Mar 31

Today’s News 31st March 2022

  • Canary Wharf Landlord To Build Giant Biolab In Former Financial Hub
    Canary Wharf Landlord To Build Giant Biolab In Former Financial Hub

    This seems like a strange place for a giant biolab.

    As East London’s famed Canary Wharf financial district struggles to rebound from the COVID pandemic that inspired the ‘work-from-home revolution’ (leaving many of the district’s skyscrapers disappointingly vacant) the local landlord, Canary Wharf Group, has devised a ‘novel’ solution.

    And that plan is: develop a 22-storey, 750,000 square foot block split between ‘wet labs’ and office space. The landlord hopes this new setup will ultimately provide the anchor for a thriving life-sciences cluster in East London (where the entire local economy has started to collapse due to a shortage of office workers to patronize local shops and other business). The project is expected to cost roughly $660 million.

    Here’s more from the FT:

    The company is partnering with Kadans Science Partner, a specialist Dutch developer, on the project, which is expected to cost at least £500mn to build according to people with knowledge of the matter.

    The project, due to complete in 2026, is a key part of CWG chief executive Shobi Khan’s vision to transform the area and attract a wider array of tenants. The Wharf had changed from “what the old guard knew it as”, said Khan.

    The financial district envisaged 30 years ago as a rival to the City of London was giving way to a mixed use neighbourhood with more leisure activities and homes, he added.

    Even before the pandemic, as more banking jobs moved to the Continent and elsewhere in the wake of Brexit, it’s pretty clear that the financial services industry isn’t coming to the rescue.

    “We’re down to 50 per cent financial services [tenants] and we’re broadening out to health and life sciences now. This is a city within a city,” he said.

    But while the pandemic has undermined demand for commercial office space (just ask Blackstone), it has inspired a revolution in the life sciences.

    About 120,000 people regularly worked at Canary Wharf before the pandemic, which stemmed the flow of workers to the area and starved local businesses of income. Khan said the number of people currently commuting in was at a pandemic high, but he would not give a figure. A number of landlords and institutions are investing in life sciences, confident that a focus on healthcare and scientific research – intensified by the pandemic – will keep demand for lab space rising.

    Canary Wharf will still need to compete against other ‘life sciences hubs’ in London, as they’re not the only ones who see opportunity in biolabs. Oxford, Cambridge and the area around King’s Cross in north London already have acres of lab space and are anchored by top universities and research facilities. Those areas, nicknamed the “golden triangle”, have attracted the bulk of recent investment into life sciences property in the UK.

    In other Canary Wharf news, staff at Citi’s Canary Wharf office are being forced to working from home after a major power failure across East London persisted into Wednesday, having knocked out computer networks and led to the activation of emergency electricity supplies, according to Bloomberg. HSBC, meanwhile, was forced to activate auxiliary generators at its headquarters in the district, per BBG.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/31/2022 – 02:45

  • Escobar: How Mariupol Will Become A Key Hub Of Eurasian Integration
    Escobar: How Mariupol Will Become A Key Hub Of Eurasian Integration

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

    Mariupol was battered by Ukraine’s right-wing Azov battalion well before Moscow launched its military ops. In Russian hands, this strategic steelworks port can transform into a hub of Eurasian connectivity…

    Mariupol, the strategic Sea of Azov port, remains in the eye of the storm in Ukraine.

    The NATO narrative is that Azovstal – one of Europe’s biggest iron and steel works – was nearly destroyed by the Russian Army and its allied Donetsk forces who “lay siege” to Mariupol.

    The true story is that the neo-Nazi Azov batallion took scores of Mariupol civilians as human shields since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, and retreated to Azovstal as a last stand. After an ultimatum delivered last week, they are now being completely exterminated by the Russian and Donetsk forces and Chechen Spetsnaz.

    Azovstal, part of the Metinvest group controlled by Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, is indeed one of the biggest metallurgic plants in Europe, self-described as a “high-performance integrated metallurgical enterprise that produces coke and sinter, steel as well as high-quality rolled products, bars and shapes.”

    Amidst a flurry of testimonials detailing the horrors inflicted by the Azov neo-Nazis on Mariupol’s civilian population, a way more auspicious, invisible story bodes well for the immediate future.

    Russia is the world’s fifth largest steel producer, apart from holding huge iron and coal deposits. Mariupol – a steel Mecca – used to source coal from Donbass, but under de facto neo-Nazi rule since the 2014 Maidan events, was turned into an importer. Iron, for instance, started to be supplied from Krivbas in Ukraine, over 200 kilometers away.

    After Donetsk solidifies itself as an independent republic or, via referendum, chooses to become part of the Russian Federation, this situation is bound to change.

    Azovstal is invested in a broad product line of very useful stuff: structural steel, rail for railroads, hardened steel for chains, mining equipment, rolled steel used in factory apparatus, trucks and railroad cars. Parts of the factory complex are quite modern while some, decades old, are badly in need of upgrading, which Russian industry can certainly provide.

    Strategically, this is a huge complex, right at the Sea of Azov, which is now, for all practical purposes, incorporated into the Donetsk People’s Republic, and close to the Black Sea. That implies a short trip to the Eastern Mediterranean, including many potential customers in West Asia. And crossing Suez and reaching the Indian Ocean, are customers all across South and Southeast Asia.

    So the Donetsk People’s Republic, possibly part of the future Novorossiya, and even part of Russia, will be in control of a lot of steel-making capacity for southern Europe, West Asia, and beyond.

    One of the inevitable consequences is that it will be able to supply a real freight railroad construction boom in Russia, China and the Central Asian ‘stans.’ Railroad construction happens to be the privileged connectivity mode for Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And, crucially, of the increasingly turbo-charged International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

    So, mid-term, Mariupol should expect to become one of the key hubs of a boom in north-south routes – INSTC across Russia and linking with the ‘stans’ – as well as major BRI upgrades east-west and sub-BRI corridors.

    Interlocked Eurasia

    The INSTC’s main players are Russia, Iran and India – which are now, post-NATO sanctions, in advanced interconnection mode, complete with devising mechanisms to bypass the US dollar in their trade. Azerbaijan is another important INSTC player, yet more volatile because it privileges Turkey’s connectivity designs in the Caucasus.

    The INSTC network will also be progressively interconnecting with Pakistan – and that means the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key BRI hub, which is slowly but surely expanding to Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s impromptu visit to Kabul late last week was to advance the incorporation of Afghanistan to the New Silk Roads.

    All that is happening as Moscow – extremely close to New Delhi – is simultaneously expanding trade relations with Islamabad. All three, crucially, are Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members.

    So the grand North-South design spells out fluent connectivity from the Russian mainland to the Caucasus (Azerbaijan), to West Asia (Iran) all the way to South Asia (India and Pakistan). None of these key players have demonized or sanctioned Russia despite ongoing US pressures to do so.

    Strategically, that represents the Russian multipolar concept of Greater Eurasian Partnership in action in terms of trade and connectivity – in parallel and complimentary with BRI because India, eager to install a rupee-ruble mechanism to buy energy, in this case is an absolutely crucial Russia partner, matching China’s reported $400 billion strategic deal with Iran. In practice, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will facilitate smoother connectivity between Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India.

    The NATO universe, meanwhile, is congenitally incapable of even recognizing the complexity of the alignment, not to mention analyze its implications. What we have is the interlocking of BRI, INTSC and the Greater Eurasia Partnership on the ground – all notions that are regarded as anathema in the Washington Beltway.

    All that of course is being designed amidst a game-changing geoeconomic moment, as Russia, starting this Thursday, will only accept payment for its gas in rubles from “unfriendly” nations.

    Parallel to the Greater Eurasia Partnership, BRI, since it was launched in 2013, is also progressively weaving a complex, integrated Eurasian network of partnerships: financial/economic, connectivity, physical infrastructure building, economic/trade corridors. BRI’s role as a co-shaper of institutions of global governance, including normative foundations, has also been crucial, much to the despair of the NATO alliance.

    Time to de-westernize

    Yet only now the Global South, especially, will start to observe the full spectrum of the China-Russia play across the Eurasian sphere. Moscow and Beijing are deeply involved in a joint drive to de-westernize globalist governance, if not shatter it altogether.

    Russia from now on will be even more meticulous in its institution-building, coalescing the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – a Eurasian military alliance of select post-Soviet states – in a geopolitical context of irreversible institutional and normative divide between Russia and the West.

    At the same time, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will be solidifying Russia as the ultimate Eurasian bridge, creating a common space across Eurasia which could even ignore vassalized Europe.

    Meanwhile in real life, BRI, as much as the INSTC, will be increasingly plugged into the Black Sea (hello, Mariupol). And BRI itself may even be prone to re-evaluation in its emphasis of linking western China to western Europe’s shrinking industrial base.

    There will be no point in privileging the northern BRI corridors – China-Mongolia-Russia via the Trans-Siberian, and the Eurasian land bridge via Kazakhstan – when you have Europe descending into medieval dementia.

    BRI’s renewed focus will be on gaining access to irreplaceable commodities – and that means Russia – as well as securing essential supplies for Chinese production. Commodity-rich nations, such as Kazakhstan and many players in Africa, shall become the top future markets for China.

    In a pre-Covid loop across Central Asia, one constantly heard that China builds plants and high-speed railways while Europe at best writes white papers. It can always get worse.

    The EU as occupied American territory is now descending, fast, from center of global power to the status of inconsequential peripheral player, a mere struggling market in the far periphery of China’s “community of shared destiny.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/31/2022 – 02:00

  • Brandon Smith: Leftists Are Angry About The Florida Anti-Grooming Law Because They Want Your Children
    Brandon Smith: Leftists Are Angry About The Florida Anti-Grooming Law Because They Want Your Children

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    Why would someone be enraged by a law that prevents teachers from exposing children to sexual indoctrination and demands parents are kept in the loop on classroom lessons? It’s obvious; they’re mad because they like the idea of grooming kids and they don’t want the process interfered with in any way.

    First, however, I think we need to understand what grooming really is, and it’s not only about sex. One of the most pervasive cancers within our society today is social justice based communism. In every way the ideology is predicated on lies and disinformation, but this deceit is merely a tool to achieve an end goal – The reeducation or brainwashing of future generations into the leftist fold.

    Leftists often talk about notions of “community,” but community is a voluntary structure. When they say they want “community” what they really mean is that they want collectivism, and collectivism is by definition NOT voluntary but forced through violence or coercion or propaganda. To these ends, leftists seem to have gravitated like sharks into the public school system, specifically to prey on the easiest targets in the ocean; your children.

    I’ve recently heard the argument that the Florida bill should not be called an Anti-Grooming bill because “not all gay people are groomers.” I don’t think anyone made that claim anyway. What we are saying, though, is that all SJWs are indeed groomers and this is the root problem.

    They have been doing this in subtle ways for many years, but in the past 5 years their methods have become rather careless and obscene. The grooming of children in today’s public schools is not only relegated to sexualization, it also involves ideological molding and cultism. When leftists refer to Florida Bill 1557 they call it the “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” but this has nothing to do with the basic notion of homosexuality, this is about the political weaponization of homosexuality and transexuality (among other things). This is about using sexual orientation to propagandize children and create new little soldiers for communist social justice.

    Just as I have said many times in the past when it comes to pop culture and movies, the existence of gay people or “diversity” is not the problem, it’s the communism that’s the problem. We don’t want your communism infecting our entertainment and we certainly don’t want it around our children. Set aside the fact that there is no science whatsoever to support the concepts of gender fluidity that are usually addressed in these lessons.

    Some Florida teachers and SJWs are up in arms this week as Governor Ron DeSantis signs the dreaded 1557 bill into law. The claim? That this bill is somehow a violation of their free speech rights. Watch the news report below for an example:

    First, I think this needs to be said – Public school teachers are not important. I’m sure there are many good ones out there and this is not an attack on them. What I am saying is, the glorification and worship of teachers is out of place in our society and completely overblown. At some point along the line leftists in particular decided that teachers are the emissaries of moral order and equity and their jobs should be treated as sacrosanct. This is nonsense.

    Teachers are mere employees of the district they work in, that is all. Parents pay the taxes that pay their salaries. The parents are the employers, the parents are the boss and what they say goes. Teachers need to understand this; the parents own you, so get used to the idea. You are not special.

    Furthermore, the views expressed in the interview with the gay Florida teacher above showcase some unhinged misconceptions and assumptions. First, the new law does not say that a teacher is not allowed to mention they are gay, but frankly, NO teacher should be discussing their private lives with their students anyway. At no point in my childhood did I ever hear a teacher talk about their home lives or who they were sleeping with; this is a new trend within the past decade. Not long ago teachers specifically avoided such idiocy in order to prevent rumors from circulating through the school halls about them.

    And yes, we did have at least one gay teacher, and he never discussed it in the classroom, ever. His job was not under threat for doing so, he was just a professional.

    This kind of professionalism is not acceptable to leftists because they view the classroom as more than just a place of academia, they view it as a place for engineering conformity, as well as a personal therapy bubble for themselves. I can’t count how many videos I have seen in the past few years of teachers “coming out” to their students in a desperate play for attention and applause. The narcissism inherent in this behavior is stunning. Teachers have turned theirs classrooms into environmental extensions of their own mental deformities and insecurities and now lay these problems in the hands students.

    The invasion of trans and gender fluid rhetoric, along with critical race theory, is at times about the ego of the teacher, but it is also at times a game meant to inspire submission in the group. When a teacher walks into a classroom and starts bloviating about their sexual identity and pronouns looking for approval from the children, how often are those children allowed to disagree with the concepts? When they do disagree, how often do these teachers use their position of authority to hound these students into silence or submission? How often do teachers inspire mob mentality in other students and encourage them to go on the attack against any kids who don’t conform?

    This is a major threat to the psychological health and development of children. Florida leftists are complaining that they must now walk on eggshells in terms of what they say in the classroom, but they have never had a problem making students walk on eggshells when it comes to what they are allowed to disagree with in the classroom.

    The interesting thing about all this is the SJW response to being called out, or being caught. Even after years of bragging about how they are indoctrinating children in their classes all over social media, they will inevitably claim that laws like those implemented in the Florida bill are pointless because the agenda “doesn’t exist.” That’s right, all that excited blabbering on twitter and Tiktok about luring kids into gender bending and the religion of pronouns, and suddenly conservatives are just “overreacting” or “paranoid?” In countries like Canada, LGBT indoctrination is the norm in some schools and has been for several years, yet we are supposed to believe that there is no plan to do the same in the US?

    LGBT activists have declared in the past that they are “coming for our children.” The typical M.O. of leftist activists is to openly admit their agenda and then when they get blowback they didn’t expect they claim it was all “satire.” You remember this little gem of a video?

    Leftists say this is all little more than a joke, but their actions say otherwise. Monty Python is satire. Blazing Saddles is satire. The above video is definitely not satire. Leftists in our modern era have no understanding of satire so the argument rings pretty hollow. They do understand gaslighting though, and when all else fails SJWs exploit this common fallback. It’s in their nature to lie while doubling down.

    At bottom, if there is no need for the Florida law to exist because there is no indoctrination going on in classrooms, then these teachers have nothing to worry about and should not be complaining. Why complain if there is no agenda?

    It is here that I think we need to address a bigger issue which SJWs often screech about, and that’s the idea of “Gatekeeping.” I’m going to say it right here and now: GATEKEEPING IS GOOD. It always has been and it always will be. The idea that we must be accepting of everyone all the time is foolish and insane. Some people are not compatible with truth or with reason, and they need to be kept away from vulnerable institutions such as schools and away from innocent children that make up the lifeblood of our future.

    The conservative argument has always been that not all change is good, and not all change is progress. Some changes are regressive rather than progressive. Some changes are simply designed to do harm, and some people are simply evil. Discrimination in some respects is absolutely necessary in order for our core values and principles to survive. There are times when discrimination is necessary for our very nation and culture to survive.

    Leftists always turn to the old standby argument when they are faced with the prospect that the culture at large does not want them around; they cry that “We live in a democracy” and inclusion is somehow a prerequisite. In other words, if you go against them you are going against your own values of freedom. This is nonsense.

    We are not a democracy, of course, we are a democratic republic and there is a big difference, but that is a discussion for another article. According to the non-aggression principle, freedom does not apply to the people that are trying to destroy it. Leftists do not get to target freedom for destruction and then cry victim and proclaim their love of freedom when people get in their way. Gatekeeping is good because certain pillars of our society need to be kept inoculated against the destructive methods of the political left. These people do not belong here. They do not deserve freedom, and they do not deserve to live among people that actually love freedom.

    The debate on anti-grooming is really a debate on the necessity of gatekeeping. Leftists support it when they think they are in control and they attack it when they think it’s going to be used against them. I can’t imagine any area of our culture more vital to protect than our children; and this is where gatekeeping must be employed with full force and without mercy. Florida is doing it right, let’s hope the rest of the country follows their example.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 23:40

  • Half Of Russia's 20 Richest Men Haven't Been Targeted By Western Sanctions
    Half Of Russia’s 20 Richest Men Haven’t Been Targeted By Western Sanctions

    Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, 20 Russian billionaires have been sanctioned by the EU, US, UK, Switzerland, or Canada. But for every Russian oligarch who has been targeted by Western sanctions, there’s another who has slipped under the radar, and who is still free to largely go about their business abroad without any constraints.

    Half of Russia’s 20 richest people have not been sanctioned over its war in Ukraine, leaving a group of super-rich, powerful billionaires free to operate around the world without legal restriction.

    As we have previously reported, Russian oligarchs with a combined net worth of about $200 billion have been sanctioned. But according to Bloomberg, the patchwork pattern of cross-border penalties that has spared many Russians with “business interests in key global markets.” The UK has sanctioned 10 of the richest billionaires and the EU nine. By contrast, the US has sanctioned just four. And while three men feature on all three lists, four of Russia’s five richest men haven’t been sanctioned anywhere.

    Energy executive Leonid Mikhelson, steel tycoon Vladimir Lisin and Vagit Alekperov, chairman of oil giant Lukoil are among the other richest Russians who have not been sanctioned. All own significant holdings of publicly traded companies operating in Russia’s highly politicized business environment, according to Bloomberg.

    The most notable member of this group is Russia’s richest man, Vladimir Potanin. A metals magnate who was worth $30 billion on Feb. 18, the final day from which data are available.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Moving beyond Russia, western sanctions impact hundreds of people worldwide, with the UK leading the US and EU in terms of the number of sanctioned individuals. Meanwhile, fewer than 300 people face sanctions from the US, UK and Europe.

    Source: Bloomberg

    And here’s a rundown of the richest unsanctioned Russians ranked in terms of net worth.

    Source: Bloomberg

    While Russia’s incursion into Ukraine inspired the west to “supercharge” their sanctions regimes, the fact is that most of those targeted were already facing some level of sanctions before the war began.

    Source: Bloomberg

    That means most of those who have been sanctioned in recent weeks have already had years to develop strategies to blunt the impact of sanctions. For example, after being targeted by sanctions, steel baron Alexey Mordashov transferred his majority stake in gold miner Nordgold to his wife, Marina. Most oligarchs have real estate ownership in relatives’ names or have assets registered in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands or the Isle of Man. It’s a strategy that has also purportedly been used by President Putin himself.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 23:20

  • For The First Time Ever, Over 20% Of Post-Lockdown Americans Are "Not Too Happy"
    For The First Time Ever, Over 20% Of Post-Lockdown Americans Are “Not Too Happy”

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    The long-running General Social Survey has found that more than 20 per cent of post-lockdown Americans describe themselves as “not too happy” for the first time since the survey began in 1972.

    Respondents to the survey were asked, “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?”

    “The percentage of Americans saying “not too happy” has been consistently below 20% since the question was first posed in 1972,” writes Noah Carl.

    “But in the latest survey, something rather concerning happened: there was a dramatic rise in the percentage saying “not too happy” – from less than 15% in 2018 to more than 22% in 2021.”

    In addition, in 2018, the percentage of Americans who described themselves as “very happy” stood at 30 per cent. Four years later, post-lockdown, it’s below 20 per cent.

    “Changes of this magnitude in social surveys are extremely rare, especially when it comes to questions like the one about happiness,” points out Carl, suggesting that the dramatic drop in happiness could have been caused by lockdown measures.

    He points to a 2021 Gallup survey which found that 12 per cent of Americans said they were “very dissatisfied” with their quality of life, up from just 4 per cent the year before.

    Carl explains how loss of life due to COVID isn’t likely to explain the increase in depression.

    “Well, we know that the fall in life expectancy in the U.S. in 2020 was ‘only’ about 1.8 years, and part of that fall was due to the massive increase in homicide. Now, 1.8 years sounds big, and it is a large year-on-year change. But it only takes the country back 18 years in terms of rising life expectancy.”

    “In other words, U.S. life expectancy was lower in 2001, 2000, 1999 and every year before that. Yet, as we can see in the chart above, happiness was substantially higher back then. In fact, it was substantially higher in the 1970s – when life expectancy was up to six years lower than in 2020.”

    “This suggests that the response to the pandemic – including lockdowns, mandates and the spreading of fear by the media – is a more plausible explanation for the drop in happiness than the pandemic itself,” he concludes.

    As we previously highlighted, COVID-19 lockdowns were found to have been a major contributing factor to a doubling in attempted suicides of those aged between 5-25 in Australia.

    A study released last month by the renowned Johns Hopkins University concluded that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 23:00

  • NYC Office Glut Hit Highs Not Seen Since Dot-Com Bust
    NYC Office Glut Hit Highs Not Seen Since Dot-Com Bust

    Since the virus pandemic, Manhattan landlords have been struggling with a glut of commercial real estate properties as companies shrink corporate footprints and implement hybrid work models that allow white-collar workers to work remotely. 

    Demand for office space in NYC was dismal in the first quarter. Space available hit another record high as the availability rate across the metro area hit 19%, the highest since the dark days of the Dot Com bust (2000), according to Bloomberg, citing a new report from Savills Research.

    A quarter of all offices were dormant in the Financial District, compared with 17% a year ago. Savills attributes the jump to a pair of redevelopment projects, including the former Deutsche Bank headquarters building.

    Firms searching for space focus on “new top-tier space,” said Sarah Dreyer, senior vice president of research and data services at Savills. Asking rents for new buildings in the quarter were up 1.7% to $77.34 a square foot. Average rents in the Financial District were $57.60 a square foot, compared to $83.70 in Midtown.

    There will be no recovery in the city’s office sector unless workers return to the office. 

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

    Without white-collar workers, economic recovery will be slow to materialize in the city as the 7.6% unemployment rate is shockingly high compared with the rest of the country (nationwide average of 3.8%). The ripple effect of reduced officer workers damns the local economy. 

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

    The news of the world’s largest owner of commercial real estate, Blackstone, giving up on one of its Midtown Manhattan office buildings is an ominous sign for the city’s office sector. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 22:40

  • Biden's "New World Order"
    Biden’s “New World Order”

    Submitted by Pete Hoekstra of Gatestone Institute.

    • Clearly, America is not leading the “green” new world order, and Biden seems to have no meaningful plan for how to get us there other than radical disruptions to our lifestyle and a heightened reliance on China.

    • When it comes to oil and gas, it seems Biden’s new world order would continue his policy of decreasing American energy independence and increasing U.S. reliance on bad-faith state actors — thereby ironically funding their efforts to undermine America in the global order.

    • What does Biden’s record in the Middle East suggest that the new world order will resemble there? Well, the president is pushing to sign an agreement brokered by Russia, and backed by China, reportedly to remove sanctions on Iran, delist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the terrorist organization it is, and allow Russia to purchase Iran’s “excess” enriched uranium — perhaps to use against its next “Ukraine”?

    • Finally, what is Biden’s vision for this new world order with China? The message could not be more mixed. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, suppressing freedoms in Hong Kong, militarizing at least three of the artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, perfecting hypersonic missiles and “satellite crushers”, threatening Taiwan, and signing new friendship agreements with Russia. Meanwhile the Biden administration was sharing intelligence about Russia with China. Apparently, the administration had some quixotic hope that China would join the U.S. in discouraging Russia from attacking. At the same time, it turns out, China was sharing its intelligence information from the U.S. with Russia. One can only wonder who came up with the crazy idea that the CCP would join with the U.S. in maintaining order and stability in Europe.

    • Apparently, the administration had some quixotic hope that China would join the U.S. in discouraging Russia from attacking. One can only wonder who came up with the crazy idea that the CCP would join with the U.S. in maintaining order and stability in Europe.

    • Indeed, Biden’s vision of a new world order led by America looks more and more like a new world of disorder.

    • So, while it is not clear what Biden meant when he referenced America leading a new world order, his record over the last 15 months suggests it consists of a weakened U.S. economy hamstrung by inflation, war in Europe, unraveling alliances in the Middle East and growing uncertainty in Asia.

    • If this is the unintended consequence of Biden’s new world order, it is time for him to go back to the drawing board. The world has suffered enough. The time has come for him to recalibrate the global nightmare that his policies have created.

    While it is not clear what U.S. President Joe Biden meant when he referenced America leading a “new world order,” his record over the last 15 months suggests it consists of a weakened U.S. economy hamstrung by inflation, war in Europe, unraveling alliances in the Middle East and growing uncertainty in Asia

    U.S. President Joe Biden recently closed his remarks to the Business Roundtable with a confusing reference to a “new world order.” He stated, according to the White House transcript of his speech:

    “It occurs every three or four generations. … [A] time when things are shifting. We’re going to — there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”

    What was the president talking about? It came at the end of his speech; he did not elaborate on what he meant. Presumably he was referring to the ongoing shifts in the post-World War II global power structures, but does Biden have a plan for America’s role in what this new world order would look like, as Europe finds itself potentially engulfed in a major war?

    The American people are left to find the clues and try to figure out what Biden might have meant. The best we can do is turn to the policies he has implemented during his first 15 months in office to see if any elements of his plan for America in this “new world order” can be discerned.

    The central animating policy push for Biden and the Democrats has been the “Green New Deal.” Given America’s vast energy reserves and technological know-how, will the U.S. lead in “greening” the planet and providing safe, stable energy supplies to the West and its allies and partners? The short answer seems to be no. China dominates in the production of rare earth materials, solar panels and windmills; six of the top 10 manufacturers are based in Communist China. Clearly, America is not leading the “green” new world order, and Biden seems to have no meaningful plan for how to get us there other than radical disruptions to our lifestyle and a heightened reliance on China.

    Other Biden energy decisions are just as baffling. When he took office, Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline in America, but greenlit Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would lock in Europe’s dependence on Russia for gas. He also opposed congressional efforts to sanction the pipeline in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, I was a vocal proponent of the Trump administration’s policy to oppose Nord Stream 2. Along the same lines, Biden, on his first day in office, unequivocally accepted the Paris Agreement on climate, reentering America into this deeply flawed pact.

    Rather than support America’s energy independence and oil and gas production, Biden has left American consumers holding the bag as gasoline prices in the U.S. have spiked to anywhere from $4 to $7 per gallon of gas. The energy crisis is so bad that the Biden administration is talking about purchasing oil from Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to oil and gas, it seems Biden’s new world order would continue his policy of decreasing American energy independence and increasing U.S. reliance on bad-faith state actors — thereby ironically funding their efforts to undermine America in the global order.

    Is the Europe of today, a continent consumed by the fear of war with Russia, part of Biden’s vision for a new world order? His backing for Nord Stream 2 only seemed to embolden Russia, and his the undermining of U.S. production left America buying a half million barrels of oil per day from Russia. At $110 per barrel, American taxpayers are therefore funding Russia’s war machine by more than $20 billion a year. Since the administration’s gifts to Russia — the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and extending the New START Treaty for another five years — have not worked out for the U.S., the people of Ukraine, or Europe, is Biden modifying or reconsidering his plan for a new world order? In an interview aired the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden administration “climate czar” John Kerry showed that the administration was still consumed by its “Green New Deal” fantasies, lamenting:

    “But equally importantly, you’re going to lose people’s focus… I hope President Putin will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.”

    We are left to wonder if any number of decisions made by the administration prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would have changed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculus for the war. What if Biden had not signed off on Nord Stream 2 and had, instead, kept the Trump administration’s policy in place? What if Biden had heeded calls by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of Congress to enact sanctions prior to Putin’s invasion? What if Biden had decided to lead instead of follow Europe? Apparently, in Biden’s new world order, America does not lead, it only follows or reacts to others.

    What does Biden’s record in the Middle East suggest that the new world order will resemble there? Well, the president is pushing to sign an agreement brokered by Russia, and backed by China, reportedly to remove sanctions on Iran, delist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the terrorist organization it is, and allow Russia to purchase Iran’s “excess” enriched uranium — perhaps to use against its next “Ukraine”?

    The president’s confusing desperation to reenter the bad Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran is driving U.S. allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to question their relationship with the U.S., and evidently moving them at least to consider strengthening their ties with Russia and China. Israel has tried to balance the U.S. and Russia on Ukraine. Saudi and UAE leaders have declined to take calls from Biden but did take calls from Putin. It also cannot be missed that just prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia, China and Iran conducted joint military drills.

    Finally, what is Biden’s vision for this new world order with China? The message could not be more mixed. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, suppressing freedoms in Hong Kong, militarizing at least three of the artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, perfecting hypersonic missiles and “satellite crushers“, threatening Taiwan, and signing new friendship agreements with Russia. Meanwhile the Biden administration was sharing intelligence about Russia with China. Apparently, the administration had some quixotic hope that China would join the U.S. in discouraging Russia from attacking. At the same time, it turns out, China was sharing its intelligence information from the U.S. with Russia. One can only wonder who came up with the crazy idea that the CCP would join with the U.S. in maintaining order and stability in Europe.

    Indeed, Biden’s vision of a new world order led by America looks more and more like a new world of disorder. Instead of articulating a clear vision of American leadership, our actions on the world stage have been directed by Russia, Iran, China, and even Europe. The situation has undermined America’s ties to its traditional allies; they seem to be having difficulty understanding the president’s global vision, and seeing the new world order evolving to one where America leads, but only from behind, in reaction to the whims of others.

    So, while it is not clear what Biden meant when he referenced America leading a new world order, his record over the last 15 months suggests it consists of a weakened U.S. economy hamstrung by inflation, war in Europe, unraveling alliances in the Middle East and growing uncertainty in Asia.

    If this is the unintended consequence of Biden’s new world order, it is time for him to go back to the drawing board. The world has suffered enough. The time has come for him to recalibrate the global nightmare that his policies have created.

    *  *  *

    Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 22:20

  • Tesla Signed A "Secret Deal" To Sidestep The Spike In Nickel Prices
    Tesla Signed A “Secret Deal” To Sidestep The Spike In Nickel Prices

    As the aftershocks of unprecedented volatility in the nickel market continue to play out, one area of collateral damage that has been in focus has been the electric vehicle market.

    Nickel prices, despite falling from highs, still remain at roughly double what they were just months ago and the metal is a key component for electric vehicle manufacturers, as it is used in EV batteries.

    But it Looks as though the world’s most well-known EV manufacturer, Tesla, has been able to sidestep the volatility in the market through a “secret” deal it has made with mining company Vale. 

    Bloomberg reported this morning that a multiyear supply deal for nickel has been in place and covers nickel from Canada. “Unlike most of its peer automakers, Tesla has spent years focusing on how to secure its own nickel supplies,” the report says. 

    Gene Munster of Loup Ventures said: “What Tesla has done with nickel is a hidden competitive advantage. Tesla continues to be a couple of steps ahead of the rest.”

    And Munster is right, in that Musk has “repeatedly” flagged nickel as a concern for the company amidst broader sector demand that is expected to more than triple by 2030. 

    On an earnings call two years ago, CEO Elon Musk urged: “Please mine more nickel. Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way.”

    Meanwhile, other EV manufacturers are left scrambling. “The nickel price surge and the implications from the Russia-Ukraine invasion are likely to push battery manufacturers, particularly in the U.S., to secure alternate supply chains,” Bloomberg wrote.

    Tesla’s “secret deal” is one of many it has put in place over the last year, the report says. 

    Todd Malan of Talon Metals, who Tesla also buys from, said: “People don’t realize how far ahead Tesla is when it comes to securing the supply chain for raw materials and an integrated approach to battery materials.”

    Vale, meanwhile, has said it plans on increasing its sales to the EV market between 30% and 40%, from 5%. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 22:00

  • Fifth COVID-19 Vaccine Shot May Be Needed In Fall: FDA Official
    Fifth COVID-19 Vaccine Shot May Be Needed In Fall: FDA Official

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

    Hours after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a fourth shot of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans 50 and older, an FDA official said a fifth shot may be needed in the fall.

    “I don’t want to shock anyone but there may be a need for people to get an additional booster in the fall, along with a more general booster campaign if that takes place, because we may need to shift over to a different variant coverage,” Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA center that regulates vaccines, told reporters on a call on March 29.

    Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, speaks in Washington in a file image. (Susan Walsh/Pool/Getty Images)

    The fresh emergency use authorization is for a fourth shot for Americans 50 and up and a fifth shot for people as young as 12 with weakened immune systems. The boosters from Moderna and Pfizer target the strain of SARS-CoV-2, or the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, that was circulating in early 2021. Multiple strains have since emerged and become dominant in the United States. Omicron is the latest.

    Moderna and Pfizer are testing vaccine formulations that specifically target Omicron.

    “It may be that a decision is made that rather than what we currently have, the vaccines we currently have—which are called vaccines against the prototype virus—that we will move to a vaccine that is either against one of the variants—whether it’s Omicron, Beta, or Delta, or something else, I can’t say right now that’s for discussion—or whether it’s some mix of different ones,” Marks said. “But it’s possible that people will need to get another vaccine.”

    The FDA authorized the outdated boosters because regulators felt doing so could save lives and because it will likely take several months to discern whether an Omicron-specific booster works, he added.

    “And it’s not actually clear yet what the optimal booster should be,” Marks said.

    The matter will be discussed during an April 6 meeting with the FDA’s expert advisory committee.

    Some experts have raised concerns about repeatedly injecting people with COVID-19 vaccines. The worries stem in part from the main vaccines being built on a technology, messenger RNA, that had never been cleared for use before the pandemic, with others noting that other vaccines provide sufficient protection through shots administered annually, or at less frequent intervals.

    If repeated boosters are administered, “we will end up potentially having problems with immune response and immune response may end up not being as good as we would like it to be, so we should be careful in not overloading the immune system with repeated immunization,” Marco Cavaleri, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) head of vaccines strategy, told a briefing in January.

    Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the mRNA technology, said research he’s reviewed indicates the vaccines can lead to immune suppression, a condition where the body’s natural immune system is weakened against all kinds of infection and disease.

    “This is the risk associated with this strategy of reboosting,” he told The Epoch Times.

    Presented with Marks’ remarks, Malone said they were “pure speculation and unfounded.”

    “That’s a forward looking statement. There’s no scientific basis for evaluating it. And it’s inappropriate for the FDA to be speculating like that, in my opinion,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 21:40

  • Shanghai Authorities Extend COVID Lockdown As Cases Continue To Surge
    Shanghai Authorities Extend COVID Lockdown As Cases Continue To Surge

    As Shanghaiers struggle with shortages of food and medicine, while workers (both blue-collar factory workers and highly remunerated bankers and traders) are forced to bed down at work for what could be a lengthy stay, local authorities have provided the first hint that the staggered Shanghai lockdown could last longer than the 9 days it was originally slated for.

    Reuters reports that local authorities have begun locking down some western parts of Shanghai two days ahead of schedule as the number of new cases detected in China’s most populous city increased by one-third despite stringent measures already in place to try to stop the virus spreading. The city’s lockdown is only in its third day.

    While residents in the eastern part of the city have been locked down since Monday, those in the west were previously scheduled to start their four-day lockdown on Friday. Now, they’re being told to prepare for the lockdown to begin immediately.

    Several residents living in western districts on Tuesday received notice from their housing committees that they would be stopped from leaving their compounds for the next seven days.

    “We will resume normal life soon, but in the next period of time we ask everyone to adhere closely to pandemic control measures, do not gather, and reduce movements,” said one housing committee notice seen by Reuters.

    Meanwhile the city’s southwestern district of Minhang, home to more than 2.5 million people, said it would suspend public bus services until April 5.

    It’s widely expected that locking down Shanghai could have a serious impact on China’s economic growth. According to economists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, locking down Shanghai full-scale could result in a 4% reduction in the national real gross domestic product, economists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University and other institutes estimated in mid-March.

    On Wednesday, Shanghai reported a record 5,656 asymptomatic COVID cases and 326 symptomatic cases, up from 4,381 new asymptomatic cases and 96 symptomatic cases during the prior day.

    Source: Reuters

    Shanghai authorities said Wednesday that they had conducted 9.1 million nucleic acid tests. They also said they planned to disinfect office buildings, construction sites, wet markets and schools in a month-long campaign to try and stamp out the virus.

    China’s “dynamic clearance” approach means it aims to clear all cases, and all people who test positive are sent to central quarantine centers or hospitals. Close contacts and neighbors must quarantine at home.

    Many across the city have taken to social media to vent their frustrations in lockdown, posting videos and images of crowded quarantine centers and issuing cries for help for food and medical supplies, while grotesque robots bark orders at them.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 21:20

  • Oil Slides As Biden Admin Mulls Huge SPR Release (Again)
    Oil Slides As Biden Admin Mulls Huge SPR Release (Again)

    Tell us if you’ve heard this one before…

    For those keeping score, we believe this is the third time in the last month that the Biden administration has tried to jawbone crude oil prices lower with an ever-increasing ‘threat’ of releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

    This time is different though as Bloomberg reports that, according to people familiar with the matter, the Biden administration is weighing a plan to release roughly one million barrels of oil a day for several months. The total release may be as much as 180 million barrels, the people said, which is quite a step up from the 30mm barrel release ‘mulled’ on March 25th (yes 5 days ago).

    The instant reaction from the algos was to sell, knocking WTI down around 4%…

    However… as much as we want lower gas prices, these actions by the administration are bordering on the insane.

    Of course, just like last year’s SPR release, which actually sent oil prices higher as the strategy backfired spectacularly, another shot of supplies from the reserve would probably be futile.

    To further illustrate this point, the chart below shows that a release of 180M barrels from the reserve (which is supposed to be reserved for emergencies) would take the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest since 1984…and so far has done absolutely nothing to slow the surge in prices…

    In fact, this time around, it’s possible – even likely – that the backlash could be even more punishing, since, when adjusted for the present level of implied demand, SPR levels are already at their lowest levels since 2002, with just 33 days of supply.

    But like the old saying goes: if at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again. In all likelihood, President Biden and his team probably aren’t all that concerned with the short-term market impact, since political decisions like these are all about optics anyway.

    Of course, Einstein seems to have been right: “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

    And when this SPR release (should it ever actually happen) fails to do much of anything to drive prices lower, how much longer until the administration resorts to the next logical steps, being 1) gas stimmies (like our European allies) before 2) price controls?

    Bear in mind that OPEC+ is still shunning any demands from Biden to increase production ‘for the sake of global democracy….or his approval ratings or some such…’ and the cartel is widely expected to ratify a production increase of 432,000 barrels a day for May.

    Simply put, as old saying goes, the cure for high oil (gas) prices, is high oil (gas prices), and notably, there is some evidence of demand destruction starting to happen as gas prices soar to record highs.

    And as we noted earlier today, the decline in implied gasoline demand is fairly concrete proof that record high prices are dampening consumption across the country.

    On a four-week moving average basis, demand appeared to have stalled out around 8.8 million barrels a day as levels fell behind seasonal trends. Now, it appears to have fully turned around, falling 61,000 barrels a day week on week.

    However, of course there is government intervention to consider, consumer subsidies may actually worsen the situation by limiting demand destruction, with California, France, Brazil and Mexico being the latest to enact policies to cut prices at the pump.

    We give the last words to @RufusXavierSar2 who succinctly summed up the real farce of all this desperation…

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    And don’t expect any short-term help from this modest drop in oil…

    Sadly for Biden’s approval rating (and drivers across the country), the recent resurgence in crude prices suggest pump prices will soon be on the rise again.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 20:59

  • White House Cites Intel Claiming Putin Being "Misled" By His Own Generals On War's Progress
    White House Cites Intel Claiming Putin Being “Misled” By His Own Generals On War’s Progress

    Update(1640ET): The White House has made the unexpected and unusual claim Wednesday that Russia’s military is currently misleading its commander-in-chief Vladimir Putin about the true state of the battlefield and Russian forces’ advance inside Ukraine. A White House spokesperson said the US has information that points to Putin being “misled” by his generals. 

    “We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing, and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth,” White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told a press briefing.

    “We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military. There is now persistent tension between Putin and the (Ministry of Defence), stemming from Putin’s mistrust in MOD leadership,” the US official asserted further. An earlier in the day CNN report coupled the ‘misinformation’ that Putin may be getting also with the extent of sanctions impact on the Russian economy. The report said:

    The US believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being “misinformed” by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing in Ukraine and the impact of sanctions on Russia’s economy, a US official tells CNN.

    …The official said the assessment is based on declassified US intelligence findings.

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    This has reportedly led to a rift between Putin and his top defense staff – who feel “afraid”. CNN added this almost hard to believe line as well:

    The official said Putin did not know his military was “using and losing conscripts in Ukraine, showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian president.”

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    The Pentagon backed the White House assessment, saying the following in its afternoon briefing:

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has “not been fully informed by his Ministry of Defense at every turn” throughout the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday.  

    Kirby did not offer any details that led to this assessment.

    Kirby said the US does not have “access to every bit of information that” Putin has been given or “every conversation that he’s had,” but he said he concurs with the “basic finding” of press reporting that Putin has not been fully informed by his Defense Ministry of the situation in Ukraine. 

    The Pentagon statement by Kirby seemed more in the realm of guesswork based on ‘open source’ intel and the media. Recent Western media reporting has alleged Russian casualty figures which are far more than what the Kremlin has publicly reported. For example a Daily Mail headline this week said 17,000 Russian troop deaths – but crucially the figure appears sourced entirely to Ukrainian officials.

    Speculation abounds as to how the Kremlin arrived at the decision to apparently limit the scope of operations to focus on liberating the Donbas…

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    It’s entirely possible that this latest White House claim of a “rift” within Kremlin command could also be based on Ukrainian sourcing, making it dubious at best. Given the wartime situation and what would obviously be secretive communications between Putin and his staff that this would entail, it would seem next to impossible to gain a real picture of what’s going on in terms of daily interactions and internal Kremlin reports and assessments of just how things are going with the “special operation” in Ukraine.

    Perhaps it’s but a self-serving White House narrative to explain why sanctions and international isolation have yet to deter Russia’s operations? It’s important to remember that this is not the first time claims of a “rift” have been weaponized for propaganda purposes…

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    Meanwhile, there’s ample evidence to suggest that Putin is indeed fully aware of the nature of the economic war against his country, and the extent of potential damage – but also the coming blowback on the West and Washington itself…

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    * * *

    Update(0943): State media is reporting that Russia’s lead negotiator after coming off Tuesday’s “constructive” talks in Istanbul is saying that “Kiev has essentially agreed” to Moscow’s key demands of not joining NATO or allowing foreign bases and troops on its soil. 

    “Ukrainian negotiators have essentially agreed to Russia’s principle security demands of rejecting NATO membership and regarding the presence of foreign military bases on its territory,” the Kremlin’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky has said. In the statement he noted further that Ukraine has “stated willingness to meet core Russian demands.” He said further while speaking to Rossiya-24 broadcaster on Wednesday:

    “Yesterday, for the first time…the authorities in Kiev have declared their readiness to negotiate with Russia. They handed us on paper the principles of a possible future agreement, which provides for: a rejection of entry into NATO, fixing Ukraine’s bloc-free status, a renunciation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.”

    At the same time on Wednesday there appears to be more positive signals coming from the Ukrainian side, with its negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak saying that while a peace deal with Russia is in the works, it would only be put up for a national referendum after Russia withdraws all troops to their pre-invasion Feb.23rd positions. But this is a huge if – given it’s impossible to predict anything in terms of the on-the-ground battle or the Russian military’s intent.

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    But for now, there indeed appears a long road ahead before a full and final ceasefire can be realized, given the continuing battlefield situation:

    • UKRAINE DEFENCE MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON SAYS RUSSIAN FORCES ARE PREPARING TO RESUME OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS
    • UKRAINE DEFENCE MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON – RUSSIA’S MAIN EFFORTS ARE FOCUSED ON ENCIRCLING UKRAINIAN TROOPS IN THE EAST OF UKRAINE

    * * *

    Russian attacks and shelling have reportedly continued near Kiev and the Chernihiv, following Tuesday’s Kremlin declaration that it would draw down some units in these areas coming off negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul, something met with skepticism by NATO and the Pentagon.

    The Kremlin further cited “no breakthroughs” from the talks after a draft ceasefire deal was said to be on the table, and amid generally positive international headlines and market reaction. A statement said additionally that “much work remains”. The US had called observed troop removals near Kiev a tactical redeployment and not in truth de-escalation. 

    According to Bloomberg citing a Russian source: “De-escalation does not mean a cease-fire or complete withdrawal of troops from around Kyiv, said a person close to the Kremlin.” The report says further, “Moscow’s likely war goals now are to take two eastern provinces, together with a land corridor from the Russian border to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, the person said.”

    Fire at industrial fuel storage company in Lutsk, via Fox News

    Speaking of Crimea, the Ukrainian delegation for the first time offered to speak about this in negotiations, but in a further complication for any final ceasefire, the Russians have shut the door on this as a key bargaining element.

    “Crimea is part of the Russian Federation. And in line with our constitution we cannot discuss the future of the territory of the Russian Federation, the future of Russian regions. This is out of the question,” Kremlin spokesman Peskov clarified Wednesday.

    “It is positive that the Ukrainian side has at least begun to formulate concretely and put down on paper what it proposes,” Peskov described of Tuesday’s Turkey-sponsored negotiations. “As for the rest, we cannot yet state anything promising, no breakthroughs. Lots of work ahead.”

    Meanwhile, on the ground it doesn’t appear any major changes in Russian military posture have been effected, with the major northern city of Chernihiv coming under “colossal attack” overnight and into Wednesday, according to the words of the mayor, as CNN details:

    His words came as it emerged that the city was “under fire” from Russian airstrikes while shelling continued through the night, according to Viacheslav Chaus, head of the Chernihiv regional administration. 

    In an interview with New Day’s John Berman, the city’s mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko hit out at Russia’s claim on Tuesday that it planned to “drastically reduce” its military assault on Chernihiv and the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

    The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has also confirmed that it’s witnessing what it called a “regrouping” and not a withdrawal.

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    “According to some indications, the Russian enemy is regrouping units to focus its main efforts on the east. At the same time, the so-called ‘withdrawal of troops’ is probably a rotation of individual units and aims to mislead” the military said in a Facebook post.

    And more, pertaining to ongoing fighting around Kiev:

    “After their statements yesterday nothing has changed at all,” Maryan Zablotskyy, a member of the Ukrainian parliament who got his wife and child out of Kyiv, told Fox News Digital. “Fighting [continued] all through the night around Kyiv.”

    “They are forced to retreat from different areas around Kyiv,” Zablotskyy noted, “but only if they are successfully pushed back.”

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    Additionally Bloomberg has cited a Moscow-based military analyst and consultant, Evgeny Minchenko, who points out, “I think there was very serious misunderstanding of what both sides said in Istanbul after the talks.” He added: “So far I just heard is that there will be less action near Kyiv and Chernihiv, because the Russian army is concentrating its resources against the Ukrainian army in Donbas.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 20:44

  • Saudi Op-Ed Warns America "Dismantling Pillars Of Own Empire"
    Saudi Op-Ed Warns America “Dismantling Pillars Of Own Empire”

    Part of the increasing and closer Gulf state-Israel alliance, which blossomed during the covert war to oust Assad in Syria over the past decade and became formalized with the Abraham Accords of 2020, apparently involves media coordination when it comes to enemy #1 in the region of both sides. 

    An almost unprecedented op-ed in The Jerusalem Post lashed out at both America and Iran, while implicitly praising Israel’s steadfastness against Tehran, and it was authored by a Saudi… more precisely the former editor of the kingdom’s Al Arabiya English, Mohammed Alyahya. The op-ed blasts Washington efforts to restore the Iran nuclear deal by the Biden administration, questioning: If the Americans won’t side with Israel against Iran, what’s the chance they will side with us?

    Via Reuters:  Saudi Aramco’s petroleum storage facility after March 26 attack in Jeddah.

    In the scathing critique perhaps signaling just how close the Vienna talks are to restoring the JCPOA, the author writes in the Israeli newspaper, “Sold disingenuously to the American public as an arms control agreement, the deal is an assault on the regional order that the United States established in the aftermath of World War II. Explicitly hostile to Saudi Arabia, to say nothing of America’s other greatest ally in the region, Israel, the deal replaces the former American-led regional security structure with a concert system in which Iran, backed by Russia and China, becomes America’s new subcontractor while America’s former allies—the Gulf States and Israel— are demoted to second-tier status.”

    Further it points out that the Iranians have actually ramped up terror attacks in the region, even as great progress has been reported on the nuclear deal front…

    “Last Friday, as Blinken prepared for his trip to David Ben Gurion’s old kibbutz of Sde Boker, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia launched a rocket attack against Aramco in Jeddah. This attack was only the latest in a long series of brazen attacks that Iran has conducted, either directly from its own soil or indirectly through proxies,” the op-ed states.

    And more selections from the Saudi authored op-ed as follows…

    “Human shields for Iran”

    “Instead of friendship, America seems more inclined to use its old friends as human shields for Iran. Earlier this month, when Iran conducted a ballistic missile strike near the US consulate in Erbil, Iraq, it falsely claimed to be targeting an Israeli facility. A senior Biden official then confirmed the Iranian claim. While other officials later denied it, the damage was done. An American official had assisted Iran in getting the most out of its propaganda by action.”

    “Seemingly nothing will deflect the White House from its goal. During the negotiations in Vienna, attacks from Iran have grown ever more brazen. Not even an attack by Iranian proxies on American forces in the Tanf region of Syria and repeated attacks on the American embassy in Iraq have deflected Biden from his goal of delivering hundreds of billions of dollars to the IRGC.”

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    Obama & Russia’s rise in Middle East to the benefit of Iran

    “In Riyadh, it is not forgotten that the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was followed swiftly by the rise of a Russian-Iranian alliance in Syria that leveled most of the major cities of that country and awarded Moscow with a military base on the Eastern Mediterranean – cementing Russia’s first foothold in the Middle East since the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

    “When the Saudis protested  Obama’s passivity, he told them they must learn to share the region with Iran. And it is not lost on America’s regional allies now that, even as Biden asks Saudi Arabia to raise oil production to help support the campaign against Russia over Ukraine, he is granting sanctions waivers to Russia so that it can continue to guarantee the nuclear deal with Iran that it helped broker — in part by husbanding Iran’s uranium reserves and protecting its underground nuclear facilities filled with illegal centrifuges spinning material for weapons.”

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    “Chinese policy is simple & straightforward”

    “While American policy is beset by baffling contradictions, Chinese policy is simple and straightforward. Beijing is offering Riyadh a simple deal: Sell us your oil and choose whatever military equipment you want from our catalogue; in return, help us to stabilize global energy markets. In other words, the Chinese are offering what increasingly appears modeled on the American-Saudi deal that stabilized the Middle East for 70 years.”

    “What is not yet clear is whether the Chinese can be helpful in deterring Iran, or whether they share the American belief in ‘balance.’ But Xi Jinping will visit Riyadh in May. It is a certainty that Saudi leaders will ask him if Iran’s rocketing of the oil facilities of the world’s most reliable oil producer is in the interest of China and, if not, can Beijing make it stop?”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 20:40

  • Waging War On Fossil Fuels Enflames Inflation
    Waging War On Fossil Fuels Enflames Inflation

    Authored by Thomas McArdle via The Epoch Times,

    When you pull aside the curtain of its moral pretensions, the green movement of global warming fanatics is just another socialist scheme to replace the free enterprise’s real-world judgment of how to navigate the economic long term with coerced, illegitimately law-enforced faith in government control.

    An oil pumpjack (L) operates as another (R) stands idle in the Inglewood Oil Field in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan. 28, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

    There is one preeminent tool that players in the economy—meaning all of us—use to transact honestly and productively with one another: price. And today we face a price crisis.

    The global price of oil has skyrocketed thanks to the massive government spending of one-party rule by Democrats for more than a year now, cowardice on the part of the Federal Reserve, and all of this exacerbated in recent weeks by Russian aggression in the Ukraine induced by President Joe Biden’s weakness in failing to project American power, especially the debacle of the Afghanistan pullout.

    But oil equals transportation, and the fact that everything else that is bought and sold—whether consumed, worn, slept or sat on, washed with, worked with, played with, or used as a means of transportation itself—must be delivered from producer to seller to buyer, means no escaping a widely dispersed ripple effect. When the cost of moving people and things rises, ineludibly the price of everything rises.

    “There’s nowhere to hide,” Bankrate chief financial analyst Greg McBride told CNBC regarding the 7.9 percent, worst-in-40-years inflation hurting Americans today. “This is hitting everybody.”

    Rents are currently rising at nearly 5 percent, the worst in over 30 years. Meat, appliances, furniture, buying or renting cars, and staying at a hotel were all up by double digits over 12 months toward the close of last year, months before the oil shock from the war on Ukraine. That 12-month period saw gas go up by over 50 percent.

    The higher gas prices reach, the better, according to the left. Clinton administration economist Jeffrey Frankel wrote last year, “On one hand, the effect of high oil, gas, and coal prices on consumers is good for the environment, because they discourage demand for fossil fuels.” He added that, on the other hand, high fossil fuel prices also encourage fossil fuel supply—though he noted that the consequent private investment in the sector has proved to be weaker than expected.

    In 2019, energy research firm Wood Mackenzie analyzed the objectives of the left’s war on oil. The various high-minded schemes for weaning America off fossil fuels have been estimated to cost between $1.7 trillion for the Biden plan seeking zero emissions, $5 trillion for Texas Democrat gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke’s proposal, and $10 trillion for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

    This extreme political agenda is a war on the freedom to set prices. It is the equivalent of stormtroopers marching into your supermarket and removing from the shelves the offerings they don’t want you to be free to buy, based on ideological criteria. Maybe it’s Bayer aspirin they hate, or Tropicana orange juice. That less choice will mean higher prices because consumers are captive to a reduction of competitive alternatives.

    Energy is the same. When the market is deprived of the full range of competitive options, sellers can get more than they rightfully should. It amounts to government-sanctioned price gouging. Optimum competition, on the other hand, reduces price. Domestic oil from the Permian Basin or Alaska, which has fewer miles to travel to the refinery and pump and thus ends up costing much less, can compete seriously with oil originating in the Middle East; the purchaser of a car today is likely to choose a gasoline-powered Toyota RAV-4 or Honda CR-V for under $30,000 rather than an electric Tesla costing over $60,000. But when the government abolishes fossil fuel vehicles altogether, cars themselves may no longer be within reach, which is what the left has long desired: a populace forced to use and love communal public transport, happy sardines stuffed into buses and subways.

    As grossly underappreciated as it is by all too many consumers, price is the indispensable means through which a free economy operates. In a sense, the freedom to set prices is economic freedom. It is the manner in which shortages of essential commodities are averted. It is the way that the value of resources is communicated accurately to the public at large. It is how buyers differentiate between what they need versus the purchases that can wait, depending on changing economic conditions. Anything less than freedom in pricing attaches artificial, inaccurate value to goods and services.

    Prices freely agreed upon by buyer and seller is the only way that resources can be allocated efficiently, a task beyond the ability of any central planner. And far from merely being the difference between comfort and hardship, price in the course of history has meant the difference between life and death, on a massive scale.

    Remember the famine in Ethiopia that saw the world force fed with the moral outrage of our leading rock stars? Was that the world’s rich starving the world’s poor? Far from it. As Oklahoma State University political science professor Theodore M. Vestal wrote in July, 1985—the month of the Live Aid concert to raise money for relief of the Ethiopian famine—Ethiopia’s government under its military junta “made farmers accept artificially low prices for the main grains: teff, sorghum, barley, millet, wheat and maize.” Coffee was “so heavily taxed that peasants do not bother to expand its production. These policies destroyed the incentive of millions of peasants to grow surplus food, and productivity has declined notably.”

    How about Stalin’s engineered famine of the early 1930s in Ukraine, one of Europe’s most fertile agricultural regions? As documented by Anne Applebaum in her 2017 book “Red Famine,” that genocide—a precursor to Russia’s current deliberate slaughter of innocent Ukrainian civilians—came after coerced collectivization in which Ukrainian farmers were forced to sell to the Soviet government at non-negotiable, extremely low artificial prices. In other words, stealing.

    No doubt voters will hold Democrats responsible for today’s sky-high inflation in the November midterm elections this year. What too few realize, however, is that dramatically higher prices are not the unintentional result of mismanagement and incompetence; they are the expected, desired results of the Democrats’ game plan. And if they get the green revolution they want, the inflation of today will be dwarfed by what is to come in the years ahead.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 20:20

  • Lavrov: Russia, China Moving Towards Multipolar 'Fair World Order'
    Lavrov: Russia, China Moving Towards Multipolar ‘Fair World Order’

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Chinese counterpart on Wednesday, where he said the two are carving a path towards a ‘fairer world order.’

    The meeting between Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, marks the first visit to a key ally since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, according to The Economic Times.

    The two countries will work to achieve “a multipolar, fair, and democratic world order,” Lavrov said, speaking from the Chinese city of Tunxi located in the eastern inland Anhui Province.

    In a video released by the Russian foreign ministry ahead of a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Lavrov said the world was “living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations”.

    At the end of this reshaping of global relations “we, together with you, and with our sympathisers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order“, Lavrov said. -Economic Times

    Lavrov and Yi were seen on Chinese state TV in face masks bumping elbows in front of their national flags shortly before the meetings – which Lavrov will attend – to discuss ways to help Afghanistan.

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    Both the US and the Taliban are expected to be in attendance.

    US officials have grown frustrated with Beijing’s refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, and have accused China of signalling a “willingness” to provide both economic and military aid to Russia.

    According to Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency, Wang said that despite “new challenges” to relations between China and Russia, “the will of both sides to develop bilateral relations has become even stronger.”

    Earlier this month Wang said that China’s relationship with Russia is “one of the most crucial bilateral relationships in the world,” and is “ironclad.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 20:00

  • Pandemic Lessons Learned: CDC Versus Natural Immunity
    Pandemic Lessons Learned: CDC Versus Natural Immunity

    Op-ed authored by Joe Wang via The Epoch Times,

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the U.S. government’s major operating components, an agency under the Department of Health and Human Services.

    The CDC’s mission statement reads, “CDC increases the health security of our nation. … CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats.”

    The agency also pledges to the American people that it will “base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data that is derived openly and objectively.”

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters is seen in Atlanta, Ga., in a file photo. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)

    Well, COVID-19 has been the nation’s largest health threat for the past two years. It has had a huge impact on the lives of every American. During those two years, thousands of scientists and health-care researchers have studied COVID and accumulated a huge amount of information on the disease.

    We’ve now gradually come to realize that the most effective force that would eventually end the pandemic is natural immunity. Even Bill Gates has admitted that “the virus itself, particularly the variant called Omicron, is a type of vaccine.” With the rapid spread of Omicron and with many asymptomatic infections, millions of people have developed natural immunity, which is driving COVID-19 out of its pandemic stage and into endemicity.

    With its $15.4 billion annual budget, one would think the CDC would have done a good job providing taxpayers with data on COVID-19. If cutting edge research is too challenging for the CDC, they at least should have provided the public with basic surveillance data, such as:

    • Who was infected with SARS-CoV-2, when, which variant, and what were the symptoms?

    • Who was vaccinated, with which vaccine, when, and were there any side effects?

    • Who was vaccinated, got infected, when, and recovered?

    • Who was never vaccinated, and never infected (never tested, or never tested positive)?

    The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published on Jan. 28 presented some very interesting information from California and New York comparing immunity against COVID-19 from four groups of people, indicating natural immunity alone provides the best protection.

    Since then, I have been anxiously waiting for more data, as there are 48 other states, and even for California and New York, important data like this should be updated monthly, if not weekly.

    To my surprise and disappointment, I have not been able to find any more data on natural immunity from the MMWR since Jan. 28. I am sure they have the data—they just don’t want to share it with us.

    I’m beginning to wonder if CDC stands for Center for Data Control.

    Those Recovered From COVID Are Best Protected

    On March 1, the scientific journal Clinical Infectious Diseases published a peer-reviewed article titled “Risk of reinfection after seroconversion to SARS-CoV-2: A population-based propensity-score matched cohort study.” This Swiss study “observed a 94% reduction in the hazard of being infected among SARS-CoV-2 seropositive participants, when compared to seronegative controls, >8 months after serology assessment.”

    This level of protection (natural immunity) from SARS-CoV-2 infection (94 percent) is comparable to that of the Pfizer vaccine but lasts longer (eight months and counting).

    In a peer-reviewed article published in the journal Science Immunology on Jan. 25, scientists from Oregon Health & Science University showed in raw data that antibodies derived from previous COVID-19 infection are at least 10 times more potent than that generated by vaccination alone. They still concluded, however, that “Vaccination is highly effective at preventing the most severe outcomes from COVID-19 and should be provided regardless of previous infection status and age.” I’m confused by their conclusion, but happy to see the raw data.

    Similarly, in my Feb. 5 article “Pandemic Lessons Learned: Scientific Debate Silenced, With Deadly Consequences,” I wrote: “Now, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control admits in a report released on Jan. 28 that natural immunity against COVID-19 is superior to any of the available vaccine regimens.”

    A reader commented that she “looked all over the CDC site and could find no such info. … Now who’s being ‘subjective’?”

    The reader was right. I should have explained in my article that the conclusion I drew was not a direct quote but rather my own summary based on the CDC’s raw data.

    The CDC’s Jan. 28 report included the following chart but neglected to provide a summary comparing protection between vaccinated people without natural immunity and unvaccinated people who recovered from COVID and now have natural immunity.

    It seems that it’s necessary to dive a little deeper into the data to elaborate my point, as the authors of the report did not conclude the very obvious. Please bear with me.

    The above CDC chart shows data from California on protection against COVID-19 collected from four groups of people between May 30, 2021, and Nov. 20, 2021:

    1) The unvaccinated, with no previous COVID-19 diagnosis (top solid line)
    2) The vaccinated, with no previous COVID-19 diagnosis (broken line below the solid line)
    3) The unvaccinated, with previous diagnosis
    4) The vaccinated, with previous diagnosis

    It is obvious that the lines representing 3) and 4) are superimposing on one another, indicating that vaccination had virtually no impact on protection when a person has recovered from COVID-19 infection, meaning natural immunity dominates protection over vaccination to a level that made vaccination irrelevant.

    Although the biggest difference lies between the unvaccinated with no previous infection and everyone else, the second biggest difference, however, is between the “Vaccinated, no previous COVID-19 diagnosis” line (vaccine immunity) and the “Unvaccinated, previous COVID-19 diagnosis” line (natural immunity), with the natural immunity line having a much lower “hazard rate,” meaning better protection.

    The report also revealed similar findings for New York state.

    Is CDC Censoring Data on Natural Immunity?

    The CDC’s MMWR is a weekly report. The chart above is part of the report for the last week of January, and it was for only two of the 50 states, California and New York. When I was writing my Feb. 5 article, I thought that maybe it was a benign omission that the CDC did not conclude the obvious. For sure, more data would be coming from the CDC in February and March, I thought, as it would teach us so much more about natural immunity.

    However, it hasn’t materialized. Since Jan. 28, there have been 10 MMWR reports published on the CDC website, totaling 29 articles in all. They cover topics ranging from vaccination by geographic locations, to vaccine confidence by sexual orientation, to isolation strategy for fully vaccinated NFL players, and so on. So far, the Jan. 28 report was the only one that included “unvaccinated, with previous diagnosis” in the data, and that’s unfortunate. All the other reports were to re-enforce the conclusion that vaccines are effective, with almost nothing about natural immunity. Here is a screenshot of the MMWR website:

    For example, one of CDC’s latest reports, published on March 18, includes the following chart:

    Here, hospitalization data was plotted against 1) unvaccinated people, 2) vaccinated without a booster, 3) vaccinated with a booster. There is no information about people who had recovered from COVID-19. In other words, information on natural immunity is censored.

    According to the CDC’s own information, the United States has had about 80 million COVID-19 cases. The vast majority of patients recovered from the disease. This huge part of the U.S. population now enjoys natural immunity. This is also true for Canada and many other parts of the world.

    It seems that the CDC is avoiding anything and everything related to natural immunity. But why?

    Maybe the CDC is like Bill Gates, who said at the Munich Security Conference last month: “Sadly, the virus itself, particularly the variant called Omicron, is a type of vaccine. That is, it creates both B-cell and T-cell immunity.” What he meant was it would be a sad thing if it is natural immunity, not Big Pharma’s vaccines, that defeat COVID-19.

    Let the CDC and Mr. Gates feel sad. The rest of us are ready to move on with our lives.

    Read Dr. Joe Wang’s series on Pandemic Lessons Learned here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 19:40

  • Crypto Expert Ambushed, Shot 5 Times At NYC Hotel, In Attempted Robbery Of His $450,000 Richard Mille Watch
    Crypto Expert Ambushed, Shot 5 Times At NYC Hotel, In Attempted Robbery Of His $450,000 Richard Mille Watch

    Today in “reasons to get out of U.S. cities” news…

    A robber who was after a $450,000 Richard Mille watch shot a 33-year-old French cryptocurrency expert at point blank range in Manhattan this month. The victim told the Daily Mail that he believed he was followed “for hours or days” prior to the attack.

    The victim, Pierrick Jamaux, was ambushed outside of his Manhattan hotel. He said that he was “shocked” by how dangerous New York City had become and said he “would never have visited” if he knew how much it had changed in the last 10 years, since he lived there.

    He was visiting from Hong Kong and was getting out of an Uber at the Fifty Hotel and Suites in Midtown when the incident took place. 

    “Given the fact he was waiting there when we arrived and also the violence of the crime, I believe he followed me,” Jamaux said. “I believe they found me somewhere, then they tracked me for a few hours or days to figure out what I do, where I go. I think it was organized.”

    He continued, telling the Daily Mail: “It cannot be a coincidence because it happened between the Uber and the door of the hotel – there is two meters of distance. The guy was waiting for me there is no doubt about it.”

    “He started shooting me even before I understood he wanted my watch and from then I was just pushing the gun down and he kept shooting my legs, it was crazy,” he said. “I know he shot five times but I think some of them went through both legs. Three of them are point-blank shooting. I have a lot of bullet holes.”

    Jamaux was helped when a female friend of him and his wife jumped on the robber’s back and began to choke him. 

    “She is one of my really good friends, she is fiery. She jumped on his back and she did a triangle-like choke like in MMA,” Jamaux said.   

    Jamaux quickly passed out after being shot and started to bleed out on the street, the report says. Meanwhile, the robber was unable to get his watch off because of a “bracelet security mechanism” it had. The robber escaped in a black four door BMW. 

    Jamaux has had six surgeries so far. “They hit my femoral artery – it’s something where you usually die in 5 minutes – it was a major surgery to save my life.”

    “I was surprised when I talked to one of the doctors here. I said ‘does it happen often?’ and he was like ‘yes’ without hesitation,” Jamaux concluded. “If I knew New York had changed like that, I would never have come here. I probably would have diverted my business trip and stayed in Europe. You don’t need to be a genius to realize New York is very very dangerous right now. I don’t think it’s safe for anyone. There are too many people who have nothing to lose.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 19:20

  • "Sounding The Alarm": A $3 Trillion Problem Emerges As The Fed Prepares To Launch QT
    “Sounding The Alarm”: A $3 Trillion Problem Emerges As The Fed Prepares To Launch QT

    Three weeks ago, roughly around the time we would point out virtually every single day that equity market liquidity was at all time lows…

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    … a similar, if far more more ominous liquidity problem was gripping the $23 trillion world of US Treasury debt.

    As BofA’s resident bond plumbing expert and former NY Fed staffer Mark Cabana wrote on March 8 in a report whose title couldn’t be clearer (and which is available to pro subs in the usual place)… 

    … the recent elevated market volatility driven by the Russian invasion and ongoing conflict in Ukraine caused many to de-risk simultaneously, prompting a surge in market fragility in not only equities but also bonds. As a result, traders observed a wash out of popular rates trades: short front-end duration, flatteners, richer TU-OIS, and short belly TIPS.

    This de-risking behavior – which comes just as the Fed ends its QE and is set to announce the launch of even more liquidity draining balance sheet reduction in just a few weeks – “leaves behind a market highly susceptible to liquidity issues” according to Cabana who warns that without a ceasefire or sharp moderation in tensions we expect UST illiquidity will persist, and more problematically, “Fed or Treasury actions may be needed to sustain UST market functioning.”

    While most traders have already experienced it on their own, the degree of near-term uncertainty is clearly reflected in rates volatility by higher implied vols, exceeding levels reached at the peak of the covid uncertainty in 1Q20  and a deep inversion of the term structure of volatility.

    The latter is particularly significant as fading these inversions (selling rich gamma vs buying intermediate vol) is quite attractive from a carry perspective (short theta), and indeed the right chart above shows that these inversions generally dissipate relatively quickly. The magnitude of the current inversion (35bp currently between 1m10y and 1y10y) as well as its length (the inversion has persisted and exacerbated since 10 Feb) expresses a significant degree of uncertainty in the market, of a similar degree to that seen over 1Q20.

    It’s not just chaos over the Ukraine war however: the dynamic of TSYs in the recent risk-off context also reflects uncertainty around the utility of Treasuries for portfolios (a recent Bloomberg article was titled “Strategy With Crypto Beats 60/40 Portfolio During Russian War“). As a risk-off asset, USTs generally tend to overweight the tail scenarios relative to other assets, but recently we have seen some stickiness in the recent risk-off dynamic.

    One of the likely drivers for this increased uncertainty relates to the current inflation context. The risk off dynamic has led to the pricing out of more aggressive 50bp hike scenarios for the Fed, but liftoff is likely to stay on track near-term. The first 100bp are justified & almost mechanical in the current inflation context but beyond that, the policy path may be more contingent on geopolitical scenarios, reflecting a Fed reaction function that may start to show concern for slower growth scenarios versus an inflation backdrop that is expected to ease over the year. It’s also why the rates market is now pricing in 3 rate cuts in 2023 and 2024 following the burst of rate hikes this year and next.

    The Fed, however, is hell bent on raising rates until the low/mid 3’s, which creates scope for higher structural inflation and constrains the potential response of the nominal UST curve in a risk-off dynamic.

    One would expect this change in Treasury utility (driven by a higher inflation context) to be more significant at the backend of the UST curve (which also matters more for tail-risk hedging). However, it does extend also to the front-end of the curve, likely compounded by liquidity concerns. Contrary to the historical pattern, we have seen a collapse of 2y spreads (2yT cheapening) as Libor/OIS spreads spiked wider in the geopolitical crisis.

    Whatever the reason behind the shrinking liquidity, evidence of poor market functioning can be observed everywhere across the treasury curve, and is most thorny in sectors that typically demonstrate a liquidity discount.

    Twenty-year notes have cheapened on the fly to some of their weakest levels since their reintroduction in May 2020.

    TIPS have seen some of the largest intraday swings over the last 5-years and off-the-run issues have cheapened versus on-the runs.

    At the same time, elevated volatility has also led to a decline in liquidity measures, including through wider bid-ask spreads & spline error. There are also signs of thinning market depth as seen through the CME Liquidity Tool, which now shows some of the thinnest book depth (i.e., number of buy & sell orders at each price level) since 2020 across Treasury futures contracts

    bid ask spreads have widened out and spline pricing error is also elevated.

    Realized & implied UST vol have both spiked. The UST intraday range is the highest since Mar ’20 & registers at the 90th+ percentile for realized volatility over the past 5Y. Implied vol has also spiked as 1y10y now exceeds March 2020 levels and are at levels last seen in 2013. The surface is also deeply inverted with 1m10y vs 1y10y implied vols seeing the deepest inversion since March 2020.

    Besides growing fears of a secular shift in inflation, the very shifts in UST market structure are now amplifying volatility and illiquiduity. In a near and dear topic to this website which first cracked the scam that is High Frequency Trading back in 2009 long before Michael Lewis wrote FlashBoys, over recent years, high-frequency trading firms (aka principal trading firms or PTFs) have become larger not only in equities but also in the Treasury market while dealer activity has not grown with the UST market. The official sector defines PTFs as principals who trade for their own account, almost exclusively use automated trading strategies, and end each day with little to no directional exposure thus making them thinly capitalized. Dealers, by contrast, have historically been able to buy and sell from customers in large amounts, hold a portion of these positions across days, and maintain a large balance sheet to support positions.

    Over recent years, PTF activity has increased in the Treasury market while dealer balances sheets & trading volume have been relatively stable. PTFs comprise the majority of electronic activity on interdealer broker platforms while dealers are still most active in voice & cash market activity.

    Dealer trading volume & UST holdings have remained relatively stable but dealer balance sheets have materially declined as a percentage of total Treasury market size.

    The increased role of HFTs and smaller relative dealer role vs UST market size can and will result in more limited UST liquidity during times of elevated volatility or stress. The official sector Interagency Working Group (UST, Fed, SEC, CFTC) has noted the risk of market making can be particularly relevant for PTFs “whose lower capitalization relative to dealers may leave them with less capacity to absorb adverse shocks.” This was true in March 2020 and we suspect it may be a factor with increased volatility today. The SEC has also recently announced greater PTF oversight by requiring them to become dealers.

    Meanwhile, in another feedback loop, elevated UST volatility and thin market liquidity have likely caused a number of end investors to de-risk or reduce risk appetite,  exacerbating current moves.

    * * *

    So what does all this mean going forward? Well, all else equal, treasury market functioning is expected to return as realized volatility declines… but all else is not equal, and a huge problem facing the Fed is that according to Cabana – who along with Pozsar was in charge of the Fed’s POMO/QE implementation – treasury functioning will be increasingly challenged by an accumulation of Treasury supply held in private hands, i.e., Quantitative Tightening.

    To wit, BofA projects that Treasury supply will increase around US$3 trillion in the next 2Y due to large government deficits and aggressive Fed balance-sheet reduction. UST supply normalized for GDP is projected to increase back to mid ’20 levels by end ’23.

    This means that already fragile TSY liquidity today may be exacerbated by the supply shift in coming months, especially after the Fed starts quantitative tightening (QT). And although short-dated USTs are rich today, Cabana thinks that investors should position for a cheapening starting mid-year with the supply shift and potential challenging liquidity: “Cheapening USTs are likely to
    support tighter financial conditions that may ultimately require official action to contain.”

    * * *

    Putting it all together, in case it was not obvious yet, Cabana warns that Treasury liquidity is a concern ahead of supply shift”, i.e., the upcoming $3 trillion in Quantitative Tightening.

    Some math: BofA projects that Treasury supply will increase around US$3tn in the next 2Y due to government deficits & aggressive Fed balance-sheet reduction. At the same time, Fed QT is expected to add nearly US$550-700BN to UST debt outstanding in each of next thee years. UST supply normalized for GDP is projected to increase back to mid ’20 levels by end ’23. Even assuming lower deficits in coming years as modeled by the CBO – which we truly doubt – these will at best limit coupon financing need but total UST supply growth vs GDP will still accumulate in private hands.

    The bottom line: the already Fragile Treasury market functioning will only exacerbate the coming UST supply shift, especially given concerns about end-user demand. According to Cabana, bank buying has slowed with uncertainty around deposit & balance sheet growth, pension / insurance demand has been moderate despite their strong funded status, and  hedged pickup of USTs to foreign
    equivalents is set to decline.

    To be sure, modest Japanese demand may pick up in April with the new fiscal year and that asset managers will find USTs increasingly attractive as a risk-off hedge (at some point). However, end-user demand is needed.

    During the last QT episode, a similar supply accumulation increased cheapening pressure on USTs, especially at the front-end, leading to increased UST-leveraged demand. BofA’s measure of marketable debt ex Fed-to-GDP increased 6ppt during the prior QT episode, while 2Y USTs to FF OIS cheapened around 30bp. Treasury cheapening incentivized hedge funds to materially increase their UST holdings by US$585bn from QT start (4Q ’17) to finish (3Q ’19). 

    Cabana expects hedge funds to provide a similar source of demand but only if USTs are sufficiently cheap (read – yields are high enough) to encourage their leveraged participation.

    The BofA strategist also expects a similar cheapening of Treasuries at the front-end during this QT episode, which could be exacerbated by thin UST liquidity. In other words, the official launch of QT in less than two month, could lead to a rapid bond market liquidity vacuum and subsequent crash, forcing the Fed to quickly find a justification to reverse its balance sheet shrinkage as the alternative is a complete lockup in the world’s most important market.

    While this could be viewed as an exaggerated take, Cabana himself concedes that cheapening TSYs would support a broader tightening of financial conditions that could require official action to contain, and “The Fed, Treasury, and regulators could all act to support UST liquidity but debt managers are likely best positioned to act today.” Detail below:

    Fed action: UST market functioning support over recent years has largely been done by the Fed. The Fed now has limited flexibility due to its inflation problem. “The Fed could delay QT in hopes of limiting UST market functioning challenges” Cabana writes, adding that “Powell said the Fed will be mindful of financial stability & the Fed wants to avoid adding uncertainty to an already very uncertain geopolitical backdrop.” However, the Fed likely wants to get moving on QT to tightening financial conditions & restrain inflation. And worst case, the Fed can just halt QT early on if it sees that the lock up across the bond market is too severe.

    UST debt management: Treasury can play a more meaningful role in the support of market functioning after years of abdicating this responsibility to the Fed. There are a number of actions Treasury could take:

    • (1) Large & decisive cuts at troubled parts of the UST curve. This would signal help to improve market functioning, especially in the troubled 20Y. Large cuts will not fix oversupplied parts of the market but it would support deeper liquidity in current issues.
    • (2) Buybacks for liquidity management purposes. UST could start liquidity providing buyback operations across the curve, which would help unclog dealer balance sheets & limit RV dislocations. Treasury could fund buybacks by issuing in the most liquid (2, 5, 10, 30Y) points or target the richest points (bills) if willing to tolerate WAM reduction.
    • (3) Improved communication. Treasury only sporadically communicates with the market via the quarterly refunding meetings. Improved communication could help guide expectations on key areas of market concern such as oversupply & challenging liquidity.

    The bottom line, according to Cabana is that Treasury market functioning has deteriorated with elevated realized volatility stemming from Fed re-pricing & geopolitical tensions. Decreased liquidity has likely been exacerbated by market structure shifts and regulatory changes that have reduced UST resilience: the BofA strategist is “concerned about the accumulation of increased Treasury supply into a fragile market place, which will likely support a cheapening of USTs & tightening of financial conditions. The official sector can still act to smooth this process though the US Treasury may need to take a more active role to promote Treasury market resilience.”

    TL/DR: QT will lead to unintended bond market freezes/lockdowns and only “official sector” intervention will prevent QT from leading to a bond market crash. So far, neither the Fed nor the Treasury are even contemplating this possibility. Meanwhile the clock until the launch of Quantitative Tightening is ticking…

    There is much more in the full notes, available to pro subscribers.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 19:00

  • CNN's New Streaming Service Already Headed For Layoffs Amid Dismal Sales
    CNN’s New Streaming Service Already Headed For Layoffs Amid Dismal Sales

    CNN’s ill-fated attempt to launch its own ‘Fox Nation’-style streaming service (which it christened – rather unoriginally – CNN+) is already hitting the skids.

    According to a Fox Business report, the streaming service, which recently hired former Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace to host his own show, and only just launched on Tuesday, is already bracing for layoffs as soon as May due to “lackluster” sales projections.

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    The streaming service was supposed to be the flailing cable news channel’s answer to declining ratings. And according to the Washington Post, it represented the largest investment in new programming since Ted Turner launched CNN in 1980.

    The network has been working on the launch since the summer of 2021 and has invested nearly $100 million in the venture. CNN owner WarnerMedia is asking viewers to fork over $5.99 a month for the service.

    In addition to Wallace, who will host an interview show entitled “Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace?” four days a week, the network also poached several other big names, including Kasie Hunt from MSNBC, author and chef Alison Roman, and actress Eva Longoria, who will host a travel show dedicated to Mexican cuisine. Former “All Things Considered” co-host Audie Cornish, a veteran of NPR, will also host a weekly interview show.

    As WaPo explained, the streaming platform was intended to compensate for the fact that most cable-news superfans are in their 60s, which isn’t a particularly attractive age bracket or advertisers (who typically prefer to market to younger consumers who can build product loyalties that can persist over a lifetime). As of May 2021, the median age of a CNN viewer was 64 (which is still lower than the average age for Fox, at 68). 

    CNN’s ratings have continued their dramatic descent recently, prompting upheaval in the channel’s upper ranks, most notably the firing of former network President Jeff Zucker, who conceived of the network.

    With CNN is also about to change owners, and Fox Business reports that its new owner, Discovery, might opt to “consolidate” its streaming services, essentially folding CNN+ into its own streaming service.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 03/30/2022 – 18:40

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