Today’s News 23rd November 2022

• SBF Issues Another Rambling Apology And "Description Of What Happened", Comes Off As Disturbed Sociopath
  SBF Issues Another Rambling Apology And “Description Of What Happened”, Comes Off As Disturbed Sociopath

  He just can’t help himself: disgraced sociopath, record-breaking fraudster and prolific Democratic donor – not necessarily in that order – Sam Bankman-Fried, has issued another apology to his staff in a letter that outlined a crash in “collateral” to less than $9 billion from $60 billion.

  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and I would give anything to be able to go back and do things over again,” the corpulent 30-year-old who may or may not be in the Bahamas apologized yet again in the message sent to employees Tuesday, although he really should be apologizing to the millions of clients whom he wiped out. Alas, like the recurrent ramblings of a psychopath, Sam’s takeaway was that the implosion at FTX was the side-effect of an unfortunate bank run, and had nothing to do with SBF’s actions; that’s because SBF still refuses to take any responsibility for what happened and makes zero admission that the factors that led to this historic bankruptcy were in his control all along. Sam claims that he didn’t “realize the magnitude of risk.” His main remorse – like that of any pathological individual – is that he got caught.

  Still don’t believe us he was a sociopath? Read this:

  I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and I would give anything to be able to go back and do things over again. You were my family. I’ve lost that, and our old home is an empty warehouse of monitors. When I turn around, there’s no one left to talk to. I disappointed all of you, and when things broke down I failed to communicate. I froze up in the face of pressure and leaks and the Binance LOI and said nothing. I lost track of the most important things in the commotion of company growth. I care deeply about you all, and you were my family, and I’m sorry.

  No he isn’t, and if it wasn’t his fault, whose fault was it? Well, as he “describes” the sequence of events, you see it was all the market’s fault as a slide in digital-asset markets in spring roughly halved collateral from $60 billion to $30 billion, while liabilities were $2 billion. A combination of a credit squeeze, a further selloff in virtual coins and a “run on the bank” left collateral at $9 billion ahead of FTX’s Nov. 11 bankruptcy, he wrote. The estimate for liabilities had reached $8 billion by then. Here is how, in his words, what was initially a $58 billion overcollateralized balance sheet ended up having more liabilities than assets.

  

  “I did not realize the full extent of the margin position, nor did I realize the magnitude of the risk posed by a hyper-correlated crash,” Bankman-Fried said. He didn’t give exact details on the makeup of the collateral or the liabilities. If he did, it would look something like this chart from Morgan Stanley:

  

  What happens next is what any sniveling sociopath posing as a CEO would say: I had no idea any of this could happen:

  I did not realize the full extent of the margin position, nor did I realize the magnitude of the risk posed by a hyper-correlated crash.

  And it is here, that we get the first admission that something nefarious happened: i.e., loans  – to related parties, such as the $4 billion “given” from FTX to SBF – and the “secondary sales” which we now knows SBF pocketed some $300 million for personal use.

  The loans and secondary sales were generally used to reinvest in the business—including buying out Binance—and not for large amounts of personal consumption.

  And so, ladies and gents of the jury, would you consider a $40 million penthouse to be a “large amount of personal consumption.” And what about a private jet: in this day and age everyone needs one, how can one possibly define that as “large amount of personal consumption.” As for the meaning of “generally”, we are confident SBF’s close buddy Bill Clinton will give him the proper definition of that word.

  

  Prudently, there was zero mention in Sam’s meandering word salad that FTX had illegally commingled and sent billions in customer funds to SBF’s personal hedge fund, Alameda, which despite frontrunning virtually every crypto transaction still lost $3.7 billion before 2022. That’s ok, Sam can discuss that in court.

  There was, however, the usual lies, including SBF’s increasingly warped representation of reality, which is to be expected: as noted above, he is after all, a sociopath.

  We likely could have raised significant funding; potential interest in billions of dollars of funding came in roughly eight minutes after I signed the Chapter 11 docs. Between those funds, the billions of dollars of collateral the company still held, and the interest we’d received from other parties, I think that we probably could have returned large value to customers and saved the business.

  Narrator: none of this happened, and none of this will happen either:

  Maybe there still is a chance to save the company. I believe that there are billions of dollars of genuine interest from new investors that could go to making customers whole. But I can’t promise you that anything will happen, because it’s not my choice.

  That’s right: it is now all in the hands of the person who presided over the Enron bankruptcy and who thinks your fraud is way worse.

  And speaking of fraud, there was one sentence in the whole letter where this pathological liar may have told the truth, if inadvertently:

  … None of this changes the fact that this all sucks for you guys, and it’s not your fault, and I’m really sorry about that. I’m going to do what I can to make it up to you guys—and to the customers—even if that takes the rest of my life. But I’m worried that even then I won’t be able to.

  No, you won’t be able to, but when it comes to “the rest of your life”, both the “guys” and the customers who you left with nothing because of your infinite greed, fraud and incompetence, they all have an idea where you can spend it.

  Whether or not that happens will depend on just how broken the US legal system is, where a few million in donations to prominent democrats may be all it takes to get a lifetime “get out of jail” card.

  SBF’s full letter to his now former employees is below

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 23:20

• Sperm Count Among Men Has Dropped 60 Percent Globally Over Past 45 Years: Study
  Sperm Count Among Men Has Dropped 60 Percent Globally Over Past 45 Years: Study

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Sperm counts worldwide have halved over the past 45 years, according to a study published on Nov. 15 in the journal Human Reproduction Update.

  

  The study was conducted by an international team of researchers led by professor Hagai Levine of Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Braun School of Public Health.

  They aimed to examine trends in sperm count among men from all continents and analyzed 223 studies based on sperm samples taken from over 57,000 men across 53 countries including the United States, Europe, and Australia between 1973 to 2018.

  Previously, a 2017 study conducted by the same team of researchers reviewed sperm count data in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The new analysis updates that review to include data from Central and South America, Asia, and Africa for the first time.

  Researchers in the latest study found an “appreciable decline” in sperm count during that time period.

  Specifically, researchers found that men in South America, Asia, and Africa shared a similar decline in total sperm counts and concentration as was previously observed in their study concentrated across Europe, North America, and Australia.

  Sperm Counts Fall Over 62 Percent

  Overall, results showed the mean sperm count fell by 51.6 percent between 1973 and 2018 across men from all continents, dropping on average by 1.2 percent per year from an estimated 101.2 million per milliliter to 49 million per milliliter from 1973 through 2018.

  Total sperm counts fell by 62.3 percent during the same period.

  Men are considered to have a low sperm count if they have less than 15 million sperm per milliliter or less than 39 million sperm total per ejaculate, according to the Mayo Clinic.

  Additionally, they found that data from the year 2000 showed a decline in sperm concentrations of more than 2.6 percent per year, doubling compared to the previous decline of 1.16 percent annually from 1972.

  Researchers said the “substantial and persistent decline is now recognized as a significant public health concern” and that further research on the causes of the decline is urgently needed to prevent further disruption of male reproductive health.

  “We hope that the new evidence provided here will receive attention not only from clinicians and scientists but also from decision-makers and the general public,” the researchers wrote.

  Men who suffered from infertility were excluded from the study.

  Researchers did note limitations to their study, however, including how the data was collected and reported as standards and methods for counting sperm have changed markedly over time. That makes it harder to compare the latest sperm counts to historical data. Additionally, researchers noted that complete elimination of all selection/recruitment bias was impossible because they were not able to collect semen samples at random.

  ‘Not a Cause for Panic’

  “I think this is another signal that something is wrong with the globe and that we need to do something about it. So yes, I think it’s a crisis, that we [had] better tackle now, before it may reach a tipping point which may not be reversible,” Levine, the leading author of the research, told The Guardian.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 23:00

• Russia Threatens To Slash Gas Exports Over Ukraine Theft Of Moldova Supplies
  Russia Threatens To Slash Gas Exports Over Ukraine Theft Of Moldova Supplies

  Russia’s energy giant Gazprom on Tuesday accused Ukraine of stealing natural gas supplies intended for Moldova by siphoning it off during transit. Gazprom is now threatening to halt deliveries via the key the Sudzha route. 

  “The volume of gas supplied by Gazprom to the ‘Sudzha’ gas measuring station (GMS) for transit to Moldova via Ukraine exceeds the physical volume transmitted at the border of Ukraine with Moldova,” Gazprom’s statement said.

  

  The allegation further specified that the Ukrainian government stole 52.52 million cubic meters of gas which was intended for Moldova. Gazprom said that amount of gas never left Ukraine’s territory while in transit.

  According to the fresh statement as presented in state media: 

  The Russian energy company further warned that if the transit imbalance persists then it would begin slashing gas supply to the Sudzha GMS for transit via Ukraine from 10 am (7am GMT) on November 28, “in the amount of the daily underderlivery.”

  Ukraine has a sprawling network of natgas transmission pipelines from Russia that feed into Europe, which now ironically enough remain the only key supply route to western and central European countries following the Nord Stream sabotage blasts. 

  Despite the raging war which has been on for nine months, some 42 million cubic metres (mcm) per day still transits through Ukraine via the Sudzha route.

  Gas inflow for transit from Russia to Europe in Ukraine from February 1 to November 14, 2022, by entry point(in million cubic meters):

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Moldova is very heavily dependent on Russia for its energy supplies, and has been suffering rolling blackouts of late. On Monday donor countries gathered in Paris where they pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to help salvage Moldova’s energy infrastructure, and to prevent political destabilization at such a sensitive time. Moldova has recently applied for EU membership.

  Western officials have long accused Russia of seeking to takeover Moldova amid its “special operation” in Ukraine. International media has tended to blame tiny Moldova’s energy woes on Moscow and its ‘weaponizing’ energy.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 22:40

• The US Pledges "Climate Reparations" To Other Countries While Americans Freeze And Become Homeless
  The US Pledges “Climate Reparations” To Other Countries While Americans Freeze And Become Homeless

  Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

  More people than ever are facing dire circumstances, and we’re just getting started with this economic disaster. And what is our government doing?

  Why, they’re giving our money away.

  To other countries, no less.

  

  The U.S. government agreed to pay “climate reparations.”

  But the plight of our own countrymen seems to be less important than those in other countries affected by climate change. The United States has just agreed to pay up to a billion dollars to poor countries for “climate reparations.” As per an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal:

  The use of climate policy to soak Americans keeps getting worse, and the United Nation’s climate conference in Egypt ended this weekend with agreement on a new fund to pay reparations to poor countries. Welcome to the latest climate shakedown.

  The 2015 Paris accord suggested rich countries compensate poor countries for climate damage—the rationale being that industrialization has increased temperatures and led to natural disasters. Poor countries finally forced discussion of a formal mechanism to pay climate reparations onto this year’s U.N. conference agenda.

  …on Thursday Europe abandoned the U.S. by proposing a deal, and Mr. Kerry rolled over.

  Wealthy countries will now set up a fund to cover climate damage for the least developed countries—i.e., not China or middle-income nations. This will be financed from “a broad donor base” and “mosaic of solutions,” such as international development banks and taxes on aviation, shipping and fossil fuels.

  Some reports suggest that the US will be on the hook for up to a billion dollars. In October, it was reported that the total amount due would be $4.3 trillion.

  That’s the sum the US and other major carbon polluters will face at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt next month.

  Well, other polluters except for China.

  China is not contributing jack sh*t. It’s essential to note that out of all the polluters in the world, China is the worst offender, creating 30% of the world’s carbon emissions.

  Yet, they’re exempt from this outrageous bill. Not one thin dime shall they pay. I’m not a fan of China’s dystopian policies and government, but at least they aren’t causing shortages and suffering in their own country in order to virtue signal how green they are.

  In the end, it’s just the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Says the WSJ:

  Countries might also shake down U.S. fossil-fuel producers in their own courts. Climate reparations will merely serve as another form of global income redistribution. The Biden Administration’s surrender shows again that the religion of climate change is progressive penance for the sin of being prosperous.

  In doing this, they ignore the plight of everyday Americans who can’t afford to run their heat or keep their homes.

  Meanwhile, Americans are truly suffering.

  We’ve repeatedly discussed the effects our current economic crisis is having on Americans. We talked about how they’re skipping meals and how they can’t afford medical care. We’ve been warning for years that they are struggling to meet their most basic needs. We live in a nation that destroyed itself during the Covid pandemic and has left its people hanging out to dry, with no jobs, no money, and no hope.

  This isn’t some abstract concept about the planet.

  This is real. And it’s happening to folks in our own communities.

  Read these personal statements about how the economy is crushing Americans.

  Here’s how the economy is affecting housing.

  Sheba Everett is a single mother living in Durham, North Carolina, an area that is facing massive increases in the cost of living due to new companies coming to the region. Lower-income people are rapidly being displaced. She works full-time as a teacher with multiple side gigs to keep a roof over the heads of herself and her daughters. They were making ends meet until she got an eviction notice. A local newspaper shared her story:

  The September eviction letter caught them by surprise, she said, even though all the annual leases were converted in the last two years to month-to-month leases. Everett asked about it in March when her lease changed and said she was told it was to help tenants struggling in the post-pandemic economy. Now, everyone is in dire straits, trying to find affordable housing when the only units available are condemned or too small, she said.

  “It will be three years in March (since they moved into their current home), so the prices were still somewhat reasonable (before), and so I tried to find something similar, and it’s just like double the price, so there’s just no way I can survive or stay in Durham or any of that.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do, and I tried to get a loan to buy a house. Actually, in my neighborhood that I grew up in, I found a house — a five-bedroom house; it was (roughly) 1,400 square feet — in my old neighborhood that I grew up in; I was ecstatic. It was $300,000 (but) I didn’t get approved for enough to buy that house. We’re basically stuck right now. … I just couldn’t believe I’m a teacher, and I can’t afford to even live in the neighborhood that I grew up in.

  I’ve reached out to the housing agencies, but since we’re in a crisis right now — one of the worst that we’ve seen in our lifetime — they’re backed up. I am one of many numbers. I’ve gotten on a couple of waiting lists, and even those things, they definitely will keep a roof over our head, but it’s not anything that actually fits my family’s needs. It’ll keep us from being homeless.

  I’ll work five jobs and pay for a super-expensive place where I literally can barely breathe, but I can’t uproot my children from their home without giving it my all, because like I said, it’s way more than just a house.

  As a single mom myself, I know exactly how difficult it is to have to uproot your children in the midst of financial problems. It’s heartbreaking to see them suffer because of money. When you don’t have much money, a home is the one thing that you strive to provide, no matter what.  Losing that security is almost unbearable.

  (Disaster comes in many forms. Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide to better understand the four levels it can reach.)

  Here’s how the economy is affecting utilities.

  The high cost of energy is causing exorbitant heat bills as we move into winter.

  As the first frigid weather of autumn chills the Northeast, many people are faced with a tough decision: deal with the surging costs of heating their homes or live without it.

  Home heating prices are skyrocketing yet again this winter, up 18% nationwide on top of last year’s 17% spike, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA).

  Charmaine Johnson works in the call center at Philadelphia’s Heater Hotline, part of a non-profit that assists low-income families with their heating systems and bills. Johnson, 63, can relate to the concerns she’s hearing all day. She, too, is struggling to afford her heating bills…

  …Johnson says she doesn’t qualify for government assistance with her heating bills. As inflation also pushes up her food budget and other expenses, she is bundling up and keeping the heat turned down, hoping to stretch that oil for as long as possible.

  “It’s miserable,” she said. “It’s like living in an igloo.”

  The elderly and children are the most likely to suffer when folks can’t afford to turn their heat to a reasonable level. Some senior citizens living on fixed incomes are talking about keeping their thermostats at a nippy 50-55 degrees.

  It doesn’t matter how you heat, this year, you are going to pay more. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that:

  …heating a home with natural gas will cost an extra 25% this winter, and heating with electric will run 11% higher. The steepest hike will be on heating oil, which is expected to be 45% more expensive than last winter, squeezing roughly 5 million households, mostly in the Northeast.

  Many of our most vulnerable citizens are facing a long cold winter.

  But by all means, let’s stash a billion dollars or so in a fund for other countries.

  Imagine what we could do with a billion dollars here at home. Imagine the people who could be fed, housed, and sheltered. Sure, it wouldn’t solve all of our problems. It wouldn’t undo the damage done to our economy by disastrous lockdown policies.

  But wouldn’t it be better to help the folks at home before pledging tons of money to others?

  I don’t hate other countries. I don’t hate poor countries. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling the world, and I want to see other countries be prosperous too. But it cannot come at the expense of our own people, who have paid tax after tax after tax but still can’t turn their heat above 5o degrees in the winter.

  Is it just me? Do you feel that this is a terrible use of American money, or do you think it’s a good call? If you could decide where to distribute a billion dollars as a government official, where would you direct it? And how the heck does China get off scot-free?

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 22:20

• Goldman's Q3 Hedge Fund Monitor: Like A Herd Of Deer In Headlights
  Goldman’s Q3 Hedge Fund Monitor: Like A Herd Of Deer In Headlights

  Goldman’s Ben Snider has published his latest quarterly Hedge Fund Trend Monitor report, which is one of Goldman’s most widely followed research reports (and mercifully, it doesn’t include any forecasts, so there is no way Goldman can be catastrophically wrong unlike its year-ahead forecasts). This year, Goldman analyzed the holdings of 786 hedge funds with $2.3 trillion of gross
  equity positions at the start of 4Q 2022 ($1.5 trillion long and $730 billion short). It’s available in the usual place for pro subscribers.

  What the report found is that as the Fed attempts to navigate the US economy toward a soft landing, hedge fund portfolios were in a “holding pattern” with quarterly position turnover dropping to a new low during 3Q as PMs had literally no idea what to do or how to trade so they just stood there like deer in headlights (see more below).

  The total magnitude of changes to sector tilts was the smallest since 2019, and most tilts sit near their 10-year averages. Hedge fund exposure to Growth vs. Value returned to its 20-year average. Net leverage remained at low levels, with funds using ETFs and futures to manage their exposures to a macro-driven market characterized by elevated correlations. Single stock short interest remains close to the record lows reached in 2000 and last year.

  In contrast with light market exposures, hedge fund long portfolios carried an unusually large tilt away from Momentum. Momentum has recently been very negatively correlated with the direction of the equity market, as reflected by the sharp Momentum reversal alongside the market rebound in early November. While the Hedge Fund VIP basket of the most popular long positions has declined by 29% YTD…

  

  … funds appear convicted in their favorite stocks, while aggressively shorting the year’s best S&P performer: the energy sector in general and Exxon in particular. Eventually they will figure out what the right trade is.

  

  The average hedge fund holds 71% of its long portfolio in its top 10 positions, the highest concentration on record outside of 4Q 2018. Tech and Comm Services account for nearly half of the VIP list and 8 of the top 10 stocks. While funds paused their shift away from China ADRs during 3Q, BABA is still the only representative in the VIP list

  although in contrast with light market exposures, hedge fund long portfolios carry an unusually large tilt away from Momentum.

  Below, we summarize some of the key findings:

  MSFT supplanted AMZN as the most popular hedge fund long position, while UBER and NFLX entered the top five. META fell out of the top five for the first time since 2014.

  

  The VIP list contains the 50 stocks that appear most often among the top 10 holdings of fundamental hedge funds. While the basket has outperformed the S&P 500 in 58% of quarters since 2001 with an average quarterly excess return of 34 bp, the past two years have been a complete disaster.

  

  There were 15 new constituents to the HF VIP list: APG, CEG, ET, FLEX, LBRDK, LLY, LSXMK, NVDA, PGR, SPGI, TDG, TMO, UTHR, VMW, WDAY.

  But what we found more remarkable is that in the VIP mirror list, the Very Important Short Positions (VISP) for hedge funds, the top name was none other Exxon – our favorite long since the summer of 2020 when it dropped to the $30s – which has doubled this year (and quadrupled since it was kicked out of the Dow Jones). And judging by how much short covering XOM still faces, not to mention how much more buying lies in stock as hedge funds rotate from being short to going long energy, Exxon may very well double again from here.

  

  Going back to hedge fund flows in Q3, Goldman notes that a rotation from Consumer Discretionary to Consumer Staples was the largest shift among sectors (for the reason why, just as Target which saw an exodus of clients who ended up going to “cheaper” WalMart for their purchases).

  Industrials remains the largest net overweight relative to the Russell 3000, though only one stock (TRU) ranked among Goldman’s Rising Stars list of the stocks with the largest increase in hedge fund popularity during 3Q (which of course is negative for reasons we have explained every single year since 2013). Four Industrials (GXO, RHI, JCI, IAA) appeared on the list of Falling Stars

  Here are some of the most notable charts from the report (which is available to pro subs in the usual place)

  Hedge fund equity market exposure is exceptionally low…

  

  And yet, short interest for the typical stock remains extremely low…

  

  But not so at the index level: hedge funds are extremely short equity futures…

  

  … which they are doing by shorting ETFs: there is more short activity in ETFs than usual

  

  As a result the average stock correlation is very elevated…

  

  Funds entered 4Q 2022 with long portfolios tilted away from Momentum…

  

  The tilt away from Momentum has been a headwind to fund returns for most of this year, but was rewarded during the sharp Momentum reversal this month. As we noted after the CPI miss, Goldman’s long/short S&P 500 Momentum factor (GSMEFMOM) returned 20% in 2022 through November 3rd but this month experienced a sharp reversal ranking in the 1st percentile since 1980

  

  The hedge fund tilt away from Momentum is particularly notable in light of the negative recent correlation between Momentum and the broad equity market. Momentum has also outperformed in other major periods of market stress in recent years, including 2009, 2012, 2016, and 2020. In light of this relationship, it is unlikely that Momentum will fully unwind its recent outperformance unless the market and economic outlooks improve substantially. While light hedge fund net leverage suggests funds are not optimistic about the near-term path of the market, their tilt away from Momentum appears to conflict with this view.

  

  In a time of record uncertainty, hedge fund are doing the only thing they know: doubling down on their existing positions and praying for the best: as shown below, HF portfolio density has recently risen to near record highs.

  

  A logical extension: portfolio turnover decreased to new record lows in 3Q as traders froze, terrified to buy or sell anything.

  

  Funds remain tilted toward “real economy” sectors and away from tech…

  

  More in the full Hedge Fund Tracker note available to pro subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 22:00

• Illinois Has Created No Net New Jobs In 20 Years
  Illinois Has Created No Net New Jobs In 20 Years

  Authored by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner via Wirepoints.org,

  Illinois has many deep, structural issues that continue to be ignored by those in power. Among them is one that impacts people’s lives deeply – Illinois’ lack of job creation. 

  A Wirepoints review of employment growth across the 50 states shows Illinois’ economy hasn’t created any net new employment in more than 20 years. In fact, Illinois has lost 106,697 net jobs since 2000, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

  Those job losses put Illinois third-last in the country when comparing employment in 2022 vs. employment in 2000. Only Michigan, which suffered massive auto industry losses during the Great Recession, and Mississippi fared worse than Illinois. 

  In contrast, a state like Florida grew its employment rolls by 2.9 million, or 40 percent. Texas has grown employment by over 4 million, the most in the country.

  

  Illinois stands out even among its neighbors, which many might expect to fare poorly as Midwestern states. But aside from Michigan, all created jobs. Missouri, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Iowa all increased employment by more than 100,000 each. Indiana led Illinois’ neighbors with an increase in employment of more than 250,000, or a growth of 9 percent.

  

  Compared to the nation’s five largest states (Illinois only recently fell to the 6th-largest state in the country), Illinois’ problems stand out even more. Struggling states like New York and Pennsylvania managed to increase employment by 4 to 6 percent since 2000.

  

  Texas and Florida, meanwhile, blow everyone else out of the water with employment growth of around 40 percent. Their stellar numbers are a function of their focus on pro-business, pro-growth policies.

  Employment growth in the short term

  With Gov. Pritzker’s big win this November, it’s worthwhile to see how well employment has fared under his tenure. As the numbers show, the negative has trend continued.

  Illinois failed to create any net new jobs and in fact employment is down by 156,000 compared to when the governor took office in January 2019.

  

  Illinois ranks 44th in the nation with worse numbers than all of its neighbors – including Michigan.

  A problem of jobs

  Wirepoints recently reported that Illinois’ unemployment rate was the nation’s highest for the second month in a row in October. Compared to Illinois’ 4.6 percent rate, all of its neighbors are faring far better – most notably Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri where unemployment rates are 1 to 2 percentage points lower.

  

  Illinois’ status as the extreme outlier in unemployment makes sense considering just how poor it’s been at creating employment over the last several years and even decades.

  The nation’s highest property taxes, crippling pension debts, the increased powers of government unions, constantly expanding red tape, chronic corruption and an increasing outflow of key companies and residents all make the creation of jobs impossible.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 21:40

• Inflation-Shocked Americans Plan To Cut Back On Christmas Gifts, Donations To Charity
  Inflation-Shocked Americans Plan To Cut Back On Christmas Gifts, Donations To Charity

  As Americans feel the Grinch of inflation and wages struggle to keep up with consumer prices, retailers and charities nationwide are preparing for a light holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reports.

  

  U.S. consumers and businesses have trimmed spending plans for gifts, charitable contributions and holiday events, data show. The penny-pinching threatens to spoil the year-end for many, especially firms and nonprofits that tally their largest share of sales and donations in November and December. -WSJ

  According to an October Census Bureau survey of households, 41% of Americans, or around 95 million people, said they were having difficulties paying for essential household expenses, vs. 29% a year earlier.

  “We’re hopeful for a strong giving season, but we’re not counting on it,” said said Thomas Tighe, chief executive of Direct Relief, a medical-assistance nonprofit that typically takes in around $2 billion per year in donated medicine, cash and supplies which they distribute around the world.

  Despite a strong job market, a little cushion in savings accounts, and early signs that inflation may be slowing, the high cost of living has unnerved Americans. According the Deloitte consulting’s 37th annual holiday shopping survey, people plan to buy an average of nine gifts this year v s. 16 last year, and plan to spend less time shopping than they did last year.

  According to the University of Michigan, household sentiment over the past six months is comparable to the credit-crisis, when unemployment was off the charts and the financial system was at the precipice. The Journal notes that the index “echoes wary levels of the 1970s, when inflation climbed to double digits.”

  

  In an August Bankrate survey of 2,415 adults, 84% of holiday shoppers will employ tactics to save money this year using coupons, discounts, buying less, and shopping for cheaper items or just making presents themselves.

  Meanwhile, the Toy Association – which represents companies that make 96% of all toys sold in the US, says this will be a season of price cuts. What’s more, analytics firm DataWeave predicts apparel prices are set to fall for thousands of retail items. Of note, Gap Inc. is offering discounts as high as 60%.

  High inflation seemed to restrain holiday-season shopping over the past eight decades. Eleven times since World War II, the consumer-price index has equaled or exceeded 6% around holiday time; this year it was at 7.7% as of October. Consumer spending had an average growth rate of 1.2% in those years, compared with a rate of 3.4% in years with lower inflation, Commerce Department data show.

  American consumer spending has been on a downward trend for months. After jumping by more than 8% last year, adjusted for inflation, consumer spending grew less than 2% during the first nine months of this year. -WSJ

  Wells Fargo financial planning specialist Michael Liersch, who heads up the bank’s local advisers in branches around the US, said he was taken aback by just how many families are talking about scaling back this year.

  “If you recall 10, 20 to 30 years ago, there was a notion where families had relatives give essential items. Moving back into that. Less discretionary items, more needs,” he said.

  Charity slowing

  While the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas typically accounts for 20-30% of charitable donations according to the Giving USA Foundation, Salvation Army officials are worried. Commissioner Kenneth G. Holder told the Journal that people are facing a tough holiday season, “particularly those who have to make choices between buying toys, putting food on the table or paying utilities.”

  Meanwhile, requests for assistance with people in need are up 25% to 50% from last year, Holder said.

  

  According to a survey of 2,000 Americans by crowdfunding platform Kiva, 44% blamed a lack of funds for giving less to charity, while 42% said donating was for “the privileged.”

  Both the Association of Fundraising Professionals and nonprofit GivingTuesday say that despite fundraising totals overall were up 6.2% (which didn’t keep pace with inflation), the number of donors fell steely in the second quarter, primarily driven by declines in donations of less than $500.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 21:20

• "Inverse" Migration: Why Are So Many US Citizens Moving To Mexico?
  “Inverse” Migration: Why Are So Many US Citizens Moving To Mexico?

  Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

  As life gets prohibitively expensive for many people living in the US (and other rich countries), relatively cheaper countries like Mexico are becoming increasingly attractive. But for local people the costs are growing.

  

  Between January and September of 2022, Mexico issued 8,412 Temporary Resident Cards (TRT) to US residents, 85% more than in the first three quarters of 2019, according to a Mexican government migration report. Many are choosing to live in Mexico City. Such rapid growth rates have not been seen since comparable data became available in 2010. The number of Americans receiving permanent residency during that period has also risen sharply (48%), to 5,418.

  But this may be just a fraction of the real number of American expats choosing to settle in Mexico. As the Mexican government has said for years, the number of Americans moving to its shores is likely far greater than the official figures suggest. According to data from the Ministry of Tourism (Sectur), over 10 million US citizens arrived as visitors through September this year, 24% more than in the same period of 2019. However, the Mexican authorities do not know exactly how many of those chose to stay.

  A Growing Trend

  In 2020, the US State Department estimated that 1.5 million USians were living in Mexico, more than double the number a decade earlier. That was before Usians began moving to Mexico at an even faster pace.

  But why are so many choosing to move across the Southern border in the first place?

  One reason is that it is remarkably easy. Mexico is at most a four- or five-hour flight away from most US cities. It has also been one of the most welcoming countries since the COVID-19 pandemic began, having implemented fewer COVID-19 travel restrictions than just about any other country on the American continent. Nor has it introduced vaccine passports. This has made it particularly attractive to digital nomads looking for affordable destinations with few COVID-19 restrictions.

  Mexico is also remarkably cheap, as long as you are earning dollars, euros or some other hardish currency.

  “Obviously, if you can earn in dollars and spend in pesos, you can triple your income,” Marko Ayling, a content creator and writer living in Mexico City told El País. “And that is very attractive to a lot of people who have the luxury of being able to work remotely.”

  Unlike Mexicans in the United States, Americans can work in Mexico for up to six consecutive months on their tourist visas as long as they are paid from overseas. And, although technically not allowed, many choose to return to the US for a short period, then return to Mexico and renew their six-month period in the country, and that way continue working.

  But it is not just Americans that are opting to live in Mexico. In fact, Mexico is apparently now the preferred destination for those moving abroad, beating off the likes of Indonesia, Vietnam, and even the popular expat hub Thailand. That’s according to this year’s edition of Expat Insider, an annual report published by InterNations, an expat community founded in 2007 that has been gathering data on expat/rich migrant flows and experiences for more than a decade.

  Among the biggest draws highlighted by the survey are ‘the ease of settling in’ and ‘finances’. Of vital import to many people choosing to move abroad are how acccessible visas are to live and work in the countries, safety, and how expensive daily life is. Mexico may have not topped the ranking in all aspects, but it still came out on top with a higher average score.

  The country also placed third on International Living‘s list of the best places to retire, just behind Panama (#1) and Costa Rica (#2). The accompanying report highlighted one of the key attractions for many retiring Americans: affordable heathcare:

  A big part of the lower cost of living in Mexico is the healthcare. There are two government-run programs, including one (INSABI) that is basically free to Mexican citizens and foreigners with residence (there can sometimes be some small out-of-pocket expenses). This system is designed for those without the means to pay for any other healthcare and has facilities all around the country. Another government option is called IMSS, which costs about $500 per year per person. However, with IMSS pre-existing conditions are not covered.

  There is also private healthcare, with clinics and hospitals with all the modern equipment and technology, and doctors of every specialty trained in the latest techniques and procedures. In fact, Mexico is a major medical and dental tourism destination for that reason. You can pay cash at a private facility (costs are a fraction of the U.S.—try $50 to $70 for a specialist visit, $300 for an MRI) or use local or international insurance.

  Of course, Mexico has been a popular retirement destination for USians for decades, with places like San Miguel de Allende, Puerto Vallarta, Oaxaca, Cabo San Lucas and Chapala/Ajijic particularly in demand. But as life grows more expensive and more precarious for working- and middle-class USians, this trend is likely to intensify.

  As a Brit living in Barcelona and married to a Mexican woman, I can understand the lure that draws people to Mexico. It is a beautiful, vibrant, exotic country with a bewitching color scheme, a rich culture and a diverse geography. The food is delectable and the people by and large warm, welcoming and supportive (in Spanish we would use the word “solidario,” meaning they have solidarity with others). The weather in the Valley of Mexico is temperate all year round. The biggest concern I personally would have about living in Mexico, which is something my wife and I are seriously considering, is its escalating water crisis.

  The decision to switch one’s country of residence is usually a deeply personal one and is often triggered by both pull and push factors. Not only are you moving to somewhere new but you are also moving away from somewhere established and familiar, where many of your friends and family live. Speaking as someone who has spent the best part of his adult life living abroad, it is a huge step. I would be very interested to know from US readers who, live Yves, are thinking of leaving the US what their main motives are for doing so.

  Security Concerns

  Ironically, this gathering exodus to Mexico is happening at the same time that the US Federal Government is issuing blanket travel warnings for many Mexican states. In August the State Department issued alerts for 30 of Mexico’s 32 states, six of which (Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas) it warned US travelers against visiting altogether, due to the high risk of being kidnapped or attacked.

  There is no doubt that security remains the primordial issue in Mexico, as it does in many other Latin American countries. Although the number of people dying in the war on and for drugs has ebbed slightly in the past two years, the country still boasts some of the highest homicide rates on the planet, with Zamora de Hidalgo at 196 per 100,000 people, Zacatecas at 107, and Tijuana at 103. Also, regions that were traditionally relatively safe, such as Puebla or Quintana Roo, have recently been caught up in the spiral of violence.

  But for the most part, the danger zones are in small pockets of states close to the US border, where most of the drugs are trafficked, or parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental, where many of the drugs are grown. They are not, as the US travel alerts suggest, uniformly sweeping across states.

  Another common misconception is that Mexico City, being one of the largest conurbations in the world, must also be one of the most dangerous places in Mexico. Yet in reality, Mexico City has largely escaped the worst of the cartel violence, for a slew of reasons outlined in a recent article by British expat journalist Ion Grillo. They include the fact that while the drug gangs have a presence in the capital, they do not control it:

  [W]hile the mobsters are certainly here, they do not operate as they do in their strongholds. Mexico City is not a strategic turf to produce drugs (like in the Sierra Madre), or to traffic drugs to the United States (like on the border).

  In Culiacán, gangsters exert an immense control of their territory, with lookouts on every corner and gunmen lurking in safehouses. In the capital, however, Sinaloa operators can disappear into the urban sprawl. It’s more a place to make deals, meet with contacts in the federal government, and launder money.

  There’s also talk of a pax-mafiosi in the capital, an agreement between the big narcos not to fight here. I haven’t heard this straight from the mouth of crime figures, but this is possible, even perhaps as an informal understanding that they do business and not go to war like back in Tijuana.

  Another factor is that Mexico is a heavily centralized country and all the federal agencies are here, along with the bulk of the governing class of politicians and heads of big business. These powers-that-be don’t want a mess on their own doorstep. The federal forces won’t allow a convoy of a hundred hitmen to blaze up Insurgentes avenue like they get away with doing in Zacatecas.

  The extensive use of cameras and the mobilization of one of the largest unified city police forces in Latin America have also helped to keep a check on the violence. As Grillo documents, not only is Mexico City one of the less dangerous cities in Mexico; it is getting safer and is already less dangerous than some US cities:

  The Mexico City [murder rates] don’t refer to the whole urban sprawl of 22 million but to the official capital district, now called CDMX, which has about 9.2 million people. The Mexican government keeps a database of the murder numbers from police and prosecutor records, and there is another database from morgues and death certificates.

  The police count recorded a peak of 1597 murder victims here in 2018, dropping to 1006 last year. That gives Mexico City a murder per capita rate of about 10.9 per 100,000 in 2021. This year the number has dropped further still.

  Comparing the 2021 figures, Mexico City still has a higher murder rate than New York (which had about 5.7 homicides per 100,000), but it is lower than Portland (12.9), Dallas (14.6) or Minneapolis (22.1).

  The most murderous U.S. cities include Baltimore (57.5) and St Louis (65.3), which have extremely high levels considering the wealth and power of the United States.

  Both Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador (aka AMLO) and Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who is hotly tipped to succeed AMLO in 2024, have seized on this success to try to attract yet more visitors and expats to the city.

  “How much we have advanced on the issue of security,” said AMLO in a recent daily press conference. “Because of this, thousands of foreigners have arrived to live in Mexico City…They are welcome.”

  The Downsides

  But not everybody is so thrilled. As many national and international newspapers have reported in recent months, the continuous arrival of digital nomads from the US, the EU and other rich economies is making life more expensive in Mexico City neighborhoods such as La Condesa and La Roma, as well as in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca.

  In the verdant and unusually walkable barrio of La Condesa, a popular spot among well-heeled foreigners, apartment rents surged by 32% between January and June alone, according to a report from real estate marketplace Propiedades.com.

  As many locals complain, living in Mexico may seem incredibly cheap to the new arrivals but only because they’re getting paid in dollars, euros or some other relatively hard currency. For those paying in pesos life is getting more and more expensive as the digital nomads drive local rents and prices vertiginously higher. For local landlords and real estate investors, the pickings are rich.

  “What is happening is the people who can no longer to afford to live in the cities of their own countries end up moving to where they can afford to live,” Sandra Valenzuela, a Mexico City-based activist and artist, told El País. “In the end, it is a problem that is moving as the people move.”

  For the moment, Mexico’s government is keeping the welcome mat out. In late October, Mexico City’s government unveiled an alliance with Airbnb Inc. and the country’s UNESCO office to promote the capital as a choice destination for remote workers. Mayor Sheinbaum said the city council wants to promote it even more and that the economic benefits of the influx would reach communities beyond the traditional tourist hubs.

  It is a story that has already unfolded in many other places, including my home city of Barcelona. As happened here, tenants rights groups are up in arms, denouncing the alliance with Airbnb as part of an “aggressive touristification” of Mexico City and calling for tough regulation of the home rental company.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 21:00

• MSNBC Guest Calls Musk Man-Child, Says Existence Of Billionaires 'Inconsistent With Democracy'
  MSNBC Guest Calls Musk Man-Child, Says Existence Of Billionaires ‘Inconsistent With Democracy’

  An MSNBC contributor says that the existence of billionaires is a “policy choice” that is “antithetical” to democracy, and called Elon Musk a man-child.

  

  In a Monday appearance on “Morning Joe,” author, political analyst and Hunger Games host cosplayer Anand Giridharadas suggested that people simply shouldn’t be allowed to accumulate that much money.

  “I think something we often forget as Americans is that billionaires exist as a class of people who have that much money at our collective pleasure, right?” he said, adding “It is a policy choice to allow some people to accumulate that much money, hundreds of billions of dollars, in the case of people in the United States before everybody has the chance to live with dignity, right?”

  Then he opined on Elon Musk.

  “Elon Musk is — is you know, is a sort of adolescent in his 50s,” continued the guy with platinum hair. “Everybody can see that. I don’t think anybody would say Elon Musk is a normal 51-year-old man, who has bought this platform that he himself calls a global Town Square, certainly functions has that kind of social importance,” he continued. “And because of what is so evidently his own feeble limitations, he’s just not — he’s a limited man. His limitations become all our problem.”

  Watch:

  As the Daily Caller notes:

  Giridhardas also criticized Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who announced he would be giving away most of his fortune, over planned layoffs at the online retail giant, and CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who was a donor to Democratic causes and officials. He also took note of former President Trump’s announcement that he would seek the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

  “Trump, who I always have appreciated — he’s not even necessarily an actual billionaire — but I’ve always appreciated the nakedness. Unlike some of these other guys he doesn’t do a very good job of pretending that he’s for the public benefit,” Giridharadas continued. “He certainly ran on a campaign of smashing the system in 2016, but — but he is very nakedly revealing what I think is true of this group in general, which is that their existence as — as billionaires is sort of antithetical to our flourishing as a democracy.”

  May the odds be ever in your favor.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 20:40

• Special Counsel Investigating Trump Is 'Tool To Attack A Political Enemy': FBI Veteran
  Special Counsel Investigating Trump Is ‘Tool To Attack A Political Enemy’: FBI Veteran

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In appointing a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the Justice Department (DOJ) has turned its law enforcement apparatus into a “tool to attack a political enemy,” according to FBI veteran Marc Ruskin.

  

  Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden administration appointee, on Nov. 18 made the announcement in Washington, handing former DOJ prosecutor Jack Smith the task to oversee investigations related to Trump’s handling of classified records and parts of the probe into the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021.

  Trump has denied wrongdoing and characterized Garland’s move as a “horrendous abuse of power” and the “latest in the long series of witch hunts.”

  The timing of the appointment is significant, Ruskin said, noting how it dovetailed with pledges by House Republicans to investigate President Joe Biden and his administration once the GOP takes the gavel in January.

  “Using the legal system in baseless investigations and prosecutions has been a hallmark of the anti-Trump campaign since before 2016,” Ruskin, who served 27 years with the FBI and is a contributor for The Epoch Times, said in an interview.

  

  ‘Bait-and-Switch’

  Ruskin believes that the special counsel investigation serves a particular purpose.

  “It’s an old trick,” he said. “They’ll be hoping to divert attention from the congressional investigations and focus instead on a baseless special counsel investigation, because there’s no question that the legacy media is going to jump on board and give this front page attention, while the investigations being conducted by Congress will either be ignored or relegated to the back of the newspaper.”

  U.S. Code 28 CFR § 600.1 prescribes that the DOJ should appoint a special counsel in an investigation where there is a conflict of interest or other extraordinary circumstances, under which it would be in the public interest for an outside special counsel to step in.

  In the Friday press conference, Garland described the appointment of Smith, a registered independent, as a matter of public interest, citing Trump’s presidential candidacy and Biden’s interest in entering the race. Ruskin, however, didn’t feel convinced that there were sufficient grounds to warrant such a move.

  “They really haven’t articulated facts which justified the appointment of any kind of counsel,” he said.

  

  Some Trump critics have argued that the special counsel appointment suggests that the Justice Department is intent on bringing the case to indictment. Ruskin dismissed this claim as “a fabrication in order to justify a difficult-to-justify investigation.”

  “The argument is the old ‘where the smoke there must be fire’ reasoning, which is fallacious reasoning,” he said. “It’s a fallacy which has been propagated in order to justify what is arguably a politically motivated investigation seeking to create an advantage for the Democratic Party in the upcoming elections.”

  With the Jan. 6 probes dragging on for nearly two years, Ruskin said that he doesn’t expect anything tangible coming out of the continuing investigations.

  “They’ve come up with basically nothing. It really defies credibility to even suggest that this is a bonafide, legitimate investigation,” he said.

  Ruskin said that the news from Friday confirmed his belief that the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid was a “fishing expedition to obtain anything related to January 6.”

  Such a tactic, which Ruskin called a “bait-and-switch,” is no different from using “tainted evidence” in his view.

  “It’s like the fruit of the poisonous tree,” he said. “You shouldn’t be able to use facts obtained via subterfuge in order to accomplish [something] unrelated to the goals.”

  Hunter Biden Probe

  Having won back the House with a slim majority, Republicans have wasted no time flagging a raft of probes they plan to unleash in the new year, with a top focus being Biden’s alleged involvement in his son Hunter’s foreign business deals.

  “This is an investigation of Joe Biden, the president of the United States, and why he lied to the American people about his knowledge and participation in his family’s international business schemes,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told reporters on Nov. 17. The announcement prompted a retort from the White House, which called it politically-motivated rehashing of “long-debunked conspiracy theories.”

  Republicans on the committee on the same day released a report claiming to have uncovered evidence of federal crimes tied to the Biden family, which include conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Action, tax evasion, money laundering, and violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

  But Republicans looking into the possible abuses by the DOJ and FBI could face strong resistance from the agencies, according to Ruskin. This is especially so if the House GOP wants to look into ongoing matters like the FBI Trump raid, in which case the bureau could cite the ongoing investigation to refuse disclosing information.

  But Ruskin sees the FBI’s handling of Hunter Biden laptop as a potential starting point.

  An “obvious avenue of inquiry,” he said, is “why Justice [Department] and the bureau have sat on for two years without making any progress.”

  Earlier this year, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) revealed claims from FBI whistleblowers, alleging that the bureau leadership at the local level purposely delayed an examination of the Hunter Biden laptop until after the 2020 election, around a year after the FBI obtained the laptop in December 2019.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 20:20

• Egg Prices At Grocery Stores Hyperinflate Ahead Of Thanksgiving
  Egg Prices At Grocery Stores Hyperinflate Ahead Of Thanksgiving

  Egg supplies are tightening nationwide as more than 37 million egg-laying hens have died this year due to the severe bird flu outbreak, accounting for a whopping 10% of production. The result has been soaring egg prices at the supermarket ahead of the holiday season. 

  “Prices for eggs climbed more than 10% from September to October, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data. Prices in October were 43% higher than the same month a year ago. Eggs had the biggest jump by far on a monthly and yearly basis in any category in the US Department of Agriculture’s food price outlook,” Bloomberg reported. 

  Consumers paid an average of $3.42 for a dozen Grade A, large eggs last month — up from $1.82 a year earlier. 

  

  Readers have been well-informed this year about the devastating bird flu outbreak ravaging commercial poultry farms nationwide. 

  

  “The recent spike is extraordinary in the shell-egg as well as egg-product markets,” Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in food economics, told CNBC. 

  Besides eggs, food inflation remained at the highest levels since the late 1970s, crushing the pocketbooks of Americans as they drain their savings and rack up credit card debt to buy essentials. Breakfast was the cheapest meal of the day but has since become expensive, thanks to soaring egg, bread, meat, and orange juice prices. 

  

  The last bird flu outbreak was in 2015. This current outbreak appears much worse in terms of just egg prices. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 20:00

• Kari Lake Gives Update, Says "Whistleblowers Are Coming Forward"
  Kari Lake Gives Update, Says “Whistleblowers Are Coming Forward”

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Arizona Republican governor’s candidate Kari Lake issued a Monday update, saying her attorneys are working to obtain more information and “whistleblowers are coming forward” after reports of poll issues on Election Day in Maricopa County.

  “Attorneys are working diligently to gather information,” said Lake, a former local news anchor who was backed by former President Donald Trump. “Whistleblowers are coming forward and the curtain is being lifted. Whether done accidentally or intentionally. It is clear that this election was a debacle that destroyed any trust in our elections.”

  

  Authorities Maricopa County are, according to Lake, “still counting ballots” after “printer problems, tabulation errors, three-hour-long lines and even longer and confusing instructions given by election officials made this election day the most chaotic in Arizona’s history.”

  For the past several days, Lake has been posting videos of voters complaining about their experiences during Election Day to her Twitter page.  She’s said that Republican voters were disenfranchised when they tried to cast ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county.

  Officials in Maricopa County said on Nov. 8 there were problems with vote-tabulation machines and asked voters to drop their ballots inside dropboxes. Later that day, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and county Recorder Stephen Richer blamed an issue with printers for the problem and later said that the glitch would not stop anyone from voting.

  Letter

  Over the weekend, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office sent a letter asking Maricopa County for answers about the apparent voting problems. The memo said that it has fielded hundreds of complaints about how authorities conducted the election during the in-person voting phase.

  “These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law,” the letter said, asking for a response before Nov. 28. Gates, in an interview with local media, said his office would comply.

  “We’re reviewing this with our attorneys right now and I don’t have anything further to say at this point, but we will certainly before we hold the canvass,” he told KTAR on Monday.

  Gates stated that around 70 of the county’s 223 vote centers suffered problems on Nov. 8. Technicians were able to solve the problem by the same afternoon, he remarked.

  

  The letter said that Maricopa needs to provide a “full report” for the “myriad problems that occurred in relation to Maricopa County’s administration of the 2022 General Election.”

  Hobbs Declares Victory

  Last week, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state and chief election official, declared victory. Lake has not conceded yet and it appears that she will not do so anytime soon, according to her video.

  “Arizonans who choose to make their voice heard on election day should not be disenfranchised or punished for choosing to vote in person,” Lake said Monday. “Yet they were I want you to know Arizona. I will continue fighting until we restore confidence and faith in our elections.”

  And Lake, in reacting to the attorney general’s recent letter to Maricopa County, told the Daily Mail on Sunday she still believes “I will become governor, and we are going to restore honesty to our elections.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 19:40

• "Concerns Have Abated": FalconX Resumes Use Of Silvergate Network As Crypto Bank Amasses Large Short Interest
  “Concerns Have Abated”: FalconX Resumes Use Of Silvergate Network As Crypto Bank Amasses Large Short Interest

  Like almost every other equity related to crypto this month, Silvergate Capital has been punished badly. 

  As we noted last week, the stock has had a triumphant fall from grace, plunging from highs of $160 per share in early 2022 to lows near $24 over the last few trading sessions, as each day new ugly crypto-related headlines cross the wires.

  But for Silvergate, which is known as the largest and most well known regulated crypto bank in the United States that also can allow customers to send cash in real time, it looks as though business may be returning to normal…somewhat.

  This morning it was announced that institutional cryptocurrency platform FalconX would be resuming its use of the Silvergate payment network. It had suspended use of the network last week. 

  

  “Concerns have abated,” the platform told its clients in a memo. The halting of use of Silvergate was consistent “with our standard process to pause and reassess operations in these scenarios,” the company wrote, according to a Tuesday morning Bloomberg note. 

  Meanwhile, Silvergate Chief Executive Officer Alan Lane said earlier this year that the bank “remains committed to supporting customers during a challenging period for the digital-asset industry,” Bloomberg reported. 

  On his LinkedIn page Monday, Lane wrote: “I’ve said before that our business was built to support our customers during growth and market transformation. And we remain steadfast in that commitment to you, our customers.”

  In the interim, as Silvergate continues to weather the storm, its stock has amassed a massive 12% of its float short, even despite the plunge in shares, according to S3.

  Recall, about a week ago Silvergate confirmed it had little exposure to the FTX blowup. 

  Lane, Chief Executive Officer of Silvergate, said:

  “In light of recent developments, I want to provide an update on Silvergate’s exposure to FTX. As of September 30, 2022, Silvergate’s total deposits from all digital asset customers totaled $11.9 billion, of which FTX represented less than 10%. Silvergate has no outstanding loans to nor investments in FTX, and FTX is not a custodian for Silvergate’s bitcoin-collateralized SEN Leverage loans. To be clear, our relationship with FTX is limited to deposits.“

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 19:20

• Joe Biden & The "Transformational" Presidency
  Joe Biden & The “Transformational” Presidency

  Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  Much is made of the failure of Republicans to make predicted gains in the recent midterm elections, but, as Ryan McMaken has pointed out, Congress plays a much-diminished role in national governance to the point that even had the so-called red wave actually occurred, it is doubtful that much would have changed regarding Joe Biden’s presidency. In fact, most of what Biden has done in his two years in office has been outside of congressional legislative matters.

  

  McMaken points out:

  This all combines to mean we should expect very little change on policies at the federal level. For example, we can expect to keep hearing plenty about the evil of fossil fuels. The administration will continue to press for less drilling for oil and gas, and the war on coal will continue. The administration will continue to issue new edicts for “fighting global warming.” 

  As McMaken notes, Biden has used executive orders liberally, sometimes using a twisted interpretation of federal law, and then unleashing his regulatory and law enforcement agencies to get his desired results. For example, federal banking regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission have pressured banks and other lenders not to led to the oil and gas industry, citing the fealty to fighting climate change as the reason.

  Note that the administration is doing this not via congressional authorization, but rather through its own self-serving “interpretation” of existing federal law. Likewise, Biden’s infamous student loan forgiveness order was not through such relief passed by Congress, but rather using a 2003 federal law that permits the US secretary of education to employ “expansive authority to alleviate the hardship that federal student loan recipients may suffer as a result of national emergencies.” What constitutes a “national emergency” must be in the eyes of the beholder, as any reason will do—and, so far, the courts have signed off on this vast expansion of executive power. This is reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt’s perverse interpretation of the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act to undergird his gold seizure from Americans and devaluate the dollar.

  (Biden has not been the only recent president to liberally employ executive orders for questionable reasons. Donald Trump used existing law to raise tariffs against Chinese products, claiming that his actions meant that the Chinese were now helping to pay for their exports to the USA. Once upon a time—before turning over some of its authority to the executive branch—Congress had sole authority to set tax rates.)

  Biden’s reckless actions have come in part because progressives in the 1930s convinced Congress to give away much of its authority to the executive branch, the action well described by Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence Stratton in their book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions. The authors described a scene in which Congress was passing bills not even yet written and acceding their authority to the president as a response to the economic calamity of the early 1930s.

  The New Deal, which was Franklin Roosevelt’s set of policies ostensibly to combat the Great Depression (although one easily can argue that the New Deal was the main reason the depression lasted for a decade), made FDR a “transformational” president, a title that Biden actively is seeking for himself. Encouraged by historical writers such as Jon Meacham and Doris Kearns Goodwin, Biden wants to become an icon like Roosevelt, although the “hook” today is not economic depression (yet) but rather the so-called climate emergency.

  Unfortunately, becoming a presidential icon requires that the executive branch impose severe economic damage to the country. Roosevelt’s New Deal, far from pulling the USA out of the Great Depression, left it mired it in what economist Robert Higgs called “regime uncertainty,” which resulted in high unemployment and a dearth of capital investment. Biden’s version of the so-called Green New Deal points the economy in the same direction. Writes Thomas Woods:

  In the old days, progressives claimed to be trying to improve the standard of living of the ordinary person. Everything they advocated would have had the opposite effect, but at least they claimed to be making his life better.

  Now they’re not even claiming that.

  You will be poorer, they’re telling you. Your electricity bills will be higher. The price of your car will be higher. And according to them, higher prices are in fact a good thing, because they’re supposedly a sign of a strong economy.

  His claims notwithstanding, Biden’s objective to have a “transformational” presidency is to make Americans worse off now in exchange for the remote possibility that the Green New Deal will allow for future generations to have better weather. Biden’s grandiose view of himself and his policies are egged on in part by Meacham’s flattery:

  He has been described as Joe Biden’s “historical muse”, an occasional informal adviser to the US president and contributor to some of his major speeches including the inaugural address.

  In March, Jon Meacham put together a meeting between Biden and a group of fellow historians at the White House that lasted more than two hours. What did he learn about the 46th president?

  “He’s like an upside down iceberg,” the Pulitzer prize-winning historian says by phone. “You see most of it and that’s not spin: there’s just not a lot of mystery to Joe Biden. The last four or five minutes of his press conference in the East Room [on 25 March] when he talked about democracy and autocracy, that was pretty much it.”

  As the average American family struggles to keep up with inflation and the Biden administration deliberately makes it more difficult for them to live a semblance of normal lives, historians such as Meacham are telling Biden to expand his reach and his authority in fundamentally changing how Americans live. Indeed, in Biden’s first two years, he has brought about fundamental change to American life, but that change has been harmful.

  Robert Higgs in his article “No More Great Presidents” lays out the modern historians’ standard for “greatness”:

  The lesson seems obvious. Any president who craves a high place in the annals of history should hasten to thrust the American people into an orgy of death and destruction. It does not matter how ill-conceived the war may be. 

  So far, Biden has not launched the USA into a foreign war, although he has almost single-handedly financed (with US tax dollars, of course) the proxy war between Ukraine and Russia, using the Russian invasion as his justification for doing everything he can to prolong the fighting. However, by shackling the energy industries, blaming businesses for the inflation his government created, and doing whatever he can to make daily life difficult for ordinary people, one can say that Biden is at war with people who have no means by which to fight back.

  Even had the red wave passed over the electorate earlier this month, it would have changed the Biden presidency very little, if at all. That is how powerful the executive branch under Biden has become. And Biden will continue to listen to the “historians” who fawn over his every word and tell him that he, too, can be a “great” president.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 19:00

• China Pauses Purchases Of Some Russian Oils Ahead Of Price Cap
  China Pauses Purchases Of Some Russian Oils Ahead Of Price Cap

  While we wait for the US and EU to unveil details of the Russian oil price caps which will be implemented in two weeks (we may have a lot to to wait after John Kirby said that “It’s not just about the dollar figure. It’s about the implementation, of course, making sure as many countries as possible can sign on to that,” he tells reporters, clearly stalling as nobody in the west knows just how badly such a price cap could backfire and send prices soaring), China is not taking any risks as its crude buyers – who have emerged as the biggest buyers of Russian oil in 2022 taking advantage of western sanctions and buying up Russian oil with discounts as large as $30 below spot – have paused purchases of some Russian oil as they too wait for details of a US-led cap to see if it presents a better price.

  As Bloomberg reports citing “traders with knowledge of the matter”, several cargoes of Russian ESPO crude for December-loading remain unsold and there’s hesitation among sellers and Chinese buyers to close deals before more clarity on the exact price cap level is known, according to traders with knowledge of the matter.

  The Russian oil price cap is set to be implemented alongside European Union sanctions on Russian crude on Dec. 5, with those adhering to the measure gaining access to insurance, banking and shipping services from the bloc. The cap is designed to keep crude flowing from the OPEC+ producer to prevent a global supply shock but crimp the Kremlin’s revenues as it wages war in Ukraine.

  However, Russia has reiterated that it won’t sell to nations that implement the cap, potentially sending oil sharply higher (back in July JPMorgan said that “Oil Price Could Hit “Stratospheric” $380 If Russia Retaliates To G7 Oil Price Cap“). Instead, Moscow will redirect supply to “market-oriented partners” or reduce production, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. In other words, the status quo will continue, since to this day Russian oil makes its way to European markets, only instead of being bought directly from Russia, it comes by way of China or India instead, with Europe paying a substantial premium to where oil would trade if all these artificial trade barriers did not exist.

  ESPO, or Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil is popular with China’s independent refiners due to the high diesel yield and short shipping distance. Traders said many market participants appear open to referencing the price cap — even if they don’t officially support it — provided the level isn’t too dislocated from current prices.

  Should the level be set too low, however, the party responsible for shipping and insurance coverage — which can be the seller or buyer, depending on contract terms — may need to seek services from non-EU providers, thereby complicating the process and drastically changing the economics of the deal.

  At the same time, and as Zoltan Pozsar explained back in March, adding to buyers’ concerns is that banks that finance crude purchases are wary of the looming sanctions and soaring freight rates. Service providers are weighing their possible exposure to the EU penalties and how best to navigate restrictions when they take effect in less than two weeks.

  Ahead of the price cap, Russian seaborne fuel exports soared to the highest since at least 2017 as the nation’s refiners rushed to do deals before EU restrictions on imports and shipping come into force. The nation’s average daily exports of oil products from Nov. 1 to 10 jumped 22% from the prior month to around 3.17 million barrels, according to estimates from data and analytics firm Kpler.

  

  Ironically, Bloomberg also reported previously that the largest oil companies in China – whose dependence on cheap Russian oil has soared this year – are seeking help from Beijing to keep Russian imports flowing after new sanctions on Moscow that are set to kick in next month. State-owned oil refiners are worried about their ability to work out the payment channels, logistics and insurance needed to keep buying from the OPEC+ producer after Dec. 5.

  

  China and India have become key outlets for Russian crude after most other buyers shunned the OPEC+ producer following its invasion of Ukraine. Both China and India have, in turn, become major sources of Russian oil to Europe, only instead of calling it Russian oil they sell it as – drumroll – China and Indian oil. And that allows Europe’s virtue signalers to sleep at night.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 18:40

• How Money From Gates And FTX Bought Scientific Silence
  How Money From Gates And FTX Bought Scientific Silence

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  Looking back, it’s utterly bizarre how the world of science could have gone so silent even as the world locked down and lives were shattered by the billions by governments the world over. The silence was deafening. We went from a March 2, 2020, letter signed by 800 public health experts associated with Yale University—which warned against quarantines and closures—to a strange disappearance of nearly all clear voices a few weeks later. And so things stood for the better part of two years.

  

  Governments were allowed to create vast carnage based on a novel experiment with absolutely no precedent in history and no scientific literature that backed it. Even the World Health Organization’s pandemic plan included nothing like lockdowns as a solution to a widespread pathogen. At the time, it was obvious to me and others that the silence was due not to broad agreement with the policies but to something else.

  That something, sad to say, was money.

  We are more and more discovering the heightened role that the crypto exchange FTX played in funneling money to major public health outposts and academics at Johns Hopkins and Stanford University, as well as its family connections to the Columbia University department of public health. And before that funding spigot opened up, there was the Gates Foundation which had clearly pivoted from seemingly nonpartisan research to full support for the lockdowns.

  To be sure, there is no one explanation for the disaster. The whole profession had already been infected by the intellectual virus of mechanistic rationalism and modeling. The idea was that if you slap some math and equations together and let the computer take over, you can gain a picture of disease outcomes under various scenarios. Such models are easily manipulated with small changes in variables.

  Deborah Birx relied on these entirely in her push to get the Trump administration to greenlight the lockdowns. And there can be no doubt about that history now that Trump’s Twitter account is alive again. The end of the censorship allows us to see how he was pressured to throw out his best instincts and instead adopt a lockdown policy, not just for two weeks but for months after, even to the point of criticizing Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia for opening up that Trump considered to be “too soon.”

  (As an aside, the restoration of Trump’s account also allows us to see that his last two tweets urged all Jan. 6, 2021, protesters on Capitol to stay peaceful and respect the blue. It’s no wonder the ancien régime at Twitter wanted his account blocked and blasted away.)

  Having studied this trajectory closely, it seems impossible to overlook the political motives here. No question that many elites in many places had whipped themselves up into a frenzy to the point that they were willing to crush the whole of society and even give up two years of education for kids in order to drive Trump from office. The plot was to get him to make the initial call himself based on telling him lies about virus severity and the effectiveness of lockdowns. No question that he was hornswoggled.

  However, in addition to these factors, one cannot neglect financial factors. Quite plainly, the grant money at the time and for two years later was clearly on the side of lockdowns and the Democrat Party, plus the elite media and their narrative line that openness equals death and lockdowns/masking/mandates were public-spirited.

  Vast numbers of scientists who could have and should have spoken out remained silent, or, worse, lent their voices in support of the outrage. Much of the reason has to do with how science is funded at the university level. It’s all about getting the next grant. It’s tragic but there is a strong motivation here to curate one’s opinions in a way that paves the way for future funding sources.

  This is why it is not necessary that every sellout scientist be in receipt of direct funds from Gates, FTX, or the pharmaceutical industry. All that needs to happen to control a whole sector of opinion is for the word to get out on the streets that a funding source is there with countless millions and is ready to fork over.

  As a result, even the smartest and most credentialled people can be easily made to fall in line. And no question that FTX quickly picked up the reputation of somehow being concerned about “pandemic planning” and so the whole of the industry lined up with their palms out. After all, FTX promised $100 million in grants!

  This is why, the Washington Post reports, “The shock waves from FTX’s free fall have rippled across the public health world, where numerous leaders in pandemic-preparedness had received funds from FTX funders or were seeking donations.”

  The seeking part is key here. But so is the money trail. FTX funded the later stages of the single biggest trials for repurposed therapeutics for COVID. Countless lives hung in the balance on these trials. Many physicians the world over had experienced great outcomes in dire circumstances from generic drugs such as HCQ, Ivermectin, fluvoxamine, and others, especially when used with other vitamins and zinc. Testing them was crucial.

  The results were backed by a predictable media blitz: such therapeutics don’t work. Meanwhile, the study has been severely criticized not only for poor study construction but also for the conflicts of interests of top researchers who also consulted with pharmaceutical companies.

  This is all very significant because there is a strong sense that the reason for the neglect of therapeutics—by the National Institutes of Health, Gates Foundation, and also major media, which smeared anyone who suggested there might be a better way—might all trace to the economic motive of shutting down cheap alternatives to vaccines.

  Independent journalist Alexandros Marinos has mapped out the timeline of the study:

  

  The Gates Foundation was first in, followed by Rainwater and FastGrants. FastGrants is a program established by the Charles G. Koch Foundation that also ended up giving money to Imperial College modeler Neil Ferguson, who first drove lockdown propaganda in the UK and United States. FTX modeled its own grant-giving program on FastGrants and then picked up the funding burden later in the process. (There is supreme irony here: the lie all over the internet was that the Great Barrington Declaration was funded by Koch, whereas in fact that money stream was going to the opposition!)

  In addition, the Post notes, FTX “awarded $1.5 million to Stanford University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health in July for seed grants intended ‘to catalyze research and innovations that prepare for and help prevent the next pandemic.’”

  Also: “The Future Fund’s commitments included $10 million to HelixNano, a biotech start-up seeking to develop a next-generation coronavirus vaccine; $250,000 to a University of Ottawa scientist researching how to eradicate viruses from plastic surfaces; and $175,000 to support a recent law school graduate’s job at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.”

  We don’t know how much money Gates/FTX gave to JHU’s Center for Health Security (which had sponsored Event 201) but it was enough to cause the Center’s head Tom Inglesby to completely reverse his earlier position against lockdowns to become a leading champion of them.

  “Overall, the [FTX] Future Fund was a force for good,” Inglesby told the Post. “The work they were doing was really trying to get people to think long-term … to build pandemic preparedness, to diminish the risks of biological threats.”

  Following the money trail from FTX to the public health establishment will undoubtedly reveal more in the way of information, especially considering that Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabe ran a lobbying organization entirely devoted to “pandemic planning.”

  No question that this whole machine became an industrial behemoth over two years. When I first started Brownstone Institute, my phone and email began to blow up with offers of money and funding, but always with a proviso. I had to connect our scientists with their network of scientists in an already established system.

  There was no question in my mind what was going on: I was being told to play ball in exchange for large checks to make this fledgling nonprofit work. In some way, this astonished me: I was being offered a path to riches provided I would gut the whole mission! And this was happening even before we had published any of our research!

  So, yes, I saw how this system works firsthand. Of course I completely rejected the idea simply because going along would defeat the whole point of founding an institute in the first place. And yet the presumption on the part of the contacts was that surely this was just another racket in a space full of them and I would be happy to give up all principles for generous funding. I never considered it even for one instant.

  There is a grotesque tragedy to all of this. Great people gave up all their principles and integrity in exchange for grants and grease from big shots who used their money and power to wreck the world over two years, and they were able to do it with very little professional opposition. And yet here we are today. Who are the real stars in the world of science today? Not those on the Gates/FTX gravy train. It is the men and women who stuck their necks out to do the right thing.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 18:20

• Humans Could Live On The Moon "This Decade": NASA Official
  Humans Could Live On The Moon “This Decade”: NASA Official

  The NASA official in charge of the Orion lunar spacecraft program says humans could live on the moon for lengthy periods this decade.

  

  Speaking with the BBC, Howard Hu told host Laura Kuenssberg that Wednesday’s launch of the Artemis rocket, which carries Orion, was a “historic day for human space flight,” according to the BBC.

  Orion is currently about 134,000km (83,300 miles) from the Moon.

  The 100m-tall Artemis rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center as part of Nasa’s mission to take astronauts back to Earth’s satellite.

  Sitting atop the rocket is the Orion spacecraft which, for this first mission, is uncrewed but is equipped with a ‘manikin’ which will register the impacts of the flight on the human body.

  Wednesday’s flight followed two previous launch attempts in August and September that were aborted during the countdown because of technical woes. -BBC

  “It’s the first step we’re taking to long-term deep space exploration, for not just the United States but for the world,” said Hu, adding “And I think this is an historic day for Nasa, but it’s also an historic day for all the people who love human space flight and deep space exploration. “

  “I mean, we are going back to the Moon, we’re working towards a sustainable program and this is the vehicle that will carry the people that will land us back on the Moon again.”

  Program manager for Orion at NASA, Howard Hu, tells #BBCLauraK they believe humans will be living on the Moon by the end of the decadehttps://t.co/Z1BCKTGMHl pic.twitter.com/hSuELrAnrK

  — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) November 20, 2022

  According to Hu, if the current Artemis flight was successful, the next one will be manned, while a third would be where astronauts could actually land on the Moon.

  The current mission was proceeding well, he told the BBC, with all systems working and the mission team preparing for the next firing of Orion’s engines (what is known as a burn) at lunchtime on Monday to put the spacecraft into a distant orbit of the Moon.

  Mr Hu admitted that watching the mission from Earth was not unlike being an anxious parent, but he said seeing the images and the videos coming back from Orion “really gives that excitement and feeling of, ‘wow, we are headed back to the Moon'”. -BBC

  Recommended reading for life on the moon…

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 18:00

• California Workers Win $125,000 After Vaccine Discrimination Lawsuit
  California Workers Win $125,000 After Vaccine Discrimination Lawsuit

  Authored by Juliette Fairley via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Five months after filing a lawsuit against the Goleta Water District in Santa Barbara, attorneys have secured a six-figure award in favor of five plaintiffs resulting from the utility’s restrictive COVID-19 employee vaccine mandate.

  “This was fairly early on that they offered this judgment that the plaintiffs were the prevailing parties, which means they did not want to litigate this case clearly and go to discovery,” said Mariah Gondeiro, an Advocates for Faith & Freedom lawyer.

  “I believe that we can use it in other cases as a precedent.”

  

  Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a nonprofit law firm, filed their lawsuit in June alleging that the mandate discriminated against their clients who have religious beliefs that prevented them from submitting to the injection.

  The settlement resulted not only in Goleta Water District paying $125,000 to five plaintiffs, plus attorney’s fees, but also in agreeing to a judgment in which the plaintiffs prevailed.

  

  “It’s not really surprising because the reality is we’re starting to see this across the country,” Gondeiro told The Epoch Times. “Government officials are being held accountable for their discriminatory policies and I am hopeful that we’re going to continue to see these types of decisions because what they did was wrong, and they hurt a lot of people’s lives.”

  Two of the employees remain water district workers. Three have moved on.

  “They didn’t want to have to pay for testing and the ones that have already left don’t want their jobs back,” Gondeiro said.

  Because they requested and were granted religious exemptions, the five plaintiffs had to choose between unpaid leaves of absence or paying for bi-weekly COVID-19 tests on their own time.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 17:40

• Biden Extends Student Loan Repayment Freeze Until June 30
  Biden Extends Student Loan Repayment Freeze Until June 30

  The Biden administration has extended the payment pause on student loan bills yet again. The relief has been in place since the start of the Covid pandemic and was set to expire at the end of the year. 

  Bloomberg reported the White House extended the student loan repayment freeze until June 30, 2023. This allows tens of millions of borrowers to skip out on payments, as restarting repayments early next year would’ve been messy for the administration, which has promised forgiveness. 

  I’m confident that our student debt relief plan is legal. But it’s on hold because Republican officials want to block it.

  That’s why @SecCardona is extending the payment pause to no later than June 30, 2023, giving the Supreme Court time to hear the case in its current term. pic.twitter.com/873CurlHFZ

  — President Biden (@POTUS) November 22, 2022

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  Any restart of repayments would’ve unleashed a student debt default wave for millions of borrowers. 

  “Unless the [Education] Department is allowed to provide debt relief, we anticipate there could be a historically large increase in the amount of federal student loan delinquency and defaults as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” James Richard Kvaal, Department of Education undersecretary of education, said in a recent court filing.

  Biden’s student loan forgiveness program calls for $10,000 cancellation of federal loans per borrower who made less than $125,000 in 2020 or 2021, which is now at the mercy of the courts.

  Around 16 million people have been approved for federal student loan forgiveness — and some have already been emailed – though no debt cancellation has been completed due to litigation. Biden has asked for the Supreme Court to intervene.  

  Currently, tens of millions of borrowers don’t have to make a payment until June of next year while the Biden administration is trying to fulfill its promise to cancel debt and avert a massive default wave that would surely hurt the president’s ratings ahead of the 2024 elections. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 17:20

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