Mar 25

Today’s News 25th March 2021

  • "Nightmare" Of Factors Pushing World Into Coffee Deficit 
    “Nightmare” Of Factors Pushing World Into Coffee Deficit 

    A coffee shortage appears to be brewing as global supplies could shift into a deficit as drought in Brazil slashes output. This has resulted in surging wholesale prices and US supplies slumping to a six-year low. Savor today’s cheap cup of joe because retail prices are set to rise. 

    Besides the creeping deficit set to materialize this year, coffee importers in the US have also dealt with a global shortage of shipping containers. Christian Wolthers, the president of Wolthers Douque, an importer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, told Bloomberg this has resulted in a logistical nightmare.

    He estimates his shipping costs from South America have doubled, adding that “these bottlenecks are turning into a container nightmare.”

    So maybe a perfect storm of factors from adverse weather conditions in South America to further fallout from a global shortage of shipping containers have pushed up Arabica-coffee futures in New York by nearly a quarter since late October.

    Last month, unroasted US bean inventory declined by 8.3% from a year earlier to the smallest inventory levels since 2015. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    In conjunction with adverse weather conditions in South America, lower inventories mean the coffee market will tighten and support higher prices. 

    Commodity experts at Marex Spectron estimate the 2021-22 global coffee deficit at around 10.7 million bags, compared with previous figures of approximately 8 million bags. They cite lower Brazilian arabica output after unfavorable weather destroyed crops. 

    Goldman Sachs told clients in a recent commodity note that if production in South America doesn’t improve in the near term, the market could enter a structural deficit given the quick rebound in demand. 

    Logistical problems have been a significant issue for coffee exporters in South America. There’s a lot of product sitting inside Brazilian warehouses with nowhere to go because of the lack of shipping containers.  

    Luiz Alberto Azevedo Levy Jr., a director at Dinamo, who operates Brazil’s largest coffee warehouse, warned the situation would get much worse in the months ahead as volumes of coffee exported by Brazil may decline. 

    “Logistics have been a headache, dealing with lack of space and containers,” said Marco Figueiredo, trader and partner at the Florida-based Ally Coffee, a coffee merchant that imports beans from Brazil. “We are monitoring the situation and talking to clients, making them aware of the rising costs.”

    Given adverse weather conditions in South America and supply chain woes still lingering from the pandemic, retail coffee prices are set to rise. So what does this mean? Well, probably now is the time to panic hoard coffee unless you don’t mind a little bit of inflation. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/25/2021 – 02:45

  • The US Continues To Smuggle Oil While Turkey Complains To Russia It Can't
    The US Continues To Smuggle Oil While Turkey Complains To Russia It Can’t

    Submitted by SouthFront,

    The intensity of the conflict in Syria’s northeast refuses to die down, as more and more strikes are carried out targeting each involved party’s interests. For its part, MSM reports on all of these, but many of them are presented in a light, much different from reality.

    On March 23rd, a video emerged showing the Damascus government forces conduct a strike on Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

    The shelling targeted the terrorist fortifications and depots. MSM, in conjunction with various Western-backed organizations such as the “International Rescue Committee”, shifted the story and claimed that a civilian hospital had been struck.

    As such, the narrative is this – the “Bloody Assad Regime” is back at it, targeting civilians and killing its own people. As might be expected this media campaign is part of the attempts by the US to rebrand HTS as a “former terrorist” and now reformed organization, in order to have another ally, in a different part of Syria.

    The Damascus government’s recent punishment of HTS and the Turkish-backed militants in northeastern Syria is happening with Russian support and is part of a wider push to liberate more areas of Syria.

    Ankara is dissatisfied with this, even summoning the Russian Ambassador to complain about the severe strikes that Moscow had carried out on terrorist targets. The Turkish side insists that artillery and air strikes on positions and infrastructure of Turkish-funded terrorists in Greater Idlib violated the ‘de-escalation agreement’. No mentions were made of the violations that are frequently carried out by these same terrorists.

    Turkey would like to continue to enjoy the smuggled oil it used to receive from the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. The United States, still benefits from that smuggled oil. On March 23rd, a convoy of more than 300 tankers left Syria’s Hasaka region and entered Iraq.

    Washington’s oil repatriation is not proceeding without a hitch either. On March 23rd, several rockets hit a US military base near the Conico oil field in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor. Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV reported that the US suffered casualties. Little else is known.

    Being subject to rocket strikes, and having convoys hit by IEDs was commonplace in Iraq, but it appears that it has now also come to plague Washington’s forces in Syria.

    The profits from that smuggled oil could potentially be used to cover a recent loss by the US – an MQ-9 Reaper was downed in Yemen, by Ansar Allah.

    Despite officially not supporting the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, the Biden Administration appears to still be up to Washington’s old activities. The Houthis, as Ansar Allah is commonly known, are riding high due to their recent successes and continue their regular drone strikes on various Saudi positions and infrastructure behind enemy lines.

    The Abha Airport, alongside other locations in the south of the Kingdom, is subject to frequent attacks.

    Riyadh is providing ample opposition, carrying out approximately 30 or more airstrikes each day. Still, it would seem that the Saudi-led coalition is being steadily pushed back.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/25/2021 – 02:00

  • Who Is Really To Blame For The Rise In Asian Hate-Crimes? Spoiler Alert: It's Not "White Supremacy"
    Who Is Really To Blame For The Rise In Asian Hate-Crimes? Spoiler Alert: It’s Not “White Supremacy”

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    These days, just talking about race issues in a critical manner will get you labeled a “racist”. If you don’t regurgitate the rhetoric of the mainstream media and social justice lunatics like a pirate’s parrot, then you are suddenly “problematic” and must be pigeonholed and canceled as quickly as possible. I will be called a racist for writing this article, but then again, what does that word even mean anymore? Almost anything can get you labeled as a racist now, so why should we care?

    My position is this: Facts are not racist. Facts are color blind.

    I was recently studying the latest “Asian hate crime” narrative and as I examined information on the attacks I was not surprised to find that the mainstream media version of reality was once again completely fraudulent.

    For the most part the media tends to “lie by omission”, and it’s something they do on a regular basis.

    For example, the media consistently mentions “white supremacy” as a motivator for Asian attacks. Yet, the vast majority of recent hate crimes against Asians have been enacted by blacks. This fact doesn’t really fit the propaganda model, so, the media doesn’t mention the race of the specific assailants, they just use the phrase “white supremacy” and let their audience make assumptions.

    Far left outlet Politifact’s analysis of Asian hate crimes does not make a single mention of the race of the majority of the attackers. They only mention the race of ONE attacker, the shooter in Georgia. This is not accidental, this is deliberate disinformation through omission.

    And what about the shootings in Georgia? Weren’t those committed by a white guy? Sure, but what the media doesn’t talk about is the fact that those shootings were NOT race related in the slightest. The FBI has confirmed this. Instead, the shooter was a “sex addict” who thought that he could remove temptation by getting rid of local massage parlors. The women being Asian had nothing to do with it.

    The problem of black-on-Asian violence is so prevalent right now that social justice groups are trying to “discourage anti-black sentiment” because of all the videos surfacing of the crimes. Perhaps they fell for the disinformation too and assumed the attackers were all white? It’s hard to say, but no one in BLM is calling out black people and telling them to “check their privilege” and “stop the hate”.

    Instead, social justice groups are taking advantage of the disinformation campaign. They are calling for “unity”, and are of course using white people as their bogeyman to frighten minorities into joining leftist/Marxist causes. So, black perpetrators commit the majority of attacks on Asians, then BLM and others call for unity with Asians to stop “white supremacy”? How does that work…?

    Furthermore, the definitions of what constitutes “racism” and “hate crime” is constantly changing in our schizophrenic era. Many reported hate crimes end up being heated arguments involving people of two different races. How is this a “hate crime”? Well, if one of the people is white, then it is automatically a hate crime. Thus, some of the more biased hate crime trackers out there (like the SPLC or the ADL) are able to hyperinflate their stats.

    My question is, who made the political left the arbiters of what a hate crime is? They aren’t qualified, because leftists tend to be the most racist people on the planet. They see EVERYTHING through the prism of race and skin color. Tell them skin color doesn’t matter to you, and they will actually get angry about it. This past couple years Asian activists were protesting unfair college entry quotas that favor black people and discriminate against Asians with superior test scores; this racism is being driven by leftist groups, not by conservatives. Our philosophy is actually anti-racist, because we believe in judging people by merit and not by skin color.

    I’m pretty sure that a lot of minorities also do not like to be treated as if they are fragile victims all the time; they don’t want to be purse puppies for leftists.

    If the current tide of society seems insane to you, that’s because any normal person finds these events hard to fathom. That said, there is a method to this madness, and to understand it you have to understand the propaganda tactic of “Gaslighting”. I will be examining this subject in detail in my next article, but suffice to say, gaslighting is an integral part of race baiting as well as the demoralization of honest political opposition. Making innocent people believe that they are criminals and that the criminals are the victims is a classic strategy for controlling those innocent people and preventing them from retaliating or rebelling.

    Do some some white individuals commit race based crimes? Absolutely. No one is disputing that. What I’m disputing is the notion that hate crimes are the singular domain of white people, and the notion that it is white people in particular that are responsible for latest attacks on Asians.

    So, to cut through the gaslighting, here are the facts according to the most recent FBI crime data (2019):

    • White Americans make up 70% of the population and are cited for 52% of all hate crimes (nearly 20% below the percentage of the white population).

    • Black Americans are 13% of the population but are cited for 24% of all hate crimes (nearly double the percentage of the black population).

    • Black Americans are also cited for over 50% of all violent crime in the nation.

    Leftists often assert that many race based crimes go unreported, and I actually agree; many crimes committed against whites by minorities are simply labeled “crimes”, instead of hate crimes. Crimes by whites against minorities get far more attention and are often labeled “hate crimes” before all the facts are in (just like the shootings in Georgia).

    Case in point, this week a black man stabbed a 12 year old white boy in the neck in a Pittsburgh McDonalds while screaming racial slurs and then attacked police when they tried to arrest him. The majority of the media have completely ignored this event and have swept in under the rug. If the skin colors were reversed, we would be hearing about this attack in the news for MONTHS.

    The reality that most recent attacks on Asians are being committed by black people does not mean that there is necessarily an issue of “black supremacy”. Black people are not a monolith, just as white people are not a monolith. But there is indeed a double standard.

    Whenever a hate crime is committed by a white person against a minority, the assertion is always that this is the byproduct of a monolithic white supremacist organism and that all whites are somehow to blame. Whenever a crime is committed by a minority against another minority or a white victim, the media conveniently keeps skin color out of it, or, they still blame white people. (How about that shooting in Colorado by a leftist Muslim? The media seems less excited all of a sudden when we all found out it was not carried out by an “evil” white conservative. Instead, they are now acting as if the shooter is the victim, claiming he was “bullied as a child because of his religion”).

    I would usually argue that we should be blaming the individuals that commit the crimes, and leave it at that. There is, however, a group today that does represent a monolith, and despite their name they are not organized by race so much as by ideology. I am of course referring to Black Lives Matter and other affiliated leftist groups. These groups have consistently advocated and defended random violence as well as massive destruction of property over the past few years as a means for political gain. Beyond that, these same groups have often been protected by government institutions.

    Thousands of people involved in BLM related crimes have been given get-out-of-jail-free cards by state and city officials the past year. Not only that, but they have benefited from endless media spin, telling the world that they are “peaceful” when most of the evidence is to the contrary.

    It is not that black people in general are being given a pass; it is that BLM and leftist groups are being given a pass and this is creating a culture of double standards. I believe this is encouraging further violence among black individuals with a predisposition to crime. There are racists and criminals in every group and of every color, but the criminals and racists within the black community are being sent a message that they are immune to consequences because of BLM. So, they swarm out of the woodwork in droves thinking that they are now untouchable and are free to entertain their worst impulses.

    Leftists LOVE to preach about how freedom does not mean “freedom from consequences”. This is obviously nonsense and such musings ring hollow when certain groups are protected from consequences while other groups are constantly scrutinized and punished for nothing. When an ideological cult is consistently told they are immune to consequences for the worst infractions, this inspires chaos. Psychopaths should not be given confidence, but this is what BLM does, and leftist governments are also to blame.

    I am reminded of the mass migrations of Muslims into the EU after most of Europe forcefully opened the borders of member nations and refused to vet incoming “refugees”. In the years following the surge in migrants, violent crime in parts of the EU skyrocketed. Much of this crime was attributed to migrant assailants. The problem was that numerous crimes went unpunished, and the European media and governments created policies which even forbid descriptions of assailants in the news to avoid “racial tensions”.

    Are Muslim migrants more predisposed to crime? Well, like any other group, when they are given a free pass and told they will probably never face consequences for their actions, yes, they are more predisposed. Governments and leftists in the EU created a social structure in which “diversity groups” and supposed victim groups are given more than equality, they are given privileged status. The same thing is happening in America right now.

    To conclude, who is really to blame for the rise in Asian hate crimes in the US? Well, the perpetrators are mostly black, but social justice organizations and the governments and media entities that support and protect them are to blame. Immunity from scrutiny sets monsters loose on the world. Immunity from prosecution sets monsters loose on the world. Immunity from justice sets monsters loose on the world. And while some of these people will eventually be punished for their crimes, such crimes will continue to rise because bad people will continue to be encouraged by the precedents set by groups like BLM.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 23:50

  • Marco Rubio: "There's Stuff Flying Over US Bases, And Nobody Knows What It Is"
    Marco Rubio: “There’s Stuff Flying Over US Bases, And Nobody Knows What It Is”

    Chatter about UFOs among current and former government officials appears to be ramping up ahead of the June 1 release of a UFO report by the Pentagon and spy agencies.

    A TMZ reporter caught up with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at Reagan National Airport on Monday and questioned him about UFOs, according to Mediaite. Rubio, who is also a member of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, revealed he is concerned about UFOs buzzing over US military bases. 

    “There’s stuff flying over military installations, and nobody knows what it is and it isn’t ours,” he said, adding that it’s logical to want to identify these unidentified flying objects. “It’s common sense, right?”

    Rubio said objects are flying over military bases, “and we don’t know what they are.” 

    “I think the worry is that there’s stuff flying over our facilities, and we don’t know what they are,” said the senator. “You know what I mean? So that’s the concern. Maybe it’s the other logical explanation to it.”

    The TMZ reporter asked Rubio if aliens from another galaxy or China possess a more significant threat to US military installations. The senator responded that he doesn’t know the origins of the unidentified objects. 

    “There’s stuff flying over the top of our military installations and they don’t know who’s flying it, they don’t even know who it is,” Rubio added. “So that’s a problem. We need to find out if we can.”

    The senator added that aliens must be more technologically advanced than humans if they “made it all the way here” when “we can’t get there.”

    “We don’t know what that stuff is that’s flying over the top of our installations, let’s find out,” he added. “Maybe it’s another country, and that would be bad news too.”

    Rubio’s interview with TMZ came one day after former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe spoke with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo Friday about UFOs and unexplained sightings. Here’s the interview:

    The conversation about UFOs among current and former government officials has been increasing in recent months since former President Trump’s COVID-19 relief and government funding bill began a 180-day countdown for the Pentagon and spy agencies to release what they know about UFOs. The complete report is expected to be published on June 1. 

    … and the question readers should be asking is why now? Will the release of UFO documents by the federal government act as a distraction? 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 23:30

  • "Horrific" Swarms Of Spiders, Snakes Invade Australian Homes Amid Devastating Floods
    “Horrific” Swarms Of Spiders, Snakes Invade Australian Homes Amid Devastating Floods

    Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    In recent years, Australia’s most populous state of New South Wales (NSW) has faced everything from drought to brushfires, a pandemic, a recent all-consuming plague of mice and now, devastating floods and massive hordes of spiders.

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

    In videos shared across social media, hundreds if not thousands of spiders can be seen scrambling through people’s homes and garages prior to an evacuation order being issued on early Saturday in expectation of the floods.

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    In one video posted to Facebook by Melanie Williams, the arachnids of all sizes can be seen scrambling about in search of shelter from the coming deluge.

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    “Check these spiders out, oh my god, oh my god! Look at them all,” Williams said in the video. “No! No! Oh my god.”

    The Guardian reports that Kinchela resident Matt Lovenfosse was pulling up to his home on Monday morning when he witnessed what appeared to be a sea of “millions” of spiders climbing about to escape the floodwaters.

    “So I went out to have a look and it was millions of spiders,” Lovenfosse said.

    “It’s amazing. It’s crazy,” he continued. 

    “The spiders all crawled up on to the house, on to fences and whatever they can get on to.”

    The flooding has resulted in some 18,000 residents fleeing their homes since last week, with authorities warning that the cleanup could last until April.

    The floods have also seen thousands of snakes and insects of every kind scrambling to flee from the floods, with some snakes even leaping into rescue boats to avoid being drowned.

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

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

    “There were also skinks, ants, basically every insect, crickets – all just trying to get away from the flood waters,” vistor Shenae Varley told Guardian Australia.

    It’s just the latest reminder that Australia isn’t just another country – it may be its own entirely different world.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 23:10

  • Nevada Just Crowned Its First Transgender Pageant Winner
    Nevada Just Crowned Its First Transgender Pageant Winner

    For the first time in its history, the title of Miss Silver State USA in Nevada has been awarded to a transgender person. 27 year old transgender Kataluna Enriquez won the crown this week, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. 

    The 27 year old winner had been competing in transgender pageants since 2016, while she was working as a model. She started competing in cisgender pageants at the beginning of last year. 

    “I wanted to share my story and present that I was more than just a body. With pageantry, people think it is only about beauty. But it’s how you present yourself, what you advocate for, what you’ve done and the goals you have,” Enriquez said.

    She continued: “One thing that is important for me is inclusivity, diversity and representation. It’s something I did not have growing up and is still lacking in today’s world.”

    When asked during the pageant to describe an obstacle she faced growing up, she said: “Growing up, I was often told that I was not allowed to be myself, or to be in spaces that I was not welcome. One of the obstacles I encounter every day is just being true to myself.”

    She continued: “Today I am a proud transgender woman of color. Personally, I’ve learned that my differences do not make me less than, it makes me more than. And my differences is what makes me unique, and I know that my uniqueness will take me to all my destinations, and whatever I need to go through in life.”

    “I’ve been in therapy since I was 10 and I love being able to understand myself and other people’s perspectives. I’m an advocate for mental health,” she said. She also described being bullied and abused because of her gender identity dating back to high school. 

    She says she will now focus on her mental health and designing new gowns for upcoming pageants. “Pageantry is so expensive and I didn’t always have money. I wanted to compete so now I design dresses for myself and other people.”

    Enriquez will now go on to compete for Miss Nevada USA, which can eventually lead to Miss USA and Miss Universe.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 22:50

  • NJ Mall Didn't Pay Electric Bill, May Lose Power
    NJ Mall Didn’t Pay Electric Bill, May Lose Power

    By Tom Davis, at Patch.com

    A New Jersey mall reportedly could lose power because it didn’t pay its electric bill. Atlantic City Electric posted a notice to the entrance of Hamilton Mall in Mays Landing this week notifying the owners that electric service will be disconnected April 7 unless overdue bills are paid, according to NJ Advance Media and The Press of Atlantic City.

    The notice also circulated on social media:

    The Press of Atlantic City reported that some shop owners were concerned that they may lose business, but they said their concerns were quelled when mall management sent a notice to vendors assuring them “things were under control.”

    Frank Tedesco, a spokesman for Atlantic City Electric, said the company has tried to work with the mall owners and “we make every attempt to keep our customers connected,” according to NJ Advance Media.

    The publication noted that Hamilton Mall was already under financial distress amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the shopping center has lost three anchor stores over the last several years.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 22:30

  • Consumer Spending Explodes, Driven By Vaccine Recipients, Millennials Splurging On Airlines, Restaurants
    Consumer Spending Explodes, Driven By Vaccine Recipients, Millennials Splurging On Airlines, Restaurants

    Now that the awful February retail sales report is in the rearview mirror, as is its huge miss to consensus expectations – just as we warned – due to i)  payback from the stimulus-induced gain in January; ii) delayed tax refunds; and ii) the Texas winter blizzard, the most recent card spending data from both Bank of America and JPMorgan confirms that the latest stimmy checks have not only arrived but have been put to good use, mostly by millennials but also by those elderly vaccinated Americans (whom BofA calls “traditionalists”) who just can’t wait to jump on a plane or cruise ship, and enjoy some time away from house arrest, following a year of unprecedented government-overreach lockdowns.

    The latest BofA card spending data (as measured by aggregated BAC credit and debit card data) for the week ending March 13 showed a 7.4% 1-year change and 8.9% 2-year change for the 7-days ending March 13th, both numbers confirming a substantial rebound from February’s spending freeze.

    Looking ahead to next week, BofA economists expect the 1-year growth rate to soar given two things: the first round of lockdowns went into effect one year ago (i.e. the base effect now comes into play) and indeed, as shown below some categories are already showing the effects; ii) card spending next week will also likely be greatly impacted by the distribution of the latest round of stimulus checks.

    And speaking of the base effect and the March 2020 lockdowns, BofA shows that spending at department stores and on clothing shot up on a 1-year comparison – if not 2 years – which shows that people had already pulled back this time last year.

    Meanwhile, overall retail spending remains modestly lower compared to the pre-covid average according to JPM data, while on a one-year basis consumer spending is now up almost 24% Y/Y.

    In contrast, the 1 and 2-year change is comparable for spending at home improvement and furniture stores, running at around 40%  and showing resilience both this year and last.

    Additionally, BofA finds that card spending on restaurants is up 11% 1-year and flat over a 2-year period, suggesting this industry haw now normalized. To be sure, one can still see regional differences with the 2-year change negative in CA and NY, for example, but up roughly double digits in GA and FL.

    Restaurant spending has improved in states where restrictions are being eased – for example, a pickup in restaurant activity in NYC. When looking at the composition of spending, BofA finds that locals make up 70% of NYC restaurant spending, down from the peak of  83% in April 2020 but still above the pre-COVID level of 56%

    A great demonstration of the base effect is that while card spending on airlines is up 13% year over year, moving into positive territory on March 12th, the 2-year change is still down 45%. Given the one year base effects, and the desire to avoid noise in comparisons, BofA now prefers to focus on the 2-year change.

    And here, we find that in the past week, the 2-year growth rate inflected higher

    Drilling down we find that the traditionalist generation (75+ age group, mostly vacinated) has continued to ramp up spending on airlines, running 6X the June 2020 average. Meanwhile, in the last week, there has been a modest divergence in bank data sets: according to BofA, other cohorts have also spending but less so, with spending on airlines amongst Millennials at 2.3X the summer level.

    At the same time, data from JPMorgan shows that unlike BofA, the primary source of all the new spending is the Millennial generation – fueled by stimulus payment s –  with both Gen Z and Baby Boomers far behind.

    One caveat: as JPM notes, 62% of the stimulus checks ($242bn of $393bn) have been disbursed right as we are about to lap peak covid closures from last year. “So while the data is set to explode higher in the coming weeks- the benefits will begin to roll off as we move past April 15th (when initial stimulus hit last year).”

    One final point: expect even more spending once tax refunds – which remain substantially delayed compared to both 2019 and 2020 at this time of the year – finally catch up to historical trendlines.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 22:10

  • India Discovers First "Double-Mutant" COVID Strain As New Cases Surge
    India Discovers First “Double-Mutant” COVID Strain As New Cases Surge

    Time to crank the fear gauge up to ’11’.

    Following a series of reports warning about mutated COVID strains first identified in Brazil, the US and elsewhere spreading across Latin America, the US and Europe, scientists in India are one-upping them by identifying what they described as “a double-mutant” strain of the ubiquitous virus.

    The ‘double-mutant’ was identified, along with 770 other strains, gleaned from samples collected across 18 Indian states. Of the 10,787 samples collected, 736 tested positive for the UK variant, 34 for the South African variant and one for the Brazilian variant. The report comes as COVID cases in India are climbing once again after the nation managed to bring numbers close to zero. The country has reported a total of 11.7MM cases, and 160.4K deaths.

    While the Indian government insists there’s no link between the variants and the surge in cases (India rolled back most of its virus-inspired restrictions on business and movement months ago). India became the fifth country in the world to sequence the COVID virus’s genome last January.

    Still, a consortium of 10 national laboratories working with India’s government said this week they would monitor the new double-variant, which was traced to Mahahrashtra state. Although scientists said none of the variants appeared to be circulating widely enough yet to be causing the surge in cases, they called on authorities to ramp up testing and ensure new cases caused by the variant are swiftly isolated. In response, the government is ramping up certain restrictions, along with its vaccination drive.

    As far as the remaining COVID restrictions are concerned, hundreds of thousands of Indians ignored them last week when they came out to celebrate Holi, a week-long affair commemorating the advent of spring.

    But what, exactly, is a “double-mutant”? A scientist who spoke with the BBC explained why the double-mutation could make the strain more infectious, and more virulent.

    A double mutation, virologist Shahid Jameel explains, is “two mutations coming together in the same virus”

    “A double mutation in the key areas of the virus’s spike protein may increase these risks and allow the virus to escape the immune system and make it more infectious,” he adds.

    Spike protein is the part of the virus that it uses to penetrate human cells.

    The government said that an analysis of the samples collected from India’s western Maharashtra state shows “an increase in the fraction of samples with the E484Q and L452R mutations” compared with December last year.

    “Such [double] mutations confer immune escape and increased infectivity,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

    Dr Jameel added that “there may be a separate lineage developing in India with the L452R and E484Q mutations coming together”.

    But the government denied that the rise in case numbers was linked to the mutations.

    “Though VOCs [variants of concern] and a new double mutant variant have been found in India, these have not been detected in numbers sufficient to either establish a direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some states.”

    India’s Serum Institute is expected to play a major role in supplying the world with enough COVID jabs to vaccinate the entire population of the planet. But given the speed of the worrying surge in cases, Indian states have already begun re-introducing restrictions, including curfews and intermittent lockdowns, to control the spread of the virus. At least two major cities, capital Delhi and financial center Mumbai, have ordered randomized rapid testing at airports, train stations, shopping malls and other crowded areas. India’s fe is also expanding

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 21:50

  • Australia Dangerously Dependent On China's Fuel Exports As 2 Of Its Last 4 Refineries Close
    Australia Dangerously Dependent On China’s Fuel Exports As 2 Of Its Last 4 Refineries Close

    There’s growing alarm in Canberra over what’s expected to be Australia’s inevitable increased dependence on foreign petroleum amid a major influx of cheaper refined oil products from China. It comes as China’s crude oil refinery capacity is rapidly expanding and simultaneously Australia is about to see its last four refineries cut down by two, given the recent announced closures of an Exxon Mobil and separately a BP refinery. 

    It’s yet another way that Beijing has the upper hand and leverage amid the ongoing trade war which has seen the two sides slap tariffs and even a few import bans on each other. A recent report out this week in the South China Morning Post runs through the numbers which suggests China is poised to dominate crude exports in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly to “vulnerable” Australia – leaving Aussie government leaders concerned over self-sufficiency and if the country can weather the storm of Beijing’s “coercive trade warfare”. 

    “Chinese exports of refined oil products to Australia rose from a few thousand tonnes before 2011 to nearly 300,000 tonnes at the end of last year, according to figures from China customs,” the report begins by noting. 

    Refinery in Melbourne, via Reuters

    Following the announced impending closures of BP’s Kwinana and ExxonMobil’s Altona plants, a third – Ampol’s Lytton plant – is now also said to be mulling a shutdown given its inability to compete with Asian refineries. And the fourth, Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery, has since last year been kept afloat by a federal government rescue package amid spiraling losses estimated at over $100 million. 

    Julie Torgersrud, an oil markets analyst at Rystad Energy, was cited in the report as explaining, “The reason we see China as the main potential import source is the country’s rapid increase in refinery capacity combined with a slower growth in domestic oil products demand in the long term.”

    “New, high-complexity refinery capacity starting up in China puts increased pressure on competing refiners in the APAC region, who are suffering from lower margins and usually have older, less efficient operations,” she said.

    “We expect a net decrease in refinery capacity of around 1.2 million bpd in this region in the next two years, compared to a net increase in China of 1.5 million bpd in the same period,” she added, emphasizing the bleak outlook for Australia in terms of increasing reliance on China. 

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    More broadly there’s also the practical logistical matter of big crude producers favoring export to Asian refineries due to the typically newer facilities (compared to the decades-old Australian refineries) being geographically closer, making them more cost-effective. 

    Torgersrud said Canberra is taking supply chain steps to mitigate the impact of its closing refineries, however: “When it comes to energy security, increased dependence on imports puts pressure on reliability of shipping and supply chains, but this is the reasoning behind old refineries converting to continue operating as import terminals, as these facilities will become increasingly important.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 21:30

  • "Follow The Science," They Said…
    “Follow The Science,” They Said…

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    Throughout the Trump years and in particular during the 2020 COVID pandemic crisis, the nation was lectured by the Left “to follow the data,” as the Democrats proclaimed themselves the “party of science.” As sober and judicious children of the enlightenment, they alone offered the necessary disinterested correctives to Trump’s supposed bluster and exaggeration—and to his anti-scientific deplorable following (often dismissed by Biden as dregs, chumps, and Neanderthals).

    In truth, leftists and Democrats have become the purveyors of superstition. Their creation of a fantasy world is not because they do not believe in science per se, but because they believe more in the primacy of ideology that should shape and warp science in the proper fashion for the greater good. What prompted Paul Ehrlich, Al Gore, or Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) hysterically and wrongly to forecast widespread demographic or climatological catastrophe in just a few years was not ignorance of science per se, but a desire to massage science for our own good.

    The Godheads of COVID-19

    The medical pandemic godhead of the Left has been octogenarian Dr. Anthony Fauci. His twin chief public relations explainer has been liberal darling New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Both were always supposed to be on top of “the science.” 

    Dr. Fauci has not just been flat-out wrong on the science of COVID – in his assessments of the origins and possible dangers of COVID-19, of when we can get back to normal, of when the vaccinations would appear, and of which particular governors have been doing the most or least effective management of the disease. He has also, by his own admission, deliberately lied. 

    That is, Fauci has rejected science, as he knew it, to mislead the public. For our own interests, he adopted the Platonic “noble lie” on occasion. So, for example, he conceded that he had downplayed the value of masks (he now seems to approve of wearing one on top of another) in order to prevent too many wearing them, and thus the public shorting the supply available to more important health care workers. 

    Fauci also proverbially moved the goal posts on herd immunity, from the high 60s to the low 90s as a percent of the population, either vaccinated or with antibodies, necessary to achieve a de facto end of the pandemic. Again, Fauci defied the science on the theory he knew better, in assuming that the childish public would become too lax when and if it believed herd immunity was on the horizon. 

    Unspoken, is that Fauci usually errs on the side of what is deemed progressive orthodoxy. In contrast, Dr. Scott Atlas warned us that extended and complete lockdowns in any cost-benefit analyses might well inflict more human and economic damage than the virus. And he added that an opened-up Florida and Texas might do no worse virally than a locked-down California or New York, while avoiding the severe recessionary collateral damage.

    Yet Atlas was damned for “not following the science” for the crime of working for Trump and for following the science: while targeted wearing of masks and social distancing and quarantining of vulnerable populations are necessary, complete quarantines of the entire population and extended closing schools are counterproductive. 

    Little need be said of Cuomo other than the applicable Roman dictum he created a desert and called it peace. When the federal government delivered a tent-hospital and a huge hospital ship, they went unused. When it sent ventilators, Cuomo raged that they were too little, too late.

    When his own record in New York of COVID mismanagement became public (currently over 2,500 deaths per million population, the second highest state in the nation and about 35-40 percent higher than the open, but hated Texas and Florida), he lied about his own redirection of COVID patients into pristine long-term care facilities that resulted in a proverbial bloodbath. 

    In his adherence to science, Cuomo received an Emmy for his narcissistic press conferences and adeptness at blame-gaming. That he was brought low not by his lethal politicking, but by serial allegations of being rude and handsy with female staffers suggests that his unscientific approaches to the pandemic were of little concern to his “scientific” supporters. 

    The “Science” of Quarantines 

    Consider another scientific debacle. In the midst of the quarantine, when governors and mayors were threatening to jail any who violated social distancing, mask wearing, or assembling en mass outdoors, hundreds of thousands hit the nation’s streets in crowded phalanxes of screaming and saliva-projecting protestors—all supposedly in violation of “the science” of epidemiology and public health. 

    The reaction of our elected officials—not just silence but open approbation—is to be expected, given the political class is so often timid and simply genuflects to perceived voter pressure groups. But “the science” on spec also came to the rescue of the quarantine violators to offer pseudo-scientific support for violating government-mandated “data”-driven policies. 

    Over 1,200 healthcare officials weighed in with their “expertise” and postmodern gibberish to defend mass violations of quarantine rules: “Instead, we wanted to present a narrative that prioritizes opposition to racism as vital to the public health, including the epidemic response.” 

    And the experts added all sort of postmodern hedging to emphasize that their recalibrated woke “science” was now different than others’ less woke “science”: 

    However, as public-health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.

    So in Animal Farm terms, some protests “are more in violation than others.” In a more historical vein, we might imagine these “experts” at another time and place, joining the chorus of scientists praising the agronomic genius of Joseph Stalin, whose “brilliant” and “scientific” irrigation fantasies began the destruction of the Aral Sea. In any case, millions decided why stay indoors when millions of others hit the streets to protest, loot, burn, destroy, and injure—with the sanction of our experts.

    Non Compos Mentis

    The Left hammered the 74-year-old overweight Trump about his supposedly iffy health. They brought in a Yale psychiatrist, Dr. Bandy X. Lee, to testify about his incapacity to Congress. There and in op-eds, she offered a pseudo-scientific assessment of debility (e.g., “I and hundreds of mental health professionals are available and eager to assist with any or all these efforts”). Yes, and unethically so, without ever having examined the patient in question. 

    According to Lee, Trump was mentally impaired, a sociopath, and needed an “intervention,” a serious medical diagnosis that soon became a “scientific” grounding for the wild charges leveled at Trump of incompetence on network and cable news. Trump in his exasperation at “fake news,” took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test to prove his powers of recall and analysis. He aced the exam.

    But where is Lee now in the era of a 78-year-old Joe Biden in the White House?

    Or rather, where is the Left to use her “research” to question whether Joe Biden is compos mentis? In the last 30 days, he has claimed there were none vaccinated when he entered office (he was photographed receiving a shot on December 21, a month before his inauguration).

    In truth, 1 million a day were receiving vaccinations when Biden assumed the presidency. He cannot at times remember the name of his own secretary of defense or of the Pentagon where Gen.(ret.) Lloyd Austin works, and increasingly needs a translator to make sense of his slurred words, raspy voice, off-topic wandering, truncated vocabulary, and fragmented syntax.

    Trump was once said to be shaky and disguising an obvious illness because after a long day at West Point he walked slowly in his leather shoes on a smooth ramp. In contrast, this week Joe Biden staggered and fell three times climbing the stairs to Air Force One—without a commensurate media howl. Will Joe be subject to an outside medical assessment? Might Dr. Lee reappear to give him the Montreal test?

    I think we know the answer. “Science” is used to denigrate a perceived enemy of the people, and ignored to enhance a guardian of the flock.

    Hate Crimes by Whom?

    Joe Biden and the Left are implying if not outright asserting that there is now an epidemic of Anti-Asian violence perpetrated by white racists, insidiously emboldened by Trump’s past references to the “Wuhan” or “China” virus. No doubt, in a nation of 330 million, there are lots of haters who happen to be white, but are they the main culprit for racially-motivated crimes of hatred against Asians?

    Recently, a deranged sex-addict and religious fanatic shot and killed eight people in the Atlanta area, six of whom were apparently Asian Americans. When apprehended, the 21-year-old confessed to the murders. In unhinged fashion, he claimed that he sought to eliminate sex workers and their places of business in general, with which he was apparently obsessed.

    The unhinged shooter denied that race drove his murdering and indeed, he murdered two whites and injured a Latino. And his past proven sex addition and mental instability, along with his lethal shooting of non-Asians, suggest he was a pathological, mentally impaired murderer, not a race hater bent of mowing down the Other.

    No matter. The media massaged the story into proof of its theories that a spate of recent hate crime attacks against Asian Americans were fueled by white supremacists, or at least those goaded on by the racist Donald Trump. That narrative was lacking evidence in both the Georgia shootings and the recent assaults on Asians.

    One data point to justify such unsubstantiated charges that we might not see is a list of all Asian American victims of recent hate crimes, calibrated by the race/ethnicity of the attacker, and then adjusted to percentages in the general population—all in the context of clear racial animosity.

    To do so, might suggest that in all those attacks where a clear, premeditated racial motive, rather than random violence or psychological deviance, is found, black males are inordinately represented.

    For example, in the FBI hate crime statistics for 2019, the most recent year available, 4.4 percent of all single bias racial hate crimes were Asian Americans. Where the race and ethnicity of the perpetrators for all hate crimes was known, 52.5 percent were “white,” of whom 33.1 percent were in the ethnic category list as “Not Hispanic or Latino.”

    Such so-called non-Hispanic whites make up about 65-70 percent of the population, depending on the method of categorization. In contrast, 23.9 percent of hate-crime perpetrators were identified as black or African American, while they comprise only 12-13 percent of the population. Data from New York and San Francisco on bodily violence or crimes in general against Asians suggest the same pattern.

    The science might suggest that in matters of hate crimes – if society insists on focusing on the race and ethnicity of the attacker and knows the motive – it should then compare relative percentages of the population to determine who is inordinately, or not inordinately, committing such crimes.

    To the degree, some progressives follow the science, the more honest left-wing venues have conceded that blacks may have been inordinately responsible, in demographic terms, for anti-Asian violence and indeed are over-represented in race-driven hate crimes in general. But they escape the obvious ramifications of such intersectional hatreds, by offering an exculpatory exegesis: nonetheless, whites are responsible for the hate, by pitting one racial group against another to ensure Roman-like divide-and-conquer “white supremacy.” Thus, for example, one Antoine Watson ran across the street to push down and kill 84-year-old San Franciscan Vicha Ratanapakdee because either Donald Trump had used the phrase “Chinese virus” or due to the insidious “white supremacy” that had conditioned the African American Watson to hate immigrants from Thailand.

    Fencing in Cities, Vaccination, and Ruskies

    The science might also tally up all the material and human damage committed in 2020 in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. and then compare it to the carnage of January 6 at the Capitol. And then experts might show whether there is a scientific correlation between the number of federal troops posted in Washington to other major riot-torn cities, at least in terms of soldiers stationed per person injured and killed or millions of dollars in property damaged. Otherwise, why the inordinate military build-up around the Capitol?

    In truth, our woke officials pay little attention to science. If the point is to vaccinate first all Americans most likely to die or become seriously ill by COVID-19, then age and proven comorbidities might have been the most effective scientific criteria to schedule vaccinations. Yet for weeks in many states instead we floundered by ignoring science as scientists haggled over which particular marginalized or essential community should gain precedence over another.

    In the Russian collusion hoax, to this hour, we have ignored the findings of Robert Mueller’s failed $35 million, 22 month investigation. Christopher Steele testified that he had no data to present to back up his mythical, now biblical dossier. James Comey pleaded amnesia 245 times as in “I don’t recall” when asked under oath about his own investigation. Robert Muller himself testified that he knew almost nothing about Fusion GPS and the Steele dossier, the catalysts for his own investigation. James Clapper had no evidence, he testified under oath, to substantiate his public charges that the president of the United States may be a “Russian asset.” No matter, in “learning-nothing-forgetting-nothing” fashion, we are now returning to the theme of Trump as a Russian asset and colluder on the basis of “new” evidence from the “intelligence community.”

    Such is the “science” of Russian collusion.

    As a general rule, the next time an official, a politician, or an expert lectures us on the “science,” make sure that he is not projecting his own unscientific biases onto others.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 21:10

  • "Crisis Mode" – Auto Plants Worldwide Idled As Chip Shortage Worsens 
    “Crisis Mode” – Auto Plants Worldwide Idled As Chip Shortage Worsens 

    The global semiconductor shortage appears to be reaching a new ‘crisis point’ as automakers worldwide are shuttering production facilities due to the lack of chips. Even though global manufacturing is humming along, fueled by new demand, unprecedented fiscal and monetary support continues to exacerbate shortages. 

    The shortage initially began in early 2020 because of the virus-related downturn in the economy. Chip demand was diverted away from autos to household electronics due to heavy demand from people working at home during lockdowns. Further, winter storms in the US last month, plus a fire last week at Renesas Electronics Corp., one of the biggest makers of auto chips, had been compounding factors in the worsening shortage for car companies. 

    Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG, and Honda Motor Co are some of the manufacturers that have recently announced their inability to source semiconductors components for vehicles has resulted in plant idles. 

    Bloomberg Intelligence auto-industry analyst Tatsuo Yoshida warned that “production is really vulnerable right now,” adding that “any kind of abnormal occurrence causes parts to run out,” such as a major fire at a semi plant operated by Renesas last week. 

    Analysts at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. said the shortage of semis would drag on global auto production. They estimated in January, the shortage would reduce global vehicle production by 1.5 million units, with at least a third of the reduction coming from Japanese automakers. 

    China and European carmakers are set to be the biggest losers this year due to chip shortages. 

    Source: Bloomberg 

    Bloomberg provides an in-depth list of major automakers who have adjusted vehicle production because of the shortage: 

    1. Hyundai Motor Co. is suspending extra work on the weekend to adjust production of brands including Kona, Avante, Grandeur and Sonata, the Seoul Economic Daily reported.

    2. Honda is suspending production at six factories in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, citing the chip shortage as well as congestion at ports and cold weather.

    3. Volvo AB is implementing stop days across global truck manufacturing operations, saying it sees a “substantial impact” from the global semiconductor shortage.

    4. Ford has halted production at a factory in Ohio and dropped one shift at another in Kentucky, both until March 29. It said F-150 trucks and Edge SUVs will be assembled in North America without certain parts and shipped to dealers once electronic modules that contain chips are available.

    5. Nissan Motor Co. is adjusting production across its operations in the USUS and Mexico.

    6. Operations at Toyota’s Kolin plant in the Czech Republic, which makes the compact car Aygo for the European market, have been suspended for two weeks from March 22 after cold weather in the USUS disrupted chip production.

    7. Volkswagen is halting production at a plant in Portugal from March 22-28.

    8. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is reducing domestic output of vehicles by 4,000-5,000 units in March and reviewing production plans for April.

    One striking feature of the global supply chain turmoil is how widespread the issues are. The semiconductor shortage and its drag on auto production have garnered significant attention. Goldman economist Jan Hatzius notes the shortage and many others – from headphones to sofas to roller skates. 

    The role of unprecedented fiscal stimulus boosting demand for products is very much to blame for the chaos. The various stimulus checks have already more than offset all the lost income from the virus pandemic. With the increasingly broader acceptance of Universal Basic Income in the form of weekly and monthly stimulus checks from the government makes handouts from the government, which now accounts for 27% of all consumer income…

    So with the most significant and most ruinous fiscal and monetary experiments ever conducted by the US, artificial demand from consumers will continue to pressure global supply chains as they consume overseas products. Goldman concludes that logistical challenges won’t decrease until 2022. 

    … and by the way, a global plastic shortage is developing. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 20:50

  • Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Let Cops Enter Homes And Seize Guns Without A Warrant
    Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Let Cops Enter Homes And Seize Guns Without A Warrant

    Authored by Nick Sibilla via Forbes (emphasis ours)

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral argument in Caniglia v. Strom, a case that could have sweeping consequences for policing, due process, and mental health, with the Biden Administration and attorneys general from nine states urging the High Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation. But what would ultimately become a major Fourth Amendment case began with an elderly couple’s spat over a coffee mug. 

    People view the Supreme Court building from behind security fencing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sunday, March 21, 2021, after portions of an outer perimeter of fencing were removed overnight to allow public access. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
    ASSOCIATED PRESS

    In August 2015, 68-year-old Edward Caniglia joked to Kim, his wife of 22 years, that he didn’t use a certain coffee mug after his brother-in-law had used it because he “might catch a case of dishonesty.” That quip quickly spiraled into an hour-long argument. Growing exhausted from the bickering, Edward stormed into his bedroom, grabbed an unloaded handgun, and put it on the kitchen table in front of his wife. With a flair for the dramatic, he then asked: “Why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery?”

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tactic backfired and the two continued to argue. Eventually, Edward took a drive to cool off. But when he returned, their argument flared up once again. This time, Kim decided to leave the house and spend the night at a motel. The next day, Kim phoned home. No answer.

    Worried, she called the police in Cranston, Rhode Island and asked them to perform a “well check” on her husband and to escort her home. When they arrived, officers spoke with Edward on the back deck. According to an incident report, he “seemed normal,” “was calm for the most part,” and even said “he would never commit suicide.” 

    However, none of the officers had asked Edward any questions about the factors relating to his risk of suicide, risk of violence, or prior misuse of firearms. (Edward had no criminal record and no history of violence or self-harm.) In fact, one of the officers later admitted he “did not consult any specific psychological or psychiatric criteria” or medical professionals for his decisions that day.

    Still, police were convinced that Edward could hurt himself and insisted he head to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. After refusing and insisting that his mental health wasn’t their business, Edward agreed only after police (falsely) promised they wouldn’t seize his guns while he was gone. 

    Compounding the dishonesty, police then told Kim that Edward had consented to the confiscation. Believing the seizures were approved by her husband, Kim led the officers to the two handguns the couple owned, which were promptly seized. Even though Edward was immediately discharged from the hospital, police only returned the firearms after he filed a civil rights lawsuit against them.

    Critically, when police seized the guns, they didn’t claim it was an emergency or to prevent imminent danger. Instead, the officers argued their actions were a form of “community caretaking,” a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

    First created by the Supreme Court nearly 50 years ago, the community caretaking exception was designed for cases involving impounded cars and highway safety, on the grounds that police are often called to car accidents to remove nuisances like inoperable vehicles on public roads. 

    Both a district and appellate court upheld the seizures as “reasonable” under the community caretaking exception. In deciding Caniglia’s case, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals acknowledged that “the doctrine’s reach outside the motor vehicle context is ill-defined.” Nevertheless, the court decided to extend that doctrine to cover private homes, ruling that the officers “did not exceed the proper province of their community caretaking responsibilities.”

    Siding with law enforcement, the First Circuit noted that a police officer “must act as a master of all emergencies, who is ‘expected to…provide an infinite variety of services to preserve and protect community safety.’” By letting police operate without a warrant, the community caretaking exception is “designed to give police elbow room to take appropriate action,” the court added.

    In their opening brief for the Supreme Court, attorneys for Caniglia warned that “extending the community caretaking exception to homes would be anathema to the Fourth Amendment” because it “would grant police a blank check to intrude upon the home.”

    That fear is not unwarranted. In jurisdictions that have extended the community caretaking exception to homes, “everything from loud music to leaky pipes have been used to justify warrantless invasion of the home,” a joint amicus brief by the ACLU, the Cato Institute, and the American Conservative Union revealed.

    This expansion could also have perverse effects and disincentivize people from calling for help. As that brief noted, “When every interaction with police or request for help can become an invitation for police to invade the home, the willingness of individuals to seek assistance when it is most needed will suffer.”

    But in its first amicus brief before the High Court, the Biden Administration glossed over these concerns and called on the justices to uphold the First Circuit’s ruling. Noting that “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’” the Justice Department argued that warrants should not be “presumptively required when a government official’s action is objectively grounded in a non-investigatory public interest, such as health or safety.”

    “The ultimate question in this case is therefore not whether the respondent officers’ actions fit within some narrow warrant exception,” their brief stated, “but instead whether those actions were reasonable,” actions the Justice Department felt were “justified” in Caniglia’s case.

    As a fail-safe, the Justice Department also urged the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court ruling on qualified immunity grounds, arguing that the officers’ “actions did not violate any clearly established law so as to render the officers individually liable in a damages action.”

    But the Biden Administration, along with the courts that have extended the community caretaking exception, overlook a key component of the Fourth Amendment: the Security Clause. After all, the Fourth Amendment opens with the phrase, “the right of the people to be secure.”

    In an amicus brief, the Institute for Justice noted that “to the Founding generation, ‘secure’ did not simply mean the right to be ‘spared’ an unreasonable search or seizure” but also involved “harms attributable to the potential for unreasonable searches and seizures.” Expanding the community caretaking exception to “allow warrantless entries into peoples’ homes on a whim,” argued the IJ brief, “invokes the arbitrary, looming threat of general writs that so incited the Framers” and would undermine “the right of the people to be secure” in their homes.

    The IJ brief further argued that extending the “community caretaking” exception to the home would “flatly contradict” the Supreme Court’s prior rulings, which “has only discussed community caretaking in the context of vehicle searches and seizures.” In those cases, “the animating purpose for the exception [was] to allow officers to remove damaged or abandoned vehicles that pose a risk to public safety.” By contrast, the IJ amicus asserted,  “that justification is entirely absent” when it comes to homes.

    “The Fourth Amendment protects our right to be secure in our property, which means the right to be free from fear that the police will enter your house without warning or authorization,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Joshua Windham. “A rule that allows police to burst into your home without a warrant whenever they feel they are acting as ‘community caretakers’ is a threat to everyone’s security.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 20:30

  • Warren, Yellen Clash Over Whether BlackRock Deserves "Systemically Important" Label
    Warren, Yellen Clash Over Whether BlackRock Deserves “Systemically Important” Label

    While most of Wednesday’s quarterly CARES Act testimony from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell focused on what the central bank is doing to combat economic inequality and climate change (buying green bonds?), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (who, let’s remember, was passed over in favor of Yellen for the Treasury Secretary post) dug in on what has become a pet issue for the Massachusetts Senator, for whom regulation of Wall Street is a marquee issue.

    When it came her turn to speak roughly an hour into the hearing, Warren – who championed creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help muzzle Wall Street via Dodd-Frank, only to look on helplessly as the Trump Administration gutted the bureau – decided to focus on one of her favorite Wall Street punching bags: Black Rock.

    Following a preamble about the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, Senator Warren demanded to know whether Yellen, who, before joining the Fed, spent a career in academia, would direct the Financial Stability Oversight Council – or FSOC, as it’s commonly called – to consider designating BlackRock, which, with $9 trillion in assets under management, is the biggest pile of investor capital in the world, as a systemically important financial firm.

    To be systemically important, regulators must determine that its collapse could potentially set off a chain reaction that could take down the entire debt-based global financial system.

    “Secretary Yellen, hypothetically, if a $9 trillion investment company failed, would that likely have a significant impact on our economy?” Warren said.

    Yellen replied that FSOC had once examined stability risks posed by concentration of ownership among the big asset managers (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and the other top firms, presumably). While Yellen didn’t say specifically if FSOC had considered the scenario of a total collapse, she suggested that a SIFI designation wouldn’t be appropriate.

    “It’s important to look very carefully at the risk posed by the asset management industry including BlackRock and other firms. The FSOC began to do that I believe in 2016 and 2017 but the risks it focused on were ones having to do with open-end mutual funds that can experience massive withdrawals and be forced to sell off assets and create fire sales,” Yellen said.

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    Yellen continued, claiming “it’s not obvious to me that designation is the correct tool.” “Rather than focus on designation of companies, I think it’s important to focus on an activity like that and to consider what the appropriate restrictions are.”

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    Though Yellen’s flat tone never cracked while she calmly told Yellen that there are other more appropriate ways to mitigate this risk that, presumably, wouldn’t directly hamper BlackRock’s ability to book outrageous profits, Warren’s prodding was apparently combative enough for Bloomberg to describe the exchange as “a clash”. With the exception of the dog pile that scuppered Neera Tanden’s nomination to OMB, Senate Dems have shied away from criticizing Biden and members of his cabinet. Though it’s early days yet; perhaps the novelty of being back in power hasn’t yet worn off on the Democrats.

    Yellen might have a point: As Warren herself pointed out, BlackRock’s $9 trillion asset pile is greater than the annual GDP of Germany, or Japan. Even if a few mutual funds outright imploded, it would be barely a flesh wound. Unlike the largest US banks, which comprise most SIFI designees, BlackRock doesn’t lend money to businesses and individuals, periodically booking losses, as banks do.

    Unlike the big banks, BlackRock didn’t get a capital injection from the federal government during the 2008 financial crisis. Lenders also rely on funds from depositors and the Federal Reserve to earn money. Asset managers like BlackRock charge fees (though even this fee revenue has been under pressure lately as BR cuts fees on more ETFs). Of course, Warren probably knows all of this, and that under Trump, FSOC moved away from designation-dependent compliance and instead toward a more “activity based” approach.

    But the notion that it could be vulnerable to a “run” of customer deposits maybe isn’t as far-fetched as Yellen and her fellow academics might think.

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    On a related topic, Yellen said during her testimony that she supported banks being allowed to continue to buy back their own shares,claiming their capital base is more than secure enough. That’s another position than Warren might oppose.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 20:10

  • JPMorgan Clients Are Worried That Ramp Capital Is Dead
    JPMorgan Clients Are Worried That Ramp Capital Is Dead

    Back in 2013, long before anyone had heard of it or plagiarized it, we first defined the term 3:30 pm Ramp Capital to describe the clockwork meltup of stocks in the last half hour of trading.

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    In the nearly decade that has passed since then, both the term Ramp Capital and the phenomenon which it describes have become household items, so much so that JPMorgan’s clients get upset when the requisite last hour lift is missing.

    As the author of JPMorgan’s daily market intelligence note, Andrew Tyler, writes “today was the second consecutive day where markets had a material sell-off in the afternoon, closing at/near the lows” and adds that “the conversations continue to center on Rates and Factor rotation/rebalance. While Rates appear to have found a level including two successful auctions this week, the residual uncertainty on direction/magnitude following last week remains in Equity markets. Further, there are a lot of conversations regarding quarter-end rebalance.”

    As a reminder, yesterday we previewed just this epic month-end tug of war between forced pension stock selling and quant/dealer buying, where the selling has so far dominated… but only in the last hour of trading.

    To demonstrate just how forceful the EOD selling has been, here is an observations from Sentiment Trader who notes that “over the past 3 months, a net 29 days have seen stocks fall during the last hour of trading.” And to visualize, ST shows a chart of the Cumulative Last Hour Indicator (not to be confused with the Smart Money Flow indicator) which reveals the biggest 3-month drop since 1997 even as the S&P has continued to levitate to all time highs.

    What is troubling is that the last time we saw a similar divergence was into the covid crash, and only the subsequent plunge in the S&P reversed the trend of “smart money” EOD selling. Will the S&P suffer a similar fate as last March if the Last Hour indicator continues to diverge from the broader market?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 19:50

  • The ESG Tide Is Turning: ValueAct's Ubben Calls BlackRock ESG Products "Misguided"
    The ESG Tide Is Turning: ValueAct’s Ubben Calls BlackRock ESG Products “Misguided”

    There probably isn’t much of a better weathervane on ESG investing than ValueAct’s Jeff Ubben. Ubben was ahead of the curve in embracing the idea of ESG investing before it became the FOMO-investing-technique du jour for most of 2020. 

    In fact, Ubben had been on the record as praising the idea of ESG investing dating back to the beginning of 2020. We even recently speculated that Ubben may be taking an activist stake in Exxon to try and direct the legacy oil and gas producer into becoming an environmentally friendlier company. 

    Back in January 2020, Ubben was praising BlackRock for its stance on climate change. “It is pretty exciting,” he said. “ESG, that’s the ticket that’s how we get the long-term back.” 

    But now, it looks as though the virtue signaling allure of the ESG label could be wearing off and reality setting in. Ubben said in March 2021 – just 15 months after his original comments – that BlackRock’s ESG products “won’t address climate change”. 

    In fact, Ubben called them “misguided” in a virtual conference this week, according to Bloomberg. Ubben takes exception to the ESG products because “they don’t reward carbon-intensive companies that are reducing emissions”.

    Ubben said that simply buying ETFs because they have a high ESG score has a “very second or third derivative effect” on climate change.  

    And, of course, Ubben is right and is waking up to a reality that, eventually, we expect the rest of the market to open its eyes to. We have constantly documented the numerous “ESG” funds that have hilariously bought up names like Chevron, Exxon, Microsoft, Apple and other names that seemingly don’t have any “extra” added environmental benefits to them.

    Some ESG funds break down to look just like index funds. Others seem hilariously askew to be “ESG” focused. 

    Kudos to Ubben for perhaps having a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment and embracing a slice of reality early. But now the question is: when does the rest of Wall Street have the same wake-up call – and, more importantly, what happens to this ESG focused funds when they do?

    We noted weeks ago that America’s largest ESG fund – the Parnassus Core Equity Fund – has no direct investments in renewable energy companies, according to Bloomberg, which noted that “Instead, the $25 billion Parnassus Core Equity Fund holds stocks like Linde Plc, an industrial gas company, Deere & Co., the largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery, and Xylem Inc., which makes water and wastewater pumps for municipal customers. It also owns big stakes in technology behemoths Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.”

    About a week ago we wrote that Tariq Fancy, former chief investment officer for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, wrote an op-ed in USA Today, admitting that Wall Street is greenwashing the financial world, making sustainable investing merely PR, which is a distraction from the problem of climate change.

    Fancy appeared later in the day on CNBC and stunned the always-ready-to-virtue-signal anchor by telling her that that “the financial services industry is duping the American public with pro-environment, sustainable investing practices.”

    You can watch Fancy’s CNBC interview here:

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 19:30

  • Elon Musk's China Ass-Kissing Tour Continues
    Elon Musk’s China Ass-Kissing Tour Continues

    We don’t know what’s more relevant: the fact that Elon Musk is literally kissing the ass of the Chinese government, or the fact that U.S. media seems to be digesting this as a meaningful story. Regardless it has been tough to not notice that Elon Musk has been “cozying up” to China, as the New York Post so eloquently put it this week. 

    The Tesla CEO apparently “sang Beijing’s praises in a recent interview with state-run China Central Television,” the report notes, while trying to deflect concerns about his vehicles. 

    The interview was released Tuesday, and Musk said that China would eventually become Tesla’s largest market – both in number of customers and vehicles produced. Musk also praised Beijing for aiming to slash carbon emissions. He said China’s goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 is a “great one”, according to China Daily. 

    “China is headed toward the biggest economy in the world, and a lot of prosperity in the future,” Musk said during the interview. 

    The interview came just days after we wrote that Tesla cars were being banned from Chinese military bases due to “concerns about sensitive data being collected by cameras built into the vehicles”. 

    The order was issued by the Chinese military and directs Tesla owners to park their vehicles outside of military property. China had concerns that Tesla is “collecting sensitive data via the cars’ in-built cameras in a way the Chinese government can’t see or control”. Images of a purported notice of the ban were circulating on Chinese social media, with the notice proclaiming that cameras and ultrasonic sensors in Tesla cars may “expose locations” last week.

    Recall we’ve covered the China risk to Tesla’s business in our piece suggesting that Elon Musk’s Chinese fairy tale could eventually come to an end. We also noted that, to date, Musk has been able to sidestep some ugly press in China, including out of control Tesla vehicles, forced recalls, constant price cuts and disgruntled customers.

    The good news isn’t just that China is likely tightening the reins on Musk, but also that the U.S. media appears to be on the cusp of understanding that the country could have enormous leverage over Musk. And while, for now, Musk continues to deftly evade CCP criticism, we can’t help but think that – at some point – his era of favor in China will have run its course.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 19:10

  • Fidelity Continues Retail Bitcoin Push With New ETF
    Fidelity Continues Retail Bitcoin Push With New ETF

    Less than two weeks ago, we suggested the first US Bitcoin ETF was imminent. Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF research for CFRA Research, told Bloomberg: 

    “The race to launch the first Bitcoin ETF is heating up. It’s more of a question on when the SEC will approve a Bitcoin ETF, not if.”

    “First-mover advantage in the ETF space is tremendous, particularly when the underlying assets overlap. Whichever comes out of the gate first will have a leg up”, he continued.

    And today, with $4.9 trillion under management, Fidelity Investments has become by far the largest firm to file with the SEC to list a new Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

    image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

    The Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust was filed with the SEC on Wednesday.

    Why the name ‘Wise Origin’ you ask?

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    According to the filing, a firm called FD Funds Management LLC is the sponsor of the fund, with Fidelity Service Company, Inc. serving as administrator. Per the document, FD Funds Management LLC shares the same Boston, MA address as Fidelity’s office. Fidelity Digital Assets, the asset manager’s crypto-focused arm, will serve as custodian. The ETF, if approved, will also employ Fidelity’s in-house bitcoin price index, per the filing.

    “The Trust’s investment objective is to seek to track the performance of bitcoin, as measured by the performance of the Fidelity Bitcoin Index PR (the “Index”), adjusted for the Trust’s expenses and other liabilities,” the filing notes, explaining elsewhere:

    “The Trust provides direct exposure to bitcoin, and the Shares of the Trust are valued on a daily basis using the same methodology used to calculate the Index. The Trust provides investors with the opportunity to access the market for bitcoin through a traditional brokerage account without the potential barriers to entry or risks involved with holding or transferring bitcoin directly, acquiring it from a bitcoin spot market, or mining it.”

    The Block reports that a Fidelity spokesperson told them that:

    “The digital assets ecosystem has grown significantly in recent years, creating an even more robust marketplace for investors and accelerating demand among institutions. An increasingly wide range of investors seeking access to bitcoin has underscored the need for a more diversified set of products offering exposure to digital assets.”

    Fidelity says investors can access the fund through a traditional brokerage account without the “potential barriers to entry or risks involved with holding or transferring bitcoin directly.”

    Like other proposed Bitcoin ETFs, the Fidelity Trust is intended to provide more institutional pathways to cryptocurrencies.

    Fidelity’s effort represents the sixth of its kind within the U.S., joining WisdomTree Investments, VanEck Associates Corp., NYDIG Asset Management, First Advisors/SkyBridge, and Valkyrie Digital Assets; but as we noted above, it is by far the largest.

    CoinTelegraph notes that last week, Goldman Sachs filed for a new ETF that includes the option to add BTC exposure. The Autocallable Contingent Coupon Coupon ETF-Linked Notes “may have exposure to cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, indirectly through an investment in a grantor trust,” the prospectus read. 

    Zac Prince, co-founder and chief executive officer of BlockFi, noted: 

    “There’s more competition in the marketplace and in markets outside the U.S., in particular Canada, causing folks to think an ETF approval in the U.S. might be likely.”

    Grayscale remains the largest institutional public holder of bitcoin.

    With the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater, discussing a Bitcoin fund openly…

    “Overall, it’s clear that Bitcoin has features that could make it an attractive storehold of wealth; it also has proven resilient so far. “

    Albeit with some warnings:

    “If history and logic are to be a guide, policy makers who are short of money will raise taxes and won’t like these capital movements out of debt assets and into other storehold of wealth assets and other tax domains so they could very well impose prohibitions against capital movements to other assets (e.g., gold, Bitcoin, etc.) and other locations. These tax changes could be more shocking than expected.”

    We wonder how long it will be before the world’s largest asset manager – BlackRock – decides to dip its toe in the crypto waters.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 18:50

  • North Korea Fires Two Ballistic Missiles
    North Korea Fires Two Ballistic Missiles

    Update 730pm: Japanese defense have confirmed that the missile launch by North Korea was ballistic, while the Japan’s government said North Korea’s missile launches are a serious problem for the Japan and the international community, adding it will “gather and analyze information, and maintain alertness.”

    Shortly after, Japan’s PM Suga said that North Korea had fired 2 ballistic missiles, calling the launch a threat to regional security and strongly condemning the launch.

    * * *

    Just days after North Korea was confirmed to have resumed test missile launches, when last weekend it fired two short-range missiles off its west coast, Kim Jong Un appears ready to test the resolve of Joe Biden.

    Earlier today we reported that it was – belatedly – revealed late Tuesday that North Korea had fired two short-range cruise missiles off its west coast into the sea on Sunday morning, according to confirmation by South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The details were as follows: “Sunday morning, the 21st, [authorities] spotted two suspected cruise missiles in the Onchon, South Pyongan area,” the military said, underscoring that it knew about the test in real-time. Though it’s the first such missile test during the Biden administration, all sides appeared to downplay it, including the White House which dubbed it “normal activity”. A senior administration official told the press, “We see this action in the category of normal activity.”

    Describing the unusual scenario of the information not being made public about the ‘mysterious test’ ABC News writes:

    Curiously, neither North Korea nor South Korea had acknowledged the firing of the two missiles immediately on Sunday as is routinely done by both countries. North Korea typically discloses launches to promote its technological advances, while South Korea provides quick updates to highlight their provocative nature.

    It also could be that given the White House is busy ratcheting tensions with China and Russia via a series of sanctions – and even pre-announced cyberattacks – the US administration is content to look the other way for now and not open up yet another foreign policy row. Downplaying is precisely what the above-cited admin official sought to do, saying further, “North Korea has a familiar menu of provocations when it wants to send a message to a U.S. administration,” but that “Experts rightly recognized what took place last weekend as falling on the low end of that spectrum,” according to ABC.

    President Biden himself appeared to laugh it off when asked by a reporter Wednesday: “Do you consider that to be a real provocation by North Korea?”

    “No, according to the Defense Department, it’s business as usual.”

    “There’s no new wrinkle in what they did” 

    When asked if it impacts diplomacy, Biden simply laughed at the question and walked away. 

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    Incidentally, it was only a little over a week ago that Pyongyang had also issued its first direct threat against Washington since Biden entered office. The powerful sister of Kim Jong Un, Kim Yo Jong, warned the United States it must “refrain from causing a stink” if it desires to “sleep in peace” over the next four years.

    “If it wants to sleep in peace for coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step,” she was cited as saying in state media. 

    Well, just a few hours after he laughed about it, North Korea appears to have escalated once again it what is a clear test of Biden’s willingness to engage with the communist regime, when Bloomberg and Reuters quoted the Japanese Coast Guard which said that a ballistic missile may have been fired from North Korea, and added that it had warned ships against “coming close to falling objects.”

    • JAPAN COAST GUARD SAYS N.KOREA MAY HAVE FIRED BALLISTIC MISSILE
    • JAPANESE COAST GUARD WARNS SHIPS AGAINST COMING CLOSE TO FALLING OBJECTS AND CALLS ON THEM TO PROVIDE INFORMATION.

    Korea’s Yonhap confirmed, reporting that an unknown projectile had been fired into the East Sea (off the coast of the Korean penninsula), and adding that the missile did not enter Japanese territory.

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    It is not immediately clear if Joe Biden was woken up from his nap in response to the latest geopolitical development.

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    Bloomberg adds its own two cents, writing that Asian defense-related stocks may move after news that North Korea fired a missile.

    • Japanese stocks including: Howa Machinery, Ishikawa Seisakusho, Hosoya Pyro-Engineering
    • South Korean stocks including: LIG Nex1, Hanwha Aerospace, Firstec
    • Also watch South Korea’s so-called “peace stocks,” or stocks that would benefit from better relations with the North: Hyundai Rotem, Hyundai Engineering, Hyundai Elevator

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/24/2021 – 18:32

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