Jun 27

Today’s News 27th June 2022

  • EU Says Africa Should Stop Buying Russian Fertilizer — But Can't Make It Themselves
    EU Says Africa Should Stop Buying Russian Fertilizer — But Can’t Make It Themselves

    In an attempt to encourage African nations to stop buying Russian fertilizer, the European Union developed a working plan that would help then develop their own fertilizer plants.

    The draft, dated June 15 and prepared by aides of European Council President Charles Michel, was to be presented at a summit of EU leaders last week, however the EU Commission then “explicitly opposed the text,” warning that supporting fertilizer production in developing nations was incompatible with their ‘green’ initiatives.

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    According to Reuters, the original text of the draft conclusions from the June 23-24 summit, the EU executive commission is urged to devise a plan “to support the development of fertiliser manufacturing capacity and alternatives in developing countries”.

    The Commission, however, urged governments to change the text so that it would only promote alternatives to fertilizers – or a more efficient use of fertilizers, as manufacturing it themselves would be “inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies.”

    Higher fertilizer prices have been putting upward pressure on food prices worldwide, as farmers cut back on nutrients for their crops, resulting in lower yields.

    “Food prices will skyrocket because farmers will have to make profit, so what happens to consumers?” said Uche Anyanwu, an agricultural expert at the University of Nigeria.

    The aid group Action Aid warns that families in the Horn of Africa are already being driven “to the brink of survival.”

    The U.N. says Russia is the world’s No. 1 exporter of nitrogen fertilizer and No. 2 in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. Its ally Belarus, also contending with Western sanctions, is another major fertilizer producer.

    Many developing countries — including Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Mexico and Guatemala — rely on Russia for at least a fifth of their imports. –NPR

    “Many people will not use fertilizers at all, and this as a result, lowers the quality of the production and the production itself, and slowly, slowly at one point, they won’t be able to farm their land because there will be no income,” said Greek farmer Dimitris Filis, who grows olives oranges and lemons, adding “you have to search to find” ammonium nitrate, while the cost of fertilizing a 25-acre olive grove has doubled.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/27/2022 – 02:45

  • Luongo: The End Of The European Colonial Powers & The Tyranny Of Physics
    Luongo: The End Of The European Colonial Powers & The Tyranny Of Physics

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog.

    I sat down last weekend for a long chat with Alexander Mercouris of The Duran and Crypto Rich to discuss the rapidly evolving situation in Europe. Long time readers know that I’ve been handicapping the collapse of the European Union for years.

    That idea isn’t based on my personal antipathy for Eurotrash commies and eugenicists, though it is quite large. In fact, the deeper we go into 2022 the more that antipathy rises to near unquenchable levels. The sheer arrogance and stupidity of Europe’s leadership is nothing short of breathtaking.

    Today we are looking at a situation where an entire continent’s leadership is in the process of committing ritualistic suicide and yet is obsessed with portraying these self-inflicted wounds to the world as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault.

    A common trait among all malignant narcissists is the inability to take any responsibility for their own actions, seeking to always shift blame onto someone else. You see this behavior in children. And it only manifests itself in adulthood because the parents refused to put any boundaries on the child or inflict any consequences on them.

    Look at Europe’s leaders today and to a person, man or woman, there is not one shred of self-reflection or contrition. The problem is just as endemic here amongst the Davos-affiliated American leadership. Fungal President Joe Biden keep yammering on about the “Putin Price Hike” or blaming oil companies for not being patriotic enough to keep gas and diesel prices affordable for nearly every American.

    But it was just a few weeks ago where these same people were telling us that we had to endure slightly higher prices at the pump to starve Russia and defend Ukraine.

    Biden and his party apparatchiks simply can’t give this idea up as we’re now just over four months to the mid-term elections.

    I already told you what the real cost at the pump is all about, RINs, renewable offset blending credits, which are strangling small refiners.

    But in Europe the real story is beyond comprehension. It can be summed up in the following meme:

    And yet if you listen to Europe’s leadership what are they talking about? Expanding NATO to include Finland and Sweden. Backing Lithuania’s disastrous blockade of overland goods into Kaliningrad, in clear violation of that country’s treaty with Russia. The EU parliament and the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy all backing Ukraine’s invitation into the bloc.

    These are all to which Russia will correctly respond with shifting its exports East rather than West and put paid Putin’s words from his speech at SPIEF 2022 last week.

    “The European Union has lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, doing everything they are told from on high and hurting their own people, economies, and businesses.”

    The whole speech is worth your time and the best highlight reel is this Twitter thread, not for what it implies for crypto, as the author implies, but for humanity in general. Debt is a slave’s system. It’s not real wealth, only the pretense of wealth.

    The big takeaway is exactly what I’ve been talking about on this blog for years: The end of sovereign debt as the basis for global reserves. The world will move, quickly, towards a commodity-backed monetary standard, where some form of discipline will be enforced on governments, who are torching their credibility by the day, because of reality.

    Real wealth is in things which sustain your life.

    Eventually physics and the limitations of time catch up with every central planner and their grand dreams of global domination. The tyranny they decry isn’t racism, a lack of tolerance or even tribalism, it is simply math and the physics of energy production.

    That is Putin’s big crime, reminding everyone of this basic fact.

    The narcissists who try to blame him for their woes will never admit they were wrong. They would rather continue manipulating events to steer the world towards the unthinkable blaming him and us for not bowing to their wisdom.

    Listen to them carefully and all you will hear is, “It’s not my fault!”

    But it is.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/27/2022 – 02:00

  • 'There Was No Plan To Attack': Oath Keepers FBI Interviews Contradict Indictment Charges
    ‘There Was No Plan To Attack’: Oath Keepers FBI Interviews Contradict Indictment Charges

    Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    An Indiana Oath Keepers leader who was in charge of security operations for the group in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 24 on five counts related to violence at the U.S. Capitol.

    Members of the Oath Keepers are seen during a protest against the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

    Michael Greene, 39, of Indianapolis, was arrested in Indiana on a warrant from Washington. An indictment unsealed June 24 charges Greene with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding (aiding and abetting), conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and tampering with documents or proceedings (aiding and abetting).

    Greene was added to a superseding indictment against seven other Oath Keepers, including Donovan Crowl, Sandra Parker, Bennie Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs, William Isaacs, and James Beeks.

    Greene, who also goes by the name Michael Simmons, is not accused of seditious conspiracy, a charge leveled in a different indictment against nine Oath Keepers, including the group’s founder, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III.

    Rhodes and his eight co-defendants were named in the latest 13-count superseding indictment unsealed in Washington, also on June 24. The other defendants in the seditious conspiracy case include Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel, Thomas Caldwell, and Edward Vallejo.

    The overarching cases against the Oath Keepers allege the group conspired to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes by a joint session of the U.S. Congress at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The goal, according to federal prosecutors, was to keep then-President Donald J. Trump in office and prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr. from assuming the presidency.

    All of the current 17 Oath Keepers defendants have pleaded not guilty to all charges. Defense attorneys say the indictments are a vast misreading and twisting of communications between group members who came to Washington to do nothing more than keep event participants safe from attacks by Antifa radicals.

    “At 1:42 p.m. on January 6, Greene sent a text message to an acquaintance stating, ‘Storming the capital’ (sic) along with a photograph that depicted the advancing mob on the west side of the Capitol grounds,” the Department of Justice stated in a news release. “Greene communicated with Rhodes and others during the afternoon. At about 3:09 p.m., Greene texted an acquaintance, ‘Congress evacuated.’”

    FBI Notes Contradict Indictments

    Greene’s indictment surprised some case observers, coming nearly 13 months after he was interviewed by FBI agents regarding his participation with the Oath Keepers at events in various cities. As a key leader at the D.C. events on Jan. 6, his input cited in the FBI reports contradicts much of what is alleged against Rhodes and other Oath Keepers defendants.

    According to the FBI’s case notes from interviews with Greene on May 4 and May 25, 2021, he told agents there was no Oath Keepers plan to attack the U.S. Capitol. His role on Jan. 6 was to oversee security for speakers at various events at or near the Capitol, he said. Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol building did not do so at his instruction or that of Rhodes, he told agents.

    Greene, who was identified in the redacted FBI notes as “Person 10,” told agents his job “was providing VIP security at select stages … where ‘protectees’ would be giving speeches.”

    “The security detail encompassed stage security and the protection of those individuals as they returned to their vehicles,” the FBI report said. “Person 10 cited the need for this protection after the Trump rally in December [2020] when individuals had been attacked by Antifa as they were leaving the rally.”

    Greene was standing with Rhodes near a downed fence on the northeast side of the Capitol during part of the afternoon of Jan. 6, the report said. “Person 10 learned afterwards OKs had entered the U.S. Capitol, however, advised no plan by the OKs included anyone going inside the U.S. Capitol.”

    In his FBI interviews, Greene said the message he sent out stating “they have taken ground at the capital (sic)” was an effort to get the Oath Keepers to regroup and leave the area of the Capitol building.

    Greene also told FBI agents that no Oath Keepers assaulted any law enforcement personnel or forced their way into the Capitol. “Person 10 heard the door was open and the group walked in,” the FBI report said.

    One group of Oath Keepers climbed the east steps of the Capitol below the historic Columbus Doors and went inside the Rotunda. Some of those Oath Keepers intervened in a potentially deadly standoff between a U.S. Capitol Police officer and a group of angry protesters inside the Small House Rotunda, witnesses reported.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 23:30

  • "Jetpack Man Is Back": FAA Investigates New Mysterious Sighting Near LA Airport 
    “Jetpack Man Is Back”: FAA Investigates New Mysterious Sighting Near LA Airport 

    The mysterious “Jetpack Man” was reportedly spotted by a commercial airline pilot in the skies over Los Angeles last Thursday. 

    “We heard that the jetpack man is back,” an air traffic controller at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) said in audio obtained by FOX 11.

    FAA confirmed that an “airline pilot reported seeing an object that might have resembled a jetpack 15 miles east of Los Angeles International Airport” on Thursday afternoon. 

    “The FAA has worked closely with the FBI to investigate every reported jetpack sighting,” the agency said, indicating “so far no sightings have not been verified.” 

    This is not the first time sightings of what appears to be a person operating a jetpack have been spotted by commercial pilots landing or taking off from LAX. We’ve documented several sightings over the last two years:

    “We Just Passed A Guy In A Jet Pack”: FBI Investigating After Pilots Report Sighting At 3,000 Feet

    Airline Crew Spots’ Guy In Jetpack’ Flying 6,000 Feet Over LAX In 2nd ‘Dangerous’ Incident

    Stunning Video Appears To Capture Mysterious LA’ Jetpack Man’

    There’s even speculation jetpack man could just be an inflatable balloon resembling Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s movie Nightmare Before Christmas. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 23:00

  • China Delivers Advanced Frigate To Pakistan Navy
    China Delivers Advanced Frigate To Pakistan Navy

    By Joe Saballa of The Defense Post

    China has delivered a second Type 054A/P frigate to the Pakistan Navy, providing a further boost to Islamabad’s maritime defense.

    Named the PNS Taimur, the frigate is reportedly equipped with cutting-edge weapons and sensors to support maritime surveillance and combat missions.

    It also has the latest combat management and electronic warfare systems, making it suitable in multi-threat environments.

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    The new ship is expected to enable the Pakistan Navy to meet emerging challenges to its maritime

    Concerns Over Defective Warships

    Earlier this week, it was reported that Pakistan is facing serious mechanical issues with some warships developed by Chinese companies.

    A recent Geopolitica.info analysis revealed that the Chinese-made frigates are ineffective at hitting targets due to faulty onboard missile systems.

    The frigates’ engines were also found to be defective, negatively impacting operational speed.

    security and regional peace.

    Earlier this year, Pakistan received its first of four Chinese-made multi-role frigates, the PNS Tughril.

    –

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 22:30

  • John Mearsheimer's Ukraine Crystal Ball
    John Mearsheimer’s Ukraine Crystal Ball

    A new talk by Professor John J. Mearsheimer has recently been made public, wherein the famous author and political science theorist details the causes and consequences of the Ukraine war. Mearsheimer became more well-known, and “controversial” in establishment circles, after it emerged that he clearly predicted going back to 2014 the war which kicked off in Feb. 2022.

    He had said in a 2014 University of Chicago lecture, “The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked.” This tragedy for the Ukrainian people is playing out now, with little hope that now totally defunct Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks will halt the fighting. Other than efforts of France’s Macron, attempts at basic diplomacy and direct communications are all but dead.

    As the lecture intro describes: Prof. Mearsheimer focused on both the origins of the war in Ukraine and some of its most important consequences. He argues that the crisis is largely the result of the West’s efforts to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Russian leaders viewed that outcome as an existential threat that had to be thwarted.

    While Vladimir Putin is certainly responsible for invading Ukraine and for Russia’s conduct in the war, Prof. Mearsheimer states that he does not believe he is an expansionist bent on creating a greater Russia.

    Regarding the war’s consequences, the greatest danger is that the war will go on for months if not years, and that either NATO will get directly involved in the fighting or nuclear weapons will be used — or both. Furthermore, enormous damage has already been inflicted on Ukraine. A prolonged war is likely to wreak even more devastation on Ukraine.

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    Mearsheimer calls the war an “unmitigated disaster” and with “no end in sight” – for which he lays chief blame on the West. Lately student groups at the University of Chicago, as well as some pundits within the mainstream media, have sought to censor his views and “cancel” him  – despite that he’s been on record and consistent in his predictions and views for years.

    WATCH the full new Mearsheimer talk below:

    Prof. John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 22:00

  • It Costs $22,648 And Requires 11 Agencies To Start A Restaurant In San Francisco
    It Costs $22,648 And Requires 11 Agencies To Start A Restaurant In San Francisco

    By Simon Black of Sovereign Man

    In a report called Barriers to Business, the Institute for Justice (IJ) analyzed 20 US cities for how easy it is to open five different types of businesses. To cover a range, those businesses included a restaurant, a retail bookstore, a food truck, a barbershop, and a home-based tutoring business.

    Entrepreneurs who want to start a restaurant, for example, have 13 different fees totaling $5,300, on average across the 20 cities. In San Francisco, those fees reach $22,648.

    Remember, these costs and regulatory hurdles are all in addition to the normal costs and work of opening a restaurant.

    The IJ also looked at the number of regulatory steps, and the number of government agencies it took to open a business. On average, across the 20 cities, it took 55 steps and eight government agencies just to open a barbershop.

    And as if the cost and time burden wasn’t enough, the report found that in many of the cities, it was not even clear what all the requirements were to start a business.

    For example, the report analyzed if a city gave entrepreneurs a “one-stop-shop” to open a business.

    That means a website which clearly lays out the requirements, and allows the owner to complete most forms in one portal. IJ also looked at whether the portal is user-friendly and allows the business owner to track progress and organize their information from one online account.

    None of the cities received a 5/5 for the one-stop-shop, while Birmingham and Des Moines received a 0. But Atlanta, Detroit, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh and San Francisco came close, with a 4/5.

    And that shows that simply looking at one factor is not enough. Sure, San Francisco may make it relatively easy to navigate the process, but that doesn’t make up for the enormous cost.

    And in Raleigh, it may only cost about $1,300 in fees to open a restaurant, but the city meets only 1/5 one-stop-shop criteria.

    What this means: 

    The report correctly observes that “You shouldn’t need a law degree to start the small business of your dreams.” Obviously, these types of costs and burdens are the exact opposite of what made America so strong and prosperous in the first place.

    It’s no surprise that businesses are fleeing San Francisco, where it costs tens of thousands of dollars in fees to start a restaurant.

    Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Texas, it costs $2,477 and in Jacksonville, Florida, it’s $2,794.

    Sadly, in terms of the number of agencies and bureaucratic steps involved, these cities aren’t much better than San Francisco.

    What you can do about it:

    We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: local really matters. It is worth noting that the report only looked at medium to large cities. But when you are looking to start a business, you may be locating in a smaller city or town.

    It makes sense to shop around, by town or county, to see what the requirements are before committing to a location. This will make it easier on you, but it also represents voting with your feet.

    Also consider the type of business you will be opening. The total steps it took to open a home-based tutoring business was the fewest of any other business analyzed in all 20 cities.

    That is a good sign, since many of the most promising small-business opportunities these days are home-based. We even talked about the revolution in alternative schooling programs to replace public schools in this Sunday Intelligence article from March.

    Service providers are popping up to support micro-schools, and regulations in many states, like Florida, allow former public school teachers to easily start a home-based schooling program. Some states, such as Arizona, even allow school choice funds to be spent on these types of private programs.

    With parents fed-up with woke indoctrination and COVID protocols in school, the market is there. And in many places, the regulatory burden is relatively small.

    If you have an online business which provides services, you should consider Puerto Rico’s Act 60 tax incentives. Companies which export their services to customers outside of Puerto Rico can pay just a 4% corporate tax rate, then distribute dividends to the company owner tax free.

    And of course, you should always consider looking outside of your home country for opportunities as well.

    As we mentioned earlier, the free-market American dream of starting any business easily is not what it used to be.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 21:30

  • Hedge Fund CIO: How Will The Fed Do QT? Each Crisis Has Increased Markets' Dependency On Fed Liquidity
    Hedge Fund CIO: How Will The Fed Do QT? Each Crisis Has Increased Markets’ Dependency On Fed Liquidity

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    “The Fed is “all in” on re-establishing price stability,” Fed Governor Waller pronounced in pleasantly direct language. “Experience has shown that markets need time to adjust to a turn from accommodation to tightening.”

    In response to questions, Waller spoke with blunt determination: “I don’t care what’s causing inflation, it’s too high, it’s my job to get it down. The higher rates and the path that we’re putting them on, it’s going to put downward pressure on demand across all sectors.”

    Powell offered his own sober message, “A soft landing is our goal. It is going to be very challenging. It has been made significantly more challenging by the events of the last few months – thinking of the war and of commodities prices and further problems with supply chains.”

    New York Fed economists provide a bit more precision, arguing that “the chances of a hard landing are about 80%,” starting in Q4 2022.

    Something will break. Something always does.

    Digital did and the regulatory landgrab has started in full force. Lagarde, with plenty of serious policy decisions ahead, observed that “crypto assets and DeFi have the potential to pose real risk to financial stability.”

    Spain’s Minister of Finance, Montero, announced digital asset owners would need to declare holdings and trading “in anticipation of regulations that would soon be carried out throughout the European Union.”

    The East-West divide is clear in policy focus. President Xi is focused on growth, vowing to “strengthen macro-policy adjustment and adopt more effective measures to strive to meet the social and economic development targets for 2022 and minimize the impacts of Covid-19.”

    Strains in emerging markets are being managed from within. Sri Lanka’s 22mm people are in the most severe economic crisis in nearly a century and India’s Foreign Secretary Kwatra underlined, “India stands ready to help Sri Lanka through promoting investments, connectivity and strengthening economic linkages,” beyond the $4bln aid already provided.

    The East-West center of gravity between global war and peace sits in Kaliningrad, a tiny Russian province pressed between NATO countries. Lithuanian President Nauseda offered that “Russia cannot be stopped by persuasion, cooperation, appeasement or concessions.”

    Elevated rhetoric continued when Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov drew comparison to Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union. “The EU and NATO are bringing together a contemporary coalition to fight and, to a large extent, wage war against Russia.”

    * * *

    Liquidity Unknowns I: How much QT is too much QT? We don’t know. There is no tidy math formula, no general equilibrium model, no linear approximation that will tell you. The trouble is, in a world of false precision, everyone wants a number. And policymakers have a hard time saying, “we don’t know,” especially when it’s true. Through the week ending June 22, balances with Federal Reserve Banks – previously known as ‘excess reserves’ – stood at $3.115trln. Powell guided the market that the end point for the Fed balance sheet would shrink another $2.5trln to $3trln. How does that math work?

    Unknowns II: Yet again new tools were needed in this cycle. To make sure rates didn’t fall below the Fed’s floor, they needed a broader mechanism to absorb excess liquidity. That mechanism was private sector access to the reverse repo facility. Remember the 2018 period of QT. Excess reserves were $1.9trln before liquidity conditions started to bite in September. Private sector reverse repos were basically zero. Today? $2.5trln. The Fed’s liabilities are acting as the riskless asset to private money funds in a way. The Fed clearly thinks reverse repos will decline. We don’t know. Behavior could drive it up if everyone wants liquidity and wants to face the Fed. As reverse repos rise, excess reserves decline. QT has more liquidity plumbing risk today – tools can turn into weapons.

    Unknown III: The risks are different but the strategy with QT is the same – start small, increase gradually, and then let it run. It isn’t the obvious choice. Reducing the pace as liquidity is withdrawn is a more natural path – you typically slow as you approach a stop sign, after all. We will know when the tightening – both in liquidity and interest rates – has gone too far. Weak links will break. Digital plays the role of EM in this cycle – big enough to be noticed, not enough to get policy to stop. Asset deflation, a USD credit crunch, and risks from maturity transformation has led to capital controls with 11 digital intermediaries. As in the Asia Crisis, the ecosystem will respond to gain independence and resilience.

    Unknown IV: Digital is the warning sign, not the circuit-breaker. Typical candidates – a rapid rise in the US dollar, EM currency and debt crisis, and banking strain – are just not applicable. After each crisis is a response, and those responses act like a vaccine against future ‘shocks.’ Emerging markets have insulated themselves with large holdings in the US dollar. Currency depreciation forced EM central banks into more orthodox positions well ahead of the Fed, ECB, and BOJ. Banks don’t have the space to make the mistakes of the GFC, with leverage financing pushed to capital markets. But markets have not been weaned from liquidity. To the contrary, each crisis has increased dependency on Fed liquidity.

    Unknown V: The adjustment in broader markets is orderly. How else would it be? Disorder is how it ends, not how it starts. “It is like jumping from the 100th floor of a building and saying, ‘so far, so good’ halfway into the drop,” a prolific investor remarked when confronted with “contained” language head of the GFC. Liquidity transformation in traditional markets, the driver of digital weakness, is everywhere. And it is a so-far, so-good story. ETF discounts make the point emphatically. An illiquidity pocket means that ETFs would clear the way closed-end funds do – hunting for a price where a buyer is willing to absorb the liquidity risk. Mortgage ETFs are down 9.7% for the year and trade exactly on net asset value. So far, so good.

    Unknown VI: What we can see is rarely the problem. The grandest mismatch resides in private markets. “Prior to the pandemic, many had already grown concerned about public market valuations and were exploring private capital markets in the hopes of addressing lower return projections for their traditional 60/40 portfolios.” Pronouncements like these became the norm. A generation of “J-curve” investors – the pattern of private investments to draw capital and then deliver rapid returns – was born. Everyone wants a liquidity buffer. Nobody has one. And in the everything bubble, to get one you are selling assets in the hole. You sell what you can. You promise never again, even if enticed by the Fed toolkit. Until it happens again.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 21:13

  • State Department To Pay 'Havana Syndrome' Victims Six-Figures
    State Department To Pay ‘Havana Syndrome’ Victims Six-Figures

    The US State Department is readying six-figure payments for the victims of mysterious brain injuries known as “Havana Syndrome,” according to AP, citing officials and a congressional aide.

    Alex Sandoval

    Both current and former State Department staff and their families who suffered “qualifying injuries” since 2016 will receive payments between $100,000 and $200,000 each – with specific amounts to be based on the severity of the victims’ injuries.

    The payments will only cover victims employed by the State Department as well as their dependents – around 20% of cases – while other victims will have to seek compensation from whatever federal agency employed them.

    The officials and aide spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the expected publication next week of the State Department’s plan to compensate victims under the terms of the HAVANA Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law last year.

    That draft rule is expected to be published early next week and will not become final until after a 30-day period in which public comment will be solicited. The State Department, along with the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, will consider the comments before enacting a final rule. -AP

    According to the report, the HAVANA Act will authorize the State Department to “provide payments to personnel for certain qualifying injuries to the brain,” and requires the agency to publish plans for deploying the funds.

    The mysterious syndrome, which in January the CIA ruled out Russia or other ‘hostile powers’ as the cause, have affected US personnel in foreign embassies, who complained of nausea, severe headaches, disorientation, vomiting, and even concussion-like symptoms.

    Out of literally hundreds of alleged instances, some which were claimed to have happened in the streets of D.C., the CIA says it only considers “about two dozen cases” instances where they “cannot rule out foreign involvement”. 

    Since 2017 there’s been an estimated 200 possible Havanda Syndrome incidents. Last year The Wall Street Journal called attention to “a steady expansion of attacks on American spies and diplomats posted overseas by unknown assailants using what government officials and scientists suspect is some sort of directed-energy source.”

    As we noted at the time, bizarre reports began to emerge that nearly two dozen American diplomats – and a handful of Canadians – serving at embassies in Havana suffered hard-to-pin-down symptoms from the alleged “sonic attacks”. But from the start anything in the way of actual evidence was lacking – other than the reports of the strange symptoms themselves (something which varied from person to person, and remained highly subjective in terms of description or severity). The whole initial episode focused on the US Embassy in the Cuban capital gave rise to endless theories.

    One prime theory that emerged in 2019 ascribed it to a natural phenomenon due to sounds produced by crickets in Havana.

    This particular theory wasn’t merely based on the musings of some random US officials, but was advanced by a team of scientists, and was featured in The Guardian in 2019. Other scientists had simultaneously posited the possibility of mass hysteria among staff serving in a high stress environment. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 20:00

  • US Will "Continue To Provide Seamless Access" To Abortion In Military: Defense Secretary
    US Will “Continue To Provide Seamless Access” To Abortion In Military: Defense Secretary

    Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

    Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a statement suggesting that the Defense Department intends to maintain the military’s access to abortion.

    “Nothing is more important to me or to this Department than the health and well-being of our Service members, the civilian workforce, and DOD families. I am committed to taking care of our people and ensuring the readiness and resilience of our Force. The Department is examining this decision closely and evaluating our policies to ensure we continue to provide seamless access to reproductive health care as permitted by federal law,” Austin said in a June 24 press release.

    The Supreme Court decision leaves the matter of abortion laws to states. Of 50 U.S. states, 26 are likely or certain to ban abortion now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, according to research group Guttmacher Institute.

    Thirteen states already have “trigger laws” in place that ban most abortions. These were set to come into effect immediately following the Supreme Court ruling. Many of the country’s military bases are in states like Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama where abortion is expected to be mostly outlawed.

    Women make up around 20 percent of the 1.3 million active-duty force of the American military. Almost 95 percent of women in the military are of reproductive age, according to estimates by the Defense Department. Military women also have a 50 percent higher rate of unplanned pregnancy when compared to women from the general populace.

    Abortion Leave

    At present, the military’s health program for service members and their families, Tricare, only covers abortions in case of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is in danger.

    For all other abortion procedures, women have to go off-base and pay for these services from their own pockets.

    …

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 19:30

  • Explosive Report Confirms Expansive CIA 'Stealth Network' Of Spies & Commandos Inside Ukraine
    Explosive Report Confirms Expansive CIA ‘Stealth Network’ Of Spies & Commandos Inside Ukraine

    A fresh New York Times report has confirmed what many already suspected – that the CIA is still very active inside Ukraine – especially with training as well coordinating weapons among its Ukrainian allies. The Times report details “a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training,” based on US and European intelligence officials with knowledge of the operations. The report says Ukrainian forces are reliant on this Western clandestine network “more than ever” while outgunned by the Russians.

    This comes months after investigative journalist Zach Dorfman’s bombshell expose in Yahoo News which detailed how a prior 8-year long CIA covert program to train Ukrainian fighters helped provoke the Russian invasion. The only question that remained after that March report was the extent to which the CIA was still active in the ongoing fight against the invading Russians.

    Special operations file image, via Sandboxx

    The new Times reporting confirms that the US program is not only active and ongoing, but appears larger in scale than previously thought given the CIA’s close cooperation with the Ukrainians is happening both inside and outside the country, across multiple locations.

    “Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials,” the report indicates.

    It appears much the CIA’s work in Ukraine is centered on coordinating intelligence with local intel services and counterparts. “Few other details have emerged about what the C.I.A. personnel or the commandos are doing, but their presence in the country — on top of the diplomatic staff members who returned after Russia gave up its siege of Kyiv — hints at the scale of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine that is underway and the risks that Washington and its allies are taking,” NY Times continues.

    Over the weekend, Canada also has been reported to have special operations troops inside Ukraine. This was reported months ago, but with a separate NYT report offering further confirmation. “Both CTV and Global News reported in late January that Canadian special forces had been sent to Ukraine, but National Defence did not comment on that deployment,” Ottawa Citizen writes Sunday. Back in January, a full two months before the invasion, Yahoo News disclosed the following:

    The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.

    The CIA-trained forces could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion. The U.S. and Russia started security talks earlier this week in Geneva but have failed thus far to reach any concrete agreement.

    While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.

    These details further seems to authenticate those voices which have been insisting NATO and Russia are in fact waging a proxy war inside Ukraine, a label which Biden administration officials have previously sought to deny and downplay.

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    Writes NY Times further of the international nature of Ukraine’s on-the-ground assistance, “At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine.”

    But the report adds the caveat that “The United States withdrew its own 150 military instructors before the war began in February, but commandos from these allies either remained or have gone in and out of the country since then, training and advising Ukrainian troops and providing an on-the-ground conduit for weapons and other aid, three U.S. officials said.”

    This strongly suggests the very scenario that many long suspected: that CIA operations which had gone on for eight years in Ukraine didn’t wind down or cease upon the Feb.24 start of the Russian invasion, but only increased and were ramped up. Of course, the same goes for the Pentagon’s special operations presence inside the country and along its Western borders, particularly in Poland.

    On Sunday, the Kremlin underscored angrily that even as such clandestine programs are made public via deliberate “leaks” to the media, Washington has refused to answer simple questions regarding Western operatives and mercenaries inside Ukraine – also after a couple of American fighters were recently captured.

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    Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday:

    “As [Russian Ambassador to London Andrey] Kelin said, they [Western countries] are writing some provocative, boorish things. They don’t want to answer the question we ask about their activities.”

    She charged the West with only seeking to perpetuate the conflict, saying, “They are sparing no effort so that the conflict in Ukraine continued as long as possible. We remember what US 43rd President George Bush Jr said: Ukraine’s mission is to kill as many Russians as possible…. They have endowed Ukraine and the Kiev regime with this duty.

    “They are using (Ukraine – TASS) as an instrument and the entire logistics are centered round that – weapons supplies, sending people, anything to keep the conflict burning, as [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson told [French President Emmanuel] Macron today, to prevent the settlement of this situation. Otherwise, their plan will fail,” Zakharova said according to TASS.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 19:00

  • Home Showings Across US Plunge 24%, Mortgage Rates Remain Elevated
    Home Showings Across US Plunge 24%, Mortgage Rates Remain Elevated

    Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

    Home showings across the United States have fallen, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), with all four regions registering a decline.

    Home showings—when a potential buyer takes a private home tour with an agent—were down by 24 percent year-on-year in May, with total showings across the country at 785,005, said the NAR SentriLock Home Showings Report. SentriLock is a lockbox and real estate management solutions company.

    All four regions in the United States saw a decrease in showings year-on-year, with the Northwest falling by 55 percent, Midwest by 29 percent, West by 27 percent, and the South by 14 percent.

    Total SentriLock cards fell 2 percent YoY to 214,868. The cards allow realtors access to Sentrilock lockboxes—which hold keys to a home and allow communal access to all real estate agents—and indicate the number of realtors who conduct the showing.

    The number of showings per card, which reflects the strength of buyer interest per listed property, decreased 23 percent YoY in May nationwide. Region-wise, showings per card in the West fell by 29 percent, the South by 23 percent, and the Midwest by 22 percent. Only the Northeast registered an increase at 45 percent.

    Meanwhile, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) fell by two points to 67 in June, which the organization called a “troubling sign” for the housing market and broader economy.

    According to NAHB Chair Jerry Konter, the six consecutive monthly declines of HMI is a “clear sign of a slowing housing market in a high-inflation, slow-growth economic environment.”

    This is the lowest HMI reading since June 2020. The index had hit a record high of 90 at the end of 2020 when the pandemic triggered strong demand for homes.

    Elevated Mortgage Rates

    The fall in home showings is happening as mortgage rates remain at elevated levels. A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage had an average interest rate of 5.81 percent as of June 22, according to data from Freddie Mac.

    Realtor.com is expecting home prices and mortgage rates to continue climbing while home sales drop as buyers get priced out from homeownership, based on a June 13 analysis of market trends. The rise in mortgage rates is driven by the U.S. Federal Reserve hiking interest rates to control inflation, the company noted.

    “Rising interest rates have shifted the foundation of the economy as well as the housing market. So many homebuyers take out mortgages so that rising rates affect how expensive homeownership is,” said the company’s Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “It’s causing buyers to make tough trade-offs and disrupting the housing market.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 18:30

  • 40,000 National Guard Troops Face Unemployment As Vaccine Deadline Imminent
    40,000 National Guard Troops Face Unemployment As Vaccine Deadline Imminent

    Up to 40,000 Army National Guard troops – around 13% of the force – could be fired for not getting the mandated COVID-19 vaccine (which has limited efficacy against Omicron, doesn’t stop transmission, has been linked to elevated heart problems, and has been mandated for a healthy demographic that rarely dies of the disease).

    Michigan Army National Guard Sgt. Mark Abbott administers a COVID-19 vaccine

    Guard soldiers have until Thursday to get the jab, according to the Associated Press, which notes that between 20% and 30% of Guard soldiers in six states remain unvaccinated.

    “We’re going to give every soldier every opportunity to get vaccinated and continue their military career. Every soldier that is pending an exemption, we will continue to support them through their process,” Lt. Gen. Jon Jensen, director of the Army National Guard, told AP. “We’re not giving up on anybody until the separation paperwork is signed and completed. There’s still time.”

    Last year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered all service members to get the vaccine, with different branches maintaining different deadlines for the jab. The Army National Guard was given the maximum amount of time, largely because its roughly 330,000 soldiers are scattered throughout the country, including remote locations.

    The Army Guard’s vaccine percentage is the lowest among the U.S. military — with all the active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps at 97% or greater and the Air Guard at about 94%. The Army reported Friday that 90% of Army Reserve forces were partially or completely vaccinated.

    The Pentagon has said that after June 30, Guard members won’t be paid by the federal government when they are activated on federal status, which includes their monthly drill weekends and their two-week annual training period. Guard troops mobilized on federal status and assigned to the southern border or on COVID-19 missions in various states also would have to be vaccinated or they would not be allowed to participate or be paid. -AP

    Complicating matters is a rule that Guard soldiers deployed on state active duty may not require a vaccination, depending on state-level mandates. 

    According to the report, at least seven governors have asked Austin to reconsider, or drop, the vaccine mandate for National Guard members – with some having filed or joined lawsuits to that end.

    Austin, apparently following his own special brand of science, told them to pound sand, saying that Covid-19 “takes our service members out of the fight, temporarily or permanently, and jeopardizes our ability to meet mission requirements,” adding that troops will either need to get vaccinated or lose their Guard status.

    “When you’re looking at, 40,000 soldiers that potentially are in that unvaccinated category, absolutely there’s readiness implications on that and concerns associated with that,” said Jenson, adding “That’s a significant chunk.” 

    AP reports that around 85% of Army Guard soldiers are fully vaccinated, while 87% are at least partially vaccinated.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 18:00

  • The Asininity Of Inflation Expectations, Once Again By Powell & The Fed
    The Asininity Of Inflation Expectations, Once Again By Powell & The Fed

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Jerome Powell and the St. Louis Fed are both concerned over inflation expectations. Let’s investigate.

    What Do Financial Markets Say about Future Inflation?

    From the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, please consider What Do Financial Markets Say about Future Inflation? by YiLi Chien and Julie Bennett.

    The Importance of Inflation Expectation

    The effectiveness of monetary policy hinges critically on inflation expectations. If economic agents, such as households and firms, expect higher inflation in the future, the rational reaction is to purchase goods and services right away in order to avoid higher future prices. As a result, the demand for goods and services immediately rises and so does the price level, which results in higher inflation right away. Hence, the Federal Reserve needs to anchor economic agents’ long-term inflation expectations close to the inflation target in order to effectively combat inflation. This blog post looks at the recent movements in so-called market-based inflation expectations for various time horizons.

    ….

    Conclusion

    In short, according to the inflation swap data, market participants believe the Federal Reserve can and will control the high inflation rate, despite price increases being more persistent than previously thought. The well-anchored longer-term inflation expectation provides additional supporting evidence of this.

    I will rebut this nonsense again, but first let’s consider another article on the alleged importance of inflation expectations. 

    The Strange Art of Asking People How Much Inflation They Expect

    Please consider The Strange Art of Asking People How Much Inflation They Expect

    “By about what percent do you expect prices to go up or down on the average, during the next 12 months?”

    The answers people give to this question—this exact question—produce one of the most important numbers for the U.S. economy.

    It’s the question the University of Michigan asks respondents to its Survey of Consumers. Because that survey is the longest-running such survey of consumer attitudes, dating back to 1946, its data about price increases have become the benchmark for economists who obsess over expectations of inflation.

    When Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that the Fed was raising interest rates by 0.75 percentage point, he cited an uptick in the responses people gave to the Michigan survey, saying, “It was quite eye-catching and we noticed that.”

    Crucial Variable Says Gregory Mankiw

    “Expected inflation is a crucial variable, but it’s probably one of the hardest of the crucial variables to measure,” said Harvard University economist Gregory Mankiw.

    The first quirk is that many people have only a vague idea of how much prices will rise, and tend to respond with large (sometimes implausibly large) round numbers: 5%, 10%, 15%, even 50%. In other words, people don’t gravitate toward a common assessment—they disagree sharply about how much inflation to expect, as Mr. Mankiw puts it.

    Second, partisanship colors people’s views. This is a well-known trend when assessing measures of consumer confidence: Democrats become extremely optimistic, and Republicans extremely pessimistic, the moment a Democratic president is elected. And vice versa. It has recently come to hang over inflation data, too.

    The question “by about what percent per year do you expect prices to go (up/down) on the average, during the next 5 to 10 years?” is followed by a careful script to ensure that people are providing an estimate of annual increases, not cumulative.

    Richard Curtin, former head of the University of Michigan survey, says the tendency to gravitate toward large, round numbers is a genuine reflection of how people think. 

    He sees a bit of condescension from economists who are skeptical that consumers could have well-formed views about inflation.

    I Condemn the Surveys and the Economists 

    Q: Why?
    A: The premise is ridiculous. 

    Q: What premise?
    A: “If economic agents, such as households and firms, expect higher inflation in the future, the rational reaction is to purchase goods and services right away in order to avoid higher future prices.”

    That actually seems logical and to a meaningless degree it can temporarily happen. 

    Gasoline Example

    Suppose a person thinks the price of gasoline will rise. That person then fills up his tank when it is half empty rather then three-quarters empty. 

    The person buys no more gas than he would otherwise, and perhaps even less by driving less. There is no place to store gas other the car. 

    Most people will not bother with the inconvenience of filling up twice as often to save a few cents, and it is meaningless if they do. No additional gas is purchased. 

    Toilet Paper Example

    Similarly, we have seen a rush on toilet paper on fears of supply, causing temporary shortages, but what then? 

    Does the price of toilet paper keep rising forever? Or after some number of roll hoarding does the situation self-correct?

    Medical Expense Example

    If consumers think the cost of a heart surgery will rise dramatically next year, will they rush out and have two of them now to avoid the price hike? 

    Clearly the answer is no.

    Rent Example

    Rent gets to the heart of the matter. It is over 31 percent of the CPI.

    What can consumers do about rising rent prices? Will they rush out and rent two houses if they expect an increase?

    No, they won’t do that, but they might rush to buy a home. Alas, neither the Fed nor economists see home price inflation as inflation.

    Curiously, the rush to buy homes (asset prices in general) is the one place where expectations matter. But economists ignore that, focusing on what doesn’t.

    Please consider Why Do We Think That Inflation Expectations Matter for Inflation? (And Should We?) by Jeremy B. Rudd at the Divisions of Research & Statistics and Monetary Affairs Federal Reserve Board.

    Policy Errors

    Economists and economic policymakers believe that households’ and firms’ expectations of future inflation are a key determinant of actual inflation. A review of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature suggests that this belief rests on extremely shaky foundations, and a case is made that adhering to it uncritically could easily lead to serious policy errors.  

    The study also debunked the highly touted Phillips Curve.

    Here are a few direct quotes.

    • The direct evidence for an expected inflation channel was never very strong.

    • It is an irony of history that, when Phelps and Friedman sought to justify their proposed theoretical specifications, they were faced with the uncomfortable fact that empirical Phillips curves appeared to be remarkably stable.

    • These techniques are similar in spirit to those employed in the 1990s to estimate new-Keynesian models; hence, they suffer from the same sorts of problems—discussed below—that attend empirical estimates of those models.

    • Friedman’s derivation of the expectations-augmented Phillips curve implies that the real product wage should be strongly countercyclical (recall that in this model firms are always assumed to be on their labor demand curves). In particular, Friedman states as a matter of fact that “. . . selling prices of products typically respond to an unanticipated rise in demand faster than prices of factors of production,” which would in turn imply the empirical prediction that the price Phillips curve is steeper than the wage Phillips curve. However, in U.S. data this prediction is completely at odds with the evidence.

    • Most standard tests of the new-Keynesian Phillips curve suffer from such severe potential misspecification issues or such profound weak identification problems as to provide no evidence one way or the other regarding the importance of expectations (much the same statement applies to empirical tests that use survey measures of expected inflation).

    • What little we know about firms’ price-setting behavior suggests that many tend to respond to cost increases only when they actually show up and are visible to their customers, rather than in a preemptive fashion. 

    Common Sense and Practical Examples

    Common sense and practical examples suggest that inflation expectations theory is ass backward.

    So much of the CPI is nondiscretionary that it’s difficult to impossible for CPI expectations to matter. 

    Yet, economists focus on expectations that don’t matter and ignore the expectations that do matter, namely asset prices!

    I have written about this several times previously, two of them before I even found the Fed study supporting my view. 

    Asset Irony

    People will rush to buy stocks in a bubble if they think prices will rise. They will hold off buying stocks if they expect prices will go down.

    People will buy houses to rent or fix up if they think home prices will rise. They will hold off housing speculation if they expect prices will drop.

    The very things where expectations do matter are the very things the Fed ignores.

    Hello Fed, Inflation Expectations Are Unglued, No Longer Well Anchored

    Inflation Expectations data from New York Fed, chart by Mish

    On April 11, I commented Hello Fed, Inflation Expectations Are Unglued, No Longer Well Anchored

    The New York Fed survey already shows inflation expectations are not anchored.

    Even the three-year median point projection is 4.88%, well over the Fed’s target rate of 2.00%.

    Powell was shocked that the University of Michigan survey showed the same thing.

    I commented “It’s a good thing that inflation expectations are a blatantly ridiculous concept. Even the Fed’s own research papers make that conclusion.”

    It’s a good thing inflation expectations are not self-fulfilling because expectations are now unglued.

    Fed Studies Debunk the Phillips Curve

    Both studies were done by Fed staffers.

    Yet, Fed Chairs Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell did not believe the Fed’s own study.

    Stupidity Still Well Anchored

    You have to be trained to believe in nonsense and stick with it despite all evidence to the contrary. 

    Yet, Powell and the St. Louis Fed trust their disproved inflation expectations models. It has led to policy errors already and will lead to more of them.

    This is group think in action. There is no diversity of thought at the Fed.

    Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?

    Regarding policy errors and the accurate warning by the Monetary Affairs Division of the Federal Reserve Board, please consider Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?

    A BIS study concluded “Deflation may actually boost output. Lower prices increase real incomes and wealth. And they may also make export goods more competitive.“

    Indeed, that must be the case as more goods for less money by default improves standards of living.

    The Fed was hell bent on reducing standards of living via inflation. Now they struggle to undo the inflation and asset bubble consequences they created. 

    The Fed is the problem, not the solution.

    *  *  *

    Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 17:30

  • Best Cities To Live Out Golden Years On $1,500 Budget Amid Inflation Storm 
    Best Cities To Live Out Golden Years On $1,500 Budget Amid Inflation Storm 

    Retirees face the harsh realities of not generating enough retirement income to sustain current spending habits amid the worst inflation in four decades.

    Millions of Americans living out their golden years are readjusting their retirement income and altering spending behaviors to survive the inflation storm sparked by the Federal Reserve and the federal government’s spending spree during COVID that sparked inflation which has since become a significant policy error. The Fed has since unleashed the most aggressive quantitative tightening scheme in decades to tame inflation and could easily tip the economy into recession later this year or in 2023. 

    Financial turmoil has put retirees in a tough spot because they don’t want to drain their savings and be forced to re-enter the labor market as Walmart greeters. 

    So if retirees want to maintain their current standard of living, there’s a new study by GOBankingRates that has found the top metro areas where baby boomers can comfortably survive for less than $1,500 a month.  

    Still, living on a fixed income doesn’t mean you have to miss out on a satisfying retirement. In the right place, you might discover that you can stretch your budget further and spend your golden years enjoying yourself. To help you find such a place, a GOBankingRates study identified American cities where you can realistically retire on a budget of $1,500 a month.

    The study took the cost-of-living index from Sperling’s Best Places and applied it to customer expenditure data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to find the average cost of living in the given city. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in each city was also sourced from ApartmentList. Locations that fell below a certain livability score on AreaVibes or had a below-average portion of the population above 65 were eliminated, and only the places offering the best combination of bills under $1,500 and strong livability for seniors were left. – GOBankingRates

    GOBankingRates found Odessa, Texas; Wayne, Indiana; St. Cloud, Minnesota; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Lawton, Oklahoma; and Lansing, Michigan, the most affordable areas where retirees could live out their golden years (currently) for less than $1,500. 

    Odessa, Texas

    • Total monthly expenditures: $1,385.63
    • Livability score: 67

    Odessa, in western Texas, is known for its oil rigs, Friday night high school football and a working re-creation of William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. With the lowest average monthly rent on the list, $487, retirees should have a few dollars to spare for football or theater tickets.

    Fort Wayne, Indiana

    • Total monthly expenditures: $1,397.29
    • Livability score: 80

    Retirees who settle in Fort Wayne would find it affordable, as well as a great place to make friends. People ages 65 or older make up 14 % of the city’s population. Rent averages $634 per month but healthcare costs are $453.83 a month — the second-lowest rate in the study.

    • Cloud, MinnesotaTotal monthly expenditures: $1,404.64
    • Livability score: 68

    St. Cloud, about an hour’s drive northwest of Minneapolis, has the lowest monthly healthcare costs on the list, an average of $444.71. The grocery costs are the highest, however, at $328.43.

    Lake Charles, Louisiana

    • Total monthly expenditures: $1,446.59
    • Livability score: 69

    Located along Interstate 10 between Houston and New Orleans, Lake Charles offers plenty of things for retirees to do, from enjoying museums to water activities to wildlife experiences. It is one of three cities on the list with an average monthly rent of less than $600 but healthcare costs higher than $500 a month.

    Lawton, Oklahoma

    • Total monthly expenditures: $1,483.75
    • Livability score: 66

    In Lawton, retirees can expect to spend a bundle on healthcare. Average monthly costs of $660.52 are higher than rent, which comes in at an affordable $519. The city of about 93,000 people has the lowest grocery costs in the study at an average of $304.73 per month.

    Lansing, Michigan

    • Total monthly expenditures: $1,485.48
    • Livability score: 65

    The average monthly rent in Lansing, Michigan’s state capital, is $701 — the highest of the cities on the list. However, the average monthly cost of groceries, $308.45, is the second-lowest of the cities included here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 17:00

  • The Illinois Political Establishment's Shameful Response To The Departure Of Ken Griffin And Citadel
    The Illinois Political Establishment’s Shameful Response To The Departure Of Ken Griffin And Citadel

    By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

    On a wall in Ken Griffin’s office at Citadel in Chicago, I’m told by people who worked there, hangs a thank you note from a six-year old. Like many kids that age, he was enthralled by prehistoric creatures so he wrote to thank Griffin for funding Evolving Planet, a permanent wing in Chicago’s Field Museum.

    The six-year old was my son, who asked if he could write it after my wife had taken him for what must have been the fifth time to the exhibit.

    I was proud that he had the simple decency to feel a need to thank somebody.

    I wish I could say the same about the Illinois political establishment’s send-off to Griffin and Citadel, who are leaving for Florida. There was no decency in any of it.

    Griffin is among the most successful financial entrepreneurs in history and Citadel was a crown jewel in Illinois’ economy. But the decency of a proper send-off was nowhere to be found in Illinois’ leadership. There wasn’t even the standard, “we’re disappointed to see them go,” which they usually say about corporate departures. Just a kick out the door for a golden goose.

    Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s response was petty and rude. As reported by Greg Hinz at Crain’s, Pritzker’s terse statement doesn’t even name Griffin or Citadel. “Countless companies are choosing Illinois as their home, as we continue to lead the nation in corporate relocations and had a record number of business start-ups in the past year,” said Pritzker’s statement. “We will continue to welcome those businesses—including Kellogg, which just this week announced it is moving its largest headquarters to Illinois—and support emerging industries that are already creating good jobs and investing billions in Illinois, like data centers, electric vehicles and quantum computing,” the statement added. That was it.

    Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s response was only slightly better. She did thank Citadel and its team for their philanthropic work and economic impact, but went on to dismiss their importance, making absurd claims about how well Chicago is doing. “Our economic outlook has never been stronger and we will continue to build upon a best-in-class recovery in the nation amongst large U.S. cities,” she said.

    If other members of Illinois’ ruling class said anything of substance at all I cannot find them.

    Then there’s Rich Miller, a columnist and blogger who is better described as the de facto spokesperson for Illinois’ political establishment.

    His Twitter post and headline said, “After apparent spectacular political failure, Ken Griffin takes ball, goes home to Florida.” What a venal and irresponsible response to a sad event that will truly hurt already struggling Chicago and Illinois.

    Miller went on to ridicule Griffin’s statement that his decision to leave was driven in part by employees asking to relocate. “Yeah, it’s about the employees,” Miller wrote. Miller and others cynically ascribe Griffin’s decision only to the failing campaign of Richard Irvin for governor, who Griffin heavily supported. Employee concerns about crime, taxes, corruption, insurmountable debts and all the rest had nothing to do with it, they’d have us believe.

    Illinois’ loss from Citadel’s departure is enormous. Griffin has personally donated roughly $1.5 billion during his residency in Illinois to a range of philanthropic causes. Over $600 million of that was in Chicago.

    Griffin alone has paid more than $200 million in yearly state taxes in recent years, and huge tax sums no doubt have also been paid by his 1,000 Illinois employees, many of whom are very well paid. The Washington Free Beacon reports that Citadel employees have funneled over $1 billion to the state’s coffers over the past decade. See my colleagues’ separate article with more details on the impact.

    None of that is of much importance, apparently, to those happy to see him leave.

    How would Griffin haters explain their glee over his departure? If they were asked, they’d probably say what quite a few of them were saying on social media. It’s the standard characterization of conservatives like Griffin: He’s just another rich guy who cares nothing about the little guy. That’s why he regularly opposed the establishment, which is dedicated to equality. Helping the little guy is what we’re about in Illinois, and we don’t want people like him who oppose that.

    Maybe someday they will be confronted with how that equality thing has been working out in Illinois after decades of near complete one-party rule. If that happened, they’d face the reality that Illinois ranks much worse than the national average – ninth worst compared to other states – in the standard measure for income inequality. They’d see that Illinois is no better than middling when measured by the number of its citizens below the poverty line, ranking twenty-second highest among the states. They’d be reminded that Illinois’ unemployment rate persistently lags the nation, and much more

    The list goes on and on, but actual results mean nothing to them. It’s the thought and the words that they pretend to think count.

    There’s a special irony here and a more important lesson. Illinois did reduce inequality by driving Griffin away. Inequality drops whenever the rich flee. But does that really help the poor and middle class? Of course not.

    The point was made nicely in a recent op-ed by two University of Chicago law professors. More billionaires will increase income inequality here, “but that would be a boon to government revenue,” they wrote. “When it comes to policies, Illinois would be better served by ones that attract successful entrepreneurs, not ones that drive them out of the state.”

    Those are the policies Griffin supported while he was here, and that’s what earned him the establishment’s ire.

    So here we are. Illinois is now more equal. And poorer. The political establishment has one less opponent to worry about. The planet indeed evolves, as Griffin’s wing at the Field Museum displays. Just not always for the better.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 16:30

  • "When Not If…" – Monster Of A Recession On Deck
    “When Not If…” – Monster Of A Recession On Deck

    While everyone has been transfixed by the unexpected drop in the UMich 5/10 year inflation expectations, which dropped to 3.1% from a preliminary 3.3% print, which means that the alarm signal that prompted the Fed to panic last week and prompted the market to aggressively reprice (lower) the odds of future Fed hikes…

    … the report also showed the lowest consumer sentiment reading in the 70-year history of the series, realistically speaking a far more troubling indicator than what a small group of respondents think inflation will be in 10 years (spoiler alert, it will be much higher than they expect).

    So as Friday’s Chart of the Day titled “When not if…” from Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid (excerpted from his latest chartbook, available to professional subs) shows, this is remarkable when the unemployment rate is so low. We have never seen such a divergence between the two series. The full survey shows that inflationary pressures are the main reason confidence is so low.

    Eyeballing the chart, while sentiment is clearly more volatile than unemployment, the peaks in sentiment and lows in unemployment tend to broadly coincide. Reid circled the main occasions where sentiment has notably led unemployment and, interestingly, they were all between the late 1960s and the late 1970s when inflation structurally picked up. All of those situations led to a recession and a sharp turn higher in unemployment. Indeed, if sentiment is the leading indicator and if unempolyment is set to soar to 14%, we are about to have a monster recession on out hands.

    As Reud concludes, “with unemployment currently so low it might still take a while for a recession to play out it’s almost certainly when not if. I would love to have a more optimistic message to deliver. If you have one please email me as I would be only too happy to be proved wrong and persuaded otherwise. Hopefully my mail box will be so full that I’ll be very bullish on the economy by Monday.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 16:00

  • CDC Confirmed Post-Vaxx Death From Blood-Clotting Two Weeks Before Alerting Public: Emails
    CDC Confirmed Post-Vaxx Death From Blood-Clotting Two Weeks Before Alerting Public: Emails

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

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed in late 2021 that a person died from blood clotting after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine that had been linked with an increased risk of blood clotting, but did not alert the public for two weeks, newly obtained emails show.

    A general view of the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on April 23, 2020. (Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images)

    Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a CDC official, told colleagues at the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Dec. 2, 2021, “We have confirmed a 9th TTS death following Janssen vaccination,” according to emails obtained by The Epoch Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.

    TTS refers to thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, a condition that features low platelet levels combined with blood clots.

    Officials had recommended a nationwide pause on the administration of the vaccine, produced by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) subsidiary Janssen, in April 2021 after six women experienced TTS after J&J vaccination and three died. But they lifted the pause after determining the vaccine remained safe and effective.

    The condition was not discussed much in the ensuing months, despite the CDC later reporting that five additional deaths occurred before Aug. 31, 2021. Shimabukuro gave a single update, in mid-October 2021, saying five total deaths had been reported.

    That was until December 2021. Twelve days after Shimabukuro alerted colleagues of the ninth death, the FDA urged healthcare workers not to administer the vaccine to people with certain conditions because of the TTS risk. Two days after that, Dr. Isaac See, another CDC official, informed the public during a meeting that nine deaths had occurred post-vaccination.

    It’s unclear when the CDC learned of the sixth, seventh, and eighth deaths.

    The CDC takes reports made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and attempts to confirm the reports, including post-vaccination deaths. A higher number of post-vaccination TTS deaths have been reported to the system than the number the CDC has verified.

    One day after Shimabukuro confirmed the ninth death, his message was forwarded by Dr. Amanda Cohn, another CDC official, to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

    “See below, information on a 9th completely tragic death from TTS,” Cohn wrote.

    “Many thanks for letting us know … any tragic case,” Walensky responded.

    The emails were partially redacted; one was fully redacted.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 15:30

  • CNN's Navarro Cites Own Autistic & Special Needs Family Members In Making Case For Abortion
    CNN’s Navarro Cites Own Autistic & Special Needs Family Members In Making Case For Abortion

    In recent commentary reacting to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, prominent CNN pundit and co-host of The View Ana Navarro “shocked” by bluntly suggesting live on air that some of her own special needs family members, her brother included, should have been… well, we’ll let her say it:

    “I am not anybody to tell you what you need to do with your life or with your uterus.” She then mentioned special needs people in her family, saying, “I have a family with a lot of special needs kids. I have a brother who’s 57 and has the mental and motor skills of a one-year-old. And I know what that means financially, emotionally, physically for a family. And I know not all families can do it.” 

    She also spoke of her “step-granddaughter who was born with Down syndrome” and her “step-grandson who is very autistic, who has autism…” 

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

    Yes, she really suggested that her family and others could benefit from open access to abortion to prevent their autistic family members, as well as for anyone with slow motor skills, from ever having been born.

    Given this precisely echoes the arguments that eugenicists during the time of the Nazi Third Reich made in arguing the “unfit” should be exterminated, Navarro’s commentary was met with widespread disgust and horror among pro-life social media users. Many suggested that this is where the ‘logic’ of abortion advocates actually leads.

    But even S.E. Cupp, also a CNN host, who is on record as being ‘pro-choice’ but has a special needs child – also reacted fiercely. She called out Navarro personally, saying the following:

    “You said you have a step-grand daughter with Down’s syndrome, and a ‘step-grandson who is very autistic.’ And that ‘there are mothers and people who are in that society or in that community will tell you they’ve considered suicide because that’s how difficult it is to get help.”

    Cupp then said: “I have an autistic child. I have never met a parent of an autistic child or any parent of a special needs child who said they’d wished they’d aborted him or her.”

    In the series of tweets, Cupp stated she remains against Roe being overturned, while stressing she is horrified by what Navarro appears to be advocating: “I have been clear. I don’t want Roe overturned. But don’t even for a second make it about our special needs kids. NOT EVEN ONE SECOND,” she tweeted.

    Navarro later tried to distance herself from her prior CNN commentary amid huge backlash, saying her words had been “twisted”, claiming in a follow-up tweet: “Some have twisted my words. Won’t stop me calling it out: Banning women’s choices, but NOT funding enough aid for kids & adults w/special needs & disabilities, or a safety-net for single moms & poor families, or safe, loving foster care & adoption, isn’t Pro-life. It’s hypocrisy.”

    S.E. Cupp (left), Ana Navarro (right), via Mediaite

    And yet her original words were clear as she personally invoked family members including her disabled brother in extolling the ‘virtues’ of abortion.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 06/26/2022 – 15:00

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