Mar 23

Today’s News 23rd March 2022

  • US & NATO See Signs Belarus To "Soon" Join War In Ukraine
    US & NATO See Signs Belarus To “Soon” Join War In Ukraine

    Speculation over just how deeply involved Lukashenko’s Belarus is in Russia’s military operations in Ukraine has been a constant since the war kicked off just under a month ago. After Russia amassed tens of thousands of troops within Belarussian territory for what was dubbed “training exercises” – those same units invaded Ukraine, clearly with the pre-authorization of Lukashenko.

    And now CNN reports, based on US and NATO defense officials, that Belarus is expected to “soon” join the war in a formal capacity, sending tanks and troops to assist the Russians, who by many accounts are loosing more troops and equipment than expected at this stage.

    Russian & Belarusian soldiers during a prior joint exercises near Brest, Belarus. Belarus ministry of defense/AFP/Getty Images

    The report says there are indicators that Belarus is building up forces in preparation for entering Ukraine, which follows Minsk last month attracting the condemnation of the West after it invited Russia to place nuclear weapons on its territory.

    According to some of the unnamed defense officials cited by CNN:

    It is increasingly “likely” that Belarus will enter the conflict, a NATO military official said on Monday. 

    “Putin needs support. Anything would help,” the official explained. 

    …A senior NATO intelligence official said separately the alliance assesses that the Belarusian government “is preparing the environment to justify a Belarusian offensive against Ukraine.”

    The reference to “preparing the environment” seems to echo prior Biden administration allegations of ‘false flag’ preparations, including involving chemical weapons, which have been a constant charge since even before the Feb.24 invasion.

    Further, CNN cited “A Belarusian opposition source said that Belarusian combat units are ready to go into Ukraine as soon as the next few days, with thousands of forces prepared to deploy. In this source’s view, this will have less of an impact militarily than it will geopolitically, given the implications of another country joining the war.”

    One official was quoted as saying, “Involvement would destabilize Belarus” – but that it’s ultimately what Putin wants, and in view of the ‘Union State’ principles between Moscow and Minsk. 

    This comes as Russian troop deaths thus far may be as much as 10,000 – according to a now deleted Russian media story.

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    Forbes details, “A Russian tabloid newspaper published and subsequently deleted a report claiming nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers had died since the country first invaded Ukraine last month—a far greater number than the 498 deaths acknowledged by the Russian Ministry of Defense almost three weeks ago, and one that more closely aligns with third-party estimates, as Russia remains tight-lipped about its military losses in Ukraine.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/23/2022 – 02:45

  • Ukraine Crisis Accelerating Rise Of Central Bank Digital Currencies
    Ukraine Crisis Accelerating Rise Of Central Bank Digital Currencies

    Authored by Kit Knightly,

    A joint project between the Central Bank of Canada and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be researching the possibility of an entirely digital Canadian dollar, it was announced last week.

    The digital dollar would be a state-issued cryptocurrency, or “central bank digital currency” (CBDC). (For more detail on CBDCs and how they work, you can read our previous article here.)

    It’s not just Canada – countries from all around the world appear to be accelerating the research and implementation of CBDCs as we enter the second quarter of 2022.

    In our New Years post, OffG hypothesized that the introduction of central bank digital currencies would be a major news thread of 2022, and that prediction looks to be coming true before winter has even turned into spring.

    CBDC pilot schemes were already active in the Bahamas and Nigeria before the end of 2021, and Jamaica is rolling out their own later this year after a pilot scheme last year.

    Dozens of others are not far behind, including the US, UK and the entire Eurozone. Sweden’s “e-Krona” is currently in the testing phase. Joe Biden has called research into CBDCs a matter of “highest urgency”.

    Ukraine is right at the forefront of CBDC research and has been prepping for such since 2016. There were plans to implement one later this year, though it’s possible the war has changed them.

    The Russian central bank was developing a “digital ruble” before the invasion of Ukraine, and it is now being suggested as a way to circumvent Western sanctions.

    China was already leading the race to total digitalization of their currency, and have used the “vulnerability to Western sanctions” as an excuse to push ahead even harder.

    India, South Africa, Malaysia…the list goes on and on.

    In short, pretty much the whole world has been at least considering the move to entirely digital money.

    Why should this concern you?

    Well, because a digital currency would mean every single transaction you make can be monitored and recorded by the state, as well as your bank.

    The implications for the right to privacy are obvious, but privacy is the least of it.

    Much of the research being done on CBDCs concerns making them programmable.

    Meaning either the state issuing the money, or the company paying it as wages, could put controls on how or where it is spent.

    To quote a Telegraph article from last Autumn:

    Digital cash could be programmed to ensure it is only spent on essentials, or goods which an employer or Government deems to be sensible.

    As I wrote in October last year:

    Governments and employers making sure the money they issue can only be used on “sensible” things, and not be used in “socially harmful” ways? It doesn’t take much imagination to see just how this system could evolve and re-shape society into a truly dystopian nightmare.

    …and that was before.

    It “wasn’t hard to imagine” then, now we don’t need to imagine. They have shown us exactly how they would use that power.

    Just a month ago, the government of Canada was tracking down Freedom Convoy protesters – and even those who just donated money to the protests – and ordering banks to freeze their assets.

    Consider how much easier an entirely digital currency would make that process.

    Not only would it be easier to seize people’s assets, but you could stop people donating to the “wrong” causes in the first place by changing the “programming” of your digital money.

    Reader funded alternate news sites – very much including OffG – could find themselves branded “harmful misinformation”, and placed on the “funding blacklist”.

    People who refused the vaccines, or don’t publicly denounce Russia (or any passing enemy of the moment), could have sanctions placed on their bank accounts.

    Western governments are currently declaring financial war on dozens of private citizens who have not been charged – let alone convicted – of any crime, just because of their nationality. It’s being done under the guise of “punishing dirty Russians”, but what can be done to an oligarch can be done to anyone.

    Essentially, anyone who doesn’t support current thing would be living under the threat of financial ruin.

    The possibilities are as endless as they are terrible. Central Bank Digital Currencies are a death knell for the very idea of individual freedom.

    It’s almost impossible to overstate the important of this.

    As I said in my recent interview on Perspectives with Jesse Zurawell, if you’re only concerned about one thing this year, it should be this.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/23/2022 – 02:00

  • The Future Is Here: Dystopian Movies Fit For A Dystopian World
    The Future Is Here: Dystopian Movies Fit For A Dystopian World

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “The Internet is watching us now. If they want to. They can see what sites you visit. In the future, television will be watching us, and customizing itself to what it knows about us. The thrilling thing is, that will make us feel we’re part of the medium. The scary thing is, we’ll lose our right to privacy. An ad will appear in the air around us, talking directly to us.”

    – Director Steven Spielberg, Minority Report

    We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by such science fiction writers as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.

    Much like Orwell’s Big Brother in 1984, the government and its corporate spies now watch our every move.

    Much like Huxley’s A Brave New World, we are churning out a society of watchers who “have their liberties taken away from them, but … rather enjoy it, because they [are] distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing.”

    Much like Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the populace is now taught to “know their place and their duties, to understand that they have no real rights but will be protected up to a point if they conform, and to think so poorly of themselves that they will accept their assigned fate and not rebel or run away.”

    And in keeping with Philip K. Dick’s darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state—which became the basis for Steven Spielberg’s futuristic thriller Minority Report which was released 20 years ago—we are now trapped into a world in which the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few skulls to bring the populace under control.

    Minority Report is set in the year 2054, but it could just as well have taken place in 2022.

    Seemingly taking its cue from science fiction, technology has moved so fast in the short time since Minority Report premiered in 2002 that what once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.

    Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike—facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on—are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, Spielberg’s unnerving vision of the future is fast becoming our reality.

    Both worlds—our present-day reality and Spielberg’s celluloid vision of the future—are characterized by widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, fusion centers, driverless cars, voice-controlled homes, facial recognition systems, cybugs and drones, and predictive policing (pre-crime) aimed at capturing would-be criminals before they can do any damage.

    Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness—a philosophy that discourages diversity—has become a guiding principle of modern society.

    The courts have shredded the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary America.

    We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state. Much of the population is either hooked on illegal drugs or ones prescribed by doctors. And bodily privacy and integrity has been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

    All of this has come about with little more than a whimper from an oblivious American populace largely comprised of nonreaders and television and internet zombies, but we have been warned about such an ominous future in novels and movies for years.

    The following 15 films may be the best representation of what we now face as a society.

    Fahrenheit 451 (1966). Adapted from Ray Bradbury’s novel and directed by Francois Truffaut, this film depicts a futuristic society in which books are banned, and firemen ironically are called on to burn contraband books—451 Fahrenheit being the temperature at which books burn. Montag is a fireman who develops a conscience and begins to question his book burning. This film is an adept metaphor for our obsessively politically correct society where virtually everyone now pre-censors speech. Here, a brainwashed people addicted to television and drugs do little to resist governmental oppressors.

    2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The plot of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, as based on an Arthur C. Clarke short story, revolves around a space voyage to Jupiter. The astronauts soon learn, however, that the fully automated ship is orchestrated by a computer system—known as HAL 9000—which has become an autonomous thinking being that will even murder to retain control. The idea is that at some point in human evolution, technology in the form of artificial intelligence will become autonomous and human beings will become mere appendages of technology. In fact, at present, we are seeing this development with massive databases generated and controlled by the government that are administered by such secretive agencies as the National Security Agency and sweep all websites and other information devices collecting information on average citizens. We are being watched from cradle to grave.

    Planet of the Apes (1968). Based on Pierre Boulle’s novel, astronauts crash on a planet where apes are the masters and humans are treated as brutes and slaves. While fleeing from gorillas on horseback, astronaut Taylor is shot in the throat, captured and housed in a cage. From there, Taylor begins a journey wherein the truth revealed is that the planet was once controlled by technologically advanced humans who destroyed civilization. Taylor’s trek to the ominous Forbidden Zone reveals the startling fact that he was on planet earth all along. Descending into a fit of rage at what he sees in the final scene, Taylor screams: “We finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you.” The lesson is obvious, but will we listen? The script, although rewritten, was initially drafted by Rod Serling and retains Serling’s Twilight Zone-ish ending.

    THX 1138 (1970). George Lucas’ directorial debut, this is a somber view of a dehumanized society totally controlled by a police state. The people are force-fed drugs to keep them passive, and they no longer have names but only letter/number combinations such as THX 1138. Any citizen who steps out of line is quickly brought into compliance by robotic police equipped with “pain prods”—electro-shock batons. Sound like tasers?

    A Clockwork Orange (1971). Director Stanley Kubrick presents a future ruled by sadistic punk gangs and a chaotic government that cracks down on its citizens sporadically. Alex is a violent punk who finds himself in the grinding, crushing wheels of injustice. This film may accurately portray the future of western society that grinds to a halt as oil supplies diminish, environmental crises increase, chaos rules, and the only thing left is brute force.

    Soylent Green (1973). Set in a futuristic overpopulated New York City, the people depend on synthetic foods manufactured by the Soylent Corporation. A policeman investigating a murder discovers the grisly truth about what soylent green is really made of. The theme is chaos where the world is ruled by ruthless corporations whose only goal is greed and profit. Sound familiar?

    Blade Runner (1982). In a 21st century Los Angeles, a world-weary cop tracks down a handful of renegade “replicants” (synthetically produced human slaves). Life is now dominated by mega-corporations, and people sleepwalk along rain-drenched streets. This is a world where human life is cheap, and where anyone can be exterminated at will by the police (or blade runners). Based upon a Philip K. Dick novel, this exquisite Ridley Scott film questions what it means to be human in an inhuman world.

    Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). The best adaptation of Orwell’s dark tale, this film visualizes the total loss of freedom in a world dominated by technology and its misuse, and the crushing inhumanity of an omniscient state. The government controls the masses by controlling their thoughts, altering history and changing the meaning of words. Winston Smith is a doubter who turns to self-expression through his diary and then begins questioning the ways and methods of Big Brother before being re-educated in a most brutal fashion.

    Brazil (1985). Sharing a similar vision of the near future as 1984 and Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, this is arguably director Terry Gilliam’s best work, one replete with a merging of the fantastic and stark reality. Here, a mother-dominated, hapless clerk takes refuge in flights of fantasy to escape the ordinary drabness of life. Caught within the chaotic tentacles of a police state, the longing for more innocent, free times lies behind the vicious surface of this film.

    They Live (1988). John Carpenter’s bizarre sci-fi social satire action film assumes the future has already arrived. John Nada is a homeless person who stumbles across a resistance movement and finds a pair of sunglasses that enables him to see the real world around him. What he discovers is a world controlled by ominous beings who bombard the citizens with subliminal messages such as “obey” and “conform.” Carpenter manages to make an effective political point about the underclass—that is, everyone except those in power. The point: we, the prisoners of our devices, are too busy sucking up the entertainment trivia beamed into our brains and attacking each other up to start an effective resistance movement.

    The Matrix (1999). The story centers on a computer programmer Thomas A. Anderson, secretly a hacker known by the alias “Neo,” who begins a relentless quest to learn the meaning of “The Matrix”—cryptic references that appear on his computer. Neo’s search leads him to Morpheus who reveals the truth that the present reality is not what it seems and that Anderson is actually living in the future—2199. Humanity is at war against technology which has taken the form of intelligent beings, and Neo is actually living in The Matrix, an illusionary world that appears to be set in the present in order to keep the humans docile and under control. Neo soon joins Morpheus and his cohorts in a rebellion against the machines that use SWAT team tactics to keep things under control.

    Minority Report (2002). Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick and directed by Steven Spielberg, the film offers a special effect-laden, techno-vision of a futuristic world in which the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. And if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams will bring you under control. The setting is 2054 where PreCrime, a specialized police unit, apprehends criminals before they can commit the crime. Captain Anderton is the chief of the Washington, DC, PreCrime force which uses future visions generated by “pre-cogs” (mutated humans with precognitive abilities) to stop murders. Soon Anderton becomes the focus of an investigation when the precogs predict he will commit a murder. But the system can be manipulated. This film raises the issue of the danger of technology operating autonomously—which will happen eventually if it has not already occurred. To a hammer, all the world looks like a nail. In the same way, to a police state computer, we all look like suspects. In fact, before long, we all may be mere extensions or appendages of the police state—all suspects in a world commandeered by machines.

    V for Vendetta (2006). This film depicts a society ruled by a corrupt and totalitarian government where everything is run by an abusive secret police. A vigilante named V dons a mask and leads a rebellion against the state. The subtext here is that authoritarian regimes through repression create their own enemies—that is, terrorists—forcing government agents and terrorists into a recurring cycle of violence. And who is caught in the middle? The citizens, of course. This film has a cult following among various underground political groups such as Anonymous, whose members wear the same Guy Fawkes mask as that worn by V.

    Children of Men (2006). This film portrays a futuristic world without hope since humankind has lost its ability to procreate. Civilization has descended into chaos and is held together by a military state and a government that attempts to keep its totalitarian stronghold on the population. Most governments have collapsed, leaving Great Britain as one of the few remaining intact societies. As a result, millions of refugees seek asylum only to be rounded up and detained by the police. Suicide is a viable option as a suicide kit called Quietus is promoted on billboards and on television and newspapers. But hope for a new day comes when a woman becomes inexplicably pregnant.

    Land of the Blind (2006). In this dark political satire, tyrannical rulers are overthrown by new leaders who prove to be just as evil as their predecessors. Maximilian II is a demented fascist ruler of a troubled land named Everycountry who has two main interests: tormenting his underlings and running his country’s movie industry. Citizens who are perceived as questioning the state are sent to “re-education camps” where the state’s concept of reality is drummed into their heads. Joe, a prison guard, is emotionally moved by the prisoner and renowned author Thorne and eventually joins a coup to remove the sadistic Maximilian, replacing him with Thorne. But soon Joe finds himself the target of the new government.

    All of these films—and the writers who inspired them—understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan, flag-waving, zombified states, are still struggling to come to terms with: that there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people. Even the best intentions among those in government inevitably give way to the desire to maintain power and control at all costs.

    Eventually, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, even the sleepwalking masses (who remain convinced that all of the bad things happening in the police state—the police shootings, the police beatings, the raids, the roadside strip searches—are happening to other people) will have to wake up.

    Sooner or later, the things happening to other people will start happening to us.

    When that painful reality sinks in, it will hit with the force of a SWAT team crashing through your door, a taser being aimed at your stomach, and a gun pointed at your head. And there will be no channel to change, no reality to alter, and no manufactured farce to hide behind.

    As George Orwell warned, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/23/2022 – 00:05

  • Visualizing The Number Of Nuclear Warheads By Country Since 1945
    Visualizing The Number Of Nuclear Warheads By Country Since 1945

    Despite significant progress in reducing nuclear weapon arsenals since the Cold War, the world’s combined inventory of warheads remains at an uncomfortably high level.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Anshool Deshmukh details below, towards the late 1980s, the world reached its peak of stockpiled warheads, numbering over 64,000. In modern times, nine countries – the U.S., Russia, France, China, the UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea—are estimated to possess roughly 12,700 nuclear warheads.

    The animated chart above by Visual Capitalist creator James Eagle shows the military stockpile of nuclear warheads that each country has possessed since 1945.

    Nuclear Warheads Currently in Possession by Countries

    The signing of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) brought about a rapid disarmament of nuclear warheads. Though not immediately successful in stopping nuclear proliferation, it eventually led to countries retiring most of their nuclear arsenals.

    As of 2022, about 12,700 nuclear warheads are still estimated to be in use, of which more than 9,400 are in military stockpiles for use by missiles, aircraft, ships and submarines.

    Here’s a look at the nine nations that currently have nuclear warheads in their arsenal:

    The U.S. and Russia are by far the two countries with the most nuclear warheads in military stockpiles, with each having close to 4,000 in possession.

    Timeline: Key Events in the Nuclear Arms Race

    At the dawn of the nuclear age, the U.S. hoped to maintain a monopoly on nuclear weapons, but the secret technology and methodology for building the atomic bomb soon spread. Only 10 countries have since possessed or deployed any nuclear weapons.

    Here are a few key dates in the timeline of the nuclear arms race from 1945 to 2022:

    August 6 & 9, 1945:

    The U.S. drops two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, decimating the cities and forcing the country’s surrender, ending the Second World War.

    August 29, 1949:

    The Soviet Union tests its first nuclear bomb, code-named First Lightning in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. It becomes the second country to develop and successfully test a nuclear device.

    October 3, 1952:

    The UK conducts its first nuclear test at Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia, and later additional tests at Maralinga and Emu Fields in South Australia.

    February 13, 1960:

    France explodes its first atomic bomb in the Sahara Desert, with a yield of 60–70 kilotons. It moves further nuclear tests to the South Pacific, which continue up until 1996.

    October 16–29, 1962:

    A tense stand-off known as the Cuban Missile Crisis begins when the U.S. discovers Soviet missiles in Cuba. The U.S. intiaties a naval blockade of the island, with the crisis bringing the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war.

    October 16, 1964:

    China becomes the fifth country to test an atomic bomb in 1964, code-named Project 596. The country would conduct an additional 45 atomic bomb tests at the Lop Nor testing site in Sinkiang Province through 1996.

    July 1, 1968:

    The NPT opens for signatures. Under the treaty, non-nuclear-weapon states agree to never acquire nuclear weapons, and nuclear powers must make a legal undertaking to disarm.

    May 18, 1974:

    India conducts an underground nuclear test at Pokhran in the Rajasthan desert, code-named the Smiling Buddha. Since conducting its first nuclear test, India has refused to sign the NPT or any subsequent treaties.

    September 30, 1986:

    Through the information provided by Israeli whistleblower and nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, The Sunday Times publishes a story that leads experts to conclude that Israel may have up to 200 nuclear weapons.

    October 9, 2006:

    After previously signing onto the NPT, North Korea breaks from the treaty and begins testing nuclear weapons in 2006. It has since gathered 20 nuclear warheads, though the actual number and their efficacy are unknown.

    Though the threat of nuclear weapons never left, the latest growing tensions in Ukraine have brought the topic back into focus. Even as work towards disarmament continues, many of the top nuclear states hesitate to fully reduce their arsenals to zero.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 23:45

  • US Ramps Up Patriot Missile Transfers To Saudis As Biden Seeks To Ease Oil Prices
    US Ramps Up Patriot Missile Transfers To Saudis As Biden Seeks To Ease Oil Prices

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The Biden administration has sent a significant number of Patriot missile systems to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to help the kingdom intercept Houthi attacks, a US official told The Associated Press.

    In 2021, the US removed some Patriot and THAAD missile systems from Saudi Arabia as part of its effort to focus its military posture on countering Russia and China. Over the past few months, Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia have increased as the US-backed Saudi-led coalition has escalated its air war in Yemen.

    Patriot missile launcher, via Breaking Defense

    Amid the spike in violence, Saudi Arabia asked the US to provide more Patriot missiles, and the deployment of US Patriot systems comes as the Biden administration is looking to Riyadh to help ease oil prices.

    Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been pushing for the US to support them more in the war in Yemen. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the de facto leaders of the two Gulf states declined calls with President Biden amid the Ukraine crisis as he was looking to contain oil prices.

    Sources told the Journal that Saudi Arabia and the UAE shared concerns about the US’s “restrained” response to Houthi attacks. After the Houthis hit targets in Abu Dhabi back in January, the US started helping the UAE intercept missiles and sent a squadron of F-22s to the Gulf nation.

    But the support wasn’t enough, as the UAE is also pushing for the US to redesignate the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization.”

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    The UN and aid groups have warned that the designation would only increase the suffering of Yemen’s starving civilian population by making it more difficult to deliver aid and import food.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 23:25

  • What 'Vibrancy': NYC Hit By Surprisingly High Jobless Rate As Workers Fail To Return
    What ‘Vibrancy’: NYC Hit By Surprisingly High Jobless Rate As Workers Fail To Return

    The percentage of white-collar workers in New York City office buildings remains abysmal. Workers aren’t returning, and it’s crushing the local economy.

    NYC’s 7.6% unemployment rate is shockingly high compared with the rest of the country (nationwide average of 3.8%) as an economic recovery is slow to materialize, according to Bloomberg. There could be a muted recovery without five-day-a-week commuters because their impact on the local economy is substantial. 

    Keycard swipes tracked by security company Kastle Systems show NYC offices are about 36% occupied, far below pre-COVID levels. Even as companies announced return-to-office dates, many implemented a hybrid work model that allows white-collar workers to work remotely part of the time. Some companies have entirely reduced their corporate footprint and enforced remote working for some employees. 

    According to the latest survey by The Partnership for New York City business group, only 16% of top NYC firms say daily attendance in their Manhattan office was above 50%. The poll showed that about 75% of employers delayed return-to-office plans due to a spike in COVID infections year, and 22% said they don’t have a timeline on when offices will be full again. 

    On Oct. 29, 2020, we noted that NYC’s recovery will be a “long slog” from here as the downturn will last well into 2023 and lag the rest of the nation. It seems we’re right, and the source of a lackluster recovery is directly related to workers that aren’t returning to offices. 

    Mark Vitner, a Wells Fargo senior economist, said the city is “enduring a slower recovery because it is so dependent on the office and entertainment sectors.” 

    “Cities that were quicker to reopen following the initial lockdowns at the start of the pandemic have also tended to see stronger recoveries,” Vitner said. What may have damned the metro area were public officials and their inability to lift health mandates that crippled the local economy, forcing tens of thousands of people, if not more, out of the area and to suburbia or Florida. 

    Newly elected Mayor Eric Adams has argued that remote and hybrid work situations are crushing service-oriented businesses in the city that solely rely on white-collar workers, such as the food and entertainment industry. 

    Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data shows there are 275,000 fewer paychecks in just Manhattan compared to pre-COVID times. Manhattan jobs account for a whopping 57% of the city’s overall economy. 

    “Manhattan is an enormous economic and social driver,” said Andrew Rigie, the New York City Hospitality Alliance executive director.

    Manhattan’s unemployment rate is the lowest among the boroughs. The Bronx has had the slowest employment growth. 

    As firms fled Manhattan during COVID to places like Florida and Texas, the borough’s financial industry has likely seen another peak in jobs. Also, factor in the increasing amount of automation in the financial sector, and the job situation in Manhattan looks even bleaker. 

    NYC leads the way in lackluster employment gains.

    Meanwhile, the Manhattan housing market has been on fire as the number of sales spike and median rents soar. 

    An economic revival in NYC will lag the rest of the country as long as remote work persists. So what happens to all the empty commercial-office buildings? 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 23:05

  • "The Tragedy Is Our System" – Iowa Governor Becomes Voice Of Reason On Gun Control
    “The Tragedy Is Our System” – Iowa Governor Becomes Voice Of Reason On Gun Control

    Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,

    Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has become a rare voice of reason on gun control after a March 7 school shooting in Des Moines.

    Democrat legislators and gun safety advocates immediately started using the tragedy to justify tightening Iowa’s gun control laws in response to the shooting. It is important to note that according to official reporting, the firearms used in the shooting were not accessed legally.

    Amazingly, Gov. Reynolds responded with some common sense, reportedly saying: “I think the tragedy is our system — our educational system — is letting these kids down. They should have been in school. We should be figuring out resources to help them stay there and to help them get an education and a life where they can take care of themselves and their families.”

    This criticism of the education system is the cold hard truth, as much as it’s hard to hear for gun control advocates.

    The anti-gun lobby would have you believe that passing more and more strict gun control laws will somehow decrease gun crime. The issue with this theory is that criminals do not follow laws. So, passing more and more gun control only hurts law-abiding citizens. Cities like Chicago and Baltimore serve as examples of these failed gun control policies, with murder rates that rank them among some of the most violent cities in the world up there with Rio and Caracas.

    Also, with the massive amount of new gun owners throughout 2020 & 2021, there has been a shift in opinion on gun control. Many Americans now support the enforcement of current laws instead of creating new gun control.

    Gov. Reynolds brings up the thing that so many anti-gun politicians hate to hear. The problem isn’t the firearm. It’s an education system that fails those in it. Of course, fixing our broken education system here in the United States would take actual work with real solutions, and we know for a fact that the anti-gun lobby isn’t after solutions.

    In fact, the anti-gun lobby only seeks to disarm law-abiding citizens, to create new, never-ending problems with firearms until the United States resembles other restrictive, repressive states like Australia or England.

    To hear a Governor speak out on one of the real causes of gun violence is exceptionally refreshing. The anti-gun local Iowa politicians didn’t think so, though. Iowa Democrats immediately began to criticize the governor’s response, saying Gov. Reynolds was “blaming the educational system for a tragedy.”

    Source: London School of Economics

    But was she? Many studies done over the years indicate that poor education leads to crime and violence. Democrats themselves cite the same studies when lobbying for public school funding! Why are these same points discredited in the context of gun control? Could it be that there are ulterior motives at work here?

    Hopefully, other governors will follow in Gov. Reynold’s example and bring awareness to the fact that gun violence is a highly complex issue.

    If we as a society collectively stopped looking at the firearm as the problem and looked at the root causes of violence, we may find that there are solutions to the issues at hand. In no other instance do we blame and regulate the tool of violence instead of punishing the person who committed the crime. Drunk driving is often cited as an example of this hypocrisy, as we do not blame the car for drunk driving; we blame the driver.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 22:45

  • Used Car Prices Fall As Goldman Points Out Supply Chain Alleviation 
    Used Car Prices Fall As Goldman Points Out Supply Chain Alleviation 

    U.S. companies has struggled with supply chain congestion, bottlenecks, and the inability to adequately re-stock certain items that roiled the automotive industry. As a result, new car production has been hindered as consumers panic bought used cars, sending prices sky-high. 

    On Feb. 9, we outlined a major inflection point for the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, a wholesale tracker of used car prices, possibly topping as peak supply chain constraints had passed and more parts would be readily available for automakers to restart and or increase output for new vehicles. At the time, we said this could reverse used car prices. However, we also noted that this inflection point might lead to false positives if supply chain congestion persisted.

    More than a month has passed by since we noted the inflection point. And to possibly validate peak supply chain constraints is Goldman Sachs’ Jordan Alliger, who told clients Monday that high frequency weekly supply-chain data for the week ending Mar. 14 shows signs of bottleneck relief. 

    As bottlenecks subside, the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index declined 3.8% in the first 15 days of March compared to the full month of February. The used car index is still up 24.1% compared to March 2021 at around 222.4. Though momentum and rate of change indicators show soaring used car price trends are drastically slowing as supply chains crunches resolve. 

    Goldman’s Alliger reveals high frequency weekly supply-chain data improved last week to a score of 5, versus 7 after holding 8 for the prior two weeks. The weekly index has declined 11.6% sequentially

    “While a 6 still indicates a bottlenecked supply chain environment (marked by demand greater than transport capacity, and still hyper-elevated shipping rates), the recent trendline continues to point in the right direction,” Alliger said. 

    The analyst did say there’s possibility congestion will “re-emerge as inbound traffic arrives in March into a still congested U.S. logistics system; and container shipping rates – which are part of the index – could see some impact from the Russia/Ukraine conflict,” though supply chain congestions are subsiding.  

    Similar to JP Morgan’s belief in early February that supply chain constraints have passed their climax, Goldman’s analyst points out peak congestion might have passed as well. 

    “While our base case for more extended supply-chain easing does not arise until sometime midyear-2022 (at the earliest), we do think some slight easing on the ocean side is possible as we move further into 2022, as we approach seasonal post-peak shipping for container ships due to the length of time it takes to move from Asia to the U.S.,” Alliger said. 

    There’s already an improvement in the number of container ships waiting to dock, significantly down from the highs observed earlier this year. A sign port congestion is improving. 

    Another sign the logistical nightmare over the last two years is abating are international shipping rates that have not just peaked but are coming off their highs. 

    So if supply chain fluidity is improving, automotive manufacturers will begin to receive the much-needed parts they’ve been craving: semiconductor chips. In return, new car production may increase, which would flood the car market with news ones and could lead to more downside for used car prices. 

    What remains of interest is how supply chains will be impacted after Russia invaded Ukraine. For now, used car prices are falling. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 22:25

  • Japan Scrambles To Avoid Tokyo Blackout After First Ever Power Crunch Alert
    Japan Scrambles To Avoid Tokyo Blackout After First Ever Power Crunch Alert

    One day after the Japanese government issued its first-ever electricity supply alert on Monday for the Tokyo area under a system implemented after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Japan scrambled to keep the lights on in Tokyo on Tuesday as frigid weather and power plant outages from last week’s earthquake put the nation’s capital at risk of blackouts. Government officials warned power supply is expected to fall short of demand Tuesday evening, and officials at the infamous TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) said there could be partial outages if the supply squeeze continues.

    According to Tepco, unplanned disruptions across the Tokyo and Tohoku regions could begin from 8 pm local time and plunge between 2 to 3 million buildings into darkness until around 11 pm. The utility best known for covering up the full severity of the Fukushima disaster, said its pumped hydro facilities will stop operating in the evening when reservoirs are drained, curbing power output.

    As a result, Trade Minister Koichi Hagiuda said that households and businesses should reduce power consumption as much as possible, as conservations measures may need to continue through this week.

    The Japanese government is not at the moment considering the use of rolling blackouts as the country faces an electricity shortage, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara told a news conference on Tuesady. Kihara also said that Japan unlikely to seek power conservation from Wednesday onward due to a decrease in demand.

    Tepco echoed Kihara, saying that it currently isn’t planning to implement a series of managed, rolling blackouts that could ease strain on the grid, arguing there’s not enough time to warn customers. Meanwhile, temperatures in central Tokyo were below average on Tuesday, while cloudy weather significantly reduced output from solar panels.

    While the stated culprit for the energy shortage and the reason why Japan’s power supplies have been stretched thin, is last week’s strong earthquake which struck in the northeast and took several power plants offline, the reality is that Japan has had very limited power reserves for far longer, as utilities retire older oil-powered plants and most nuclear reactors remain shut after Fukushima. And in light of the Russia escalating sanctions, Japan’s energy shortages will only going to get worse.

    Though unplanned outages would be mostly random, key infrastructure like hospitals have installed backup generators since 2011, meaning they will be able to continue operations for hours after the grid goes dark.

    Meanwhile, Japan’s transport ministry and industry ministry have asked JR and other train operators to save energy, TV Asahi reports, with Railway operators said to be cooperating and have halted some ticket machines as well as electronic billboards.

    Japan has ordered most of the nation’s regional utilities to send spare power supplies to the Tokyo area, according to a statement  from the grid coordinator. Tepco was scheduled to receive nearly a gigawatt of capacity through midnight. The grid coordinator also ordered power sharing for Tohoku Electric Power, which services the area next to Tokyo and is facing a similar power crunch. Tohoku Electric expects to see power reserves drop to as low as 1%, and has also asked its users to conserve power. 

    In total, Japan’s electricity network coordinator ordered 7 utilities including Chubu Elec. and Kansai Electric to supply Tepco with energy amid a crunch today; as a result the utility will receive up to 1.42m kw to help avoid a shortage, with the following utilities set to provide power:

    • Tohoku from 7am to 4pm, up to 817,800kw
    • Chubu 7am to 4pm, 300,000kw
    • Hokuriku 7am to 4pm up to 300,000kw
    • Kansai 7am to 4pm up to 221,000kw
    • Chugoku 8am to 12:00pm up to 100,000kw
    • Shikoku 8:30am to 10am up to 100,000 kw

    A spokesman for JFE Holdings’s steel-making unit said that the company has been asked by Tepco to conserve electricity and increase output from its own power generation facilities in Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures. The company has not been asked to reduce production and will maintain operations and delivery, the spokesperson said. Tepco has also asked Nippon Steel Corp. to boost output at its own power generation facilities, some of which are now operating at full capacity, a spokesperson for the steel producer said.

    Japan’s tech giants such as Softbank and Rakuten Group, are reducing power consumption but don’t see an immediate impact on their business. A spokesperson for the Tokyo Stock Exchange said that the bourse isn’t experiencing any issues at the moment from the power crunch, and is well-prepared for any incidents.

    While Japan is hopeful that the power shortage will be resolved soon, thermal power plants in Japan that have been halted following last week’s strong earthquake could take as long as a few weeks to a few months to restore, Kyodo reported, citing industry minister Koichi Hagiuda speaking in parliament.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 22:02

  • JBS Expects 'Meatflation' To Remain Stubbornly High Ahead Of Midterms
    JBS Expects ‘Meatflation’ To Remain Stubbornly High Ahead Of Midterms

    The world’s largest meat producer said beef prices would remain stubbornly high throughout 2022 despite President Biden’s attempt to arrest price increases ahead of the midterms elections this fall. 

    On Tuesday, Andre Nogueira, chief executive of Brazilian meat company JBS SA’s U.S. division, told investors that high U.S. beef prices would be sticking around amid robust domestic demand, high overseas shipments, and lower cattle supplies. 

    Nogueira ruined hopes that beef prices would decrease in the coming months as consumer inflation is at a four-decade high, and food prices are at record levels. He said beef prices for U.S. consumers are high because retailer margins are above historical levels.

    Despite high beef prices, Nogueira pointed out consumer behavior has yet to change, suggesting prices must go even higher to reach the threshold of demand destruction. 

    Strong demand for beef has allowed JBS to pass on higher grain costs to consumers. A labor shortage is still a lingering problem for the company even two years after the virus pandemic. 

    On Monday, JBS SA’s CEO GilbertoTomazoni said the main drivers of cost surges include everything from fuel to animal feed to packaging to transportation and labor shortages. 

    Gilberto Tomazoni said the invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global supply chains and triggered added cost pressures. 

    “We are focusing on things that we are able to control,” he said. “Costs have risen significantly.”

    Tomazoni is right about soaring costs as a commodity shock was felt just weeks ago. 

    Even though JBS reported record revenue in the fourth quarter, beating the Bloomberg consensus estimate, the cost of doing business skyrocketed. 

    According to consolidated earnings released Monday, production costs increased 21% in the quarter from a year earlier, while sales expenses soared 40%. The U.S. division for beef saw costs in the quarter jump 40% per head. 

    Meanwhile, the Biden administration takes no blame for higher inflation. They blame soaring meat prices on meat processors and soaring gas prices on Putin. The press has been quiet when it comes to the incompetence of the Biden administration as they fail to cap inflation as it crushes the working poor households the hardest. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 21:45

  • Why Are So Many People Bleating Like Sheep?
    Why Are So Many People Bleating Like Sheep?

    Authored by Marie Hawthorne via TheOrganicPrepper.com,

    As soon as the blue states began winding down Covid restrictions, the invasion of Ukraine gave us something else to panic about. It’s like the origins of the Covid virus: in the early days, when most of the authorities in the press were insisting that it had natural origins, I remember thinking, “There’s a Level 4 Virology lab in this city, and the press says it’s a coincidence?” 

    No. That wasn’t a coincidence, and I don’t think the timing of the Ukraine invasion was a coincidence either.

    I think it has to do with Mattias Desmet’s theory of mass formation psychosis. 

    Organic Prepper published an article a few months ago about mass formation psychosis as it related to Covid policies, but I think it’s worth revisiting the concept in the context of what’s going on in Ukraine right now.

    We cannot forget the lessons of the past.

    If you listen to Mattias Desmet’s interview with Chris Martenson on the Peak Prosperity podcast, he discusses the distinction between ordinary dictatorships and true totalitarian states. Dictatorships based on rule by the most powerful have been typical throughout history. Totalitarian states, where a seemingly insane portion of the population dictates reality for everyone else, is a very specific phenomenon. Desmet cites Rousseau’s Reign of Terror and Nazi Germany as examples of societies that have undergone mass formation psychosis. 

    Desmet also cites four specific conditions that need to be met in order to transform otherwise peaceful societies into societies capable of mass atrocities. They are:

     Prolonged isolation

    1. Lack of meaning
    2. Free-floating anxiety
    3. Free-floating aggression and frustration without options

    Isolation has been spreading for years.

    It’s easy to point to the lockdowns as the source of “prolonged isolation,” but the truth is that individuals within modern society have been increasingly isolated for years.

    For most of us, countless examples of modern loneliness readily come to mind. All I can really add is that America’s history as a nation full of people that have picked up and left something makes us exceptionally prone to isolating ourselves. From Laura Ingalls Wilder, to Jack Kerouac, to the popularity of modern travel blogs, we romanticize moving on to greener pastures. And I’ve certainly done my share of traveling! It’s not all bad. But, when you move every few years, you need to be very intentional about maintaining relationships if you don’t want them to dissolve. We need to ask ourselves, how good are we at that?

    Spending time with a set of coworkers that changes every few years may be fun and interesting in its own way, but nothing compares to the richness and meaning of solid family relationships or decades-long friendships.

    This brings us to Desmet’s second condition: lack of meaning.

    How many of us have spent time in jobs that we felt were a waste of time? I know I have. So much pressure exists to find the perfect career. We’re expected to move all over the place, plan our families and rearrange our lives for the sake of careers. And some people do find exceptionally rewarding careers.

    But that’s the exception, not the rule. And the concept of a “career” is fairly recent anyway. Most people through history have had boring, poor lives by modern standards. But was misery universal until two hundred years ago? How did people find meaning in their lives before widespread material wealth and institutional gratification? 

    They did so through patriotism, familial relationships, and healthy communities. The pride of jobs well done. Being able to produce a well-made item not intended for the landfill is uniquely rewarding. This leads to emotional stability, identity, and self-worth. But having an honest trade and a stable community life is almost universally mocked. Most Americans are familiar with Mike Rowe; he has been writing insightfully about American work culture for years. But you can also look back at works by C.S. Lewis, written 80 years ago, on the trend toward dismissing anything outside government and big business as not “the real world.” 

    Like loneliness, the feeling of meaninglessness has intensified during the past two years, but the seeds were planted a long time ago.  

    (Make sure to check out our free QUICKSTART Guide on how to starve the beast.)

    Weak relationship bonds and work dissatisfaction lead to free-floating anxiety, Desmet’s third condition for mass formation psychosis.  

    The spread of free-floating anxiety

    How could many of us not experience constant anxiety? Those of us with school-age children watched as a huge part of the social contract was broken two years ago when the schools shut. A large part of the workforce found itself declared “unessential.” Nobody is “unessential,” but how are you supposed to believe that when you’re not allowed to pursue your vocation? The people that were declared essential were subjected to constant messaging about how dangerous it was to interact with others. Outside of government employees, I don’t know anyone who has escaped significant job-related stress. 

    Add into this mix the divisiveness of jab mandates and you’ve got your fourth condition: free-floating aggression and frustration without options. 

    Society soon turns to the punching bag

    Daisy’s written about the “Othering” of the unvaccinated, and for a while, I thought that was the end game. I thought the Covid response was a combination of a money and power-grab by Big Pharma and Big Government, respectively. I thought all the proposed passports and tracking schemes were a way to identify who was compliant and who was not. I thought that the proposed narrative was to turn public sentiment firmly against anyone with a contrarian bent. 

    In the previously mentioned podcast, Desmet explains how the public’s free-floating aggression and frustration without options lead to the emergence of a villain, usually suggested by government figures and regularly presented through the media. He explains that as the stressors (in 2020’s case, the pandemic) continue, people look for ways to connect their anxiety and frustrations. The media distributes a narrative, connecting the existing problem to a proposed villain. As 2021 brought the jab rollout, it became clear that the media presented the unjabbed as the ready-made villain. Desmet states that, as the narrative takes hold, a new identity emerges within society. In the case of the past two years, it would be the social bonds of those who followed all the CDC protocols vs. those that didn’t. 

    I don’t have a crystal ball. I didn’t know how all this was going to play out. The harshness of the penalties imposed upon the Canadian truckers seemed completely out of line. The freezing of bank accounts and holding nonviolent protest organizers without bail had me wondering what was coming next. 

    And then a lot of the mandates disappeared. I live in a blue state. Even the biggest die-hards seemed done with the pandemic. Worldwide, it looks like most countries are done. Even Germany and Austria, who had been considering some fairly extreme mandates, announced that they would be ending most restrictions as of March 20. It seemed like a bad joke when, within a week of finally being able to attend church unmasked, we had something new to worry about.

    I couldn’t believe it when, overnight, we were expected to hate Russia passionately. 

    Casting Russia as the Joker to the United States’ Batman has been going on for nearly 80 years now. My parents (Boomer generation) grew up under the assumption that one day, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were going to nuke each other into oblivion. That wasn’t the stuff of conspiracy theories – it was a soberly accepted fact. When my parents attended college in the 70s and 80s, the progressives wanted to work with and learn from the Soviets. It was the less cultured, less sophisticated crowd that was aggressively pro-American.

    After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union disintegrated, people my age (I’m a Gen X’er) laughed at all the crazy anti-commie stuff. Obviously, the sophisticated liberals were right. The Russians weren’t that bad, and we could all live together happily in the new global economy. To people my age, the Cold War tensions became a big joke. I personally never thought it was such a joke. I was born in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, and my parents went back in 1990 to get a piece of it. The tension had been real. The East Germans weren’t screwing around. 

    And now, the generation of sophisticated liberals that grew up giggling at all the crazy, tin-foil hat anti-commie people instantly hates the same Russians that the older generations grew up fearing. Hating the Russians was silly ten years ago. Now, if we don’t hate the Russians, we’re traitors.

    The turnaround should be shocking, but it falls into the behavior predicted by Desmet’s model of mass formation psychosis. The stress of the past two years has been extreme for a large part of the population. People are looking for someone to blame, and the powers that be are more than happy to give us various objects for what feels like our weekly “Two Minutes Hate.” The public was burning out on hating “anti-vaxxers.” We needed a new object, so they gave us the Russians.

    As nations began to relax pandemic restrictions, the Great Reset crowd needed a new excuse for retaining state control. There’s nothing like war for those who love big government. Zelensky has been begging Western governments to impose a no-fly zone, which, as the Organic Prepper recently noted, would shove us a lot closer to another World War. 

    I don’t like being told whom to hate. I can figure that out on my own. I especially don’t like being told to hate groups of foreigners. For twenty years, Americans were told that the terrorist groups in Afghanistan posed such a threat to the United States that it warranted sending off our family members to die, keeping insurgents busy over there. Then we just walked away.

    And we didn’t even walk away in a nice, orderly fashion as the Soviets did back in 1989. We ran off in the middle of the night, leaving behind literally billions of dollars worth of equipment for our enemies to use. We screwed up Afghanistan so badly. Do we really trust our leadership not to screw up Ukraine too?

    Fear is in the air, and there are some big, powerful actors trying to make use of it.

    Don’t let them. If World War III comes, it comes, and most of us can’t do anything about it. We’ll deal with that problem when it gets here. For now, all we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. 

    Daisy often says that we need to prepare, not out of fear, but out of hopefulness that we’ll be around for what comes next, and I can’t agree more. And situational awareness plays a large part in prepping. We need to know what other people are up to. Events of the past two years have been unlike anything I ever imagined. Fortunately, people like Mattias Desmet have provided tools for understanding big social movements in history. Forewarned is forearmed. 

    So prepare in what way best suits you and your loved ones.

    None of us have exactly the same situation. Some are close to nuclear targets. Some have many children and/or elderly relatives to prepare for. No matter your situation, there are a lot of resources available to help you set priorities and organize your thoughts. 

    Be prepared but not fearful. Don’t let hateful feelings take hold of you. Fear, anger, and frustration lead to stupid mistakes. I know this from experience. Learn what you need to know to protect your family. Do whatever you can to maintain inner peace. Be content knowing that you’ve done all you can. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 21:25

  • Large Twister Rips Through New Orleans 
    Large Twister Rips Through New Orleans 

    A massive tornado ripped through the Lower Ninth Ward Tuesday evening, the National Weather Service New Orleans confirmed. 

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    Possible track of the twister. 

    Shocking footage shows the tornado moving through the metro area. 

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    Videos of the damage have been posted on Twitter. 

    Insane pictures from the incident area. 

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    Power outages are already being reported.  

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    *developing

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 21:15

  • Bridgewater Reportedly Launching Crypto Fund
    Bridgewater Reportedly Launching Crypto Fund

    Nearly one year after Ray Dalio revealed that he had purchased “some bitcoin” (although he thinks ethereum is more efficient), Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, is finally preparing to back its own crypto fund, according to a CoinDesk report.

    Sources familiar with Bridgewater’s plans said the firm plans to launch the fund by mid-2022, although the fund’s PR team is officially keeping the project under wraps (at least, for now).

    According to CoinDesk, the size of the firm’s investment is “minuscule” compared with its total AUM.

    Bridgewater isn’t the first hedge fund to stand up its own crypto fund: Marshall Wace, Brevan Howard and Steve Cohen’s Point72 have all reportedly stood up similar crypto investing operations.

    News of Bridgewater’s plans comes just one day after Goldman Sachs revealed that it had carried out its first over-the-counter crypto derivatives trade, a business that the bank expects will grow substantially as more hedge funds look to either own crypto, or hedge their exposure.

    While details of the Bridgewater fund were scant, CoinDesk’s sources agreed on a ‘rough timeline’ for the fund’s launch.

    “Bridgewater is in a first-half plan this year,” said one of the people in February. “They’re planning on having a small slug of their fund deployed directly into digital assets.”

    Hedge funds’ growing desire to embrace crypto as a hedge against the dollar’s fading hegemony come at a particularly auspicious time; even Goldman Sachs is saying that Saudi Arabia’s decision to consider accepting the Chinese yuan as payment for oil would deal a serious blow to the petro-dollar system which is one of the most important underpinnings of the dollar’s global reserve status.

    As we have pointed out many times before, nothing lasts forever…

    …with this in mind, it’s not too hard to see why Bridgewater and other hedge funds are increasingly turning to crypto; Dalio said last year that he would rather own bitcoin than bonds.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 21:05

  • Biden's Oil Polices Are "Bat-Shi*t Crazy", Creating "Turmoil" In Markets: USF Geology Professor
    Biden’s Oil Polices Are “Bat-Shi*t Crazy”, Creating “Turmoil” In Markets: USF Geology Professor

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    America’s energy policies, specifically those centered around oil and gas, are “bat shit crazy” and the Biden administration is doing nothing but creating “turmoil” in the oil markets, according to geologist and fossil fuel expert Dr. Marc J. Defant.

    I’m excited to be welcoming my friend Marc back to the podcast in early April. But for now, his expertise in the world of oil and gas is so deep, I thought my readers would benefit from a preview of his takes on the current state of energy globally, the oil crisis that Europe and the U.S. are heading toward, the effects of Ukraine/Russia and the dollar on oil prices and the effects of Biden Administration policies on the price of oil.

    Why We are Alone in the Galaxy | Marc Defant | TEDxUSF - YouTube

    Dr. Marc J. Defant is a professor of geology/geochemistry at the University of South Florida. He worked for Schlumberger Well Services and Shell Oil for three years, with two years at Shell working as an exploration geologist.

    He has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the American Chemical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences, and has published in many internationally renowned scientific journals including Nature. He has written a book entitled Voyage of Discovery: From the Big Bang to the Ice Age and published several articles for general readership magazines such as Skeptic and Popular Science and appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. You can reach him via this contact form.

    I had a chance to pick Dr. Defant’s brain this week about the rising cost of energy and his thoughts on what is exacerbating the situation. What follows is Dr. Defant’s take on our country’s oil crisis.

    This blog post is being published without a paywall because I believe its content to be far too important not to share. If you have the means, and would like to support my work, you can subscribe here: Subscribe Here

    Q: Hi, Marc. Can you start by giving a primer on how oil at the pump is priced and address the claims of “price gouging” by oil companies?

    A: Oil is traded in US dollars and the price of oil is highly sensitive to the value of the dollar. Gasoline sold at the pump is made in refineries from crude oil. Therefore, the price of gasoline is directly impacted by the price of oil. Oil prices are set on the futures market, so speculation becomes very important in what we pay at the pump. It is a highly volatile market, as we have recently seen.

    Oil prices increase when supply is negatively impacted. That is, demand by traders, not the oil companies, forces price fluctuations. Traders are highly influenced by what they perceive the future availability of oil will be. No sense selling oil today for low prices if they can wait and get higher prices. In other words, sellers ask higher prices when they perceive the supply will be low and the demand high.

    The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) consists of 13 countries and produces about 40 percent of the world’s oil. They are considered by many to be a cartel because of their important influence on the price of oil and gas. In other words, they can impact supply which moves the price of oil. A few notable members are Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Venezuela. Russia has worked on and off with OPEC to control supply particularly when oil prices were low.   

    OPEC petroleum production forecast revised down for 2021

    There are two types of futures buyers – those that wish to hedge their bets and those that speculate in pricing. Hedgers are usually oil companies that buy futures to make sure they will not be negatively impacted by the volatile fluctuations in oil prices. On the other hand, oil speculators are traders that hope to make money on the change in oil price fluctuations.

    Let’s take a look at an example.

    US fracking (which I will discuss in detail) increased the amount of oil available between 2011 and 2014 from about 1 million to 4.8 million barrels per day (B/D). The market became gutted with oil and the price fell to $27 per barrel (/B). I might add that no one claimed the oil companies were gouging the public during these low prices. If the oil companies had control on the price of oil, why would the price fluctuate so extensively? Only when prices rise does anyone point fingers at the oil industry. But obviously, the oil companies have very little control over the price of oil, which is set by the futures market.

    By 2019, due primarily to fracking, the US became the number one producer of oil and gas in the world. In fact, we became a net exporter of oil and gas.

    Prior to Biden entering office, oil production of oil shales reached over 12 million B/D. but fell more than 1 million B/D during 2021. During this time, Russia became the world’s largest exporter of oil which helped fund their war effort in the Ukraine.

    How did Biden’s policies impact the lower production of oil and gas?

    Under Obama, the government came up with a dollar value called the social cost of carbon. It is supposedly an estimate by the government as to the environmental damage from everything from rising sea level to wildfires and floods from the release of one ton of carbon dioxide via fossil fuel burning. But scientists are still completely uncertain about the direct impact the burning of fossils fuels may have on the environment. I hope this causes you to suspect the number may be related to magic.

    But that never stopped the Obama administration from coming up with a solid amount of $57. Trump reduced the number to $7, but Biden revised the number to $51. The number is important because it gave the Biden administration the leverage to restrict oil and gas production based on supposed environmental and economic threats from greenhouse gasses (i.e., reduce permitting on federal lands).

    Photo: NY Times / A petroleum drilling site near Port Fourchon, La

    As might be expected, gas-producing states fought back by challenging the social cost of carbon in court, and a judge issued an injunction preventing the administration from using the metric. But rather than submit to the judge’s ruling, the Biden administration simply decided to stop new permits on federal lands blaming the judge for the action – sigh. But Biden has been slow-walking permitting since he became President. He is the only President in 20 years not to have an onshore lease sale in a given year (2021).

    We should not be surprised by Biden’s actions. During his campaign he promised to end drilling on federal lands to fight climate change. As much as 25% of oil and gas production comes from federal lands.

    Finally in November of last year, the Department of the Interior, which is required by law to have quarterly lease sales, opened its first Gulf of Mexico oil lease auction which generated $190 million from oil companies. But alas, a green Obama-appointed judge vacated the auction after [environmentalists] Earthjustice out of San Francisco sued.

    The ruling effectively ended new drilling in the Gulf, where some of the world’s environmentally friendly oil resides. There are some state representatives that claim the Biden administration went ahead with the auction knowing full well it would be vacated. As you might imagine, the Department of the Interior will need a great deal of time to review the environmental impact of drilling in the Gulf (wink wink).

    Bloomberg reported that an oil executive mused:

    “Biden is signaling that his environmental goals trump energy security and consumer prices… that’s not lost on public companies or banks they rely on.”

    Ultimately, investment in the oil industry increases when roadblocks to making a return on investment are removed. Biden’s actions have scared off many potential investors further reducing oil production. Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s oft repeated statement that 9.000 leases have been permitted is at the very least disingenuous considering the impediments to drilling the Biden administration has created.

    Photo: NY Post

    Psaki frequently claims that the Keystone XL Pipeline has no impact on oil prices because it will take two years to complete (only one year now if they had not shut it down). But Psaki is undermining (purposely in my opinion) the importance of the supply chain.

    For example, the oil that would come through the pipeline has to be shipped by train. Recent train crashes demonstrate the danger of transporting oil via this method. And it obviously costs a lot more to ship via rail. But in a real head scratcher, Biden waved sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany. Why is this acceptable, but the XL is not? Russian oil is notoriously dirty (high sulfur content).

    One would think Biden would be doing everything he could to send American oil and gas to Europe rather than making them more dependent on Russian oil. Ultimately, the Biden administration has intentionally raised significant barriers in permitting supply of oil to the US. Infrastructure is extremely important to the supply of cheap and clean oil to the American economy.

    The production of oil and gas in America is highly regulated – it’s the cleanest in the world both in lack of contaminants like sulfur which pollute and the way the industry protects against leaks.

    The invasion of Ukraine by Russia created fears about the future of oil supplies which, in turn, pushed oil prices to record highs. And although the US buys less than 10 percent of its oil from Russia, Biden’s decision to stop buying oil from Russia, created more turmoil in the markets.

    But perhaps the most irrational decision ever made by a President is Biden’s pursuit of [the] Iranian (and Venezuelan) nuclear deal to get access to Iran’s oil. They are the foremost sponsor of terrorism in the world and yet we are willing to sign a very one-sided treaty with them to gain oil which is extremely dirty (high sulfur).

    We will pay them just as Obama did, with the helicopter carrying billions of dollars. And those payments will make it easier to develop delivery systems once they finally develop a nuclear bomb. On top of this, we are helping them build an nuclear power plant that will give them clean energy but not us.

    Finally, I ask you to remember, gasoline prices were rising quickly way before the war in Ukraine broke out not only due to Biden’s interference in our oil production but the inflation caused by his huge spending bills. Now we are going to buy oil from Iran instead of enabling our own industry to supply America’s needs. It is the very definition of “bat-shit crazy.”

    This blog post is being published without a paywall because I believe its content to be far too important not to share. If you have the means, and would like to support my work, you can subscribe here: Subscribe Here

    For a preview of my upcoming podcast, here’s Marc explaining why the U.S. was the largest oil and gas producer in the world in a 30 minute presentation:

    Dr. Marc J. Defant has also been Editor of Geology and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research. He was also invited by the Chinese Government to be a keynote speaker at a symposium on the continental crust and has given invited talks at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Universitè de Bretagne (Brest, France), University of California at Los Angeles, University of Georgia and Tennessee, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, as well as many others. Defant was one of the first American scientists allowed to work on volcanoes in the isolated and militarily sensitive area of Kamchatka, Russia, when it was still part of the old Soviet system through a cooperative joint grant between the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation. He has presented a TedX talk on Why We are Alone in the Galaxy. He has also done research on volcanoes in Costa Rica, Greece, Indonesia, the Lesser Antilles, Panama, and the Philippines. Defant has been a consulting geologist on diamonds and gold for de Beers, Placer Dome, Falconbridge, Anglo American, Aurcana Gold, Diamond Fields, along with several others in West Africa and the Soviet Union/Russia.

    He can be reached via this contact form.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 20:45

  • Early Screening Data Show New COVID Subvariant Gaining Ground In US
    Early Screening Data Show New COVID Subvariant Gaining Ground In US

    In keeping with a longstanding pattern of US COVID cases trailing the numbers out of Europe with a delay of a few weeks, infections stemming from the BA.2 omicron subvariant have continued to rise in recent days, Bloomberg reports.

    While data released by the CDC and Johns Hopkins don’t go into much detail about the variant type, a San Diego-based genomics firm called Helix has been watching the BA.2 variant since it first popped up in the US in early January. Although it was initially slow to take hold, Helix now estimates that 50% to 70% of all newly confirmed COVID cases across the US have been caused by BA.2.

    Helix’s variant surveillance research is funded by the CDC and its data is one of many inputs that the agency takes into account when creating its weekly “Nowcast” estimates.

    As we reported earlier this month, Western Europe has already seen an uptick in new cases caused by the variant. In the UK, BA.2 surpassed the 50% mark of overall cases. Although so far, the variant appears to be no more severe than the initial omicron strain. Still, there’s concern about its ability to reinfect people, as well as potential links to “long COVID”.

    Overall, the number of newly confirmed cases has continued to decline in the US, but experts (including Dr. Fauci) have warned that the decline could easily reverse, leading to a “bump” in new cases as COVID restrictions are largely abandoned.

    Also, cases have been rising in population centers like NYC, a trend that sewage data predicted weeks ago.

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    The CDC has yet to update its variant surveillance data for this past week, but the agency has reported BA.2 nearly doubling in prevalence each week since early February.

    Still, cases in the US remain well below the numbers in Hong Kong, which has seen its death rate from the virus soar since the start of the year as the city struggles with its worst outbreak since the virus first emerged.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 20:25

  • Next Inflation Shock Comes From Resource Nationalism
    Next Inflation Shock Comes From Resource Nationalism

    By Valerie Cerasuolo, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and reporter

    First there was supply-chain disruption brought on by the coronavirus, then war in Ukraine further rocked commodity markets. The next bout of inflation via raw material prices will be brought on by resource nationalism.

    While the cost pressures brought on by the difficulty in moving goods in a world in lockdown are fading, other factors are more enduring.

    For instance, the post-Cold War spread of e-commerce allowed companies to treat the world as both factory floor and marketplace. Comparative advantage, strategic partnerships and the success of globalization led to growth and prosperity. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine jarred that dynamic and has set in motion a series of quasi-isolationist responses.

    What started as economic sanctions on Russia has tipped the balance: we are no longer in a uni-polar world. We have entered into a multi-polar one where traditional economic superpowers can no longer call the shots. Service-driven economies are price takers and have far less leverage over those producing raw materials.

    The geopolitical landscape has changed and economic incentives along with it. The growing emergency that sanctions on Russia have caused over energy supply security will be inflationary for years to come. Nowhere is this more evident than in Europe, given its direct exposure to Russia energy, with individual countries prioritizing domestic energy security as a first port of call.

    The European Union entered an era of energy inflation given its commitment to address climate change and fossil fuel dependence by “greening” the economy. Such aims create price pressure, and has led to discussion at the European Central Bank on whether its inflation target should be adjusted.

    Russia and Ukraine are two of the globe’s top grain producers. Conflict has triggered panic and price squeezes on everything from fertilizer to cooking oil, and has also led nations to rethink their approach to national stockpiling.

    Energy security pulls into focus security of other commodities. The list of countries restricting agriculture exports is growing. It includes Indonesia, Hungary, Argentina, and Turkey. China’s begun stockpiling corn and soybeans while sources mention state refiners are considering pausing exports of gasoline and diesel in April.

    Effectively, every resource a nation produces has the potential to become a bargaining chip. There is a price to meet security of resources. As more economies step away from globalization that cost will get steeper as isolationist tendencies produce greater trade frictions.

    The process is unlikely to extend to a fear-driven mania. Consider it more of a purposeful step-change in both governments’ and corporations’ mental accounting and future planning, increasing both cost and scarcity to ensure resource security.

    Nations cannot adopt a complete isolationist approach — it’s impossible to fully unwind decades of economic integration. However, lack of supply reliability results in additional inflation premia, regardless of the war’s outcome or duration.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 20:05

  • GOP-Led Maryland And Georgia Suspend Gas Taxes As Democrats Ironically Embrace Similar Federal Cuts
    GOP-Led Maryland And Georgia Suspend Gas Taxes As Democrats Ironically Embrace Similar Federal Cuts

    It looks as though progressives have finally been smacked over the head with reality long enough to realize that tax cuts are actually beneficial to American families and the economy. And just think – all it took was $7/gallon gas! 

    Republican led states like Maryland and Georgia are working out ways to try and provide relief at the pump for consumers by suspending their respective states’ gas taxes. The move comes at the same time that Capitol Hill is trying to pass similar federal legislation, according to a new report by Insider. 

    The temporary gas tax holiday for both states was announced late last week, as gas prices in the U.S. continue to surge as a result of both the Biden administration’s energy policies and geopolitical tensions and sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

    The current average price of gas was $4.26 as of Sunday, but had hit as high as $4.33 per gallon on March 11, the report notes. Crude prices nearly doubled from their Winter 2021 lows over the last few weeks, with WTI touching higher than $120/barrel at one point.

    As the world continues to choke off Russian oil supply, many – including Russian government officials – are predicting that energy prices will continue to soar higher. 

    Government in the U.S. is working to try and pass a gas tax holiday that would lower the price of gas by 18.4 cents per gallon. Ironically, it is Democrats that are trying to push for the tax cut while Republicans have called it a “non-solution” – which, of course, is correct. Whatever tax “cuts” are made on gas will have to be replaced elsewhere and price controls, the government’s likely next forthcoming “solution”, will only stand to further disrupt supply and demand. 

    In keeping with embracing asinine solutions, the government was also reportedly considering sending out gas cards to Americans, but the idea was rejected by Democrats due to “expense and inflation” concerns.

    17 states in total are considering legislation to reduce costs. “State gas taxes have ranged from $0.08 per gallon in Alaska to $0.58 per gallon in Pennsylvania,” Insider wrote. 

    Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said: “As we continue to stand in solidarity against Russian aggression in Ukraine and as Marylanders face the impact of surging inflation with the average price of gas rapidly rising, this bipartisan action will provide some relief from the pain at the pump.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 19:45

  • China Has Fully Militarized 3 South China Sea Islands: US Indo-Pacific Commander
    China Has Fully Militarized 3 South China Sea Islands: US Indo-Pacific Commander

    By Frank Fang of the Epoch Times

    China has fully militarized at least three of the islands that the regime built in the disputed South China Sea, Adm. John Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said on March 20.

    “I think over the past 20 years, we’ve witnessed the largest military buildup since World War II by the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” Aquilino told The Associated Press. “They have advanced all their capabilities and that buildup of weaponization is destabilizing to the region.”

    China has equipped Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment, and aircraft hangers, Aquilino said. The missile systems could easily target any civilian and military planes flying over the disputed waters, he added.

    “So that’s the threat that exists, that’s why it’s so concerning for the militarization of these islands,” Aquilino said. “They threaten all nations who operate in the vicinity and all the international sea and airspace.”

    Admiral John C. Aquilino (L), Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), looks at videos of Chinese structures and buildings on board a U.S. P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane flying at the Spratlys group of islands in the South China Sea, on March 20, 2022

    Currently, Aquilino said his mission is to “prevent war” through deterrence and promote peace and stability, in efforts that include working with U.S. allies and partners.

    “Should deterrence fail, my second mission is to be prepared to fight and win,” Aquilino said.

    As commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, Aquilino oversees the largest combatant command, including 380,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, guardians, Coast Guardsmen, and civilians working for the Pentagon.

    China’s ruling communist regime is currently locking horns with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan in a territorial dispute over reefs, islands, and atolls in the South China Sea.

    While the United States isn’t a claimant to the disputed islands, it has deployed warships through the region in what it calls freedom of navigation missions.

    A 2016 international ruling rejected the Chinese regime’s “nine-dash line” claim to about 85 percent of the South China Sea’s 2.2 million square miles. The ruling said that China’s claims had no historical basis and Beijing had violated the sovereignty of the Philippines by asserting territorial claims with its artificial islands built on reefs and sea rocks.

    Boats beside Chinese structures and buildings on the man-made Fiery Cross Reef at the Spratlys group of islands in the South China Sea on March 20, 2022.

    The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has rejected the ruling. It has deployed coast guard ships and Chinese fishing boats, which sometimes have fishermen with military training aboard, to intimidate foreign vessels, block access to waterways, and seize shoals and reefs.

    Aquilino applauded the Philippines for taking the territorial dispute to international arbitration, saying it was a good template to resolve the dispute peacefully.

    The interview with the AP was conducted while Aquilino was aboard a U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft P-8A Poseidon, while the plane flew near China-held outposts in the Spratly archipelago.

    China has seven outposts in the Spratly Islands and 20 in the Parcel Islands, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

    During the flight, the U.S. Navy plane was repeatedly warned by Chinese callers, telling the plane to leave what they said was China’s territory.

    “China has sovereignty over the Spratly islands, as well as surrounding maritime areas. Stay away immediately to avoid misjudgment,” one of the Chinese radio messages said in a veiled threat.

    In response, a U.S. pilot on the Navy plane radioed back to the Chinese, saying, “I am a sovereign immune United States naval aircraft conducting lawful military activities beyond the national airspace of any coastal state.”

    “Exercising these rights is guaranteed by international law and I am operating with due regard to the rights and duties of all states.”

    In January, the U.S. State Department released a study (pdf) on the legality of China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. It concluded that the claims are “inconsistent with international law.”

    “In the name of enforcing its expansive and unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea, the PRC is interfering with rights and freedoms, including navigational rights and freedoms, that are due to all states,” said Constance Arvis, acting deputy assistant secretary for oceans, fisheries, and polar affairs, during a briefing following the publication of the study.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 19:25

  • Largest California Refinery Hit With Strike Amid Record-High Gas Prices
    Largest California Refinery Hit With Strike Amid Record-High Gas Prices

    Hundreds of Chevron Corp. refinery workers in the San Francisco Bay Area went on strike Monday following a breakdown in talks between the oil major and the United Steelworkers (USW) union on a contract agreement. 

    At least 500 workers at a gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and lubricating oils refinery owned by Chevron in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Richmond began striking at local time 12.01 am, the union said in a statement. According to AP News, this followed USW workers voting down a contract offer from Chevron and the company refusing to return to the bargaining table. 

    The strike’s timing is “very unfortunate” as refinery capacity in California is tight, Severin Borenstein, a UC Berkeley professor, told local news KTVU. 

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    Chevron announced in a statement the strike has yet to affect operational capacity at the refinery. 

    “Chevron Richmond is fully prepared to continue normal operations to safely and reliably provide the products that consumers need. We anticipate no issues in maintaining a reliable supply of products to the market. Chevron remains committed to safe operations for our workers and communities.”

    The heart of the problem is USW’s push to increase pay for workers by another 5%, on top of the national agreement to raise pay by 12%, purely based on the cost of living in the Bay Area is unbearable for blue-collar workers.

    “The cost of living in the Bay Area, as any blue-collar worker knows, has gotten to the point that makes it hard to live,” USW Local 5 First Vice President B.K. White, told local news ABC7. “Our workers have to live 45 minutes to an hour out. We are just asking for a little bit of relief.”

    He also said, “A cost of living increase for the Bay Area it’s not for us to get rich. Our medical, Kaiser, went up 23 percent this year and the company did not contribute another penny to it.”

    A prolonged strike could impact refining capacity as Californians pay some of the highest gasoline prices in the country. Here’s what Americans are paying on average at the pump for regular gas. 

    Ken Medlock, director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute, told AP the refinery is likely running a skeleton crew during the strike. He doesn’t believe the strike would lead Chevron to shutter capacity or the facility as a whole. 

    Let’s hope USW and the company can resolve their differences quickly, or the largest refinery in California could experience output disruptions. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 03/22/2022 – 19:05

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