daily cases have continued to move lower in all four regions of the country, while nationally hospitalizations have started to dip (a trend that, as Goldman’s charts suggest, may be extended).

  

  It’s just the latest sign that Wall Street truly believes that we have reached “the beginning of the end” of COVID…whether that actually turns out to be accurate, however, is another story.

  Meanwhile, after Biden officially ordered the US to halt its departure from the WHO yesterday and rejoin its Covax vaccine-sharing program spearheaded by Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared at an early morning meeting Thursday where he reaffirmed America’s commitment to the WHO.

  Dr. Fauci, who will now lead the US delegation, said “I am honored to announce that the United States will remain a member of the World Health Organization.” His words marked the first public statement by a member of Biden’s administration to an international audience – and a sign of the priority that the new president has made of fighting COVID-19 both at home and with world partners.

  Meanwhile, over in the EU, Viktor Orban’s Hungary has become the first EU country to grant approval to “Sputnik V”, the COVID vaccine developed by the Gameleya Institute and Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. Orban’s regime coupled the approval with a complaint that it has been unable to procure enough (western-made) vaccines from Brussels, and so has been forced to look elsewhere. The UAE also approved the vaccine for emergency use on Thursday.

  Here’s some more COVID news from overnight and Thursday morning:

  Thailand approved AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine for emergency use, making way for the country to begin inoculating its 67MM people as it endures an increase in coronavirus cases (Source: Bloomberg).

  Saudi Arabia and Kuwait said they would reschedule vaccine appointments because of supply delays from Pfizer. Lebanon extended its nationwide lockdown, which began last week, for another two weeks (Source: Bloomberg).

  Ireland has become the latest European country to extend its lockdown, which will continue “well into February” before the rules are “reviewed”, Prime Minister Micheal Martin said (Source: Bloomberg).

  * * *

  Finally, in the UK, the mutant COVID strain appears to be causing major strife as early evidence shows the strict lockdowns – England’s third, which citizens are starting to rebel against – haven’t had much near-term impact on reducing case numbers. The UK suffered its deadliest day yet, with 1.8K deaths recorded in 24 hours, as Boris Johnson’s chief scientific adviser warned some hospitals now look “like a war zone.”

  Moreover

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 18:35

• China Appeals To "Kind Angels" Of Biden Administration, Blames Trump For "Burning Bridges"
  China Appeals To “Kind Angels” Of Biden Administration, Blames Trump For “Burning Bridges”

  China is hoping for a rapid ‘reset’ of sorts with Washington now with President Joe Biden in the White House. After state media headlines out of China on Tuesday into Wednesday said “Good Riddance Mr. Trump” — as Xinhua wrote, Thursday’s tone out of the foreign ministry was markedly different.

  While essentially placing sole blame on Trump and his top officials, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in the latest press briefing remarks that “kind angels can triumph over evil forces” in America.

  “In the past years, the Trump administration, especially (former Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo, has laid too many mines that need to be removed, burned too many bridges that need to be rebuilt, damaged too many roads that need to be repaired,” Hua began.

  

  “I believe if both countries put in the effort, the kind angels can triumph over evil forces,” she told a daily briefing Thursday. Her word choice was then featured across state media headlines.

  Speaking specifically on Biden’s inaugural speech Wednesday, Hua added:

  “President Biden also mentioned in his inauguration speech that Americans have much to heal, much to restore. This is exactly what China-U.S. relations need.”

  However, there’s little doubt that China was miffed at the fact that Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Washington had been officially invited to attend and was present for the inauguration. 

  Related to growing tensions centered on both Taiwan and Hong Kong, China had slapped sanctions on a who’s who of top outgoing Trump administration officials on Wednesday. Significantly, 28 Trump admin figures will be permanently barred from travel or doing business either on the Chinese mainland or Hong Kong.

  Eschewing “Wolf Warrior” rhetoric (at least for now), China strikes an optimistic note – “I believe if both countries put in the effort, the kind angels can triumph over evil forces,”-Hua Chunying (Foreign Ministry spokeswoman) https://t.co/pFWtX3yeC1

  — W. Gyude Moore (@gyude_moore) January 21, 2021

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

  “China announces decision to sanction 28 U.S. figures who it alleged to have severely violated China’s sovereignty, including officials in the Trump administration, according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry,” Bloomberg reported shortly after Biden took the oath of office Wednesday.

  When asked about the dramatic act of ‘revenge’ against the Trump people, Biden’s administration called the move “unproductive and cynical,” according to Reuters. But it’s also very likely that many within the new administration are quietly gleeful over the severe restrictions regarding doing any business in China or Hong Kong by the targeted Trump officials.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/21/2021 – 18:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest