Today’s News 22nd March 2024

• "Restricting Freedoms" May Be Necessary To Fight Climate Change: German Ethics Council
  “Restricting Freedoms” May Be Necessary To Fight Climate Change: German Ethics Council

  Via The European Conservative,

  The government may be forced to limit the available choices for citizens in order to battle predicted ‘devastating consequences’ of climate change. That’s the message in an opinion titled “Climate Justice,” published on March 13th by the German Ethics Council.

  

  In the opinion, the Ethics Council—a board of expert advisors established by German law—recommends actions to be taken by corporations, individuals, and the government to ensure the effects of climate change do not unjustly burden “those who are not so well-off.” 

  Primarily, the Ethics Council says, this should be done on a voluntary basis—through individual ”self-commitment as an expression of one’s individual freedom”—by, for example, “voluntarily abandoning certain vacation, consumption, or mobility practices.”

  However, the Council’s statement continues (emphasis added),

  On grounds of justice, it can be morally required to contribute to measures to tackle climate change. If one’s own exercise of freedom interferes in an unjust manner with the freedom and welfare of others or of future generations, for example through consumption that is harmful to the climate, the authorities may intervene with restrictions of freedom. 

  In other words: If you cannot be shamed into behaving in a way deemed morally correct by the elite, the government may simply have to force you. Flugscham, from the original Swedish flygskam, meaning “flight shame”—guilt about flying experienced by environmentally conscious travelers—is now an established word in the German vocabulary.

  While the opinion states that the Ethics Council is opposed to suspending “democratic freedoms and processes” to reach the desired climate goals, the group says it largely falls to the government to provide the “supportive framework conditions” under which individuals can—as we say to the kids—make good choices. 

  These framework conditions, the opinion says, should among other things include lowered speed limits, increased “electromobility,” and increased CO2 taxes. The Council suggests a personal emissions limit that cannot be exceeded, and even “the ban on particularly climate-damaging products or services”—or, as Apollo News puts it: “a regulation as to who can buy what and to what extent.”

  Defining climate change as a man-made (“due to, among other factors, the combustion of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests and moors since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution”) phenomenon, the organization also says Germany needs to take into account “the long history of colonialism and industrialisation” as well as “ongoing neo-colonial dependencies,” meaning

  a distinction must be made between growth in countries of the global South that are catching up on development, and further growth of consumption and resource use in industrialised countries, and appropriate compensatory payments must be negotiated.

  At a time when the former European industrial powerhouse barely has its nose above water, it’s questionable whether “compensatory payments” to the Global South is on the traffic light coalition’s radar, regardless of Ethics Council recommendations. 

  The Ethics Council is a 26-member independent organization representing diverse “scientific, medical, theological, philosophical, ethical, social, economic and legal concerns” intended to provide guidance for dealing with societal changes, “particularly in the field of life sciences and their application to humans.” Established in German law, the Ethics Council is tasked with, among other things, developing “statements and recommendations for political and legislative action,” and prepares its opinions based on its own decision, “on behalf of the German Bundestag or on behalf of the Federal Government.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/22/2024 – 02:00

• Terrorist Caught Illegally Crossing Border Says He Was 'Here To Make A Bomb'
  Terrorist Caught Illegally Crossing Border Says He Was ‘Here To Make A Bomb’

  Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A member of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah was caught entering the country illegally at the Texas border, where he told agents he was plotting to make a bomb once settled in the country, according to a March 19 federal court document.

  

  Basel Bassel Ebbadi, a Lebanese national, told a Texas border agent that he was “here to make a bomb” and that he spent several years training with the Hizballah terrorist group, an alternate name for Hezbollah, and he “was taught to kill people who were not Muslim.”

  The group’s main operations are in Lebanon, Mr. Ebbadi’s native country.

  Mr. Ebbadi, who is listed as being 22 years old, was transferred to the El Paso Sectors Human Intelligence Unit for further questioning, according to the criminal complaint filed by Border Patrol agent Jose L. Benitez-Medina in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

  Mr. Benitez-Medina wrote in his complaint that Mr. Ebbadi entered the United States on March 9 by crossing the Rio Grande in an area of Texas that is not a designated port of entry for migrants.

  Instead, he crossed into the United States about four miles from the Bridge of The Americas Port of Entry in El Paso. According the court document, the border agent indicated that Mr. Ebbadi volunteered his ties to Hezbollah and was initially processed for entry.

  Mr. Ebbadi is currently being held at the El Paso Hardened Facility.

  Past Terror Against US

  As part of his court complaint, the border patrol agent noted that on Oct. 8, 1997, the United States designated Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization and that in 2017, officials added “Lebanese Hizballah” as an alias for Hezbollah. He also listed several other aliases for Hezbollah, including Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad, Organization of Right Against Wrong, Followers of the Prophet Muhammad, and the Revolutionary Justice Organization.

  The terrorist group has been found responsible for a number of large-scale terrorist attacks against the United States, including the deadly 1983 suicide truck bombings of the American Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. It has also planted bombs on buses and hijacked passenger airplanes around the world.

  In 1994, 85 people were killed when the group detonated bombs at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

  In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) levied terrorism charges against a Hezbollah member found to be plotting attacks against U.S. embassies.

  In 2004, the national commission appointed to study 9/11 and other terrorist attacks released a 585-page report that concluded that Hezbollah was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Commission also linked the group to Hamas, the radical militia group that carried out the recently grisly attacks on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. Hezbollah leaders praised the attack.

  In 2008, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) started Project Cassandra as a way to stymie Hezbollah drug and weapons trafficking operations and money laundering activity in the United States.

  However, the DEA initiative was ended by President Barack Obama soon after he took office in 2009.

  In 2015, Defense Department financial crimes analyst David Asher, who helped start Project Cassandra, told Politico that the Obama administration expressed concerns the project would lead to alienating Iranian officials.

  “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down,” Mr. Asher said.

  In May 2023, the DOJ seized 13 website domains it said Hezbollah was using to plot future terrorist attacks, including against the United States.

  “Today’s web domain seizures deny terrorist organizations and affiliates significant sources of support and make clear we will not allow these groups to use U.S. infrastructure to threaten the American people,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in a statement about the Hezbollah domains.

  Suspected Terrorists Living in the US

  Earlier this week, the New York Post reported it had obtained internal documents from the agency showing a Hezbollah member had been nabbed at the border in El Paso.

  ICE’s El Paso Enforcement and Removal Office declined repeated requests by The Epoch Times to confirm Mr. Ebbadi’s detention.

  After several requests made over the course of two days about Mr. Ebbadi, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol finally responded on March 18 with an email indicating only that “the individual referenced is in U.S. custody.”

  Media outlets all over the world, including The Jerusalem Post and Hindustan Times, reported on the news that a Hezbollah terrorist was found to have crossed illegally into the United States.

  Members of other known terrorist organizations have been living illegally in the United States.

  In February, Patrick Lechleitner, President Joe Biden’s acting ICE director, said that in 2023, a Somali terrorist from the Islamic military group al-Shabaab was released into the United States after illegally crossing the U.S. border, The Daily Caller reported. He had been freely roaming until his arrest on Jan. 20 in Minneapolis, according to ICE records.

  Al-Shabaab is known to have ties with the al-Qaeda terrorist group, which was linked to the 9/11 attacks.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 23:40

• Where People Are (Un)Happiest With Their Lives
  Where People Are (Un)Happiest With Their Lives

  In 2012, the United Nations proclaimed March 20 as the International Day of Happiness or World Happiness Day, which has been held on this date every year since.

  The aim is to promote awareness for a “more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes the happiness and well-being of all people”.

  Although happiness and satisfaction are subjective parameters, Statista’s Anna Fleck notes that the team behind the World Happiness Report has once again produced a country ranking this year that reveals clear differences between Western industrialized nations and countries in Asia and Africa.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In order to map the satisfaction of respondents in the 143 countries surveyed, participants were asked to rate their level of satisfaction with their current life on a ten-point scale. This was used to calculate an average value for the results between 2021 and 2023 for each country. As this chart, based on the report shows, Finland (7.74), Denmark (7.58) and Iceland (7.53) are the countries with the most satisfied residents according to calculations, while the three lowest scores are found among the residents of Lesotho (3.19), Lebanon (2.71) and Afghanistan (1.72). The United States is ranked 23rd out of the 143 countries in this year’s evaluation.

  In addition to the clear differences in the geographical regions, there are also differences in satisfaction in different age groups. Looking at the results for the under-30s, Lithuania, Israel and Serbia take the top three places, while Denmark, Finland and Norway take the top three places for the over-60s.

  It’s important to note here that the ranking of the World Happiness Report is not an objective survey based on key figures such as gross domestic product per capita, life expectancy or the quality of the social system. According to the authors of the report, these are analyzed as “supporting factors” but have no influence on the score.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 23:20

• Planned Parenthood Faces New Allegations Of Selling Aborted Fetal Tissue To UCSD
  Planned Parenthood Faces New Allegations Of Selling Aborted Fetal Tissue To UCSD

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Newly-released documents reveal an alleged alliance between Planned Parenthood and the University of California–San Diego to profit from the “harvesting and sale” of aborted human fetuses for research patents.

  “This new evidence shows Planned Parenthood sells late-term aborted baby body parts in violation of federal law, for far more money than has ever been discussed before,” said David Daleiden, founder and president of California-based Center for Medical Progress, which filed the public records request, in a statement earlier this month. “Planned Parenthood’s national headquarters knew about and approved these sales of aborted babies for valuable consideration as part of government-funded research grants.”

  

  The documents show Planned Parenthood transferring aborted fetal body parts to the University of California–San Diego (UCSD) explicitly for “valuable consideration” in exchange for ownership of the university’s patents and intellectual property developed experimenting with them.

  Details of the alleged deal are spelled out in a redacted “Biological Materials Transfer Agreement” that grants UCSD “access” to “fetal and placental tissue,” that are the “proprietary materials” of Planned Parenthood San Diego. In return, the deal allows the nonprofit rights to “patents” and “intellectual property” developed through experiments with the “material.”

  The contract, signed in 2009, was updated to reflect the nonprofit’s name change to “Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest” in 2014, with the parties specifying the terms and conditions of the original contract remained in full force and effect.

  

  UCSD emails from 2017 refer to the contract while updating an additional contract for clinical personnel, and in emails from late 2020, the university seeks to be “especially careful” about “any rights” providers of fetal tissue “retain” in the “material.”

  Despite federal laws prohibiting the exchange of aborted human fetal tissue for “valuable consideration,” the university used the fetal tissue for research leading to patents, according to Mr. Daleiden’s statement.

  The University of California system generated more than $127 million in revenue for all patent inventions during the 2021-22 academic year, Mr. Daleiden claims in his statement.

  Violation of such federal laws are punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $500,000, according to the Center for Medical Progress.

  Email threads between Planned Parenthood and UCSD also reveal plans for collaborative research meetings. In one thread, Planned Parenthood emailed UCSD to set up a quarterly meeting and agrees to discuss “payment” to its abortion training initiatives within the framework of its fetal tissue research partnership.

  UCSD writes that as part of a meeting, “we will have results to share on samples recently collected, and will also likely have more to discuss re: the [REDACTED] fellowship.” Planned Parenthood replies there are “[n]o current issues with the collection program,” but they “have some questions about payment to the residency program.”

  The collaboration involved Planned Parenthood’s training programs at UCSD and other taxpayer-funded universities where they allegedly supply fetal tissues for research purposes.

  Documents also show UC San Diego donated $10,000 to Planned Parenthood’s national research department at a 2021 fundraiser and a registration form for “the fetal body parts harvesting in San Diego,” according to the center.

  In 2015, Mr. Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress released an undercover video series showing Planned Parenthood executives negotiating the costs of fetal tissue from the alleged “harvesting and sale of aborted fetal body parts” and discussing modifications to abortion procedures to secure more intact organs. The videos exposed an aborted baby organ market between abortion clinics and research facilities.

  

  The exposé revealed various for-profit companies sent tech workers into Planned Parenthood abortion clinics to harvest the organs of aborted babies and then package them for resale to research facilities.

  Last year, the center reported on records, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, confirming a federal investigation by the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General of the National Institute of Health’s funded fetal tissue bank at the University of Pittsburgh, which is allegedly supplied by Planned Parenthood abortion doctors, according to Mr. Daleiden’s statement.

  Mr. Daleiden has urged federal investigators to widen the probe to include Planned Parenthood’s activities in San Diego “and every other location where this $1.8 billion abortion business supplies aborted babies for taxpayer-funded experiments,” and accused the organization’s leaders of participating in the “government-sponsored trafficking of late-term aborted babies.”

  The Center for Medical Progress also released a video about its most recent public records findings. Greg Burt, vice president of the California Family Council, a faith-based advocacy organization that promotes traditional family values, said in a March 18 statement that the agreement between Planned Parenthood and UC San Diego treated “innocent, vulnerable human beings just like animals.”

  “Every human life is sacred from conception, and selling unborn baby parts for research is morally abhorrent,” Mr. Burt said. “This deeply revolting news reaffirms the need to pressure politicians to implement life-affirming policies and demand the laws against these crimes be enforced.”

  Educational institutions and the scientific community “shouldn’t get a pass when they violate human dignity,” he said.

  Planned Parenthood did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 23:00

• New Gene Therapy To Cost $4.25 Million, The Highest Drug Price In The US
  New Gene Therapy To Cost $4.25 Million, The Highest Drug Price In The US

  The most expensive drug in the U.S. is now Lenmeldy, a $4.25 million gene therapy the FDA approved March 18 for children with a rare genetic disease, Becker Hospital Review reports.

  Metachromatic leukodystrophy manifests into the loss of motor and cognitive function, and early death, according to the FDA. The first and only one-time medicine for patients is Lenmeldy (atidarsagene autotemcel). Its manufacturer, Orchard Therapeutics, said the drug’s wholesale acquisition cost is $4.25 million. 

  

  In a March 20 news release, Orchard said the price tag “is reflective of the value the therapy may deliver to eligible patients and their families, as well the potential long-term impact [the] treatment may have on overall healthcare utilization, minimization of productivity loss for caregivers and life opportunities for patients.”

  In a trial, 37 children received Lenmeldy and experienced a significant reduction in the risk of severe motor impairment and death compared to untreated children. At 5 years old, 71% of treated children could walk without assistance. All study participants who had pre-symptomatic late infantile MLD were alive at 6 years old, compared to 58% of children in the control group. 

  Before its approval, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review said the drug would be cost effective if priced between $2.3 million and $3.9 million. 

  Other chart-topping medications include Hemgenix, a $3.5 million hemophilia B therapy; Elevidys, a $3.2 million muscular dystrophy drug; and Skysona, a $3 million medicine for adrenoleukodystrophy, according to CNN. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 22:40

• After 625 Days, The Longest Yield Curve Inversion In History
  After 625 Days, The Longest Yield Curve Inversion In History

  Today is a historic day, as last night – DB’s Jim Reid reminds us – we quietly passed the longest continuous US 2s10s inversion in history. After the 2s10s first inverted at the end of March 2022, it has now been continuously inverted for 625 days since July 5th 2022. That exceeds the 624 day inversion from August 1978, which previously held the record.

  

  As regular readers are aware, an inverted yield curve has been the best predictor of a US downturn of any variable through history: the yield curve has always inverted before all of the last 10 US recessions, with a lag that is usually 12-18 months, but some cycles – certainly this one – take longer…. much longer.

  

  In fact, the lack of a recession so far has prompted Red to ask – in his latest Chart of the Day note – if the inverted yield curve recession indicator has failed this cycle?

  “Possibly”, the DB strategist responds, “but in many ways the yield curve has already accurately predicted many of the drivers that would normally lead to a recession. However, these variables haven’t then created recessionary conditions as they normally would have done.” He explains:

  It led, as it always does, the very sharp deterioration in bank lending standards, and led the declines in bank credit and money supply that are almost unique to this cycle. It was also at the heart of why we had some of the largest bank failures on record with SVB, Signature Bank and First Republic collapsing. A significant part of their failure was a big carry trade that went wrong when the curve inverted.

  However, even with the above, a recession – according to the highly political “recession authority” known as the NBER – hasn’t materialised. This is perhaps because of the following.

  • When lending standards were at their tightest, the borrowing needs of the economy were low relative to previous cycles.
  • Excess savings have been unusually high in this cycle (and were revised higher with the GDP revisions last September), so consumers haven’t been as exposed to tight credit as they normally are.
  • The Fed unveiled a huge series of measures to ensure the regional bank crisis didn’t naturally unravel as it would have done in a free market or perhaps in many previous cycles.
  • Whilst the Fed’s tightening has been reducing demand, the supply-side of the economy has bounced back strongly from the pandemic disruption, which has further supported growth and made this cycle unique.

  So far so good, however, an inverted yield curve should ultimately be a significant headwind for an economy, as capitalism works best when there is a positive return for taking more risk with lending and investments further out the curve. As such, Reid notes, “the rational investor should be prepared to keep more of their money at the front end, or not lend long-term when the curve is inverted” as you are not giving up yield for being able to sleep at night.

  So thanks to a historic flood of fiscal stimulus and a daily orgy of new record debt as discussed earlier…

  

  … which means that the US is now running a 6.5% deficit with unemployment near “historical lows”, an unheard of event….

  

  … the economy has not succumbed to the inverted yield curve to date, but while it remains inverted the Fed is encouraging more defensive behavior at some point if sentiment changes. As such, the DB strategist concludes that “the quicker we get back to a normal sloping yield curve the safer the system is.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 22:20

• Is Reform Possible?
  Is Reform Possible?

  Authored by Theodore Dalrymple via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  President Javier Milei of Argentina has had a certain degree of success already with his radical economic policies: That is, if certain macroeconomic statistics are a sign of success. Inflation, though still very high, has declined somewhat. The budget has been in surplus for the last two months. The official exchange rate for the peso is beginning to approximate its rate on the open market, something that has not happened for a long time.

  

  But for how long? It remains to be seen whether these successes can be maintained, for there are problems ahead both economic and political. Argentina has for decades stubbornly pursued such disastrous economic policies that any rectification is now bound to be painful and to result in at least temporary hardship for many. People who are already hard up will not take kindly to sacrifices for the sake of a supposed and still uncertain long-term advantage (no one can eat a balanced budget), and when people are living precariously, they cling to any tiny privileges or subsidies as the shipwrecked cling to whatever floating object they can find, and never mind that the grant of those privileges or subsidies caused the problem in the first place.

  Those who organized the disaster will take advantage of the inevitable discontent arising from efforts to overcome it, for if there is one thing that they are skilled in, it is demagoguery. Everything about them is demagogic, from their reading of history to their opposition to any kind of real change. Their aim is the preservation of their power and their hold over the people at all costs; Mr. Milei is a real threat to them and they are not going to surrender easily. Moreover, it is likely that Mr. Milei will himself make terrible mistakes, because all powerful people do so before long. His decision, albeit quickly reversed, to accept a huge augmentation in his pay while so many Argentinians are growing poorer was a very foolish error.

  But Argentina is far from the only country in dire straits. The problems both of Britain and France strongly resemble those of Argentina, though perhaps they are not (yet) so dramatic. But they too find themselves in a situation in which reform is desperately needed. Indeed, they are in Argentina’s bind: Reform is imperative; reform is impossible.

  Reform is imperative for economic reasons. The governments of both countries have undertaken obligations that they cannot meet out of their own resources and increasingly must resort to borrowing to meet some other way. In a recent article in the newspaper Le Figaro, the former candidate for the French presidency, Eric Zemmour, pointed out that the French budget for the police, armed forces, and administration of justice combined now constitutes between them only a very small proportion of the whole state budget, as if the maintenance of the country’s peace, internal and external, were but some kind of minor task for the state, an afterthought, something that it can afford to attend to only once the demand for children’s creches or free abortions has been met. And unfortunately, servicing the debt that has been contracted in the meantime largely to pay for all the creches, abortions, etcetera, is likely to become the single largest call on government expenditure.

  The situation in Britain is even worse, because of the greater incompetence and corruption of its public service than that of France, combined latterly with increasing costs and inefficiencies imposed by obedience to politically correct goals.

  But reform is impossible because so many people have now become dependent on the state, either directly because the state pays them to do nothing, or because they are employed by the state, or because the enterprise or business for which they work is employed by the state, such that the difference between the public and the private sector is increasingly blurred. When I look around me, for example, I see a neighbor, the owner of a prosperous private consultancy whose business is helping people to obtain subsidies from various levels of government. I came across another consultancy whose business was to assist local government in reducing their payment of taxes that the central government imposes on their suppliers.

  It follows that attempts to reduce government expenditure, imperatively necessary for financial reasons, would, if carried out, cause genuine hardship or discomfort to many. And if there is one thing that a modern democracy promises its members, it is increasing comfort, or at the very least the avoidance of discomfort. It would not be very difficult to trigger social discontent and violence on a large scale.

  There is a kind of dialectic at work here: First, the government makes people dependent on it; then the government becomes dependent on the people whom it has made dependent on it. From this infernal cycle, it is not easy to escape. The former head of the European Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, once said, of European politicians, “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

  Mr. Milei came to power with a clear majority because the situation in Argentina was so bad that it was obvious to a large proportion of the population that something in the country had to change, and change drastically. But if 55 percent of Argentinians voted for him, 45 percent did not; and while psephologists might consider this a very large difference, I do not think it would take very much for it to melt away and reverse. After all, euphoria has more in common with despair and anger than with good sense. Most of us live in the short term and are reluctant enough to make sacrifices for our own good, let alone for the good of others.

  People in Britain and France should pay close attention to what is happening in Argentina, for it is a laboratory for their own future. There are differences of course; the French economy, for example, has already in effect been dollarized by its adherence to a currency that it does not control, the euro.

  Incidentally, I saw an unintentionally funny line in an article about Argentina’s proposed dollarization. It would, it said, halt Argentina’s addiction to the money printing machine. Ha! Try telling that to an American monetarist!

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 22:00

• Victims Will "Never" Be Whole Thanks To SBF's "Dumpster Fire" – FTX Caretaker CEO Rages
  Victims Will “Never” Be Whole Thanks To SBF’s “Dumpster Fire” – FTX Caretaker CEO Rages

  Authored by Martin Young via CoinTelegraph.com,

  FTX restructuring officer and CEO John Ray III has slammed an attempt from Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers to reduce his sentence, arguing victims “have suffered and continue to suffer.” 

  

  Ray wrote to Judge Lewis Kaplan on March 20 in a victim impact statement on behalf of FTX and its “millions of creditor victims” to “correct material misstatements and omissions in the sentencing submission” from Bankman-Fried.

  The letter comes after Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued on March 19 that the 40-to-50-year sentencing guide from United States government prosecutors was too harsh.

  Ray argued that Bankman-Fried’s claims that FTX was solvent at bankruptcy and that no money was lost were “categorically, callously, and demonstrably false.”

  “Customers still will never be in the same position they would have been had they not crossed paths with Mr. Bankman-Fried and his so-called brand of ‘altruism.’”

  Ray stated he has led an extensive team that has spent over a year “stewarding the estate from a metaphorical dumpster fire” to a company approaching a plan “that will return substantial value to creditors.”

  “Mr. Bankman-Fried’s victims will never be returned to the same economic position they would have been in today absent his colossal fraud,” he added in another part of the letter.

  

  Screenshot of letter from John Ray III to Judge Kaplan. Source: Courtlistener

  Ray took over the embattled exchange in November 2022 and detailed the extensive work done by an army of lawyers to recover assets, cooperate with investigations, and position the firm, which now plans to return all value to creditors.

  This recovery doesn’t erase the immense harm caused by Bankman-Fried’s crimes, however, Ray said.

  He stated when he took over as CEO that there were only 105 Bitcoin left on FTX, against customer entitlements of nearly 100,000 BTC.

  “Why were the Bitcoins missing?” he questioned before stating that a jury has “concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Bankman-Fried stole them and converted them into other things.”

  Ray claimed that Bankman-Fried considered conflicting public relations strategies after bankruptcy, including blaming the restructuring team while also claiming to want to work with them to repay creditors.

  Ray said that it was only because of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case that the firm had assets that could rebound in value, referring to the recent crypto market rally.

  “Make no mistake; customers, non-governmental creditors, governmental creditors, and non-insider stockholders have suffered and continue to suffer,” he concluded.

  Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued that a 40-to-50-year sentencing proposal for a “non-violent offense” was “medieval” while requesting that it be reduced to around five to six and a half years.

  Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven charges relating to various fraud and money laundering brought against him by the United States government, almost a year after the collapse of the crypto exchange.

  He’s set to be sentenced on March 28.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 21:40

• Chuck Schumer's Tired Vanity Act Needs A Rest
  Chuck Schumer’s Tired Vanity Act Needs A Rest

  Authored by Richard Benedetto via RealClear Wire,

  The time has come for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to pack his bags and shuffle back home to Brooklyn.

  

  The New York Democrat has been around politics way too long. Aside from being a politician, he’s never held a real job since graduating from Harvard Law School nearly a half-century ago. And as they say about washed-up pitchers in baseball: He seems to have lost his fastball.

  But like many a career politician, Schumer, 73, is the last to realize it. He clearly showed last week that he is losing his stuff when he recklessly overstepped his bounds and publicly called on duly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, embroiled in a war with Hamas, to step down and hold new elections.

  “At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel at a time when so many Israelis have lost confidence on the vision and direction of their government,” said Schumer, who is Jewish.

  That’s like a leader in the Knesset, Israel’s top legislative body, calling on President Biden to quit. Such a bold order would be greeted here in the U.S. with laughter and scorn. Israelis, who view America as its moral and stalwart protector from those intent on destroying the Jewish state, were disconcerted – and appalled at the implications of Schumer’s implied threats. An obviously miffed Netanyahu called the Senate leader’s remarks “wholly inappropriate.”

  “We’re not a banana republic,” the Israeli prime minister said. “The people of Israel will choose when they’ll have elections, who they will elect and it’s not something that will be forced upon us.” 

  However, such brash and intrusive declarations by Schumer came as no surprise to many veteran political reporters and analysts in Washington. Schumer has been loudly and aggressively throwing his political weight around for nearly half a century – basking in the media spotlight that went along with it, and clearly loving it. An old joke among news reporters covering Congress is that the most dangerous place to stand on Capitol Hill is between Chuck Schumer and a television camera.

  Aside from politics, Schumer has never held a real job as an adult. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1974, his biography is basically a political rap sheet.

  While still in law school, he ran for a seat in the New York State Assembly and represented a heavily Democratic district in Brooklyn from 1974 to 1980. When one of Brookyn’s seats in Congress opened, Schumer quickly jumped into the fray. He won election in that heavily Democratic district and served in the House until 1999.

  After 18 years in the House, Schumer, by now a career politician, decided to climb even higher on the legislative ladder. In 1998, he challenged three-term incumbent New York Republican Sen. Al D’Amato and won in a bitterly contested statewide race. Schumer has been in the Senate ever since – nearly 25 years – winning reelection four more times.

  Way back in 1975, when Schumer was a rookie in the New York State Assembly, he quickly won a reputation among Albany reporters as a guy who never shuts up. He would leap to his feet and express his views on the most mundane of bills, causing news reporters in the chamber to audibly groan, “Oh no, Schumer again!”

  Nearly a half-century later, little has changed. It’s time to give that tired act a rest.

  Richard Benedetto is a retired USA Today White House correspondent and columnist. He covered New York State government and politics in Albany for Gannett News Service, 1976-82. He has taught political science and journalism at American University and in The Fund For American Studies programs at Georgetown and George Mason Universities for the past 17 years.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 21:20

• Man Inside Capitol On Jan. 6 For 3 Minutes Convicted By Jury
  Man Inside Capitol On Jan. 6 For 3 Minutes Convicted By Jury

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Virginia man who went inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, for several minutes was convicted on March 20 on four counts and faces jail time.

  

  Raymond Chambers entered the Capitol at 3:01 p.m., according to the government, which offered surveillance footage. Once inside, Mr. Chambers walked to the Rotunda and took some photographs. He “immediately exited the building” through the Rotunda doors at 3:04 p.m., prosecutors said.

  Mr. Chambers was not accused of carrying out any violence, but authorities said he violated federal law, including a law that bars engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building that disrupts government business.

  Mr. Chambers was charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building or grounds, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. He pleaded not guilty.

  A jury this week convicted Mr. Chambers on all counts, following a trial.

  Mr. Chambers now faces up to three years in prison as well as fines.

  An attorney representing Mr. Chambers declined to comment ahead of sentencing, which is scheduled for June 24. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, appointed under President Donald Trump, will sentence Mr. Chambers.

  Mr. Chambers did not return an inquiry.

  Three Others Convicted

  Three other men were convicted in a stipulated bench trial.

  U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, appointed under President Barack Obama, found Patrick Montgomery of Colorado and Brady Knowlton of Utah guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding. That count carries up to 20 years in prison but may end up being struck by the U.S. Supreme Court.

  The judge also convicted Mr. Montgomery of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and Mr. Knowlton of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

  Gary Wilson, also of Utah, was convicted of theft of government property.

  Judge Moss is slated to sentence the trio on July 2.

  “We are obviously disappointed in the outcome. This was an unusual case because Mr. Knowlton used no force or violence against anyone including any police officers. He entered the Capitol through a door held open for him and others by Capitol Police officers and peacefully left after being inside for only 18 minutes,” Brent Mayr, a lawyer representing Mr. Knowlton, told The Epoch Times via email. “While the Judge said this was a ‘close case,’ we shouldn’t convict any citizen in close cases. Fortunately, the Supreme Court is reviewing this ambiguous law that he was convicted of and we’re hopeful the court is going to find this law to either not apply here or be invalid on its face.”

  According to stipulated facts entered in the case, the three men on Jan. 6, 2021, went to the Capitol after the “stop the steal” rally. While there, Mr. Montgomery tried taking a baton from a law enforcement officer, at one point kicking the officer in the chest. The men then entered the Capitol at 2:35 p.m. and made their way to the Rotunda.

  The men later went to a hallway outside the Senate floor, where Mr. Wilson took a black bag, and all three confronted a U.S. Capitol Police Officer. Mr. Montgomery was quoted as saying: “You gotta stop doing your job sometime and start being American. You gotta quit doing your job and be an American!” Mr. Wilson was quoted as saying, “We came all the way from our job to do your job, and the freaking Senators’ job!”

  The men left the Capitol at 2:53 p.m.

  “Mr. Montgomery and his codefendants had many viable defenses which might have resulted in acquittal in any other jurisdiction. But the D.C. jury pool is so extremely pro-government that no January 6 defendant has an opportunity for a fair jury trial. It really is a national disgrace that so many January 6 defendants are having their lives destroyed in D.C. courts. Mr. Montgomery and codefendants opted for a stipulated bench trial because the jury pool in D.C. is so fundamentally hostile to January 6ers. These cases would all end in acquittals elsewhere,” Roger Roots, a lawyer representing Mr. Montgomery, told The Epoch Times in an email.

  Update on Numbers

  Despite years elapsing since the Capitol breach, new arrests are still being made.

  Some 93 people were arrested and charged in early 2024, after a months-long pause in 2023. More than 1,358 individuals have been charged as of March 6, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

  According to one estimate, 445 new cases could hit the docket in 2024—more than in 2022 and 2023.

  One of the latest arrests was of a California woman who worked for Congress following the breach. Isabella DeLuca was arrested on several charges, including theft of government property.

  Court documents say Ms. DeLuca helped pass furniture, including a table, from inside the Capitol to outside the building. She faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

  “I am facing the unwarranted targeting and persecution by the DOJ and FBI at the direction of the Biden Administration, like most J6ers,” Ms. DeLuca wrote on X, formerly Twitter. She added later, “Whatever comes my way, though it may be difficult, I am prepared to face it.”

  Approximately 769 defendants have pleaded guilty. In addition to more than 150 being found guilty at trials, several dozen have been convicted after the parties agreed upon a set of facts.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 21:00

• Ben Shapiro And DeSantis Former Finance Chairs To Fundraise For Trump
  Ben Shapiro And DeSantis Former Finance Chairs To Fundraise For Trump

  Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

  Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro announced last week to the more than 15 million monthly listeners of his eponymous podcast that he wouldn’t just vote for Donald Trump, he would also co-host a fundraiser for the former president.

  

  Because the choices for president are identical to 2020, Shapiro said he would “walk over broken glass” to support Trump. Almost immediately, he had an opportunity. Trump said Monday that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” comments that the White House quickly condemned as “vile and unhinged antisemitic rhetoric.”

  Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew and outspoken ally of Israel, provided a quick defense. Far from antisemitic, he said Trump was “making a point which I have made myself, which is that Jews who are voting Democrat do not understand the Democratic Party at this point.” The left in Congress, he continued, was “split at best between moderates on Israel and radicals who hate Israel.”

  For Trump, the rebuttal was welcome, especially given that it came from a pundit once described as the voice of the conservative millennial movement. The endorsement itself, however, was not surprising. Shapiro publicly backed Trump four years ago. The significance is instead the pundit’s willingness to help bind the wounds opened by the Republican primary.

  According to an invite obtained by RealClearPolitics, Shapiro will co-host the fundraiser along with Tina Vidal-Duart, Carlos Duart, and Rick Green, each of whom previously sat on the national finance committee of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ doomed presidential campaign.

  The Trump campaign will host the fundraiser at the Trump National Doral Miami Golf Club. Tickets cost $23,200 per person. A luncheon and “photo opportunity with President Donald J. Trump” will follow per the invite.

  Beset by a myriad of legal trouble, including a $464 million bond in a civil fraud case, Trump needs the money. He also needs to achieve something approaching his boast that the GOP has never been “so unified as it is right now.”

  Enter Shapiro who provides an avatar for DeSantis supporters coming to peace with Trump.

  He has been critical of Trump’s personal vices, occasionally splitting with the former president on policy and notably calling Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 election “deeply irresponsible.” During the primary, Shapiro frequently boosted DeSantis, criticizing Trump’s decision to run “ever to the left” rather than debate the governor on more conservative grounds.

  But that fight is now long over, Shapiro said as he explained his rationale.

  “As you know, I didn’t support Trump in the primaries because I don’t endorse candidates in Republican primaries. But I do tell you who I would have voted for. And I told you I would have voted for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida if given the choice,” he said on his show last Friday.

  “But Ron DeSantis isn’t the nominee. Donald Trump is the nominee. And he’s facing Joe Biden, who is the worst president of my lifetime,” he continued.

  “My calculus is simple,” Shapiro concluded. “America was better off under Donald Trump than it is under Joe Biden.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 20:40

• Another Bite At The Fani: Judge Grants Trump's Request to Appeal DA Disqualification Decision
  Another Bite At The Fani: Judge Grants Trump’s Request to Appeal DA Disqualification Decision

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has granted former President Donald Trump’s request for a certificate of immediate review, allowing the former president and seven co-defendants to appeal the judge’s order denying the disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

  

  The certificate of immediate review, filed on March 20 at the Superior Court of Fulton County in Georgia, allows President Trump and seven co-defendants to seek an appeal from the Georgia Court of Appeals, which has the discretion to accept or decline to hear the case.

  “Judge McAfee has issued a certificate of immediate review allowing us to take our motion to disqualify Fani Willis directly to the Georgia Court of Appeals,” David Shafer, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and one of the seven co-defendants, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, commenting on the judge’s decision.

  Besides Mr. Shafer, the co-defendants who can appeal the judge’s disqualification ruling are Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Robert Cheeley, Michael Roman, Harrison Floyd, and Cathleen Latham.

  All of them had joined the initial motion to disqualify Ms. Willis and later joined the motion for a certificate of immediate review.

  The request for immediate review, filed on March 18 by Steve Sadow, attorney to President Trump, stems from Judge McAfee’s decision to allow Ms. Willis to remain on the high-profile case, in which the former president is accused of election interference.

  President Trump has denied wrongdoing and has called the case a politically motivated “witch hunt” meant to undermine his 2024 comeback bid for the White House.

  Ms. Willis was accused of engaging in an “improper” romantic relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade and benefitting from it financially. The two acknowledged the relationship but denied any financial benefit or conflict of interest.

  Judge McAfee said in a March 15 order that there was an appearance of impropriety but that no conflict of interest had been proven.

  He found that disqualifying Ms. Willis wouldn’t be the appropriate remedy to the appearance of impropriety and instead ordered Mr. Wade off the case.

  Mr. Wade resigned hours after the morning order was issued.

  More Details

  In earlier testimony, Mr. Wade had acknowledged a romantic relationship with Ms. Willis but testified that it had ended before the election case indictment was handed up.

  Judge McAfee noted that Mr. Wade’s inconsistent answers under oath in his recent divorce case showed a willingness to “conceal” his relationship with Ms. Willis, and he opined that an “odor of mendacity” lingered on the prosecution team with Ms. Willis’s and Mr. Wade’s testimonies in his court.

  Given the seriousness of the appearance issue as described by the judge, the defendants argued that the removal of Mr. Wade wasn’t sufficient.

  Judge McAfee had a 10-day window to decide whether he would allow a review of his disqualification decision.

  Allowing review could technically halt pretrial proceedings for up to 45 days while an appeals court decides whether to take the case.

  However, in his March 20 certificate of immediate review, Judge McAfee said that the court intends “to continue addressing the many other unrelated pending pretrial motions, regardless of whether the petition is granted within 45 days of filing, and even if any subsequent appeal is expedited by the appellate court.”

  The case still has 15 defendants (four have accepted plea bargains) and is expected to run for about six months.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 20:20

• Watch: Biden Judicial Nominee Who Wanted To Ban 'Assault Weapons' Can’t Define What They Are
  Watch: Biden Judicial Nominee Who Wanted To Ban ‘Assault Weapons’ Can’t Define What They Are

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Biden-nominated candidate for a judicial seat couldn’t define the term “assault weapon” during a confirmation hearing on March 20, even though she once signed a brief defending a ban on “assault weapons.”

  

  Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Maldonado of the Northern District of Illinois to define “assault weapons” during Wednesday’s nomination hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

  In posing the question, Mr. Kennedy cited a legal brief that Judge Maldonado signed years ago.

  “You said, ‘assault weapons may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate for legitimate self-defense purposes,’” Mr. Kennedy said. “Tell me what you meant by assault weapons.”

  Judge Maldonado, who has been nominated by President Joe Biden for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, struggled to reply to the question.

  “I did not write the brief,” she said, prompting the Republican senator to point out that she signed the brief and asked her whether in so doing she was “testifying to the court that everything in it is true.”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “So they’re your words in terms of the court, right?” he asked.

  “You’re correct, Senator Kennedy,” prompting him to ask again what she meant by “assault weapons.”

  “I am not a gun expert,” Judge Maldonado then said, with Mr. Kennedy pressing the issue, asking her to “just tell me what you wanted to ban.”

  “I don’t remember the exact definition of ‘assault weapons’ in the ordinance that was at issue,” she said, before adding that she signed off on the brief but “was not responsible for researching the content.”

  WATCH:@SenJohnKennedy: “You said, ‘assault weapons may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate for legitimate self-defense purposes.’ Tell me what you meant by assault weapons?”

  Biden’s Seventh Circuit judge nominee Nancy Maldonado: “I’m not… pic.twitter.com/1ctY2E64IO

  — Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) March 20, 2024

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

  ‘Assault Weapons’ In Focus

  In the exchange with Mr. Kennedy, Judge Maldonado acknowledged that she was “responsible” for the brief but insisted that she doesn’t remember its specific “characteristics” as they related to the ordinance on “assault weapons.”

  Asked pointedly whether she thinks deserves to be promoted to the appeals court seat, she said, “Senator, I stand by my record.”

  The label “assault weapons,” which has been variously defined in legislation, is a fuzzy term commonly used by gun control advocates to refer to many types of popular semi-automatic sporting rifles, in particular AR-15-style rifles.

  Gun rights advocates have argued that the term “assault weapons” is ill-defined and of limited practical use in legislation, but is a dangerous-sounding term used to instill fear to build public support for gun restrictions on many modern sporting rifles (MSR).

  The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) estimated in 2022 that there were over 24 million MSRs in circulation in the United States, which include AR-15 and AK-style rifles.

  The popularity of MSRs has been attributed to factors like accuracy, reliability, and recoil control.

  “The firearm industry responds to market demand and this shows that during the elevated period of firearm sales that began in 2020, this particular style of rifle is the top choice for law-abiding citizens for hunting, recreational shooting and self-defense,” NSSF president and CEO Joe Bartozzi said in a statement at the time.

  President Joe Biden has repeatedly used the term “assault weapon” in pushing gun curbs.

  “I’m still committed to banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” he told a group of mayors at the White House in January.

  “When we passed the Second Amendment, guess what: You weren’t allowed to have a cannon,” the president told the mayors, while urging them to get onboard his gun control proposals.

  “You’ve heard ‘the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots’? Guess what, man. I didn’t see a whole lot of patriots out there walking around making sure that we have these weapons,“ he continued.

  “If you really want to worry about the government, you need an F-16,” President Biden said. “You don’t need an AR-15.”

  A Rand Corp. study completed in 2020 and updated in 2023 found limited evidence that “high capacity magazine” bans reduced mass shootings and inconclusive evidence on the effect of banning “assault weapons” on the incidents of mass shootings.

  Judicial Nominations

  Meanwhile, Judge Maldonado was on Wednesday grilled by Senate Republicans on issues other than “assault weapons,” including on how she amassed one of the largest case backlogs of any federal trial court judge nationally.

  She replied by saying that when she joined the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in August 2022, she was immediately assigned around 300 cases with pending motions. Then, after three judges retired, her caseload swelled to 360, she said.

  Judge Maldonado said she worked hard to get the caseload number down but the speed of clearing the backlog was constrained by what she said was her desire to make sure the decisions were “well-reasoned.”

  Before joining the district court, Judge Maldonado was a partner at the law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where she focused on employment litigation.

  The other judges nominated by President Biden—who has said his nominees would ensure U.S. courts reflect “diversity”—that were also part of Wednesday’s hearing were: Georgia N. Alexakis, Krissa Lanham, Angela Martinez, and Sparkle Sooknanan.

  Michael Clements contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 20:00

• Give Me An Engaged Electorate
  Give Me An Engaged Electorate

  Authored by John A. Ragosta via RealClear Wire,

  On March 23rd in 1775, Patrick Henry rose at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, to urge his countrymen to arm themselves for the Revolutionary War. Four weeks before the battle of Lexington and Concord, Henry saw the future: “The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!” 

  

  Most Americans remember the stirring ending of Henry’s speech: “give me liberty, or give me death!” But in this election year, it is useful to be reminded of the beginning of that speech. 

  When Henry rose to speak, he knew he would be called a warmonger and disloyal to the still well-loved King George. He knew that even many patriots would oppose arming as premature and provocative. 

  But facing such a momentous decision, he decided he must speak, whatever the risk. “Should he keep back his opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, he should consider himself guilty of treason toward his country.” The question that the Virginia Convention faced could lead to war. At such a critical juncture, it was “no time for ceremony” but time for a lively debate in which everyone openly voiced their concerns. 

  He reminded the gathered delegates that “we have done everything that could be done” to seek a peaceful solution with Britain. “We have petitioned – we have remonstrated – we have supplicated – we have prostrated ourselves before the throne” of King George. But now, with no other options for redress, the delegates elected by their neighbors needed to decide if they should take a drastic course of action. 

  This is a critical point. When Henry announced his commitment to “liberty … or death” he was not attacking all government regulation or control, demanding personal liberty regardless of society’s interests or needs. He was not some mad libertarian chafing at the decisions of his elected representatives.  

  The problem the colonists faced was that they had no vote in Parliament. In more familiar terms, the problem was not simply taxation – but taxation without representation. 

  Now the people’s representatives must decide for themselves and their constituents what to do.

  We know the rest of the story. As Henry’s speech rose to a crescendo, he asked in an almost accusatory tone, “Is life so dear; or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains, and slavery?” His final remark would reverberate across America as the king’s former subjects rose to demand the rights of citizens: “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” 

  Today, we enjoy the liberty for which Henry and his colleagues fought. But Henry did not see it as liberty to do whatever one wants, but liberty to join with other citizens to make laws and ensure freedom for the whole community. 

  This was never more clear than in Henry’s final political campaign in 1799. He had been a leading Antifederalist who had warned that the new Constitution would create a government too powerful and distant from the people. But he came out of retirement at George Washington’s behest to defend the Constitution against the radical idea of state nullification of federal laws.  

  Henry insisted that since “We the People” had adopted the Constitution, opponents of federal policies must act “in a constitutional way.” Go to the ballot box, he told his supporters. The alternative was “civil commotions and intestine wars” ending in “monarchy.” 

  Today, our nation faces enormous challenges. I think Henry would repeat his admonition from 1775 and urge us to speak up, to join the debate. I am confident, too, that he would repeat his warning from 1799 that we must act with other citizens to seek reform “in a constitutional way;” the alternative is “monarchy,” which he had come to dread. 

  When Henry died a few months after that final speech, a piece of paper was found with a message to the citizens of the United States. He reminded Americans of his Stamp Act speech that, according to Thomas Jefferson, gave “the first impulse to the ball of the revolution.” But Henry understood that it would take work to keep the nation afloat. A monarchy was, after all, easy: You just do what the king says. But as Benjamin Franklin reportedly said after the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, the United States has “a republic – if [we] can keep it.”

  John Ragosta is a historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, a fellow with the Jack Miller Center, and author of “For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry’s Last Political Battle” (2023). 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 19:40

• Republicans Call For Raising Retirement Age As Social Security Nears Insolvency
  Republicans Call For Raising Retirement Age As Social Security Nears Insolvency

  While at this point pretending that one can somehow stop or deflect the civilization-ending meteor that is the US debt load, rising by $30 billion every day on its way to a terminal reserve currency crisis, is at best rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic, Wednesday the largest caucus of House Republicans called for an increase in the Social Security retirement age up a clash with President Joe Biden over spending on popular entitlement programs.

  According to Bloomberg, the Republican Study Committee, which comprises about 80% of House Republicans, called for the Social Security eligibility age to be tied to life expectancy in its fiscal 2025 budget proposal. As a reminder, the social security pension system was created in 1935 when the average life expectancy was 61 for white males and 65 for white females, about 20 years below where it is today. The proposal also suggests reducing benefits for top earners who aren’t near retirement, including a phase-out of auxiliary benefits for the highest earners.

  The proposal sets the stage for an election-year fight with Biden, who accused Republicans of going after popular socialist entitlement programs during his State of the Union address.

  “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security, Medicare, or raise the retirement age, I will stop you,” Biden said in his March 7 address to Congress. Spoiler alert: he won’t.

  Amusingly, the Republican document notes that Biden previously supported increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67 after bipartisan negotiations in 1983.

  Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), the caucus’s chairman, said the president’s opposition to Social Security policy changes would lead to automatic benefit cuts when the program’s trust fund is set for insolvency in 2033. A phased-in retirement age change was a standard feature of past negotiations, he said.

  “Anytime there’s been any reforms in history – President Clinton, President Reagan – had a slow migration of age changes for people that are 18, 19 years old,” Hern told reporters Wednesday.

  The caucus’s budget proposal is more aggressive than the recent proposal by House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who advanced a budget resolution earlier this month that called for a bipartisan commission to negotiate Social Security and Medicare solvency but didn’t make specific policy recommendations. The Republican Study Committee, meanwhile, called for policy changes that would reduce spending on Social Security by $1.5 trillion and Medicare by $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

  Republicans have said their proposals aren’t truly cuts and wouldn’t affect those at or near retirement. But Biden and congressional Democrats such as Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the Budget Committee, have said they won’t support an increase in the age of eligibility, which currently sits at 67 (and can start as early as 62 with penalties).

  The caucus’s proposal leaves some details out. It calls “modest changes to the primary insurance amount” for those who aren’t near retirement and “earn more than the wealthiest” benefit level. It also proposes “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.” And it would “limit and phase out auxiliary benefits for high income earners.”

  The proposal projects to balance the federal budget by 2031, outlining $16.6 trillion in spending cuts over a decade, hardly the stuff a society addicted to fringe welfare benefits will be delighted to hear.

  The proposal calls for Medicare spending reductions by implementing a “premium support model” in which private Medicare Advantage plans would compete with the federal Medicare plan. It proposes moving graduate medical education payments, which go to teaching hospitals for their residency programs, into a trust fund separate from Medicare.

  As reported previously, Biden’s fiscal 2025 budget proposal, released March 11, called for an increase in the tax rate to support Medicare on those earning more than $400,000 a year, from 3.8% to 5%. It also broadly called for top earners to pay more to support Social Security, but didn’t make specific proposals. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young told reporters the Biden administration doesn’t like the current structure of the payroll tax — which only applies to the first $168,600 of an individual’s income.

  One of the trust funds that supports Social Security is projected for insolvency in 2033, the program’s board of trustees said their most recent estimate in March 2023.

  

  CBO projects that Social Security will run chronic deficits over both the short- and long-term. It will run a cash flow deficit of $154 billion in 2023, which is 1.6 percent of taxable payroll or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Over the subsequent decade, Social Security will run $3.5 trillion (2.9 percent of taxable payroll or 1.0 percent of GDP) of cumulative cash flow deficits.

  Over the long term, CBO projects Social Security’s cash shortfall will grow to 3.9% of taxable payroll (1.4% of GDP) by 2033, to 5.1 percent of payroll (1.7 percent of GDP) by 2050, to 6.8 percent of payroll (2.3 percent of GDP) by 2075, and to 7.4 percent of payroll (2.4 percent of GDP) by 2097.

  CBO projects earlier insolvency dates and a larger 75-year actuarial shortfall than the Social Security Trustees estimated in their 2023 report. While CBO projects OASI insolvency in 2032 and SSDI depletion in 2052, the Trustees expect the OASI trust fund to run out by 2033 and the SSDI trust fund to remain solvent over the next 75 years. And while CBO expects the theoretically combined trust funds to deplete their reserves by 2033, the Trustees expect them to run out a year later, in 2034.

  

  The CBO warns that “as Social Security’s trust funds rapidly approach insolvency, the necessary adjustments to restore solvency will become harder and the burden on beneficiaries more pronounced the longer policymakers wait to act. Enacting trust fund solutions sooner rather than later would help prevent abrupt, across-the-board benefit cuts, allow for targeted adjustments to those who can most afford them, spread the burden of tax and benefit changes across generations, and give today’s workers more time to plan for retirement.”

  Unfortunately, raising the retirement age is only the easiest and most palatable of all adjustments. It also delays insolvency by a few years at most. What comes next is far more painful.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 19:20

• Voter Apathy And Four Key Takeaways From Illinois' 2024 Primary Elections
  Voter Apathy And Four Key Takeaways From Illinois’ 2024 Primary Elections

  By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner of Wirepoints

  Don’t get too excited about the results of Tuesday’s primary elections, particularly in Chicago. The results don’t represent either a mandate for, or a categorical rejection of, anyone or anything. They can’t when just 20.2% of Chicago voters cast a ballot on Tuesday, a likely new low according to the Chicago Board of Elections. 

  What the results do represent is a growing voter apathy. On both sides.

  This election should have been a dominating one for the Chicago Teachers Union and its defacto leader, Mayor Brandon Johnson.  Union members could have helped produce a new $100 million tax to benefit their allies and themselves. They could have put in power an establishment state’s attorney picked to perpetuate the criminal and social justice agenda led by current office holder Kim Foxx. Instead, the union vote didn’t materialize. For CTU’s leadership, this election should be considered a disaster.

  On the other side of the voting ledger, crime has dominated the news, and so has the illegal immigration crisis. Few in Chicago are happy with the progressive leadership under Mayor Johnson. Protest votes should have been out in full force. The numbers should have been big. Instead, most people stayed at home.

  Yes, the opposition, if you can call it that, may squeak out wins in opposing a real estate tax hike and the next “anointed” state’s attorney – assuming results hold over the next few days – but be careful what you make of it, regardless of how it all finally shakes out. The main message may be that the unions weren’t motivated to come out and organize the votes. There probably wasn’t enough money at stake for them. What’s a $100 million? And they simply couldn’t tell the difference between the two Cook County State’s Attorney candidates in the primary race. So they stayed away from the polls.

  Elsewhere in the state, voter apathy was also in full display. Many outlets reported “shockingly” low voter turnout, from Decatur to Mattoon to Rockford (just 12%!). Regardless, the few people who did vote decided several important races.

  Here are four takeaways we observed:

  1. Mayor Johnson loses big either way

  The real estate transfer tax hike, an initiative spearheaded by Mayor Johnson, likely failed to pass with nearly 54% of voting Chicagoans voting no. (There is still a significant number of mail-in votes to count, but expectations are that the referendum will fail. Nevertheless, it’s hasn’t been called yet.)

  The referendum’s failure will be a blow to Johnson whether the referendum wins or loses. He wasn’t able to motivate Chicagoans to come out. Sure there was fanfare, with the CTU marching CPS students to the polls. Johnson even structured the tax to provide small relief to the overwhelming majority of Chicagoans – only hitting the city’s wealthiest homeowners and businesses. It was the perfect soak-the-rich campaign that should have won easily. 

  Pass or fail, Johnson lost.

  

  2. Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle is another big loser.

  As of this writing, the race between Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III for the Democratic candidacy for Cook County State’s Attorney is too close to call, but Burke has a slim lead. 

  Whoever wins won’t make much difference to Chicagoans, as neither is likely to dramatically change direction from Kim Foxx’s tenure. 

  The results are bad news for Toni Preckwinkle, as she backed Harris. Even if he somehow ekes out a win over Burke, the fact that the race was so close – and so few people voted – shows Preckwinkle’s influence over Cook County isn’t as ironclad as she thinks it is.

  3. Members of Illinois’ Freedom Caucus survive attempts to take them out.

  Members of the downstate Republican Freedom Caucus, Reps. Adam Niemerg, Blaine Wilhour and Brad Halbrook, all survived primary challenges this Tuesday.

  The victories of Wilhour and Niemerg are particularly notable as they both faced teachers-union backed opponents. Wilhour won with a resounding 79% of the vote and Niemerg won an even bigger 88%. 

  And that’s after the unions spent several hundreds of thousands backing their candidates. 

  4. Mixed results on school district tax and bond referendums.

  Results for school district bond and tax referendums were typical, with a mix of propositions passing and failing.

  Notable referendum failures include Avoca SD 37’s (Wilmette) bond referendum, the details of which we covered here, with over 75% of voters saying no. Central SD 301’s ask for $195 million in bonds also failed, with more than 63% of voters casting a no vote.

  Both those referendums faced a tough opposition of concerned residents, which goes to show that taxpayers can successfully band together and prevent wasteful spending if they organize.

  In contrast, Glenbard Township High School District 87 managed to get its $183 million project approved – albeit just barely. The referendum passed 50.2% to 49.8% with a difference of just 89 votes.

  As we covered earlier this month, the district’s pro-referendum machine spent more than $50,000 to get the proposal over the finish line while facing no major, formal opposition. The result would very likely have been different if residents had been able to officially organize.

  *******

  A final takeaway. Maybe, just maybe, the low voter turnout points to a real opportunity for those in the opposition – for those wanting to turn Illinois around. It takes fewer and fewer votes to win something these days.

  The question is, does any real, principled, large-scale opposition exist anymore? And can it make its case, convincingly, to get out the vote?

  For now, I think we know the answer.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 19:00

• CCP-Linked Virologist Fired After Transferring Ebola From Winnipeg To Wuhan Resurfaces In China – And Is Collaborating With Military Scientists
  CCP-Linked Virologist Fired After Transferring Ebola From Winnipeg To Wuhan Resurfaces In China – And Is Collaborating With Military Scientists

  A virologist who had a “clandestine relationship” with Chinese agents and was subsequently fired by the Trudeau government has popped back up in China – where she’s conducting research with Chinese military scientists and other virology researchers, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where she’s allegedly studying antibodies for coronavirus, as well as the deadly Ebola and Niaph viruses, the Globe and Mail reports.

  

  Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng were fired from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada and stripped of their security clearances in July of 2019.

  Declassified documents tabled in the House of Commons on Feb. 28 show the couple had provided confidential scientific information to China and posed a credible security threat to the country, according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

  The Globe found that Dr. Qiu’s name appears on four Chinese patent filings since 2020, two with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – whose work on bat coronaviruses has placed it at the centre of concerns that it played a role in the spread of COVID-19 – and two with the University of Science and Technology of China, or USTC. The patents relate to antibodies against Nipah virus and work related to nanobodies, including against coronaviruses. -Globe and Mail

  Canadian authorities began questioning the pair’s loyalty, as well as the potential for coercion or exploitation by a foreign entity, according to more than 600 pages of documents reported by The Counter Signal.

  Highlights (via CTVNews.ca):

  • Qiu and Cheng were escorted out of Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in July 2019 and subsequently fired in January 2021.

  • The pair transferred deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019.

  • The Canadian Security Intelligence Service assessed that Qiu repeatedly lied about the extent of her work with institutions of the Chinese government and refused to admit involvement in various Chinese programs, even when evidence was presented to her.

  • [D]espite being given every opportunity in her interviews to describe her association with Chinese entities, “Ms. Qiu continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies.”

  • A November 2020 Public Health Agency of Canada report on Qiu says investigators “weighed the adverse information and are in agreement with the CSIS assessment.”

  • A Public Health Agency report on Cheng’s activities says he allowed restricted visitors to work in laboratories unescorted and on at least two occasions did not prevent the unauthorized removal of laboratory materials.

  • Cheng was not forthcoming about his activities and collaborations with people from government agencies “of another country, namely members of the People’s Republic of China.”

  Following their firings, Qiu returned to China despite it being under a pandemic travel lockdown until January, 2023.

  “It’s very likely that she received quite preferential treatment in China on the basis that she’s proven herself. She’s done a very good job for the government of China,” said Brendan Walker-Munro, senior research fellow at Australia’s University of Queensland Law School. “She’s promoted their interests abroad. She’s returned information that is credibly useful to China and to its ongoing research.”

  More via the Globe and Mail;

  Documents reviewed by The Globe show that Dr. Qiu is most closely aligned with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei. In March, 2023, a document posted by a Chinese pharmaceutical company listed Dr. Qiu as second amongst “major completion personnel” on a project awarded by the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association for study related to an anti-Ebola virus therapeutic antibody. Most of the other completion personnel were associated with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

  USTC was founded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and initially established to build up Chinese scientific expertise useful to the military, which at the time was pursuing technology to build satellites, intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomic bombs. The university has continued to maintain close military ties.

  The document says Dr. Qiu works for USTC. Jin Tengchuan, the principal investigator at the Laboratory of Structural Immunology at USTC, lists her as a co-inventor on a patent. Mr. Jin did not respond to requests for comment.

  A person who answered the phone at USTC told The Globe, “I don’t have any information about this teacher.”

  In 2012, USTC signed a strategic co-operation agreement with the Army Engineering University of the People’s Liberation Army, designed to strengthen research on cutting-edge technology useful for communications, weaponry and other national-defence priorities.

  Dr. Qiu is also listed as a 2019 doctoral supervisor for students studying virology at Hebei Medical University.

  “Well, that makes me wonder what circumstances she was under when she emigrated to Canada. Why did she come?” asked Earl Brown, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, microbiology and immunology at the University of Ottawa’s faculty of medicine who has worked extensively in China in the past. “People leave for more freedom from China, or to make more money. But China keeps tabs on most people so I am not sure if she came over to infiltrate or whether she came and the infiltration happened later through contact with China.”

  It may be impossible to answer that question. Three former colleagues at the National Microbiolgy Lab have indicated that Dr. Qiu and her husband were diligent and pleasant to deal with, but largely kept to themselves outside of work. They say Dr. Qiu was a brilliant scientist with a strong work ethic, although her English was weak. The Globe is not identifying the three who did not want to be named.

  Dr. Qiu is a medical doctor from Tianjin, China, who came to Canada for graduate studies in 1996. She started at the University of Manitoba, but began working at the national lab as a research scientist in 2006, working her way up to become head of the vaccine development and antiviral therapies section in the National Microbiology Laboratory’s special pathogens program.

  She was also part of the team that helped develop ZMapp, a treatment for the deadly Ebola virus, which killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2016.

  “My sense is this was part of a larger strategy by China to get access to our innovation system,” said Filippa Lentzos, an associate professor of science and international security at King’s College London. “It was a way for them to to find out what was going on in Canada’s premier lab.”

  Initially trained as a medical doctor, Dr. Qiu graduated in 1985 from Hebei University in the coastal city of Tianjin, which lies southeast of Beijing. Dr. Qiu went on to obtain her master of science degree in immunology at Tianjin Medical University in 1990.

  Her career at Canada’s top infectious disease lab in Winnipeg began in 2003, only four years after Ottawa opened this biosafety level 4 facility at the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health.

  Over time, she built up a reputation for academic collaboration, particularly with China. It was welcomed by management who felt her work was helping build a name internationally for the National Microbiology Lab.

  By the time Canadian officials intervened in 2018 and began investigating, documents show, Dr. Qiu was running 44 separate projects at the Winnipeg lab, an uncommonly large workload.

  Her work with former colleague and microbiologist Gary Kobinger vaulted Dr. Qiu into the international spotlight. The pair developed a treatment for Ebola, one that in its first human application led to the full recovery of 27 patients with the infection during a 2014 outbreak in Liberia.

  Mr. Kobinger’s career continued to soar and he is now director of the Galveston National Laboratory, a renowned biosafety level 4 facility in Texas. In 2022, he told The Globe that it was “heartbreaking” to see what had happened to his colleague. He declined to speak for this article.

  “She had lost a lot of weight with all the stress. She was so convinced that this was all a misunderstanding … and she would go back to her job,” he said in 2022. “ Her career has been destroyed with all this. She was one of the top female Canadian scientists of virology and Canada has lost that.”

  Over a period of 13 months, though, the Chinese-Canadian microbiologist and her biologist husband’s lives were turned upside down.

  She went from being feted at Ottawa’s Rideau Hall with a Governor-General’s Award in May, 2018, to being locked out of the Winnipeg lab in July, 2019 – the high-security facility where she had made her name as a scientist in Canada. By January, 2021, she and Mr. Cheng were fired.

  Last month, after being pressed into explaining what happened, the Canadian government finally disclosed the reasons for this extraordinary dismissal: CSIS found the pair had lied about and hid their co-operation with China from Ottawa.

  A big question remains following their departure: Why would Dr. Qiu risk her career, including the stature associated with developing an Ebola treatment, for China?

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 18:40

• Bretton Woods Revisited
  Bretton Woods Revisited

  Submitted By Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman of DMCC in Dubai

  

  It’s been a busy few weeks for both Bitcoin (BTC) fans and gold hawks, with both assets reaching record highs on the back of soaring inflation, market volatility and high rates, and while both assets typically attract quite polarising investors, their simultaneous rallies are united in their speculation that the U.S. and other western economies may not be able to maintain high interest rates, given their sky-high debts.

  As stated by XTB research director Kathleen Brooks, “When gold and bitcoin rise in unison, it is worth interrogating the reasons behind this, in case they can give us clues about investor behaviour. Both seem to be rallying on the back of the overall market mood: U.S., Japanese and several European indices have made fresh record highs recently. However, for gold and bitcoin there are other internal factors at play that could be pushing up their value even when stocks take a breather.”

  For gold, as the age-old investment hedge, a potential shift in Federal Reserve policy in conjunction with geopolitical uncertainty and a possible downturn in equity markets saw its price break through to $2,194.99 before rolling back. However, with U.S. inflation unexpectedly rising to 3.2 per cent in February, the yellow metal is well positioned to maintain or even exceed its recent highs until 20th March, when the Fed will announce its rate decision, with most economists anticipating no change. As outlined by Tim Murray at T Rowe Price, “This last mile of inflation – getting from 3 per cent to 2 per cent – is going to be really hard. Much harder than getting from 9 to 3 per cent.”

  As a digital store of value, Bitcoin’s record-breaking rally to USD 73,794 on 14th March 2024 was further propelled by buoyant market confidence, as demonstrated through the $10bn poured into Bitcoin ETFs since the beginning of the year, and will likely continue its run through an imminent ‘halving’, which is currently on schedule to take place in April. As outlined by Bitfinex, “The recent surge in Bitcoin’s value… underscores the remarkable strength and resilience of the leading cryptocurrency. This achievement not only marks a significant milestone but also reflects the continued confidence and demand in the market”. 

  With both assets illustrating a clear trend towards safe-haven investments and weakening fiat currencies, it is critical to ask the following questions:

  • Are the record-breaking prices justified against the convergence of inflation and debt?
  • What are the fundamental differences between BTC and gold?
  • What are the underlying responses beyond consumer investment?
  • And what could a return to a gold-backed economy mean for the geopolitical landscape?

  Are record highs justified?

  Asking the obvious question, as headlined by City Index, “Are Traders Afraid of Sovereign Debt Loads?” In short, yes, and for good reason. While many traders are simply seeking a short-term alternative to hedge risk, there is undoubtedly a longer-term appetite for what happens if the U.S. and other developed economies are unable to maintain high interest rates, given their existing debt loads. Starting with the most glaring information, U.S. national debt is currently on the rise to the tune of $1 trillion roughly every 100 days, reaching a total of just over $34.4 trillion in February – a figure certainly not helped by wild printing under the current U.S. administration, which included $3 trillion in 2020 alone. Speculation as to whether a default occurs or not is yet another polarising debate. As stated by Lawrence J White, an economics professor at the Stern School of Business at NYU, no one knows because it is “a political issue”. However, as an investor hedging for a worst-case scenario, the default outcome would likely be “cataclysmic”, followed by a recession of the order of the financial crisis of 2008, according to Bernard Yaros, assistant director at Moody’s Analytics. Even a short-term breach could cause more seismic shifts in the international financial markets, fuelling credible calls for alternatives to the U.S. dollar. “The world will say we can’t rely on the U.S. Treasury as much as we used to, and that will make people more reluctant to hold Treasury obligations. Interest rates for Treasury bills and bonds will go up, and that will ultimately lead to a bigger tax burden for Americans”, stated White.

  Sovereign Response

  It’s no secret that central banks have been buying physical gold in record volumes over the past two years, as outlined by the World Gold Council in January: “Central bank demand, a key driver of gold in recent years, maintained its momentum in Q4 as a further 229t was added to global official gold reserves. This lifted annual (net) demand to 1,037t, just short of the record set in 2022 of 1,082t. Global official sector gold reserves are now estimated to total 36,700t. Two successive years of over 1,000t of buying is testament to the recent strength in central bank demand for gold. Central banks have been consistent net buyers on an annual basis since 2010, accumulating over 7,800t in that time, of which more than a quarter was bought in the last two years.”

  However, this still seems to have evaded public sentiment, as outlined by Peter Schiff: “What’s unprecedented about gold’s new high is that there’s no fanfare, there isn’t any media coverage, there isn’t even any retail participation. Not only is the public not buying into this rally, they’ve been selling during the entire rally, in fact going into the gold ETFs, there’s been net outflows every week this year. The public keeps on selling as gold keeps rising. That’s not normal. Normally people buy on the way up, and sell on the way down, that’s wrong, but that’s human emotion. If everyone’s selling, how can the price of gold be going up? Because if the price of gold is going up it means somebody is buying to drive it up and if the public is dumping their gold why isn’t the price falling; well because somebody else is buying. Somebody who knows a lot more than the people who are selling. Who’s doing that buying? It’s central banks. There’s a reason they are doing it, and it’s because they are de-dollarising.” And they’re not alone.

  As highlighted in JP Morgan’s August 2023 report, the U.S. dollar’s hegemony is “in question due to geopolitical and geostrategic shifts”, and this isn’t just the outlook of the central banks, but also commodity and emerging markets. With Russia serving as an example of the potential risks of being ‘frozen out’ of USDs, albeit with negligible effect, many other countries took heed. In contrast, others reacted to the unfavourable conditions of rising interest rates. “In short, de-dollarisation entails a significant reduction in the use of dollars in world trade and financial transactions, decreasing national, institutional and corporate demand for the greenback”, commented Alexander Wise, strategic research, J.P Morgan. To date, the U.S. dollar’s share of F.X. reserves has declined to a record low of 58 per cent. At the same time, several nations, most recently Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina, have started paying for imports and exports using the Chinese renminbi. In March, the Reserve Bank of India asked Gulf exporters to accept rupees for at least ten per cent of oil payments in the next financial year, while Russian news agency TASS said that the five-nation BRICS group will work on creating a payment system based on blockchain and digital technologies. In the Middle East, an MoU signed between the UAE and India in July 2023 signals the beginning of regional currency usage for bilateral transactions within a framework called the Local Currency Settlement (LCS) system. As a symbolic transaction on the same day, a UAE gold exporter sold 25 kgs of gold to an Indian buyer, invoicing the payment in Indian rupees.

  BTC vs Gold

  Based on the reality of Bitcoin and gold being the de-facto investment hedges, each investor has their own preference. As outlined by Fergus Hodgson, director of Econ Americas, roving editor of Gold Newsletter, “Gold has thousands of years of established history as a resolute store of value,” whereas, cryptocurrency, as a relative newcome to global asset markets means, “its future as a store of value is precarious. In my assessment, central bank digital currencies and altcoins will challenge Bitcoin’s value proposition as a medium of exchange.” Certainly, as a hedge, Bitcoin’s finite 21 million coins means it cannot be manipulated like fiat currencies. However, the same could be said for gold, albeit under the speculation of what resource remains unmined and what can be recycled. While previously, Bitcoin’s edge over gold was its accessibility, recent cases of fraud, theft and the rise of ETFs have made both assets safer and more accessible to all forms of investors.

  While I am certainly not against cryptocurrencies, particularly in their capacity to support decentralised trade, all markets tend to follow power. Through that lens, it is simple to compare which nations hold Bitcoin and which hold gold. According to Elementus, a blockchain-analysis firm, most of the world’s governmental Bitcoin holdings are from government seizures, and between 2013 – 2022, only six nations held a balance – the United States, El Salvador, Ukraine, Bhutan, Venezuela and Finland. Meanwhile, according to the World Gold Council’s Annual Futures (2021), only eight nations do not hold any gold reserves, namely Nicaragua, Cameroon, Armenia, Gabon, Turkmenistan, Congo, Chad and Eritrea.

  Follow the Yellow BRICS Road

  Putting all these elements together, we are left with a likely trend that will not only see a continued transition away from the U.S. dollar but towards a new collective powerhouse in the form of the BRICS+ nations. Complete with the world’s top two gold producers in China and Russia and four of the largest consumers, it seems that the balance of power is migrating east, with the trading bloc progressing towards its own version of a gold standard. As explained by Nathan Lewis in Forbes just several weeks ago, “The BRICS countries have settled on using gold as the basis for international exchange, a role previously taken by dollars and euros. This does not mean today’s floating fiat ruble, real, or rand is going anywhere soon. Rather, just as the U.S. dollar was used alongside those domestic currencies in the past, today and in the future gold will be more commonly used. There would not be very much trade in actual gold coins — just as there is not much trade in actual dollar bills. Indeed, gold doesn’t work very well for this hand-to-hand exchange at all, since even small coins tend to be of very high denomination, worth $200 or more. Rather, it means that people around the world will increasingly use various vehicles — such as bank accounts, bonds, loans, and cryptocurrencies — denominated in gold, just as they use the very same set of tools today but denominated in dollars.”

  A Globally Inclusive Future

  If all that is stated up till now is a fair projection of what’s to come, other areas of demand will either need to be met or serve a useful purpose in the new economic landscape. For example, there are three major bullion banks with London at their centre. As a city with no closer tie to gold than its historical position as a centre for trade, a more equitable solution could be found in the form of a Global Gold Market Association, akin to the Kimberley Process with a rolling chairmanship that provides access to an exchange where vetted banks are among the liquidity providers, thereby supporting a free market model. As an outcome, global volatility could be reduced through democratic processes and regulations, resulting in greater trading stability and a fairer marketplace for all nations, regardless of economic status.

  Conclusion

  As summarised by Peter Schiff, “Everybody is writing gold’s obituary – it’s not dead, it’s alive and well, it’s over $2,000, but the most important thing is the fundamentals have never been better. Not only do the charts look great for gold, but the fundamentals are fantastic because we’re in a situation where inflation has just bottomed at about three per cent and is now headed higher, and there’s nothing the Fed can do about it. It is out of ammo, it can’t fight, there is no way the Fed is going to hike rates, it would crash the economy, and it would sink any chance Biden has of getting re-elected. So, it’s going to dismiss any increase in inflation; in fact, it’s already done that this week. It’s almost like it’s back on its transitory kick, only nobody is going to use the word transitory, but they’re basically looking at any hotter-than-expected inflation data as if it’s a one-off thing as if it’s a foregone conclusion that inflation is going back down to two per cent when there’s no reason to expect that that’s going to happen. Not with record high budget deficits, record high consumer borrowing and spending; a weakening in industrial production, money supply is now growing, and real interest rates are falling. So, all signs point to higher inflation and a weaker economy, and that’s the perfect environment for gold. It is stagflation, and as investors lose confidence in the Fed, they’re going to look for a real safe haven, a real store of value, and they’re going to buy gold.”

  I, for one, agree. Driven by non-transitory inflation, massive deficit spending, questionable global economies, and an increasing momentum towards de-dollarisation, is it finally time to revisit Bretton Woods, and or any meaningful gold standard as the potential antidote to what will soon become an uncontrollable problem

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 18:20

• Texas Pulls $8.5 Billion From BlackRock In "Massive Blow" To "The Scam Of ESG"
  Texas Pulls $8.5 Billion From BlackRock In “Massive Blow” To “The Scam Of ESG”

  The examples of the ESG fraud imploding over the last 6 months simply aren’t stopping.

  The latest has come from Texas, where the state is now terminating an $8.5 billion investment with BlackRock due to the investment manager’s boycott of energy companies, according to a report from Fox News. 

  Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey said this week that the Texas Permanent School Fund notified BlackRock this week that it would be terminating the investment. 

  Kinsey told Fox News this week: “The Texas Permanent School Fund has a fiduciary duty to protect Texas schools by safeguarding and growing the approximately $1 billion in annual oil and gas royalties managed by the Texas General Land Office. Terminating BlackRock’s contract ensures PSF’s full compliance with Texas law.”

  Kinsey added: “BlackRock’s dominant and persistent leadership in the ESG movement immeasurably damages our state’s oil & gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues for our PSF. Texas and the PSF have worked hard to grow this fund to build Texas’ schools.”

  “BlackRock’s destructive approach toward the energy companies that this state and our world depend on is incompatible with our fiduciary duty to Texans,” he said. 

  Texas has made a significant move by divesting a considerable portion of its $53 billion Permanent School Fund (PSF), originally established in the 19th century to support public education. This step marks the largest divestment since GOP-led states began cutting financial relations with BlackRock and similar firms over their adoption of ESG standards. 

  

  In response to such opposition, Texas enacted Senate Bill 13 in 2021, mandating the state’s comptroller to identify and list financial entities boycotting fossil fuel businesses. Following this, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar updated this list in October to include BlackRock among others, urging the Texas PSF and five state pension funds to cut off from the investment company.

  Kinsey concluded: “Today represents a major step forward for the Texas PSF and our state as a whole. The PSF will not stand idle as our financial future is attacked by Wall Street. This bold action helps ensure our PSF remains in fact permanent and will continue to support bright futures and opportunities for generations of Texas students.”

  Blackrock responded: “Today’s unilateral and arbitrary decision by Board of Education Chair Aaron Kinsey jeopardizes Texas schools and the families who have benefited from BlackRock’s consistent long-term outperformance for the Texas Permanent School Fund.” 

  “The decision ignores our $120 billion investment in Texas public energy companies and defies expert advice. As a fiduciary, politics should never outweigh performance, especially for taxpayers,” they added. 

  But Derek Kreifels, the CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation, felt differently, offering support for the termination: “Today’s bold step by Aaron Kinsey and the Permanent School Fund of Texas, in accordance with state law, is a massive blow against the scam of ESG.”

  “Under Larry Fink’s leadership, BlackRock has been misusing client funds to push a political agenda for years. Nowhere was that more egregious than in Texas, where BlackRock was simultaneously trying to destroy the domestic oil and gas industry while managing funds that depended on royalties derived from that very same industry,” added Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research.

  He said it was a “clear message” to “Wall Street elites that people can no longer be bullied into complying with ESG’s destructive ideology.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/21/2024 – 18:00

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