Jan 23

Today’s News 23rd January 2023

  • Paul Craig Roberts: How Troublesome Presidents Are Disposed Of
    Paul Craig Roberts: How Troublesome Presidents Are Disposed Of

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    Tucker Carlson provides an excellent 12 minute report about the CIA’s removal of President Kennedy and President Nixon. I recommend that you watch it 2 or 3 times until it sinks in and forward it to all of your friends and relatives. There is nowhere else  you can get so much solid and important information in 12 minutes.

    Carlson believes that Biden, no longer useful to the establishment, is currently undergoing removal.

    I have reported the truth about the removal of Presidents Kennedy and Nixon from office for decades.  It was thrilling to me to see after a half century Tucker Carlson give the same explanations to such a large audience.  If Americans could only wake up and become involved it might be possible to save our country and the liberty of Americans.

    President John F. Kennedy was murdered by the CIA and US Joint Chiefs of Staff once he realized that the government he headed was not the real government.  His predecessor President Eisenhower, a 5-star general, warned about the threat to democratic government posed by the military/industrial complex.  President Kennedy intended to do something about it while the president still had some power, but he was struck down before he could do more than fire CIA Director Allen Dulles and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Lyman Lemnitzer.  President Kennedy wasn’t able to get rid of General Lemnitzer, who transitioned to Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Both Dulles and Lemnitzer are suspected of directing the plot against Kennedy’s life.

    President Nixon was the best informed and best respected abroad president of any in US history.  He kept in touch with foreign leaders and was well informed about historical and current events.  But he also, like Kennedy and Trump, over estimated the power of the president.

    Nixon incurred the wrath, as I once again reported on January 19 of the military/security complex with his arms control agreements with the Soviet Union and his opening to China.  The assassination of  President Kennedy was so obviously an in-house murder, covered up by the CIA’s media whores and the Warren Commission, that the CIA dared not murder a second president.  Instead, the CIA saw that one of its operatives was placed as a journalist at the Washington Post, a long-time CIA asset, never a newspaper, to head the “Watergate” investigation of President Nixon which was used to drive him from office despite Nixon being reelected by the largest margin in US history.

    Donald Trump, being a real estate mogul, knew nothing of Washington or who really rules it.

    By declaring his intention of normalizing relations with Russia, he blindly took on the CIA and the subterranean rulers of the US.  

    And again the media was used to get rid of him:  “Russiagate,” two impeachment attempts, “January 6 Insurrection,” and now “Documents gate.”

    The President isn’t even protected by the Secret Service.  As the tourist video clearly shows, the Secret Service men along the side of President Kennedy’s open limo in Dallas were called away by a Secret Service superior.  The video shows the resistance of one of the Secret Service agents to the order.  Once the Secret Service agents were removed, the video shows that Kennedy was killed from a bullet from in front that blew out the back of his head. The video shows his wife reaching out on the back of the limo to get the back of his blown away head.

    Despite this clear cut undeniable evidence  the Warren Commission ruled that Kennedy was shot from behind by Oswald, the patsy that the CIA had lined up to take the blame. Before Oswald could talk or be questioned he was killed in police custody by Jack Ruby  (Jacob Leon Rubensein), a person whose presence is inexplicable,  who was permitted by the police to be armed next to Oswald.

    The bulk of the insouciant American population fell for this most improbable of all accounts, but many intelligent people did not.  

    So the CIA did not dare murder Nixon physically. They used their Washington Post asset to murder him politically, as they used media to get rid of Donald Trump.

    Americans who think they live in a democracy are out to lunch. Americans, so easily fooled time and again, are the reason we have lost our country and the freedom and the hope that it once represented in the world.

    How many Americans understand that they no longer live in a free country,  that they are the ruled subjects of they know not who? Voting is a cloak, a deception.  No one the people prefer can be elected to the office of president.  If, like Trump, he gets there unexpected, he is removed.

    The founder of American civil liberty, Thomas Jefferson, warned us that freedom cannot exist more than 200 years before it has to be refreshed by bloody revolution. He overestimated the life of freedom.  

    Over the course of my life the meaning of freedom has changed.  It no longer means what the Founding Fathers, today denounced as racists, meant, which was self-rule and freedom from oppressive government. Today freedom is the freedom of blacks to rob stores without prosecution,  the freedom of the government and its media whores to censor and suppress truth, free expression, and free association, the freedom of government to arrest and imprison people who exercise their civil liberties as “insurrectionists,” the freedom of government and its media whores to brand truth-tellers as “threats to democracy” who are guilty of spreading “misinformation,” the freedom to take away the medical licenses of doctors who saved lives by using medicines banned by Big Pharma’s treatment protocols.

    People born in recent decades have no idea how off the wall this is to someone who lived in the real America in the past.  When my  generation passes, there will be no one alive who knows what America once was.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 23:30

  • Egg Crisis Sparks Soaring Interest In Backyard Farms
    Egg Crisis Sparks Soaring Interest In Backyard Farms

    Covid supply chain snarls turned millions of Americans into “preppers” overnight. The run on toilet paper, food, guns, ammunition, and other essential items for survival pushed millions to consider preparedness for a crisis.

    Remember all those old-school preppers? The media used to refer to them as “extreme” and even called them “tin-foil hat conspiracy” folks, but during the shutdowns, those folks were right, and the mainstream media got it wrong. 

    The next shortage underway is eggs. Readers have seen our notes on supermarkets nationwide running out of eggs. The egg shortage is so severe that last week the US Customs and Border Protection reported that egg smuggling from Mexico erupted. 

    And why is that? Well, a dozen Grade A eggs in the US have topped $4.25 at supermarkets. In Mexico, a 30 count of eggs is about $3.40. 

    US egg prices have topped the national average gasoline per gallon price at the pump. 

    As a result of the egg crisis, internet search trends on Google show Americans are panic searching where to find egg-laying hens for their backyard. 

    The search trend “where to buy chickens near me” erupted to a near multi-decade high. 

    “Buy chickens near me” searches explode across the US. 

    Besides the Covid spike, “how to raise chickens” has spiked to levels not seen in a decade. 

    Over the last several years, food insecurity has pushed many Americans to create ‘little backyard farms’- something their parents or grandparents did more than half a century ago. Living off the land was standard decades ago, but as metropolises sprung up, people relied more on a corporation (or even the government) to provide food. 

    Soaring distrust in government and corporations had transformed many into preppers following the pandemic shutdowns when some supplies were impossible to find. People don’t want to be left empty-handed when the next crisis arises. This has led to a new generation of preppers and the normalization of being prepared. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 23:00

  • China To Accelerate The Construction Of Coal-Fired Power Plants
    China To Accelerate The Construction Of Coal-Fired Power Plants

    Authored by Michael Kern via OilPrice.com,

    China expects to add 70 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power generation this year, up from 40 GW of capacity from coal installed in 2022, a report from the power sector’s group, China Electricity Council, showed.

    The coal additions, however, will not be the biggest capacity increases in China in 2023, per the report quoted by Bloomberg.

    Solar and wind will see massive growth in capacity additions this year, too, with solar power expected to add a huge 100 GW of capacity and wind—another 65 GW, China Electricity Council said.   

    China’s electricity generation capacity from renewable sources is expected to jump above 50% for the first time this year. According to the power sector’s lobbying group, low-carbon electricity sources will account for over 52% of total power capacity in China by the end of 2023, up from 49.6% at the end of last year.  

    After the end of the ‘zero Covid’ policy, China’s power demand is expected to jump by 6% in 2023, up from the 3.6% growth seen last year, according to the China Electricity Council.

    Although renewable energy installations are set to jump, coal-fired capacity additions in China will also surge this year as Beijing has put more emphasis on energy security since the autumn of 2021 when power shortages crippled its industry.

    In 2022, China said it would continue to maximize the use of coal in the coming years as it caters to its energy security, despite pledges to contribute to global efforts to reduce emissions.

    In recent months, China has significantly boosted its coal production, following government orders. 

    [ZH: how dare you!?]

    China produced a record amount of coal last year, although output ended the year with a decline amid the latest surge in Covid infections. Total Chinese coal output for the year reached 4.496 billion tons, which was a 9-percent increase compared to 2021, according to official statistics data.    

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 22:30

  • California Drought Eases As Reservoir Levels Rise And Snowpack Booms
    California Drought Eases As Reservoir Levels Rise And Snowpack Booms

    California has experienced water shortages in recent years due to a combination of factors, including drought and increased demand. A parade of storms has eased a historic water crisis, replenishing reservoirs and increasing snowpack. 

    The latest data from the official website of the State of California shows 97% of major reservoir levels are at normal levels for this time of year. This is great news following last summer when reservoir levels were dangerously low. 

    Here’s a map of the major reservoirs. Most are at average levels, except for a few. 

    Nearly a month of storms has also boosted the state’s vital snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. State data shows statewide snowpack levels are 126% above average levels for this time of year. We recently pointed out snowpack levels were at their highest in four decades. 

    Only a small portion of California remained in extreme drought. The heavy rains and snow have eased drought conditions. 

    The storms were part of a moisture conveyor belt over the Pacific Ocean called atmospheric rivers. This resulted in one of the wettest California winters on record. 

    Much of California’s water comes from reservoirs and snowpacks. The deluge of storms has prevented the price of water trading on the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index from topping new highs. The contract currently trades at $1,020 an acre-foot, about 20% lower from the top of $1,282 recorded in September of last year. 

    The rain and snow have been “very exciting,” Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist at the University of California, Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, told CNN, though he remained “cautiously optimistic” for this summer. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 22:00

  • Inflation Assets Are Leading The Recovery. That's Not Normal
    Inflation Assets Are Leading The Recovery. That’s Not Normal

    By Marcel Kasumovich, Head of Research for One River Asset Management

    It’s normal, sort of. Digital asset markets are following a commodity boom, bust, recovery cycle. Investors are focused on the bust. The decline in inflation, bond yields, and the US dollar makes the downturn shallower. And inflation assets are leading the recovery. That’s not normal. 

    Inflation Assets Leading the Not-Normal

    “If you want two cups of coffee, save money and order both at the same time,” a student at the University of Freiburg famously quipped during Germany’s hyperinflation. That’s the inflation we worry about – pernicious, invisible tax. The recent surge in inflation is an inconvenience by historical standards. Periods of inflation lead people to shed currency for almost any real asset – even pianos were a hedge for Germans in the 1920s. That’s not now. But it’s also not never.

    The pandemic brought a warning shot, a reminder that the saying “too much money chasing too few goods” still applies. Global inflation surged to 9% last year as bottlenecks emerged in all supply chains. Assets believed to hedge inflation performed dismally. Real assets – bitcoin, gold, lumber, land – crashed as inflation rose. Those assets didn’t “fail” in their roles. Real interest rates shot higher. And that’s the real driving force behind inflation assets.  

    The evidence is obvious in investor behavior. There was a dash for cash as inflation rose, not real assets. Last quarter, Global Fund Managers reported the highest cash holding since 2001! The inflation tax was an afterthought. All other assets were rapidly deflating in response to the surge in rates. That is not an inflationary mindset. It’s conviction that policy will kill inflation, leaving real rates higher for a stretch of time. And it’s self-reinforcing.

    Market expectations call for a cratering of inflation this year, to 2.33%. It’s also expected to stay there for a very long time, 2.19% in 2024 and an average of 2.29% in the next ten years. The consensus is centered on the idea that a recession will bring everything back to “normal.” And it is exactly how investors are positioned – long bonds, short equities, and long US dollar (Figure 1). Our own Macro Pulse confirms the consensus – it’s in recessionary territory.

    But change is afoot. Downturns don’t last long, even brutal ones. They are usually fast, severe fractures. This one is slow and shallow. Our Macro Pulse has been in recessionary territory three of the past four months; the longest recessionary signal was nine months in the Great Financial Crisis. Market stabilizers are also emerging. Declines in inflation, bond yields and the US dollar are cushioning the downturn with mortgage and business surveys bottoming.  

    Commodity markets provide the simplest connection to the cyclicality of digital assets. Doug Wilson, One River Digital PM, likens the downturn in digital infrastructure to a boom, bust, recovery cycle of energy markets. It’s a terrific benchmark. Bitcoin is a unit of energy. The boom saw Bitcoin trade miles above its marginal cost of production. That boom led to excess investment. The bust that followed is like an over-supplied commodity cycle.  

    What does the recovery look like? Let’s benchmark the boom-bust-recovery cycle through the macro lens of recessions. Figure 2 shows median oil prices in the past 4 economic cycles. The most interesting observation – oil prices aren’t anywhere close to the downturns of the past. This is the “too few goods” side of the inflation equation. A long period of commodity underinvestment means that inflation assets don’t decline to the same degree in recession.  

    It also means inflationary assets can lead in the recovery, counter to the consensus of a return to “normal.” But inflation assets are supposed to lag, not lead. It takes an extended period of strong demand to absorb excess capacity built in this expansion. Those are the assets soonest to bump up against capacity constraints and be demonstrated as short in supply. Cyclical forces are pulling down inflation, structural pressures may be less benign.

    Digital asset markets are recoupling to macro forces. Inflation assets are leading this year and digital assets are rising with that tide. The differentiation within the digital ecosystem is telling. Base layers and scaling solutions are leading – Bitcoin and Ethereum are back to pre-FTX levels, Optimism scaling protocol has risen well above pre-FTX highs. DeFi protocols are lagging, most notably MakerDAO, as it wrestles with its strategic future pathway.

    Market leadership is in the boring basics. We should pay attention. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Lightning, Optimism – base layers with scaling solutions for usable applications. We know that digital asset valuations are all about network effects. But investing in railways is pointless with no demand to ride them. Tokenization has been wildly successful in bridging traditional and digital worlds. That’s one trajectory of turning the boring into beautiful.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 21:30

  • "This Is The First Domino": Amazon Letting An Office Lease In Seattle Expire For Only The Second Time Ever
    “This Is The First Domino”: Amazon Letting An Office Lease In Seattle Expire For Only The Second Time Ever

    The major exodus by U.S. corporations out of U.S. cities continues. 

    The latest example is now Amazon, who is – for only the second time in Seattle – allowing one of its major office leases to expire, according to the Seattle Times. The e-commerce giant is set to move workers out of its offices in Port 99 on Eight Avenue, the report says.

    The lease expires in April, according to a company spokesperson. Amazon will move “about 2,000” of its employees to office space across from its Puget Sound headquarters, the report noted.

    Amazon had just announced layoffs that would affect 18,000 employees companywide and, specifically, 2,300 employees near Puget Sound.

    But the company says that the lease expiration decision had little to do with the layoffs and more to do with “the ongoing shift to remote and hybrid work after the COVID-19 pandemic”. As the Seattle Times notes, the number of office workers in downtown Seattle is down 42% from prior to the pandemic. 

    This marks only the second time Amazon has taken such action. Back in 2020, the company dropped its lease at 2201 Westlake, where it made up about half of the building’s 318,000 square feet of office space, the report said. They had to relocate 1,000 employees as a result. 

    And it isn’t just Amazon that is rethinking its use of office space in Seattle. Facebook is also planning on subleasing two locations and Microsoft reportedly will not renew its lease at the 26-story City Center Plaza in Bellevue when it expires in Summer of 2024. 

    John Schoettler, vice president of Global Real Estate and Facilities at Amazon, said: “Our offices are long-term investments, and we want to make sure that we design them in a way that meets our employees’ needs in the future.”

    “This is the first domino,” a local Seattle area real estate insider told the Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 21:00

  • Hedge Fund CIO: "Median Oil Prices Are $40 At The End Of A Recession: It’s Double That Now With The Global Economy Bottoming"
    Hedge Fund CIO: “Median Oil Prices Are $40 At The End Of A Recession: It’s Double That Now With The Global Economy Bottoming”

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    New Abnormal

    “After recession, everything will return to normal – that’s how investors are positioned,” said Marcel Kasumovich, the two of us discussing this increasingly unique time in market history. “The fastest Fed tightening in four decades is supposed to bring a deep recession and a lot of broken glass in global markets. Things are playing out differently. Global housing markets cracked. But job markets are holding up. Asset deflation was rampant during the rapid Fed tightening. But emerging markets didn’t crack; UK pensions did and were saved. Regions like Turkey and India led USD equity gains. It isn’t normal.”

    “On QT, we’ve communicated really clearly to the markets about what we’re going to do there,” said Powell. “Markets seem to be okay with it. We’re phasing in.” That was the guidance on June 15, 2022. Only, liquidity conditions are beating to a different drum. Excess reserves in the banking system were $3.189trn at the time of the guidance, having tightened more than $1trn in six months. Liquidity metrics have been stable since then despite QT. Market-based factors are dominating liquidity, not QT. This wasn’t the case in the past.

    “It’s not just US policy,” continued Marcel. “December’s surprise tightening from the Bank of Japan led to an unprecedent expansion of its balance sheet to guard against unwanted increases in bond yields. “This is definitely not a step toward an exit,” Kuroda declared to a market that rushed to the exit signs. The yen surged and held its gains (despite record central bank bond buying). The BOJ now holds more than 50% of government coupon bonds. Maturing bonds more than double this year. No Governor can exit this QE labyrinth.”

    “Under tremendous international pressure, the US dollar depreciated 53% against the Japanese yen from 1985-1987, leading to low yen rates and an unparalleled property bubble,” said Marcel. “Japan was 11% of world GDP and rising in 1985. It is 4% now and falling. China resisted rapid currency strength having studied these pitfalls. Yet, they mirror Japan in one key area – demographics. China’s population fell by 850K last year, the first since 1960; the working-age population is projected to shrink 216 million through 2050 – unprecedented.”

    “Cyclical gyrations will confound structural megatrends,” said Marcel. “A pragmatist emerged after China’s Party Congress with President Xi ending COVID lockdowns. Global trade will be instantly impacted. Just bringing China oil demand to pre-COVID trends would take 2% of world production at a time when supplies are tight – commercial inventories are at historic lows.” In the past four cycles, the median oil price was $40 at the end of recession. It’s double that now when the global economy is bottoming. “The past isn’t the present.”

    “This comes at a time when markets are convinced US inflation is dead,” said Marcel. “Markets are pricing inflation of 2.3% this year, and close to 2% for the next decade – just like normal. The Fed won. But is it a battle or a war? Oil prices and inflation assets are never leading indicators in market recoveries – they are now. The US dollar has stayed strong-for-long in recession – it’s been trending lower for four months.” The pandemic exposed weak links in the global economy – strained supply chains. Inflation is retreating. “Inflation assets indicate it’s a war.”

    “Generational imbalances are pressing, the root of lasting geopolitical and social conflict,” said Marcel. “Rich countries are accustomed to external conflict, but the economic war is building from within. Since 1990, a period of extraordinary prosperity, US student debt for households under the age of 35 has increased nearly 10-times. The older generation promised an extrapolation of good times; they charged the younger ones a handsome peacetime premium for that privilege. It’s an invisible generational default.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 20:30

  • WSJ Shreds Vaccine Makers, Biden Admin Over "Deceptive" Booster Campaign
    WSJ Shreds Vaccine Makers, Biden Admin Over “Deceptive” Booster Campaign

    Wall Street Journal editorial board member Allysia Finley has taken a flamethrower to vaccine makers over their “deceptive” campaign for bivalent Covid boosters, and slams several federal agencies for taking “the unprecedented step of ordering vaccine makers to produce them and recommending them without data supporting their safety or efficacy.“

    You might have heard a radio advertisement warning that if you’ve had Covid, you could get it again and experience even worse symptoms. The message, sponsored by the Health and Human Services Department, claims that updated bivalent vaccines will improve your protection.

    This is deceptive advertising. But the public-health establishment’s praise for the bivalent shots shouldn’t come as a surprise. -WSJ

    The narrative behind the campaign was simple; mRNA Covid shots could simply be ‘tweaked’ to to target new variants – in this case, the jabs were claimed to confer protection against BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants, along with the original Wuhan strain.

    To call this wishful thinking would be extremely generous.

    As Finley writes, three scientific problems have arisen.

    1. The virus is mutating much faster than vaccines can be updated.
    2. Vaccines have ‘hard wired’ our immune systems to respond to the original Wuhan strain, “so we churn out fewer antibodies that neutralize variants targeted by updated vaccines.”
    3. Antibody protection wanes after just a few months.

    Finley has brought receipts too…

    Two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine this month showed that bivalent boosters increase neutralizing antibodies against the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, but not significantly more than the original boosters. In one study, antibody levels after the bivalent boosters were 11 times as high against the Wuhan variant as BA.5.

    The authors posit that immune imprinting “may pose a greater challenge than is currently appreciated for inducing robust immunity against SARS-CoV-2 variants.” This isn’t unique to Covid or mRNA vaccines, though boosters may amplify the effect. Our first exposure as children to the flu—whether by infection or vaccination—affects our future response to different strains. -WSJ

    Here’s what happened

    For those who took (or were forced to take) the original vaccine, our memory B-cells were trained to produce antibodies against the original Wuhan strain. And as a New England Journal of Medicine article notes, people who have taken said original vaccine were “primed” to respond to the Wuhan strain, and ‘mounted an inferior antibody response to other variants.’

    The studies directly contradict marketing information from Pfizer and Moderna, which asserted that the bivalent boosters produced a response to the new strains (BA.4 and BA.5) that’s 4-6x that of the original boosters – which the WSJ says is “misleading.”

    For starters, neither Pfizer or Moderna conducted a randomized trial.

    They tested the original boosters last winter, long before the BA.5 surge and 4½ to months after trial participants had received their third shots. The bivalents, by contrast, were tested after BA.5 began to surge, 9½ to 11 months after recipients had received their third shots. -WSJ

    Here’s the moneyshot: “The vaccine makers designed their studies to get the results they wanted. Public-health authorities didn’t raise an eyebrow, but why would they? They have a vested interest in promoting the bivalents.”

    In June, the FDA ordered vaccine makers to update the boosters against BA.4 and BA.5, and rushed the companies to push them out before clinical data was available. Meanwhile, Biden’s CDC recommended the bivalents for all adults without evidence that they were effective or necessary.

    Finley further notes that vaccine makers could have performed small, randomized trials last summer and early fall on the bivalents – with results available by the end of September. But the Biden administration didn’t want to wait (and now we know why).

    The CDC published a study in November that estimated the bivalents were only 22% to 43% effective against infection during the BA.5 wave—their peak efficacy. As antibodies waned and new variants took over later in the fall, their protection against infection probably dropped to zero.

    Another CDC study, in December, reported that seniors who received bivalents were 84% less likely to be hospitalized than the unvaccinated, and 73% less likely than those who had received two or more doses of the original vaccine. But neither study controlled for important confounding factors—for one, that the small minority who got bivalents were probably also more likely than those who hadn’t to follow other Covid precautions or seek out treatments such as Paxlovid. -WSJ

    We’re amazed the Journal even put this out there… Kudos to them.

    Fortunately for big pharma and the Biden administration, information overload is the new Soma, and Rachel Maddow et al. have everything under control.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 20:00

  • "Such Demographic Decline Has Never Happened Across Major Global Economies"
    “Such Demographic Decline Has Never Happened Across Major Global Economies”

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    “How long to dispose of a body before it smells,” Brian Walshe asked Google. “What is the rate of decomposition of a body found in a plastic bag compared to on a surface in the woods,” was another query that law enforcement retrieved from some faceless server, a virtual witness to his horrific crime.

    He did not ask, but should have, “Are Google queries retrievable by the FBI.” Instead, he typed 20 questions you definitely should not Google if you want to get away with murder [see here].

    On China’s Baidu, queries for baby strollers fell 17% last year and are -41% since 2018. Searches for baby bottles are down by one-third since 2018. But queries for elderly care homes surged 800% last year, faceless servers bearing witness to China’s profound demographic challenge.

    China’s population surged from 540mm in 1949 to 969mm in 1980 when the One Child policy was introduced. And still, the population climbed inexorably to over 1.41bln in 2021. But in 2022, deaths exceeded births by 850k. UN demographers see China’s population contracting by 100mm by 2050.

    You could imagine Xi secretly typing, “What is the rate of decline of a nation that shrinks and ages before becoming wealthy.”

    Japan hit “peak people” in 2011 at 127.4mm. Demographers see it shrinking to 97mm by 2050. Russia is in utter demographic collapse. And you could imagine Putin secretly typing, “How long can a nation remain intact without enough young men to fight.”

    Europe is on the ageing, shrinking path too, but unlike China, Russia and Japan, immigration still tempers its demographic decline. It’s easy to imagine countless European leaders typing, “How to assimilate the waves of refugees needed to sustain the economy while retaining your culture.”

    Such demographic decline has never happened across the major global economies. How this impacts geopolitics, economies, and markets remains uncertain.

    There is no back-test for this. The US continues to be the outlier, growing, albeit slowly. And let’s hope Biden is typing, “How to reverse the opioid/fentanyl/diabetes public health catastrophe that has lowered US life expectancy.”

    And in India, Google searches for baby bottles jumped 22% last year, while queries for cribs surged 500%.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 19:30

  • Turkey Outraged After Sweden Allowed Quran Burning In Front Of Stockholm Embassy
    Turkey Outraged After Sweden Allowed Quran Burning In Front Of Stockholm Embassy

    It increasingly looks like Sweden won’t be admitted to NATO anytime soon, now that relations with Turkey have hit a fresh low point after months of Turkish pressure on Stockholm to crack down on Kurdish groups and anti-Erdogan protests.

    On Saturday anti-Turkey demonstrations in the Swedish capital included an incident where a copy of the Quran was burned in front of the Turkish embassy. The Quran-burning has enraged Turkish officials, especially coming off of another protest less than two weeks ago wherein a Kurdish group hanged an effigy of President Erdogan and tweeted out images.

    Far right activist Rasmus Paludan just before he burned the Quran, via Reuters

    Turkey has denounced the newest protest as “vile” and went so far as to cancel a scheduled visit by Sweden’s defense minister to Ankara. The meeting was supposed to continue to the dialogue over what Sweden needs to do to overcome Turkey’s objections regarding NATO accession.

    “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said.

    According to a description of the Quran burning incident in Al Jazeera:

    The Quran burning was carried out by Rasmus Paludan, leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line. In April last year, Paludan’s announcement of a Quran burning “tour” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan sparked riots across Sweden.

    Surrounded by police, Paludan set fire to the holy book with a lighter following a long diatribe of almost an hour, in which he attacked Islam and immigration in Sweden. About 100 people gathered nearby for a peaceful counterdemonstration.

    “If you don’t think there should be freedom of expression, you have to live somewhere else,” he said.

    Turkey has requested that Swedish authorities take legal action against such demonstrations, particularly involving Kurds, but Sweden has repeatedly cited its robust free speech laws. Further, Swedish officials have said it cannot give Turkey what it wants without changing laws regarding freedom of assembly and protest.

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

    Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, did however condemn the Quran-burning as “appalling” but stopped short of announcing any kind of legal action. “Islamophobic provocations are appalling. Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of expression, but it does not imply that the Swedish Government, or myself, support the opinions expressed,” he said.

    Earlier this month Erdogan’s office said, “We urge the Swedish authorities to take necessary steps against terrorist groups without further delay.” Turkey often labels dissenting Kurdish groups as “terrorists”. Over the past several months Turkey has sought to pressure Sweden into extraditing Kurdish activists which Ankara deems as part of outlawed groups.

    This new Quran burning protest incident has reportedly set off large-scale protests against Sweden inside Turkey, as well as denunciations by a handful other Muslim-majority countries.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 19:00

  • The Trillion-Dollar Coin Idea Is Just Another Way To Rip Us Off
    The Trillion-Dollar Coin Idea Is Just Another Way To Rip Us Off

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Here we go again.

    Every few years in Congress there is a purely political battle over the debt ceiling. We’re supposed to be horrified and worried that the US might default on some of its debt. Some commentators will insist the US has never defaulted, and that default be a disaster.

    (That’s wrong, by the way. The US has defaulted before.) 

    But these debt ceiling debates always end the same way. Congress ends up increasing the debt ceiling and the US’s national debt continues to spiral upward. 

    During all the theatrics over the debt ceiling, however, many strange ideas are put forward as a supposed means to avoiding a shutdown.

    One of these is the “trillion-dollar coin” idea. The general premise is that the government can do an end run around the debt ceiling altogether if it can find a way to raise revenue without borrowing. Thus, the scheme goes more or less like this, as explained by Yale law professor Jack Balkin back in 2011: 

    Are there other ways for the president to raise money besides borrowing?

    Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there’s a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.

    Ironically, there’s no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds….

    The “jumbo coin” [strategy works] because modern central banks don’t have to print bills or float debt to create new money; they just add money to their customers’ checking accounts.

    Put another way, by minting a trillion-dollar coin, Congress could simply deposit the coin at its bank account at the Federal Reserve and then start spending money from the account which now has a trillion-dollar (or even larger) credit. 

    [ZH: Here we take a slight side-bar to hear the thoughts of Curvature Securities’ Scott E.D. Skyrm, one of the world’s most-respected repo market participants and experts on the practical real-world folly of the Trillion Dollar Coin:

    Every time a debt ceiling debate runs through the market there’s always talk about the “Trillion Dollar Coin”. The idea is that to avoid hitting the debt ceiling, the Treasury could issue “currency” instead of “debt” and thus avoid the debt limit.

    How realistic is this? Can it be done?  Let’s take a look:

    Here are the mechanics:

    • The US Treasury mints a coin that says “$1 trillion” and sells it into the market.

    • The Treasury’ receives $1 trillion in cash in the TGA account so they have another $1 trillion to spend to fund the government.

    That leaves us with the first problem: Who is going to buy it?

    Maybe a giant global sovereign wealth fund. Maybe a large bank (JP Morgan?) can gather the funds to buy it.

    Let’s say they do.

    That brings us to the second problem. Who wants to own an illiquid coin that pays no interest when they could buy liquid US Treasury securities that pay interest?

    In fact, any sophisticated investor who could put the funds together would need a return on their cash. The coin would therefore be priced to trade like a discount security.

    Call it a perpetual principal STRIP.

    What’s the price of a 50 year principal STRIP? Probably about 15 cents on the dollar.

    Realistically, someone would only pay about $150 billion for the $1 trillion coin. At best!

    But let’s say the Treasury finds an “investor” to buy the coin.

    Let’s say a few phone calls are made from the Treasury to the Fed and voila, the Fed initiates a new QE program to buy the coin.

    Here’s the next problem.

    The Fed cannot legally buy direct form the Treasury.

    An intermediary like the sovereign wealth fund or a bank is needed to broker the transaction. After all of that let’s say the Fed eventually buys the $1 trillion coin and puts it in the SOMA portfolio. Hopefully they didn’t pay full price!

    Now the Fed needs to explain to Congress why they have a non-performing asset invested in the taxpayers investment portfolio.

    Maybe the idea of the trillion dollar coin is not meant to be serious. Maybe I’m overthinking because clearly, it’s not possible.]

    But here’s the rub: in no version of this scheme is the trillion-dollar coin actually made with a trillion-dollars-worth of platinum. Were that the case, the “coin” would be huge and weigh millions of pounds. Rather, the coin we’re talking about in this scheme would just have a face value of $1 trillion. It would be a commemorative or numismatic coin. The coin would be nothing more than a kind of legal fiction that’s used to credit the Treasury with a trillion dollars without going deeper into debt. 

    So, there’s really no reason for there to be any platinum in the coin at all, except for the legal (and perhaps political) advantages of calling it a platinum coin. From an economic standpoint, the coin might as well be a paperclip, as explained by Robert Murphy: 

    The Federal Reserve has the power to buy whatever assets it wants at whatever price it wants. In principle, [the Treasury Secretary] could sell a paperclip to the Fed for $2 trillion. The Fed would simply write a check made out to the Treasury, drawn on the Fed itself.

    When the Treasury deposited this check with its own bank — which just so happens to be the Fed — then its own “checking account” balance would go up by $2 trillion. This money wouldn’t come from anywhere in the sense that some other account would need to be debited $2 trillion. On the contrary, the system’s total reserves (and what is called the “monetary base”) would have swelled by $2 trillion. The Treasury would be free to start paying bills by writing checks on the $2 trillion in its account.

    The only kink in the plan would be the state of the Fed’s balance sheet. Initially it could value the paperclip at $2 trillion — what the Fed paid for it — and list the paperclip among its other assets such as Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

    It seems absurd, but the difference between the paperclip idea and the trillion-dollar coin scheme is one merely of degree. Both are ways of depositing something of relatively small value into a bank account and then withdrawing sums of money far exceeding the value of what was deposited.

    Two Ways of Taxing the Public

    But what is the difference between the usual raise-the-debt-ceiling option and the paperclip/coin idea? Perhaps the most meaningful difference between them is the way in which the taxpayers are exploited to pay for more government spending. Were the government to simply go more deeply into debt, the government would sell bonds and get cash in return. The bonds would be added to the national debt, formally increasing both the future and present obligations of the taxpayers. Taxpayers would be on the hook for paying off the bonds at the maturity date at some point in the future, but would also be on the hook in the near term for paying interest on the new debt. 

    In the case of the trillion-dollar coin, however, the taxpayer is exploited via the inflation tax. The coin scheme essentially forces the Federal Reverse to credit the Treasury with money and resources that doesn’t exist. The scheme ends, as Murphy notes above, by expanding the money supply—i.e., “printing” money. 

    The result of this inflating the money supply is either rising asset prices or rising consumer prices, or both. For example, we’re already living with 40-year highs in price inflation which is the consequence of the massive amounts of monetary inflation that occurred since 2008—and especially since 2020. 

    Admittedly, the trillion-dollar coin idea is good for the government itself. It provides the regime with yet another option for quickly accessing and spending even more money. But for taxpayers, there’s nothing beneficial or special about the coin scheme. It’s just a different way of ripping us off. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 18:30

  • Two Democrats Call For Investigation Into Biden Classified Documents Case
    Two Democrats Call For Investigation Into Biden Classified Documents Case

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    At least two Democratic senators have called for a full investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials after several batches of documents were found at an office and his home in Delaware.

    “The reports about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents are extremely irresponsible and disturbing,” Manchin (D-W. Va.) told Fox News on Jan. 20.

    “These allegations should be investigated fully.”

    The development “raises serious questions, and the appointment of an unbiased special prosecutor to investigate the matter is the right step,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told Fox.

    Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who recently confirmed she wouldn’t be running for re-election in 2024, told NBC News last week that the reports of handling classified documents is a bad look for the White House.

    “Well, it’s certainly embarrassing. Right?” Stabenow stated.

    “I mean, it’s embarrassing that you would find a small number of documents, certainly not on purpose. They don’t think it’s the right thing and they’ve been moving to correct it, working with the Department of Justice, working with everyone involved, with the [National] Archives, and so from my perspective, you know, it’s one of those moments that obviously they wish hadn’t happened.”

    Their comments came just hours before Biden’s lawyer confirmed the Department of Justice (DOJ) searched his home, while an FBI spokesperson confirmed the search to Fox News on Saturday. The search of his Delaware residence reportedly lasted hours, the FBI said.

    “DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President,” Bob Bauer, his attorney, said.

    “DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years.”

    Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) speaks to reporters in the Hart Senate Office building in Washington, on Aug. 1, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Fitzpatrick confirmed Saturday that the FBI had executed “a planned, consensual search” of the president’s residence in Wilmington. The president and first lady Jill Biden were not at the home when it was searched. They were spending the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

    Speaking to reporters during a trip to California on Thursday, Biden said he was “fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.”

    “We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden said.

    “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department.”

    The Biden investigation has also complicated the Justice Department’s probe into Trump’s retention of classified documents and official records after he left office. The Justice Department says former President Donald Trump took hundreds of records marked classified with him upon leaving the White House in early 2021, and that it had to obtain a search warrant to retrieve them.

    After the initial discovery of Biden’s documents, Trump has asserted that the DOJ is treating the president differently.

    “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?” Trump asked in a social media post earlier in January.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed former Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate any potential wrongdoing surrounding the Biden documents. Hur is set to take over from the Trump-appointed Illinois U.S. Attorney John Lausch in overseeing the probe.

    “Since the beginning, the President has been committed to handling this responsibly because he takes this seriously,” White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Saturday. “The President’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the Special Counsel to help ensure this process is conducted swiftly and efficiently.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 17:30

  • FAA Won't Divulge Data Behind Pilot Heart Arrhythmia Decision
    FAA Won’t Divulge Data Behind Pilot Heart Arrhythmia Decision

    The Federal Aviation Administration recently widened the acceptable range for heart rhythms for commercial pilots based on “new scientific evidence” which they won’t disclose, according to Just the News, which reached out to the agency for comment.

    Specifically, the agency raised the maximum “PR” interval for first-degree atrioventricular block to 300 milliseconds for pilots of all ages. For intervals longer than 300 ms, the FAA will decide on pilot fitness on a case-by-case basis. Previously, the maximum PR interval was 210 milliseconds, though only for pilots under the age of 51.

    If you’re not up to speed watch below:

    Did we mention that airlines have been lobbying Congress to let just one pilot fly a commercial aircraft?

    As Just the News reports,

    FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor provided a modified version of the statement the agency released last spring after American Airlines pilot Robert Snow blamed his in-flight cardiac arrest on coerced vaccination.

    Federal Air Surgeon Susan Northrup has deemed all U.S.-authorized COVID vaccines safe for pilots, the FAA said, claiming it had “seen no evidence” of vaccine-related complications that caused “aircraft accidents or pilot incapacitations.” 

    The agency followed “standard processes based on data and science” to determine it could “safely raise the tolerance used to screen for a certain heart condition” and notified AMEs of the change.

    Except, “Gregor didn’t respond to queries for the specific evidence.“

    According to the Associated Press, “the FAA explained that this change was made in response to new scientific evidence about the condition from its cardiology consultants, not adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines,” yet AP can’t say what prompted the change.

    “When making changes to medical requirements and guidance, the FAA follows standard processes based on data and science,” the agency told AP in an emailed statement. “Our cardiology consultants provided information that anything under 300ms requires no additional testing and is not a risk for sudden or subtle incapacitation.”

    According to Joshua Yoder, who heads US Freedom Flyers – a group which collects and analyzes adverse event reports from pilots, said that he’s been contacted by wealthy businessmen to find unvaccinated pilots.

    “I’ve spoken to 30 plus individuals myself and have also heard from an aircraft broker recently who told me he’s receiving similar requests,” Yoder told Just the News.

    According to cardiologist Thomas Levy, the FAA’s rule change is “arguably a shocking one, as many pilots are in the age range when heart attacks occur without any early symptoms but with a normal ECG, the ECG being the only mandatory heart-related test,” adding “A fatal heart attack from very advanced coronary artery disease could occur 10 minutes after the normal ECG was recorded.”

    Read more here…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 17:00

  • Climate Alarmists Panic That Twitter Under Musk Allows More Dissenting Views On Global Warming
    Climate Alarmists Panic That Twitter Under Musk Allows More Dissenting Views On Global Warming

    Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

    An organization that says it is a coalition of “climate and anti-disinformation organisations” says Twitter under CEO Elon Musk is allowing more dissenting views on climate change.

    Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), released a Jan. 19 study (pdf), accusing Musk of allowing misinformation about the climate crisis to spread on the social media platform.

    The study accused Twitter of boosting the hashtag “#ClimateScam” to users when searching the word “climate,” as its top search result.

    The hashtag has suddenly spiked on Twitter search results since July 2022, with its appearance increasing ever since, according to CAAD.

    The report said that “in 2022, denialist content made a stark comeback on Twitter in particular.”

    Twitter Search

    CAAD alleged that at least 91,000 Twitter users reported the #ClimateScam hashtag more than 362,000 times by December.

    “The source of its virality is entirely unclear, and re-emphasises the need for transparency on how and why platforms surface content to users,” said the study’s authors.

    They said that term appeared to be trending despite “data that shows more activity and engagement on other hashtags such as #ClimateCrisis and #ClimateEmergency.”

    The research team claimed that the rise of the term in search results could not be explained by user personalization, the volume of content, or popularity.

    “A basic search for ‘climate’ on Facebook did not autofill with overtly sceptic or denialist terms; searching explicitly for #ClimateScam only showed 1.5k users mentioning the term, versus 72k for #ClimateEmergency and 160k for #ClimateCrisis.”

    CAAD complained that the source of the #ClimateScam hashtag was unclear and that there was a need for transparency on how the search result came up.

    “Equally, TikTok returned no search results for #ClimateScam, but instead suggested the phrase ‘may be associated with behaviour or content that violates our guidelines.’”

    Interest Groups

    The authors said that not enough of the content was labeled as misinformation by Twitter’s new management and claimed that it could not find a comparable trend or uptick in “#ClimateScam” on other platforms.

    CAAD is partially funded by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank, which is heavily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    The ISD said it is working with social media platforms to explore radicalization online, to minimize the impact of extremist recruitment by groups in Europe and North America.

    Since buying Twitter in October, Elon Musk has reduced the social media team’s staff by 50 percent and cut down its content moderation team to protect freedom of expression.

    Musk has been a critic of Twitter’s past relationship with federal authorities and the intelligence services, and has released several batches of the so-called “Twitter Files” since late last year.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 16:30

  • Peru Closes Famed Machu Picchu Ruins, Tourists Trapped, As Anti-Govt Unrest Spreads
    Peru Closes Famed Machu Picchu Ruins, Tourists Trapped, As Anti-Govt Unrest Spreads

    Protests in Peru are growing more violent and engulfing much of the country beyond the region of the south, where they first started and were concentrated last month following the impeachment and imprisonment of then-President Pedro Castillo.

    Castillo, still detained on charges of seeking to lead a rebellion after trying to dissolve Congress, was replaced by now President Boluarte, who had served as vice president until being sworn in under emergency conditions on Dec.7.

    Via Reuters: A historic building on fire during the ‘Take over Lima’ march.

    Demonstrators are seeking Boluarte’s ouster and for new elections to be held immediately. Things have escalated over the weekend with the closure of tourist sites, most notably the famed ancient ruins of Machu Picchu.

    The Culture Ministry said the closure of the site was necessary in order “to protect the safety of tourists and the population in general” as more and more protesters flood the area from the countryside.

    Government officials said that 417 visitors were stuck at Machu Picchu amid riots, with 300 of them being foreigners. Fox News described that they had to be evacuated after the closest city which serves as a base for visitors touring the site was plunged into an emergency situation amid protester clashes with police:

    The city of Cusco, the former capital of the Incan empire and an about a 70-mile train ride from the town of Machu Picchu has been the site of some of the most intense clashes since the South American nation first became engulfed in unrest after then-President Pedro Castillo, Peru’s first leader with a rural Andean background was impeached and imprisoned for trying to dissolve Congress last month. 

    Train service to and from the town of Machu Picchu, at the base of the hill where the ancient Inca citadel with the same name sits, had been closed since Thursday due to damage to the tracks leading back to Cusco. Hundreds of tourists reportedly lined up to sign a petition to be evacuated in a “humanitarian train.” 

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    Six weeks of unrest and massive protest clashes with police have resulted in 60 dead, and some 600 injured.

    Below is the scene from days ago, which has been something seen daily for weeks:

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    Intervention by security forces continued Saturday with a police raid on San Marcos University in Lima. It ranks as the oldest university in the Americas.

    The Guardian described the chaotic scene as follows: 

    Scores of police raided a Lima university on Saturday, smashing down the gates with an armored vehicle, firing teargas and detaining more than 200 people who had come to the Peruvian capital to take part in anti-government protests.

    Images showed dozens of people lying face down on the ground at San Marcos University after the surprise police operation. Students said they were pushed, kicked and hit with truncheons as they were forced out of their dormitories.

    Police could be seen ramming the gate to the historic university with a tank…

    Workers across various sectors have initiated nationwide strikes, leading in many places public transport and other services to come to a standstill. 

    Protesters have also charged that United States is seeking to prop up a ‘right-wing coup regime’ as opposed to Peru’s first leader with a rural Andean background, Castillo.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 16:00

  • Election Integrity Watchdog Finds California Lost 10.9 Million Mail-In Ballots in 2022 Midterms
    Election Integrity Watchdog Finds California Lost 10.9 Million Mail-In Ballots in 2022 Midterms

    Authored by Rita Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    An election integrity group said 10.9 million out of a total 22.1 million ballots that had been mailed out to registered voters during the 2022 midterm elections went “unaccounted for,” according to a Jan. 18 report.

    “Mail voting practices have an insurmountable information gap,” the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) said on Monday. “The public cannot know how many ballots were disregarded, delivered to wrong mailboxes, or even withheld from the proper recipient by someone at the same address.”

    People count California recall ballot votes at a Los Angeles Registrar site at the Los Angeles Fair Grounds in Pomona, Calif., on Aug. 31, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The watchdog released the two-page report (pdf) detailing what it called “the failures” of California’s first mass-mail balloting election following the passage of Assembly Bill 37 (AB 37), which requires that ballots automatically be mailed to all active registered voters statewide. The bill, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2021, makes vote-by-mail ballots, a practice implemented in the 2020 general election in conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic, permanent for all elections.

    California has more registered voters than any other state. Yet its vote-by-mail policies—among the nation’s most expansive—have resulted in large numbers of ballots “disappearing at poll closing time,” PILF’s data show.

    “After accounting for polling place votes and rejected ballots in November 2022, there were more than 10 million ballots left outstanding, meaning election officials do not know what happened to them,” reads the Wednesday report.

    “It is fair to assume that the bulk of these were ignored or ultimately thrown out by the intended recipients. But, under mass-mail elections, we can only assume what happened,” it continued.

    Besides the almost half unaccounted-for mail ballots, data show that 9.8 million were accepted, over 120,000 were rejected, and 1.4 million were counted from in-person voting centers.

    The Golden State, which has been a Democratic stronghold for over two decades, mailed out more than 22.1 million ballots to its registered voters—nearly 47 percent Democrats and 24 percent Republicans—during the 2022 elections. A GOP victory in California on Nov. 16 granted the party slim control of the U.S. House.

    Mail-In Ballot Rejects

    PILF, after finding that election officials in California had rejected 226,250 mail-in ballots during the 2022 primary and general elections, argued that the switch to mail balloting has taken away voters’ rights.

    According to the report, the state would reject mail ballots primarily for nine reasons, including mismatched or missing signatures, and double voting when a registrant casts a vote both in-person and by-mail, which took place 813 times in the past midterms.

    The most common reason, which researchers said is “endemic to mail voting,” turned out to be late-arriving ballots—taking up 48 percent of all rejects during the 2022 elections, finding show.

    Every registered voter in California should receive a ballot in the mail a month prior to Election Day. All ballots returned by mail must be postmarked by Nov. 8 to be counted, and received within seven days by county election officials, who would then verify the signatures on the return envelopes and process ballots through their vote tallying system.

    “In the November contests, more than 57,000 ballots arrived after November 15, setting them up for rejection,” PILF stated.

    “The official datasets do not differentiate between ballots postmarked too late or delivered too late. The U.S. Postal Service also touts its 2022 performance by claiming that 99 percent of mail ballots were delivered nationally within 3 days to officials for counting once in their custody,” the repost reads, noting that the Post Office sets the success rate at 94 percent for timely delivery of political mail.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 15:30

  • Nancy Pelosi Had Literal Exorcism Performed On House After Husband's Attack
    Nancy Pelosi Had Literal Exorcism Performed On House After Husband’s Attack

    Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called in a priest to perform an exorcism at the San Francisco home where her husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by 42-year-old David DePape on November 4th, according to Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra.

    “I think that weighed really heavy on her soul. I think she felt really guilty. I think that really broke her. Over Thanksgiving, she had priests coming, trying to have an exorcism of the house and having prayer services,” she told the NY Times.

    While the official details surrounding the incident have changed several times, the last update came in a now-retracted November report by veteran NBC News correspondent Miguel Almaguer (who’s been benched since said report). According to Almaguer, Paul Pelosi opened the door to their San Francisco home last month when police arrived. However, he did not try to escape or alert police to an emergency, and he instead walked to the police and back toward the alleged attacker, David DePape.

    “After a ‘knock and announce,’ the front door was opened by Mr. Pelosi. The 82-year-old did not immediately declare an emergency or tried to leave his home but instead began walking several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police,” Almaguer said in the now-deleted Nov. 4 video report. Almaguer cited unnamed sources for the claims.

    Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, told the Times that having her home turn into a “crime scene” was unimaginable, Just the News reports.

    “He’s a strong person, athletic. This has been tough. It’s going to be about three or four more months before he’s really back to normal,” she said of her husband, while telling CNN: “I feel very sad about it because of what happened, but also more sad because the person was searching for me. … My dear husband, who is not even that political actually, paid the price.”

    Was the exorcist for the house, or for Paul?

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 15:00

  • California Mass Shooter Fatally Shoots Himself
    California Mass Shooter Fatally Shoots Himself

    Update (2130ET): As speculated earlier, late on Sunday authorities confirmed that the gunman suspected of killing 10 people late Saturday in Monterey Park, Calif., fatally shot himself Sunday after police officers tried to pull over a vehicle he was driving in the city of Torrance about 30 miles away, authorities said.

    As the WSJ reports, LA County Sheriff Robert Luna identified the suspected gunman as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran. Sheriff Luna said investigators were still working to determine a possible motive for the shooting, which also sent 10 people to area hospitals with injuries.

    “The suspect responsible for this tragedy is no longer a threat,” the sheriff said in a news conference.

    After the mass shooting in Monterey Park, an armed man entered a dance hall in nearby Alhambra, authorities said. Several people wrestled the gun from the man, who then fled in what witnesses said was a white cargo van.

    Sheriff Luna said that Torrance officers pulled over a van matching a description of the vehicle Sunday morning, and the driver proceeded to fire a single gunshot as they approached, taking his own life. Police subsequently found evidence inside the vehicle tying him to both locations, as well as a firearm, Sheriff Luna said.

    Sheriff Luna said police also recovered what he described as a magazine-fed, semiautomatic assault pistol at the Alhambra scene. He said it had an extended, large-capacity magazine attached to it.

    “Although that closes a portion of a very long day for all of us, the investigation is still ongoing,” he said. “Sheriff’s homicide detectives are working around the clock, gathering additional information and working on determining the motive behind this extremely tragic event.”

    * * *

    Update (1454ET): FOX 11 Los Angeles’ Gigi Graciette reports “possible suspect” might have been located. It appears he might have “shot himself” in a van. 

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    *   *   * 

    Update (1432ET):

    Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna tweeted several images of the suspect.

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    *   *   * 

    Update (1240ET):

    Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna described the suspect as an Asian male between the ages of 30 and 50. 

    “Our very preliminary description has been described as a male Asian,” Luna said

    “We don’t know if this is specifically a hate crime defined by law, but who walks into a dance hall and guns down 20 people? The description we have now is of a male Asian. Does that matter? I don’t know. I can tell you everything is on the table,” he continued. 

    Luna added that police are “utilizing every resource to apprehend this suspect and what we believe to be one of the county’s most heinous cases.” 

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    The suspect remains at large. 

    *   *   * 

    Ten people were killed and at least ten others injured when a gunman opened fire at a dance club following a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California. 

    “Officers from the Monterey Park Police Department responded to a local business in the 100 block of West Garvey Avenue in the city of Monterey Park regarding shots fired call,” Capt. Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told reporters. He said the mass shooting happened at 2222 local time. 

    The address of the incident area Meyer provided shows a small strip mall that includes “Star Dance Studio.” 

    “When officers arrived on scene, they observed numerous individuals, patrons of the location pouring out of the location, screaming,” he said. “The officers made entry to the location and located additional victims.”

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    Meyer confirmed ten people died in the shooting. Ten others, he said, “were transported to numerous local hospitals and are listed in various conditions from stable to critical.”

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    Unconfirmed footage from within the dance club surfaced on social media after the attack. 

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    The suspect’s motive remains unclear. Meyer did not describe the suspect at the news conference. “All I can tell you is that it was a firearm that was used,” he said. A manhunt is underway. 

    The New Yorker’s Michael Lou pointed out Monterey Park has a “majority Asian American population”: 

    “Monterey Park, a city of 61,000 in the San Gabriel Valley, has a majority Asian American population. Located east of Los Angeles, the suburb is 65% Asian American, 27% Latino, and 6% white, according to census data,” he tweeted.

    The shooting happened in the vicinity of Monterey Park’s Lunar New Year celebration and attracted thousands.   

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 14:32

  • The Past Is A Great Darkness, And Filled With Eccles
    The Past Is A Great Darkness, And Filled With Eccles

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    The Past is a Great Darkness, and Filled with Eccles

    In this report, I will try to find a way to highlight the sense that the Fed is not only battling difficult tointerpret economic data, but they are also battling “demons and echoes” of the past.

    • The majority of the people in leadership positions at the Fed (including the Chair) were in those leadership roles when they seemed to miss the fact that inflation wasn’t “transitory”. Not only did they miss it, but they seemed to add fuel to the fire by continuing QE (albeit at a reduced scale) into early 2022. Disciplined traders use stop losses for a reason and the knowledge that getting something wrong tends to lead to poor decisions going forward is an integral part of even the simplest day trader’s strategy. However, it is odd that it would happen at the national central bank policy level.
    • The Fed also seems to be worrying about historical precedent. The mistakes their predecessors made in their battles against inflation are haunting their thought process. Long gone are the days of the “Greenspan Put”. The Fed is fixated on Volcker and Burns and what they did right or wrong in their respective fights against inflation (however, those were very different times compared to today).

    I wasn’t hopeful that I’d find a relevant quote that captured what I was looking to portray, but then I found this gem from Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”:

    “As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes”.

    That statement captures the essence of what the Fed is dealing with and encapsulates the “darkness and echoes” of past mistakes.

    Today’s report is a natural progression of last weekend’s For the Record.

    Where Would we be Without the “Demons” or “Echoes”?

    At this point, that seems obvious – we’d be ending the hiking talk.

    Much of this week’s data was skewed to the negative. The “positive” news included rising inventories. However, this is not actually a positive because inventories are already too large and consumer spending seems to be waning!

    Without these demons or echoes, the Fed would be focused on whether or not they had done too much. They would also be highlighting the dramatic improvements in the fight against inflation and talking about how ridiculous the rent component is relative to reality. The bond market wouldn’t be fighting the Fed’s rhetoric or anticipating rate cuts later this year because the Fed would be much less hawkish.

    There would be a “wait and see” element to every single Fed statement. They would be admonishing those screaming that inflation hasn’t been fully beaten down because they know that monetary policy takes time.

    Governor Brainard recently said something that the T-Report wholeheartedly agrees with! She said that there was little evidence of a 1970s style wage-price spiral. We agree because the “Rise and Fall of Inflation Factors” piece explains inflation’s rise, fall, and the coming deflation much better than “traditional” models do.

    If it wasn’t for those past demons, the people meeting in the Eccles building “might” be able to steer us towards a “softish” or “squishy” landing.

    But the “Demons” are Real

    The Fed can look to the distant past as a guide and can maybe even glean some useful information about the mistakes that were made. However, the recent “mistakes” (I can’t really think of anything else to call it) are more difficult to ignore. Speech after speech, the overall message was that inflation was transitory/under control/easy to deal with and that we still needed accommodation because liquidity concerns remained. How do you ignore all of that when trying to move forward?

    On the bright side, in the grand scheme of things, missing inflation was a minor mistake compared to asserting that the sub-prime crisis was contained (though Bernanke did go on to win a Nobel prize for fixing a mistake that he was part of creating/missing, so maybe it wasn’t really a mistake).

    Traders use stop losses for a reason. It is human nature to compound mistakes. Once a mistake has been made (such as buying a stock at $100 and watching it drop to $90) it tends to cloud your judgement. Hence, even the most rudimentary risk management systems use some form of stop loss. Effectively, this means that “you got it wrong so we are going to close the position and give you time to think about it”. Maybe that is important for the average day trader (let alone hedge fund), but not for those setting monetary policy (arguably) for the free world. Any corporation that missed one of their two targets by miles would have shaken up their decision making process, but again, maybe this isn’t applicable on the monetary policy side. The recent “big changes” seemed more related to personal trading than anything having to do with prior monetary policy decisions, but I guess that it makes sense because there is virtually never any dissent on policy making decisions.

    In any case, given all the demons that this Fed is dealing with, they will likely be fighting the inflation demons long after they’ve been exorcised. While the bond market can (and should) fight it, it will be more difficult on the risk asset side because policy errors will hurt the economy and ultimately corporate earnings and stock prices.

    Have they Already Done Too Much?

    Even if the Fed behaves as they should without the demons, have they already set too much future pain in motion? Did their demons get the better of them in meetings late last year? Should they have dialed back their tough talk and started the “wait and see” process?

    I suspect that the answer to that will be yes, but only time will tell. Hopefully the data in the coming weeks will provide some clarity so we can determine if my pessimism has been justified because I believe that the path to a deeper and longer recession has already been paved.

    A Special Shout-out to Waller

    Governor Waller said something that makes some sense, but may also prove to be bearish for risk assets. He is onboard with a 25 bps rate increase in February and seemed to indicate that he was leaning towards the “wait and see” camp. He also said that not only would he keep QT, he would encourage QT even if we needed to do rate cuts.

    I think that makes sense. What made less sense (to me) is that he tried to equate some amount of QT to some amount of rate hikes.

    I don’t think shifting Fed funds up and down behaves anything like growing or shrinking the balance sheet (Rates vs Balance Sheet). I like salt and pepper, but they don’t serve the same purpose and so far, I haven’t had a doctor tell me to monitor my pepper intake! Both salt and pepper shift the taste of food, but they are not the same at all. I think QE and QT act more directly (and in a much timelier manner) on asset prices than rate changes do.

    One Caveat is that Political Winds are Changing

    One thing to keep in mind is the report that we did a week or so ago on The Shifting “Politics” of Inflation. In that report we identified a shift in political and media talking points and predicted that it could pave the way for a series of Fed speakers to come out and downplay the inflation risk.

    Bottom Line

    The Fed might capitulate to the “wait and see” argument, but they are likely to still err on the side of being too hawkish.

    The Fed should have gone to “wait and see” mode months ago, but they are likely being haunted and already went too far.

    Even after they realize that they’ve gone too far, rate cuts are a long way off and they will continue to run with QT (which will weigh on asset prices).

    Equities.

    • I am mildly bearish because the need to respect the “soft landing” is a narrative that is gaining momentum. Fortunately, as a mild bear, I don’t think that positioning is heavily bearish and I’m in the camp that believes the market is more or less balanced.

    Credit.

    • If you are an issuer, issue bonds now. Treasury yields, especially out on the curve, are reasonably low as are spreads. The all-in combination seems attractive as I see scenarios where all in credit yields struggle regardless of the direction that the economy heads. I believe that spreads will blow out fast as Treasury yields go lower in a “recession” trade and Treasury yields will go higher faster than spreads can tighten in a “soft landing” scenario. Also, investors had “dry powder” for what was expected to be a huge new issue calendar at the start of 2023. That hasn’t materialized, so take advantage of the overall yield environment AND the dry powder.
    • For asset managers, resist the urge to put the dry powder to work!

    Maybe it’s because I’m on a flight, or I’ve been focused on the Fed, or I just hate the subject so much, but I have avoided discussing the Debt Ceiling today (or I did until now).

    Debt Ceiling 2023 is starting to look, feel, and even smell different than prior debt ceiling deadlines. I think that because it is far enough off (as a market moving issue) I don’t need to address it today, but I will have to remedy that soon, as it is pinging all over my radar since the vote for Speaker turned out so “interesting”.

    Good luck preparing for the data, the Fed, and the narratives and my sympathies go out to all of us as the debt ceiling seems destined to become a household conversation!

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/22/2023 – 14:30

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