Today’s News 3rd March 2021

• Is The U.S. Going The Way Of Afghanistan?
  Is The U.S. Going The Way Of Afghanistan?

  Authored by James Bovard via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Acrimony and recriminations continue to swirl around the 2020 presidential election. Three out of four Republicans believe that there was “widespread fraud” in the election, while Democrats have sought to turn criticisms of the election into a “Big Lie” heresy against democracy. Senior congressional Democrats are pressuring the nation’s largest cable providers to cease carrying conservative networks such as Fox News that raised too many questions about Biden’s victory.

  

  What could possibly go wrong with sweeping the 2020 election controversies under the rug? Clues can be found in a recent report, “Elections: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan,” produced by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). That report contains more wisdom than will be found in President Trump’s idiotic tweet in December: “A young military man working in Afghanistan told me that elections in Afghanistan are far more secure and much better run than the USA’s 2020 Election.”

  Actually, “Afghan democracy” is one of the most brazen shams of U.S. foreign policy in this century. Since the U.S. invasion in 2001, the federal government has spent more than $600 million to support elections and democratic procedures in Afghanistan (part of the $143 billion the U.S. spent there for relief and reconstruction there). Hamid Karzai, the smooth operator who the Bush administration installed to rule Afghanistan after 9/11, won a rigged 2004 presidential election. President George W. Bush boasted during his reelection campaign, “Afghanistan has now got a constitution which talks about freedom of religion and talks about women’s rights…. Democracy is flourishing.” A few years later, Karzai won support from fundamentalist voters by approving a law entitling a husband to starve his wife to death if she refused his sexual demands.

  President Barack Obama justified his troop surge in Afghanistan to bolster its democracy. When Obama spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in August 2009, he boasted that “our troops are helping to secure polling places for this week’s election so that Afghans can choose the future that they want.” At first glance, Karzai won a narrow victory. But two weeks after the election, the New York Times reported that Karzai’s operatives set up as many as 800 fictitious polling sites “where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election.” In some Afghan provinces, pro-Karzai ballots outnumbered actual voters by tenfold. Peter Galbraith, a senior United Nations official in Afghanistan, was fired after he estimated that a third of Karzai’s votes were bogus. Galbraith wrote, “No amount of spin can obscure the fact that we spent upwards of $200 million on an election that has been a total fiasco” which “handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory.”

  Despite the shenanigans, the Obama administration praised Karzai as if he had won fair and square. The Obama administration told Congress that the decision to send far more U.S. troops to Afghanistan depended on the Afghan government’s “ability to hold credible elections,” among other tests. After the 2009 Afghan election turned into a sham, Obama decided it was “close enough for government work” to democracy. Thanks to Obama’s surge, 1,400 American soldiers died in part to propagate the mirage of Afghan democracy. 

  Afghan officials have conspired for more than 15 years to both multiply and ignore election fraud. As early as 2009, U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the result was that the Afghan government’s legitimacy “is, at best, in question right now and, at worst, doesn’t exist.” An analysis by the U.S. Agency for International Development of the 2014 Afghan election noted that “several prominent election officials associated with fraud during past elections were promoted or given ministerial appointments.” Afghanistan’s 2019 presidential election was “the most corrupt the country had ever held,” according to some experts SIGAR consulted. 

  U.S tax dollars poured into the coffers of Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to safeguard voting. Alas – that agency was a prime source of the most brazen vote stealing. ECC bosses were careful not to hire almost anyone with electoral experience since such folks might raise troubling questions. A former top ECC official told SIGAR that “one criterion for chief electoral officer applicants in 2018 was how well the candidates were dressed. He said this category was used as a pretext to reduce the scores of less pliable candidates.” It is unknown whether this villainy character test was inspired by Washington’s K Street lobbyists. 

  Push-button fraud

  Afghan voting records are a mess, making it much easier to fabricate the “will of the people.” SIGAR concluded, “Afghanistan’s national voter registry and the voter registration process are exceptionally vulnerable to manipulation and mismanagement… The number of registered voters in Afghanistan is improbably high, given the population size and low turnout shortly after registering, which likely indicates registration fraud. Malpractice and lack of transparency also undermine the credibility of the voter registry.” In this country, controversies erupted in several states prior to the 2020 election over allegations that state voting roles had vast numbers of ineligible or deceased voters listed. Michigan delayed removing 177,000 inactive voters from the state’s voting roles until earlier this month and acted only after a lawsuit forced the state’s hand.

  Afghan elections have been institutionalized racketeering in part because the rules for elections have always been in flux. SIGAR noted, “Only one of the country’s election laws has ever been passed by parliament; the rest were presidential decrees that were never referred to the parliament for consideration.” The SIGAR report quoted election experts:

  “The likelihood of a credible election is inversely proportional to the degree to which the ruling regime directly controls the election management body.”

  America has mostly avoided similar debacles because the Founding Fathers included an Elections Clause in the Constitution specifying that the rules for federal elections (president and Congress) “shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Unfortunately, that constitutional provision was trampled last year in many states. Time magazine recently revealed “the secret history of the 2020 election” – “a well-funded cabal of powerful people… working together behind the scenes to… change rules and laws” to “fortify” democracy. Democratic Party officials and election commission officials appointed by Democrats scorned state law to rewrite the rules for the 2020 election in several swing states. 

  A brief filed with the Supreme Court in December by the state of Texas noted, “Michigan’s Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, without legislative approval, unilaterally abrogated Michigan election statutes related to absentee ballot applications” by sending “unsolicited absentee-voter ballot applications by mail to all 7.7 million registered Michigan voters… without verifying voter signatures as required” by state law. The impact was compounded when Democratic officials in the state’s most populous county (including Detroit) “made the policy decision to ignore Michigan’s statutory signature verification requirements for absentee ballots.” Elsewhere, the Wisconsin Elections Commission approved setting up to 500 unmanned ballot drop boxes in major Democratic cities in violation of Wisconsin law. 

  Politically-appointed judges effectively overturned state law by mandating new election procedures in several states. In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court invoked a vaporous phrase in the state constitution – “Elections shall be free and equal” – to justify invalidating a state law that prohibited counting mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day; the judges even mandated including late ballots arriving with no postmark. A similar provision was struck down on January 27 by a Virginia circuit court overturning the Virginia Board of Elections’ decree permitting counting mail-in ballots that arrived three days after the election without a postmark.

  Elsewhere in the report, SIGAR notes the difficulty of building a viable democracy when elected officials formally receive a license to steal. After noting the hefty bribes that politicians pay to election officials, SIGAR explains: “One reason candidates may be willing to pay such high prices for seats in parliament is to protect ill-gotten fortunes…. By becoming members of parliament, they can gain access to new sources of illicit revenue and immunity from prosecution.” That parliament is the last place on earth to seek a constituency for honest elections. 

  Afghanistan also illustrates the perils of computer voting. As one election expert told SIGAR, “There is no difference between stuffing 100 ballots and pressing a button on an electronic voting machine 100 times.” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani decreed that the 2019 election must rely on electronic voting. But SIGAR noted that electronic voting “did not reduce fraud overall; it just displaced it to other parts of the electoral cycle.” Confidence in Afghan electronic voting was not assisted by the secrecy surrounding the software and equipment. After the 2019 presidential election, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission declared that it could not “share information” about how votes were being reconciled because “the contractor, Dermalog, controlled that process.” SIGAR quoted experts who warned that “because governments often control electoral commissions and the procurement of election technology, they are well placed to use it to commit fraud. The introduction of technology can also weaken the ability of political parties and observation groups to detect fraud.”

  Luckily, no such problems occurred in the U.S. presidential election last year, as confirmed by the recent billion dollar defamation lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems against its critics. But the SIGAR report did cynically note, “The true purpose of adopting election technologies may not be to actually reduce fraud, but to create the illusion of doing so.”

  Perhaps the real Afghan lesson is that there is no “guardian angel of democracy.” Politicians permitting citizens to vote does not assure that election results will receive even a whiff of legitimacy. Once fraud or suspicions of fraud reach a certain level, any election winners will be suspected scoundrels. More than 15 years of corrupt elections in Afghanistan have resulted in a central government with little or no popular support or credibility. A U.S. Army colonel who deployed several times to Afghanistan told SIGAR that as early as 2006, the Afghan government had “self-organized into a kleptocracy.” Officials who were stealing everything else never hesitated to steal votes. The only reason the Afghan government has not yet been toppled by the Taliban is because of the presence of the U.S. military. 

  And is there a lesson from the endless lies that U.S. government officials have told about Afghan democracy? At a confidential 2015 National Security Council meeting, President Obama admitted that the U.S. would never “transform Afghanistan into a semblance of a democracy able to defend itself,” the New York Times reported. But that didn’t deter Obama from publicly bragging the following year that U.S. troops and diplomats had helped Afghanistan “establish a democratic government.” Are U.S. government officials more honest when they talk about American democracy than when they praise sham democracies abroad? 

  Regardless of any Trump tweets to the contrary, U.S. election processes remain far more credible than Afghanistan’s. But last year’s election was the fourth U.S. presidential election since 2000 that was widely perceived as heavily tainted. When the Supreme Court voted last week not to hear cases challenging arbitrary changes in state election procedures, Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, “The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence.”

  Unfortunately, almost no one is talking of the peril of the “Afghanization” of American democracy.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 23:25

• Homosexuality Can Be Deemed 'Mental Disorder' In China, Says New Court Ruling
  Homosexuality Can Be Deemed ‘Mental Disorder’ In China, Says New Court Ruling

  After the Chinese Communist government previously decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 and removed it from the country’s official list of things deemed mental disorders in 2001, a major court decision in China this week has “shocked” various rights monitors by once again classifying homosexuality as among “common psychosexual disorders.”

  According to South China Morning Post, this latest ruling began with a legal dispute over a higher education textbook, namely the 2013 edition of Mental Health Education for College Students, published by Jinan University Press. A lawsuit filed by a student challenged the book given that it—

  …listed homosexuality under “common psychosexual disorders” – along with cross-dressing and fetishism. It stated that homosexuality “was believed to be a disruption of love and sex or perversion of the sex partner”.

  

  On Tuesday the Suqian Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern province of Jiangsu upheld a ruling by a lower court that agreed with the textbook’s classification, allowing the book to remain in multiple university programs. The court dubbed it a legitimate “academic view” as part of the ruling.

  It ends a years’ long legal saga the result of which is sure to come under fire from the World Health Organization – not to mention also some of the same progressives in the West who are often heard to defend China and the CCP on a range of issues. 

  The New York Post reviewed the legal battle leading to this latest deeply controversial ruling as follows:

  China’s LGBTQ community has criticized the decision. Ou Jiayong, 24, who filed the lawsuit as a college student in 2017 to get the textbook’s publisher to pull its “poor-quality work” from circulation, called the ruling “random and baseless.”

  Ah Qiang, a spokesperson for PFLAG, a support group for the queer Chinese community and their families, accused the textbook’s editors and the courts of being out of touch with contemporary culture.

  Interestingly it was only as late as 1990 that the WHO itself alongside the United Nations declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. And according to data from Bank of America, it is still considered ‘unlawful’ in the criminal codes of up to one-third of nations across the globe.

  

  Here’s BofA’s review of the data:

  If LGBTQ+ were a nation, it would be the 4th largest economy in the world at US$3.9tn. Further, LGBT rights have transformed in the past 30 years: 1990 saw the UN declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder, 46 countries have decriminalized homosexuality since 1990, 28 countries have legalized gay marriage as of 2020 and in 2019 the WHO declassified identifying as transgender as a “mental disorder”.

  However, discrimination and exclusion still occur. 15 countries allow for death penalties or life imprisonment for homosexuality and a further 49 countries have prison sentences. Only 81 countries have some form of employment protection. Positively though, LGBTQ+ acceptance in the US is at record levels aided by growing openness and gender fluidity in younger generations.

  All of this also followed the landmark1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to have the ‘diagnosis of homosexuality’  removed as something which could be pathologized.

  Very likely the Biden White House will now add this as the latest among the growing list of human rights abuses cited by the administration, which has lately centered most notably on Muslim Uighur persecution that the Trump administration had deemed “genocide”.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 23:05

• Financial False Hope, Part 2: Monetary Monotheism
  Financial False Hope, Part 2: Monetary Monotheism

  Authored by Steve Penfield,

  Investing trust in the wrong people and policies can be ruinous. How much dishonesty does it take before the public stops putting blind faith in debt dealers, corporate crooks and the servile politicians who do their bidding? The widespread acceptance of ‘healthy’ inflation, monopoly patent rights, the ‘retirement’ trap and enslaving corporate ‘benefits’ would suggest we enjoy the abuse.

  Read Part 1 here…

  

  A condensed table of contents for the section headings of this essay is provided below.

  Part 1

  • A Few Experts with Something Useful to Say

  • Money Multipliers and Empty Banks

  • A Minor Fib on the Fed’s Virtual ‘Printing Press’

  • Of Course, the Feds are Lying about Unemployment

  • Five Sections on Inflationary Myths

  • Sidebar on Monopoly Patents: More Corporate Welfare that Everyone Loves

  Part 2

  • False Sense of Security: Trying to ‘Regulate’ Corrupt Banking Activity

  • Four Sections on Retirement

  • Corporate ‘Benefits’

  • Monetary Monotheism

  • Conclusion and Post Script

  False Sense of Security: Trying to ‘Regulate’ Corrupt Banking Activity

  To convince an “educated” populace to support a corrupt system of 16,000% monetary debasement, over $80 trillion in total debt, vast programs of corporate welfare and grotesque wealth disparities between financial elites and working Americans requires an extraordinary level of organized duplicity—but also an amazing level gullibility among the beleaguered masses. To instill such credulity amongst the public, it helps to create a false sense of security with sham “regulations” and deposit “insurance” programs that only dull the senses. Here is where the stuffed suits in Washington do the most damage (while receiving the least criticism).

  Yet again, Americans continue to suffer from the chaos imposed during the disastrous New Deal. Reckless bank credit creation during the 1920s coupled with political bans against “branch banking” (to protect underfinanced small rural banks from competing with larger banking conglomerates) led to an unsustainable stock market bubble and rural land speculation, then a sudden collapse in 1929 accompanied by thousands of bank failures that left depositors and farmers broke. As a solution to this political catastrophe, rather than let consumers pick winners and losers all along (or better yet, push for state oversight to prevent fraudulent money multiplying) overzealous federal lawmakers stepped in to save the day with more banking favoritism. This instilled unwarranted confidence among the public and created an even bigger mess.

  Bankers’ special rights to fleece the public got a major boost in the 1930s with the invention of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which subsidizes sleazy business behavior and gives customers a false signal that “your money is safe here, trust us.” Like any bad idea that isn’t repudiated, instead of relying on more fair and efficient profit/loss market incentives, subsequent politicians threw gasoline on the fire and FDIC insurance coverage grew from $2,500 per depositor in 1934 to $250,000 today. It begs repeating: as of 2019, the FDIC reports a $110 billion insurance fund to cover $7.8 trillion in deposits—a mere 1.4% reserve ratio. (Don’t ask for your money back all at once.)

  Following the welfare and racial revolutions of the turbulent 1960s, Washington further intervened in the banking industry with the so-called Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 and finally the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977. All of these laws catered to racial bitterness and division, while asserting that banks—for no valid reason whatsoever—refused to loan to credit-worthy minorities although such activity is inherently against a bank’s own profit motive in the first place. Like so much else in modern times, the CRA legislation and associated rules carry the onus of “guilty until proven innocent” as bankers must satisfy a vast array of arbitrary measures to prove they are not “discriminating” or being “unfair.”

  The CRA and other “fair housing” laws officially segregate people into categories of “low-income” or “moderate-income” vs. rich people who need to be punished for working and saving too much. Accordingly, these laws pressure banks to give loans to low- or moderate-income (LMI) borrowers, despite having bad or horrible credit. Legal verbiage ostensibly excludes that practice, but creditors still routinely make nonsensible loans to appease an army of FRB/FDIC/OCC/CFPB regulators who could care less if a bank loses money.

  Clinton and Bush administrations abused these powers in the 1990s and 2000s to attract votes from the LMI community, triggering the sub-prime housing bubble and collapse. This fairly mild correction wiped out $14 trillion in net worth of U.S. household from 2007 peak to 2009 trough. More housing market damage is probably on the way, as many outsiders are warning.

  Following the last recession, politicians crafted the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 to further increase federal control of banking under the guise of “consumer protection.” According to the Wall Street Journal (5/30/16):

  • The 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law has led to over 22,200 pages of rules.

  • The six largest U.S. banks spent at least $70.2 billion on compliance in 2013, up from $34.7 billion in 2007.

  • The nation’s largest bank, J.P. Morgan, had 43,000 compliance staff in 2015, up from 24,000 in 2011.

  All of that busywork may seem impressive, but it overlooks one core problem that WSJ failed to mention. Despite that flurry of paperwork, banks are still free to participate in fractional-reserve lending without any disclosure whatsoever to their customers. Along with “legal tender” edicts, those hidden gems are nothing less than the lynch-pins of the entire bubble financial system and our massive debt tsunami. Truly, corporate favoritism and bureaucratic irrelevancy at their finest.

  Strangely enough, nearly all Democrats and most Republicans still delude themselves with the fantasy they can tame corporate counterfeiting with a few more rules, some high-profile hand-slapping, and the “right” people in charge. Almost all of them—and the vast majority of voters who support those politicians—apparently accept the fundamental flaws in the system that no amount of “regulations” can fix.

  The gargantuan levels of corporate abuse and political dishonesty as detailed above are troubling enough. But the willingness of people to follow these deceptions—while demanding ever more enslaving political entitlements—is unprecedented in American history. Our choice to collectively follow corporate and political charlatans off the financial cliff will certainly spell unnecessary hardships—and probably more suffering than most people can imagine—for the tens of millions of adults caught in these traps.

  With our increasingly passive, docile and regressive culture demanding endless government security blankets and deceptive corporate “benefits” (at the expense of progress, growth and independence) most people probably don’t realize just how *radical* the notion of “retirement” really is. We also don’t seem to grasp the inherent conflict of interest when our trusted final advisors suggest that we hand over all our life savings, then quit working altogether. Likewise, for the legions of corporate Human Resources administrators that insist we put our personal healthcare decisions in their eager hands, plus the hands of the thousands of medical bureaucrats and licensed professionals who all want a piece of the action.

  First, I’ll address the retirement system.

  Some Classical Views on ‘Retirement’

  To attempt to disabuse some people of this unwise practice—borrowed from the Prussian world of central planning—I’ll start with one of the most reasonable and independent financial writers I’ve ever encountered—which isn’t necessarily saying that much, considering the nature of most professional pundits.

  Daniel Lapin’s 2009 book Thou Shall Prosper – Ten Commandments for Making Money is full of concise logic and history on the virtues of productive business, along with examples of Hollywood bashing of profit. (His book is probably available for free at your local library. A more substantial review is available here from a financial website.)

  For purposes of this essay, his chapter 10 – Never Retire, is of most interest to me. With nearly 100% of politicians and political writers either too gutless, dimwitted or dishonest to confront mob passions on this dangerous habit, Lapin calmly states (with ample supporting evidence) “Retirement is essentially selfish.” He proceeds to make his case that:

  Losing your job is like having your tribe, your entire community, send you a telegram that reads, ‘Hello, you are no longer useful, and we have no further need for you.’

  For historical grounding, Lapin—a veteran of private-sector business consulting as well as the founding rabbi of the Pacific Jewish Center in Los Angeles in 1978—points out: “No word in Hebrew exists for retirement, which indicates to devotees of ancient Hebrew that the very concept of retirement is flawed.” (So many anti-Jewish conspiracy nuts, as well as fanatical Christian Zionists, manage to overlook this important time-honored cultural aspect that explains quite a bit of Jewish financial success—along with illuminating the growing state of Gentile poverty.)

  For modern American application, Lapin adds:

  Prior to about the 1950s, there was no such thing as retirement, as the term is used today. A 1950 poll showed that most workers aspired to work for as long as possible. Quitting was for the disabled.

  Mr. Lapin further elaborates on “The three lies of the retirement myth: 1) Work has no value in and of itself, 2) People become less productive and less useful as they age, 3) People are merely consumers, rather than creators.” (Since this essay has other matters to attend, and those salient points should be somewhat self-evident—yet remain fiercely taboo in our PC pop-culture—I’ll defer to the author for those seeking additional information.)

  With “retirement” now being such a large part of American folklore, I’ll add a couple more thoughts you might not have heard. First and foremost, I always find it wise to reject the extremism of the demagogues who happen to dominate this topic. In this case, it means ignoring the false options of: A) work every week for your entire life, or B) work every week for roughly 40 years, then quit completely for the remainder of your life while living as a fiduciary of monied interests who don’t care about you.

  These illegitimate choices leave out the option of working, saving, then periodically taking some time off (often called a sabbatical)—while your health and passions are still active—to pursue personal interests or time with friends and family.

  My last chunk of time off—working on a mentoring program from December 2017 through May 2018—made me aware of another snare within the retirement trap. When I was ready to go back to work, after a mere 6 months off, I was fortunate to get back with my prior employer in a slightly different role and similar pay.

  I can’t image the difficulty of a 70- or 80-year-old with a 10 to 20 year gap on their resume applying for a job. Anyone in that position will almost certainly be left with only options for menial work and low pay.

  Presently, America has over 50 million seniors, of which around 40 million do no paid work whatsoever. I think these people are in for a rude awakening when the next bubble bursts and their paper “investments” suddenly vaporize. If that happens, as is likely, I wouldn’t want to be the last one to get up off the couch.

  Since Americans of all political persuasions pride themselves on moral rectitude—most often, these days, at other people’s expense—I will mention the bizarre “ethics” of our misguided retirement craze. With the secular/pagan/atheist/self-worshipping communities suspiciously AWOL on this important topic—usually preoccupied with the euphoria of tribal warfare—I will again defer to a more interesting figure of the monotheistic society.

  The Rich Fool: ‘Take Life Easy; Eat, Drink and be Merry’

  A much older Jewish teaching on retirement—that one might think held sway to a supposedly Christian culture—comes from roughly 2,000 years ago by a teacher who needs no introduction. This universal teaching was recorded in Chapter 12 of the Gospel of Luke, and was delivered in the form of a parable:

  The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’

  In the conclusion of this well-known parable, the teacher notes that this rich man’s foolishness cost him his life. For purposes of this essay, I’ll compare the rich fool of circa 30 A.D. with the wealthy crowd of today, particular regarding the political sham of Social Security. In reading this passage from Luke (often neutered by subsidized Stage Preachers), it strikes me how profoundly our culture behaves much worse than the rich fool:

  1. The rich fool did not mooch off of others; we are always looking for someone else to pay for our desires. Furthermore, he did not join a gang intent on organized stealing; he acted alone.

  2. He expressed no sense of entitlement… as in, I deserve free food, subsidized healthcare, housing, education, etc. Along with that, he showed no sense of victimhood or bitterness.

  3. He put his trust in tangible assets (crops and barns); we put blind faith in paper money, paper college degrees, and paper retirement statements… all of which are more unstable.

  4. His laziness was temporary (“many years”); our retirement is permanent… for the rest of our lives, commonly two or three continuous decades!

  5. The rich fool told no lies; our modern “Social Security” system is full of lies:

     1. It will only cost you and your employer a total of $180 per year maximum. The “inflation” excuse doesn’t come close to justifying current tax levies.

     2. Each of us will own our “Social Security account.” The U.S. Supreme Court nullified this myth in 1937 and again in 1960.

     3. You’re not just a number. Up until 1972, a standard Social Security card stated in bold letters: “For Social Security Purposes – Not For Identification.” This broken promise has since been omitted from SS cards.

  Supporting evidence for item #5 come from two essays on Social Security deceit (parts one and two) published by economist Walter Williams in 2005. Mr. Williams, who passed away in December, was one of the very few mainstream voices who dared to challenge this taboo.

  For those who may seek refuge in the excuse of not entirely depending on Social Security, I’ll note that handing your life savings over to an empty bank or the Wall Street casino is no more intelligent, and possibly less secure.

  The Charlatans We Trust with Our Retirement Savings

  One could reasonably question anyone who quits working at the height of their career and hands six or seven figures in wealth over to a complete stranger. But our mainstream press corps—eager to pander to anyone with power while pontificating about their own virtues—can’t muster a word of caution.

  

  Despite an abundance of history and logic pointing to the precarious nature of retirement, few seniors seem willing to resist this heavily advertised privilege. Conservatives manage to go a step further by funding their political enemies.

  Investment banking powerhouse, Goldman Sachs, now mandates discrimination against male business leaders simply on the basis of sex. According to a November article in the New York Post, Goldman CEO David Solomon “publicly committed to diversifying Goldman’s executive ranks and refused to do IPOs for any company without a woman on its board.”

  The world’s wealthiest asset manager, BlackRock Inc., pushes social engineering even further. The infamous “great vampire squid” with nearly $8 trillion of assets under their control was recently featured in a Breitbart article that began:

  The retirement savings and investment accounts of millions of Americans are being used to pressure corporate Americans into adopting the left’s climate agenda and divisive racial politics.

  BlackRock’s 2021 stewardship report boasts of pressuring over 2,000 companies (businesses where trillions of dollars of pensions and 401K’s are invested) during the prior year to adopt policies of climate alarmism and “ethnic and gender diversity” or else be cut off from financial support. Conservatives who support such corporate manipulation should at least be aware of how their money is being leveraged.

  Ramblings of a Secular Stage Preacher

  For the sake of balance, I’ll include the teachings of a secular Stage Preacher who had opinions on every topic from the environment to education to economic justice. This was a man with zero independence who became a multi-millionaire by pandering to his audience while acting like an angry “outsider.” In this case, I’m referring to Rev. Grumpy Pants himself, the Deep State’s favorite faux-populist—George Carlin (1937–2008).

  For starters, I’ll note that—with extremely few exceptions—no honest person who challenges establishment power will ever be allowed near a broadcast microphone. Mr. Carlin, who posed as a courageous enemy of “The Man” in general and fierce critic of the Federal Communications Cartel in specific, managed to appear on broadcast TV over 130 times (just in the 1960s) plus 14 specials on HBO.

  On the topic of lifetime government support for people who quit working, Carlin never failed to please his federal masters. One of his more famous bits, The Big Club, has been praised by right-wing populists at American Thinker, ZeroHedge and elsewhere despite its overt groveling to socialist dementia.

  In a cynical 3-minute rant against “the real owners” of this country (faceless Big Business) who are shafting everyone with “longer hours” and “reduced benefits,” Carlin shifts into cruising speed (at 1:50) with the complaint:

  and now, they’re comin’ for your Social Security money; they want your fucking retirement money… It’s a Big Club. And you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the Big Club.

  As a man who was feted with four Hollywood Grammy awards and died with a net worth of $10 million, I’d say Mr. Carlin was very much in the Big Club. But, apparently, a sizeable portion of Americans like hearing a grumpy old shyster say “shit” and “fuck” a few dozen times while they sit passively and shell out $50 to $100 for that routine.

  Amazingly, this guy is held up a “rebel” by mass media standards. The lead paragraph of Wikipedia’s glowing entry on George Carlin claims he was:

  Regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comics of all time, he was dubbed “the dean of counterculture comedians.” He was known for his dark comedy and reflections on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and taboo subjects.

  Consistent with this celluloid “rebel”—but usually with less cuss words—the agents of ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/MSNBC/Fox News and mainstream newspapers can’t even murmur sweet nothings against any wealth-destroying taboo, especially the practice of rich seniors lounging around for decades at the expense of the working poor and middle-class.

  ‘Benefits’ are for Children, the Disabled and Slaves

  Of course, public policy wrapped in corporate favoritism to encourage corporate dependency (and lots of wealth destruction) doesn’t just affect seniors. With so much uproar over the high cost of healthcare, the root cause of the exploding prices is nearly always brushed aside in mainstream narratives, since it doesn’t suit the collectivist agenda.

  On the propaganda front, we have one of the better examples of “words no longer have meaning,” to borrow a phrase from Justice Antonin Scalia commenting on a 2015 Obamacare ruling that twisted the language to expand federal reach. In this case, I’m talking about the corporate sales pitch (“my product is good for you!”) masquerading as a neutral object, which leads to confusion and emotional manipulation. That is, equating the high-cost group insurance pool of random sick, old and/or overweight strangers into the ubiquitous mantra of “benefits.” Your “benefits.” Company “benefits.” Family “benefits.” You’ll die penniless and starving without the safety net of our “benefits!”

  I’ll skip the details on self-insurance or other private healthcare options (which were cheap and effective in the past) and just note what should be obvious. Some people find it helpful to consider the complexity and trappings of using other people’s money vs. the simpler advantages of managed personal savings and continual attention to one’s health.

  I’ll also note that only a century ago, most Americans could probably recognize the proper name for a system where food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and a guaranteed job were all provided by a corporate master. We used to call that slavery. (Children and the disabled also once received these private benefits from their parents and perhaps the local community.)

  So how did we collectively accept the corporate spin that their tax-free inducements were a “benefit” to all humanity? For this level of deception, only the fog of war (aided by robust fiat banking) could produce such results. And it did.

  While our soldiers were off saving Churchill, Stalin and Vichy France from their own imperial desires, Roosevelt’s economic planning boards were busy selling Rosie the Riveter (and the elderly men who stayed behind) a new system of healthcare. It turns out that the seeds of socialized medicine came, not from LBJ or Jimmy Carter or Barak Obama, but from wage controls during World War II.

  As of 1940, “only 9 percent of the population had any form of coverage for medical expenses.” After the war, the tax-breaks that penalize individual coverage or private savings pushed a majority of Americans into employer-based group insurance. The race for subsidized health “benefits” took off. Medical costs soon exploded. Further interference launched in the 1960s in the form of Medicaid and Medicare—now with annual budgets of $412 billion and $630 billion (FY2019), respectively—just made it worse.

  Within a couple generations after FDR’s initial sales pitch of discarding personal liberties to fight the Axis of Evil, nearly 100% of corporate America, corporate media and government historians unquestioningly accept the re-branding of personal healthcare decisions into universal public “benefits.” And I’m not aware of any federal politician willing to buck this trend.

  But trusting incompetent bureaucrats and corporate Human Resources mandarins with our personal healthcare has other consequences besides rising prices. Namely, the politicized “benefits” scheme necessarily comes with lots of sticky red tape.

  And ambush pricing. And impersonal rapid-fire medical attention. And long waiting lines for people hooked on Medicaid or Medicare entitlements. And old folks dying in obscurity. And more signs of false security (e.g., America’s roughly $2 trillion obesity crisis that we somehow avoided—in both the prosperous 1920s and the squalid 1930s—before corporate health insurance dulled our senses). And millions of people trapped in lousy corporate jobs just to keep their overpriced “benefits.”

  To get a sense of how bureaucratic healthcare—our leading “benefit”—has become since the New Deal corporate-federal partnership, CNS News printed out Obamacare regulations from the Federal Register as of October 2013. This hefty stack then came to 10,535 pages, which appeared to be at least 7 feet high—likely growing taller since then.

  My kid’s not breathing… somebody get me a Medical Compliance Specialist!

  Towards the end of the Obama regime, the Foundation for Economic Education provided an illuminating chart on the explosive growth in medical administrators (up over 3,000%) and total per capita medical spending (up 2,300%) compared to the tiny growth in actual physicians from 1970 to 2009.

  

  Such a bureaucratic mess should be no surprise after turning over important personal decisions to politicians and their hired staff. Coupled with fiat banking privileges and patent monopoly rights, the underlying theme of the medial “benefits” establishment is: We Own Everything; You Own Nothing.

  And most people are fine with that.

  Liberals and socialists now call for a “single-payer” system, never explaining which of the 80,000 federal HHS healthcare bureaucrats (as of 2018) will be the One Great Decider on who gets what medical treatment and for how long.

  Right-wing reactionaries frequently miss the root cause of exploding healthcare costs as well—wallowing in partisan rage against the Democrat’s “Obamacare,” pretending we had no socialized medicine before then. Most conservatives still can’t utter a word against their sacred killing spree of World War II and its misguided wage controls that caused so much lingering damage.

  Swinging from the Chandeliers: The False Hope of Monetary Monotheism

  With the rise of national socialism in America since the 1930s, it was only inevitable that our nation would immerse itself in the culture of empire worship that once plagued the Roman Empire and now fogs the minds of most ruling elites and many of its residents as well. To signal our approval of such wanton abuse from political and corporate overlords, the vast majority of U.S. citizens now accept monetary monotheism of the ONE true currency—the Yankee greenback—as a matter of established orthodoxy. This new theology fits well with the dominant public belief in the ONE true system of governance, ONE indivisible nation, ONE honorable military, ONE unflappable symbol of liberty, and ONE correct way of thinking on every issue imaginable.

  While each of these dangerous superstitions warrants further attention another day, I’ll touch on monetary monotheism for just a moment. Washington’s “legal tender” policy is fundamentally misleading, since it’s really a mandate and the word “tender” means nothing to most people outside of a juicy steak. The central banking industry’s favorite rule is also expressly un-American.

  America had competing currencies until Washington eroded this freedom in the 1860s, weakened it further in 1913, then crushed the concept entirely in 1933—something most Fed critics and supporters both conspicuously ignore. A picture of an 1853 bank note from South Carolina is shown here, for example. Dozens of similar “private” (actually, state chartered) bank notes can be found on the web in just a few minutes of searching.

  With competing currencies, the public markets would necessarily settle on the money system that works best and maximizes stability. History reveals this to be “solid” currencies backed with gold or silver—neither of which can be conjured by the flick of a banker’s pen. With fiat dollar mandates, banks and their Federal Reserve enablers have gone on a non-stop joy ride at the public’s expense, turning the dollar into less than a penny of value in the process.

  Conclusion

  The basic principles of economics seem to indicate that financial collapse grimly waits on America’s doorstep, and most of Europe’s as well. The gigantic debt load, rampant inflation, empty banks and unchecked counterfeiting all reveal a culture that is blind to its own weaknesses and now resorts to grasping at gimmicks for an easy fix.

  The astounding part for me is the gullibility of Americans, and most advanced societies, to accept the illusion that an inbred clique of financial, political and corporate royalty can master the ability to speak wealth into existence by simply writing the words “this is money” (or something similar) on a piece of paper or a digital token. Continuing in that belief system, we now accept as an article of faith that ritual chanting about “stimulus” and “benefits” and “security” will save us from a day of reckoning.

  Who would have guessed centuries ago, that the best chance for alchemy to succeed was not rearranging molecules of base metals into gold, but rearranging words—and injecting political privilege into broadcasting and education—to convince people that repetition of empty jargon can bring real prosperity? The political marketing achievements have been tremendous. But the results have been incredibly poor.

  A majority of Americans have—initially with some reluctance, now with great enthusiasm—embraced these intoxicating fantasies for the last three or four generations. And with no effective opposition pointing us to more sensible alternatives—working, saving, investing and a sound currency—we can only wait for the poison to take its toll.

  Some might have predicted such general results after America largely abandoned its faith in God and moved towards faith in omnipotent government. I would just add that the pervasive confusion surprises me less than the gratuitous servility we continue to demonstrate.

  *  *  *

  Post Script: Debt Slavery or Debt Forgiveness?

  As detailed in my first essay (on student debt) at Unz Review back in September 2019, I think that some form of organized debt forgiveness—not the stealth bank bailout that Democrats are pushing—would be the best possible option among only difficult choices. And if politicians can’t muster the courage to stand up to banking and corporate interests, I suspect that individuals will take such matters into their own hands, which could be more chaotic to say the least.

  Conservatives, if they can get past their bitterness that “it’s not fair” and abandon their partisan zeal to opposed everything “liberals” ostensibly promote, should naturally embrace real debt forgiveness. The key is to think ahead to what comes next after such an effort.

  What would likely follow any real debt cancellation would be much less willingness for shady lenders to shower the public in fresh new fiat loans, new deficit spending, new social programs, and new military conquests. Along with the elimination of easy credit comes the necessity to work, save and invest—which I thought were once traditional virtues. Or did you think it’s coincidental that NO ONE in Washington now promotes real debt forgiveness?

  Come to think of it, real debt forgiveness may be the easiest “kill switch” on the Deep State that was ever conceived… if people just have the sense to reach out and grab it. This is basically an inflation dividend to return wealth (in the form of reducing payments to fiat lenders) from the financial class who conjured the debased currency back to the workers whose honest savings have been looted over the years.

  Of course, any transition from phony money to stable currency would cause tremendous upheaval and result in millions of losers (at least) and hopefully many more winners. I tend to think that this difficult choice should require the more duplicitous members of society to pay the most, and the weakest members to pay the least.

  The alternative (without debt forgiveness) would leave banking executives and their corporate entourage free to continue fleecing the public with their endless cycles of inflation, boom, bust, then feasting on the carnage. One more iteration of that routine and the upper crust of Wall Street may end up owning practically everything.

  Owing to the bi-partisan corruption that once again saturates Washington, I have no illusion that politicians will do what’s best for the country. My biggest hope for the future is that pockets of resistance will soon organize—not for protests or political power—but for real progress on educational, business and financial independence. If that fails, it may be time for sensible people to do what America’s original immigrants did, and look elsewhere for building a new and better society.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 22:45

• Canada's Quarantine Hotels Backfire As People Starved
  Canada’s Quarantine Hotels Backfire As People Starved

  A couple of weeks ago, the Canadian government introduced a new set of rules forcing international air travelers to quarantine in hotels for three days upon arrival; the plan has since backfired, “after a series of endless, chaotic setbacks including food shortages and even alleged sexual assaults,” according to RT News. 

  

  Vancouver’s local radio station CKWX reports travelers have become upset at Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Toronto after they waited hours for their meals. 

  Arunthia Urmi, who traveled outside of Canada to visit her father, said she waited hours for food, only to receive nothing more than a flimsy piece of salmon – barely a meal. She also said:

  “There was no water. There was no fork or knife, no utensils. No salt or pepper. Nothing,” Urmi said.

  Twitter user Raymond Truesdale documented the frustration between travelers at the Toronto hotel and staff. 

  Truesdale said, “Here at Hotel Sheraton airport terminal 3 They were ill-prepared for this 3-day quarantine No kitchen staff no food they say no water people have come to lobby boondoggle.”

  Here at Hotel Sheraton airport terminal 3
  They were ill prepared for this 3 day quarantine
  No kitchen staff no food they say no water people have come to lobby boondoggle pic.twitter.com/Zdcl37XuNY

  — Ray Truesdale (@RaySuperurass) February 26, 2021

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

  Multiple confrontations broke out between those in quarantine and hotel staff about lack of food and water. 

  @Canada help at Sheraton airport boondoggle pic.twitter.com/NZ5N3KOSiG

  — Ray Truesdale (@RaySuperurass) February 26, 2021

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

  This time there was “no food, no water.”

  Wow unbelievable no food no water pic.twitter.com/3UZC7rhWLk

  — Ray Truesdale (@RaySuperurass) February 26, 2021

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

  …and when they got food – the hotel price gouged the living hell out of those in quarantine. Judging by the content of the food, it was certainly not worth $50. 

  This what being served in one quarantine Hotel Sheraton gateway airport Toronto 50 dollars ordered at 4 pm got delivered at 10 pm pic.twitter.com/bw50W7yXzy

  — Ray Truesdale (@RaySuperurass) February 28, 2021

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

  The mandatory quarantines have restricted these people from going outside to retrieve food. So they must rely on staff who were not adequately equipped with supplies. 

  At a Holiday Inn quarantine in Toronto, residents also complained about water shortages, cold food, and a lack of utensils.

  “I was so hungry. I called so many times,” one woman told CTV News.

  Canadian officials were underprepared as the lack of security and confusion among hotel staff resulted in starving people. 

   A spokesperson for the Minister of Health said they had been informed of many of these mishaps. 

  “We’re aware of reports that some travelers have experienced issues with food and accommodation at government-authorized hotels during their mandatory 3-night hotel stopover,” they said in an email.

  “The Public Health Agency of Canada is working directly with hotel partners to find solutions to these issues.”

  Police at Toronto Pearson International Airport slapped several people with fines after they attempted to escape quarantine. 

  Other reports state there have been multiple sexual assaults at these quarantine hotels – calls for lawmakers to end the program are mounting.

  Canada’s sudden imposition of mandatory hotel quarantine for incoming air travelers has done nothing to suppress the virus’ spread but has only created more problems. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 22:25

• Hong Kong Authorities Probe Death Of Man Who Received Covid-19 Vaccine
  Hong Kong Authorities Probe Death Of Man Who Received Covid-19 Vaccine

  Hong Kong’s health authority is investigating whether the death of a 63-old man is related to inoculation with the Covid-19 vaccine, it said in a statement late Tuesday.

  The Department of Health said the man had received the shot on February 26 at Kwun Chung Sports Centre in Jordan, one of the government’s designated vaccination sites.He was sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital on February 28 after suffering shortness of breath.

  A source said the man had suffered a cardiac arrest soon after he was admitted, and died on the same day after failed resuscitation attempts. 

  “At the moment, the causal relationship with the vaccination cannot be ascertained,” the department said in a late-night statement, adding that it was seeking more information from the Hospital Authority.

  The source said that when the man was admitted to hospital, clinicians were notified that he had been vaccinated with the Sinovac jab, but at that time they thought the conditions were unrelated, as the patient suffered from chronic illnesses. According to the SCMP, a hospital spokesman said the man, who also had a record of respiratory tract diseases, was admitted at about 1.30am on Sunday. He was transferred to medical ward at about 3am but his condition deteriorated rapidly and he died at around 6am. The Coroner’s Court would follow up on the death, the spokesman said.

  In a press briefing at about 12.30am on Wednesday, hospital deputy chief executive Dr Johnny Chan Wai-man said the patient told emergency unit staff he had received a jab, but personnel in the medical ward were not aware of the vaccination as they focused on his rapidly deteriorating condition.

  Chan said no signs of allergic reactions were detected during resuscitation attempts and staff believed from clinical judgments the patient had chronic bronchitis, for which he was treated. None of the patient’s conditions that day could be associated with inoculation, he said.

  The hospital alerted the health department the following day after reviewing his record and realizing he had been vaccinated.

  Dr Ronald Lam Man-kin, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, stressed that it was too early to conclude there was a causal relationship and the expert committee would examine the incident.

  The vaccine was still recommended as the benefits outweighed the risks, he said, adding that the department’s monitoring mechanism was in line with international standards.

  “A vaccination programme cannot be arbitrarily stopped before a causal relationship is established,” Lam said. Chan, however, admitted that communications could be improved.

  Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a respiratory medicine expert at Chinese University and a government adviser on the pandemic, told the SCMP whether the man’s death was related to the vaccination had yet to be concluded by a postmortem examination. He said the man had suffered from four risk factors of a coronary artery disease, including his smoking habit, high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia and high blood glucose levels, which could pose threats to his health even without the vaccine.

  The diabetic man had been seeking treatment from a government outpatient clinic and was taking two kinds of medicine. His blood glucose levels were normal when he was admitted to the hospital emergency unit. “If the [diabetes] is well controlled, there is no problem in getting the vaccine,” Hui said.

  Experts had said adverse reactions reported by several people after receiving shots of the mainland-made Sinovac vaccine were unlikely to be linked to the jab. Some 40,000 people have received the jab so far.

  Meanwhile, bookings for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was jointly developed by German and US firms, will open on Wednesday at 9am. With 140,000 slots available for priority residents, the jabs will be offered from March 10 to 30 at seven vaccination centers operated by the Hospital Authority.

  According to the SCMP, at least seven people had been sent to hospital after they developed complications – such as a rapid heartbeat, dizziness and high blood pressure – following Sinovac shots over the past few days. The University of Hong Kong’s Professor Ivan Hung Fan-ngai, co-convenor of the expert committee on adverse reactions to vaccines, said the conditions reported by the patients were also common in other situations.

  “Dizziness is a common response among some people who get injected for vaccinations or blood-drawing. Many people also have palpitations,” he said, referring to the condition of a fast-beating or fluttering heart.

  He said the committee would meet on Wednesday to look into the adverse events.

  Hui also said those reactions were likely to have been caused by unconscious responses in the nervous system, such as rising heart rates due to a fear of needles or blood.

  “If you are afraid of needles, maybe don’t look at the needle,” he told a radio programme. “There’s no need to worry, the needle is there to help you develop immunity.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 22:15

• Escape Hatches: Migration, Bitcoin, & The Ability To Get Out
  Escape Hatches: Migration, Bitcoin, & The Ability To Get Out

  Authored by Joakim Book via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  For decades, those of us skeptical of our central banks’ monetary experiments have tried to punish them for their excesses – reign them in, have them follow a stated rule, or at least provide a way for us critics to opt out of their system. Immunize ourselves from whatever havoc they’re wrecking. 

  

  Projects have come and gone: e-gold, DigiCash, B-Money, Bit Gold. Yet, on a personal level we must persevere, regardless of how little you think of those rapidly diluted U.S. dollars. For the post-war generation, gold often allowed some measure of protection, but its history in 1914, 1933, and 1971 indicate some of its limitations – when push comes to shove, it’s not that hard for governments to seize, debase, or ban it. For my parents’ and grandparents’ generation, houses and subsidized mortgage rates played another such role. You could, as my grandfather often remarks, “build capital” and “amass savings” this way: buy a house with as much borrowed money as you can access, pay low – sometimes negative – real interest rates, deduct part of the expense from your tax bill, and ride the housing boom all the way to comfortable wealth. 

  In the new millennium, that housing boom trend has continued – in addition to rallying stock markets. The most vocal critics call it “The Everything Bubble.” To quote Steve Carell’s character, Mark Baum, in The Big Short: “Our whole system is built on ripping people off. How long can that last?”

  For months and months, pundits of varying sophistication – including myself – have asked that question: Everything looks bubbly, I argued in January even before the GameStop debacle and r/WallStreetBets shoved malfunctioning financial markets into the purview of everyone outside the merry band of financial nerds. What’s the end game? How do we – or central banks, or governments who with one hand taketh away and another flushing us with cash – exit this madness? Looking at all of this, what’s a young person supposed to do – or a person in retirement trying to safeguard their meagre savings so that they last? 

  As monetary and fiscal central planners squeeze, there doesn’t seem to be that many ways out for us. Perhaps we could just, you know, exit. 

  This is a more fundamental argument than what it seems. Human societies have always flourished by acquiring that which better suits its individuals; through the ages people have embodied this tendency by simply moving – packing up and leaving – for greener pastures when the old no longer works. Sometimes peacefully and orderly, sometimes in great chaos during calamities and persecution. The United States foundational legend is to be the “Mother of Exiles,” as the famed line on the Statue of Liberty goes: Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. 

  Escape hatches are crucial when things go wrong. When rule by the people becomes rule over the people, when slight authoritarianism becomes tyranny, you want a way out. A government powerful enough to force your favored policies down others’ throats eventually passes into the hands of your ideological opponents – and the very powers that allowed you to force your preferred policies now allows them to do the same. Ilya Somin’s book Free to Move repeatedly uses symmetry arguments like these to warn against large, bloated, or even global governments: “We should not put all of humanity’s eggs in a single political basket, no matter how enticingly democratic it might seem.” 

  During the awful year of 2020, this thought has crossed the minds of many people. Some have put their money where their mouths are by moving to greener pastures within America itself. But you probably want to diversify a bit more: No investment adviser would recommend placing all your nest eggs in the same basket. Similarly, you shouldn’t place all your trust in one government. Set up shop elsewhere, either a literal shop or homes, attachments, or vacation places. Like you have emergency drills at work or teach your kids what to do during an earthquake, you should have plans for what happens when your government overreaches. Hop through the bureaucratic hoops before disaster happens: You want to have the alternative route set up before everyone starts running for the exits. Get a permanent residence elsewhere, or a second passport: for some, like those with Irish ancestry, it’s fairly straightforward to acquire one. As is an Israeli passport if you’re Jewish. 

  That would diversify your legal and governmental risk, just like you would diversify risks to your finances or career. To take the most extreme example: Many Jews who, in 1930s Europe saw the writing on the wall and managed to get some of their assets out – infamously to Switzerland – were less successful in getting themselves out in time. The financial escape hatch needs its physical (legal, regulatory, bureaucratic) counterpart. 

  Financial freezing risk is just another side of that same coin. A government keen on making your life miserable probably doesn’t have qualms in freezing your funds or confiscating your assets. Make sure you have a way out – emergency cash, jewelry, or the hyper-modern version of that: bitcoin. To work well, the financial escape hatch that bitcoin allows must be coupled with the legal, practical, and physical escape hatch that is migration.

  Even the most erudite of Bitcoin’s skeptics, such as Frances Coppola, admits that this is a critically useful aspect of bitcoin: voting with your feet to simply have a way to get out from under a government keen on shutting the financial pathways we use for our everyday needs. Yes, bitcoin is expensive and cumbersome for the many everyday transactions you might need it for in an emergency – but it works, and short of holding you at gunpoint, there’s very little a government can do to prevent you from transacting as you wish. 

  Christopher Giancarlo, former chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission puts it bluntly: 

  “[t]here is one thing that bitcoin is not. It is not a government construct. It is a social one. It bears no sovereign imprimatur, travels on no government payment rails and settles no government obligations. Perhaps most crucially, it is not subject to government monetary control.”

  While the world isn’t quite in total disarray (yet?), 2020 taught us that governments can go further in clamping down on your freedoms than anyone thought possible, faster than anyone could have anticipated. 

  Houses and homes are great, but they’re not that easy to move – selling your physical belongings in a rush to escape an authoritarian government doesn’t seem like a particularly viable option in an emergency. You routinely purchase insurance for tail-risk events you don’t want to suffer; what I’m suggesting here isn’t that different – insure against the tail-risk outcome that your government and its central bank royally botch the tasks they have set for themselves. 

  We don’t know the nature of the next catastrophe, which means we don’t know which preparation is best suited for it. So, keep some flexibility. Keep more mobile assets; have larger buffers, financial and physical; instead of a large house in a nice suburb, perhaps aim for a smaller home coupled with a condo or house in a different jurisdiction? Don’t put all your financial eggs in one portfolio – keep some gold and some bitcoin; keep healthy; update your survivability skills. 

  Ensure that your escape hatches remain open.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 22:05

• Worried About Asset Bubble? BIS Says It’s Debatable
  Worried About Asset Bubble? BIS Says It’s Debatable

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg macro commentator

  A risk-off day started in Asia following a top Chinese banking regulator’s comment that he’s “very worried” about global financial bubbles, and it carried into the U.S. trading session.

  But it’s debatable whether the comments from Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, are directly responsible for the 1.7% selloff in the Nasdaq Composite. After all, volatility should be expected after a shocking 22bp surge in five-year Treasury yields on Thursday.

  In fact, the bubble comment from Guo, who is also the party secretary of the PBOC, isn’t even new. He has sounded the alarm about irrational exuberance in global markets before. In October, for instance, he blamed policies in advanced nations for the disconnect between the financial markets and the economy.

  And whether there’s an asset bubble is also open for debate. Sure, there are pockets of excess, including the eye-popping price surge of newly listed stocks, as the Bank for International Settlements noted in its quarterly review. But even the BIS conceded that, while equity valuation is high by historical standards, it doesn’t “appear excessive” when taking into consideration low interest rates.

  For example, Robert Shiller’s “Excess CAPE Yield,” which compares the long-term inflation-adjusted earnings yield to real bond yields, is at about the average of the past decade and is twice as high as it was in late 2018. The indicator does a pretty good job of predicting future excess stock returns over bonds.

  

  Needless to say, using a potentially overvalued asset to justify the valuation of another asset doesn’t sound particularly convincing. When interest rates normalize, there’s no doubt there will be pain. The market got a taste of that just last week.

  But as the Fed’s Lael Brainard reminded us Tuesday, it will take “some time” for the central bank to pull back its stimulus. So the day of reckoning may be delayed until further notice.

  What Chinese policy makers do worry about is the spillover from the easy monetary policy abroad that may push speculative capital ashore just as it opens its markets wider. The surge of foreign flows have increased their influence in the domestic market, leaving it more vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of international sentiment.

  

  For instance, there’s a positive correlation between the stock inflows via the northbound stock connect and the CSI 300 index.

  To that end, Guo’s worry about the policy divergence between China and the rest of the world is justified.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 21:50

• 11 Million At Risk Of Losing Their Homes Once COVID Protections Expire
  11 Million At Risk Of Losing Their Homes Once COVID Protections Expire

  With the Federal government supercharging the US consumer with now periodic massive stimulus payments – $900 billion here and $1.9 trillion there – and universal basic income handouts, it’s hardly a surprise that the US economy, where the government is now responsible for a staggering 27% of all personal income…

  

  …  is redlining to the point of overheating as Goldman found recently when its latest Goldman Sachs Analyst Index (GSAI) which provides a snapshot perspective on the US economy, hit an all time high.

  

  None of this is a surprise: when money literally drops from the sky, it would be a miracle if the economy wasn’t overheating. The question is what happens when the party stops. Unfortunately for some 11 million people, the hangover will be a disaster.

  According to a new report issued by the CFPB on Monday, the number of homeowners that are behind on their mortgage has doubled since the beginning of the pandemic, with 6% of mortgages in delinquency as of December 2020. The consumer protection bureau found that total of 2.1 million mortgages are considered “seriously delinquent,” with borrowers more than 90 days behind on making their payments, and in addition, an estimated 8.8 million tenant households are behind on their rent.

  While COVID-19 relief programs have reduced the number of foreclosures and evictions thus far, the bureau estimated that 11 million families could be at risk of losing their homes as COVID-19 relief measures expire, ABA Banking Journal calculated . As of January 2021, there were 2.7 million borrowers in active forbearance—and of those, more than 900,000 will have been in forbearance for over a year as of April 2021.

  The CFPB also noted that 263,000 seriously delinquent borrowers have not taken forbearance to date, and warned that should COVID-19 relief options expire before they do so, they would have limited options to avoid foreclosure. On a positive note, however, the bureau found that “most borrowers that have exited forbearance have been able to resume their payments without issue.”

  That’s hardly encouraging to the 11 million or so who will end up homeless if and when the generous covid benefits finally expire.

  In a blog post, acting CFPB Director Dave Uejio acknowledged the efforts of mortgage servicers and landlords throughout the pandemic to help keep borrowers and renters in their homes, noting that “most mortgage servicers are working hard to engage with the record number of homeowners in forbearance and the many other homeowners struggling to make payments.”

  And while mortgage servicers will do everything while under the government gun to generously extend terms, the moment they no longer have to be good samaritans is when millions of Americans will find themselves on the street without a house. How the already frayed US social fabric will deal with this potentially cataclysmic influx of newly homeless people is anyone’s guess.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 21:45

• Is Biden Reenlisting In The Forever Wars?
  Is Biden Reenlisting In The Forever Wars?

  Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

  Thursday, in its first military action, the Biden Pentagon sent two U.S. F-15Es to strike targets of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia just inside the eastern border of Syria.

  The U.S. strikes were in retaliation for a missile attack on a U.S. base in Irbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, which killed a contractor and wounded a U.S. soldier.

  “We’re confident that the target was being used by the same Shia militia that conducted the strikes,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

  But Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Chris Murphy want to know where President Joe Biden got his authority to launch attacks in Syria, where there was no clear or present danger to any U.S. troops.

  Days before the U.S. strike, Kataib Hezbollah issued a statement denying any complicity in the Irbil attack: “We absolutely did not target Erbil or the Green Zone and have no knowledge of the group that did.”

  Iran has also denied any involvement in the missile attack on the Americans. On a visit to Baghdad, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called for an investigation as to who is initiating the attacks inside Iraq.

  “We emphasize the need for the Iraqi government to find the perpetrators of these incidents,” said Zarif.

  Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian forces in Syria got only four or five minutes’ notice that U.S. planes were on their way to a strike.

  Bottom line: Those conducting these attacks on U.S. bases and troops in Iraq, provoking American counterstrikes, seek to ignite a conflict between the U.S. and Iran, and its proxies in Iraq and Syria.

  And they are succeeding.

  Biden broke with former President Donald Trump on the latter’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and impose “maximum pressure” sanctions to compel Iran to negotiate a more restrictive deal. But Biden has yet to reveal his own strategy or goals in dealing with Tehran.

  Is he willing to accept a return to the nuclear deal the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, China and Russia negotiated with Iran in 2015? And if that deal is now no longer adequate, how does Biden propose to get Iran to negotiate and agree to a tougher deal?

  The leverage we have are the sanctions Trump imposed. If Biden lifts those in return for Iran returning to the terms of the 2015 deal, he surrenders all of his leverage for a new deal covering Tehran’s missile development and aid to Shia militias in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

  

  But if Biden refuses to lift the Trump sanctions, Iran is likely to revive its nuclear enrichment program, give up on the U.S. and elect a hardline regime this year that could adopt a policy of attacking U.S. interests and personnel across the region until the Americans go home.

  Six weeks into his administration, Biden seems in danger of being drawn back indefinitely into the forever wars of the Middle East.

  In Afghanistan, under the terms of the peace deal negotiated with the Taliban in 2020, all U.S. troops are to be out of the country by May 1.

  Under that deal, not a single U.S. soldier has been lost in combat in the last year.

  If the U.S. announces, as some believe is likely, that we are not going to withdraw all forces by May 1, the Taliban, who control half the country, are likely to begin targeting the remaining American troops in the country.

  Biden could then be presented with this Hobbesian choice: Flee Afghanistan under fire, or send more U.S. troops to protect those we left behind. Writes William Ruger, a veteran of the war and Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Afghanistan:

  “Keeping our troops in Afghanistan beyond the promised deadline is pushing them back in the Taliban’s cross hairs and indefinitely continuing an … unwinnable war, which has already cost more than $2 trillion and more than 2,400 American lives …

  “Anything less than a full drawdown means that Afghanistan will become President Biden’s war. He will have to own the predictably terrible consequences of continuing a war that can’t be won.”

  Looking at our 20 years of military intervention in the Middle East, since Osama bin Laden drew us in by bringing down the twin towers and hitting the Pentagon, what is on the asset side of our balance sheet?

  Two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, yet the Taliban enemy we ousted in 2001 seems today destined to retake power when we depart.

  Pro-Iranian Shia militia dominate the Iraq that we sent an army to liberate from Saddam Hussein. In Yemen and Syria, we bear major moral responsibility for two of the worst humanitarian disasters of the 21st century, and we are facing strategic defeats in both theaters.

  In Libya, whose regime we helped to overthrow, Turks and Russians are fighting for control.

  And China, which stayed out of all these wars we started — or into which we plunged — has prospered in these 20 years as few other nations in modern history.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 21:25

• "No Interest In Sticking Around" – Manhattan Luxury Homeowners Sell Properties At loss  
  “No Interest In Sticking Around” – Manhattan Luxury Homeowners Sell Properties At loss  

  Manhattan’s luxury condo frenzy petered out a few years ago. Owners are taking realized losses as they offload properties at steep losses. 

  A prime example of this is the pending deal at 551 W. 21st St., where two units listed for a combined $26 million found a buyer after a couple of years on and off the market, according to Bloomberg, who cited data from brokerage Olshan Realty. The owner initially acquired the property in 2016 for $31.3 million and then attempted to flip it for $40 million the following year. 

  

  With no success, the owner is expected to realize a 17% loss on the properties once the transaction is completed. 

  Manhattan’s luxury condo market peaked a few years ago and has since developed into a nightmare for sellers. Massive supply is quickly eroding values as inventory builds. In early 2020, half of all new luxury condo units constructed after 2015 in the borough were unsold. A confluence of macroeconomic headwinds, as well as SALT deduction caps and transfer taxes, cooled the market. Then came the big bad pandemic that wreaked even more havoc in the borough. 

  Donna Olshan, president of the brokerage, said sellers in the market have no interest in sticking around in “New York if they’re not using the asset or if the asset isn’t giving a return.” 

  Olshan said a deal at 80 Columbus Circle for a 74th-story condo recently listed at $25 million. The seller combined two apartments in the tower, one unit purchased in 2011 for $17.5 million, and the other unit (next door) purchased in 2014 for $18 million. 

  

  There is some good news in the luxury real estate market – after writing about the downturn for 18 months and the plunge following the pandemic, the decline in prices has brought buyers to the table. 

  With Mayor Bill De Blasio doing everything he possibly can to drive both businesses (like Goldman Sachs) and individual citizens out of the city, the effects of his colossal mismanagement and general cluelessness have come at a loss for some wealthy elites who bought luxury condos in the last several years, thinking they could flip the unit(s) for a quick buck. Many have transformed into bagholders, or recently, they want out and are willing to take realized losses. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 21:05

• Drones Are Bringing The 19th Hole To Any Hole
  Drones Are Bringing The 19th Hole To Any Hole

  By Brian Straight of Modern Shipper

  Many golfers wish they could reach for a cold drink moments after hooking their seventh straight tee shot into the woods. The lack of electricity and staffing issues prevent golf courses from offering this level of customer service on each hole. If you are lucky, your local course may have a vending machine at the ninth hole.

  But that could soon change. At Sun City Country Club in Sun City, Arizona, a significant development took place this week that may open up the opportunity for food and beverage delivery while on the course, leading to increased revenue opportunities for country clubs and more convenience for golfers.

  “Successfully demonstrating our drone delivery system at Sun City Country Club was the first crucial step in advancing our efforts to produce turnkey drone solutions capable of addressing real-world commercial applications on and off the golf course,” Michael Drozd, CEO of AgEagle Aerial Systems, said.

  Drone provider AgEagle partnered with Valqari, a Chicago-based startup that is building a drone delivery “mailbox” that allows drones to deliver packages directly into a safe and secure box.

  The companies demonstrated their combined solution at Sun City. A drone picked up a package with beverages at the Valqari Drone Delivery Station outside the clubhouse restaurant and delivered that package to a second delivery station located on the course.

  “Sun City Country Club provided us with the ideal venue for conducting this initial pilot test. We greatly appreciate their enthusiasm for the prospect of enhancing the overall golfing experience for their patrons through drone-enabled on-demand delivery of food and refreshments to our secure Drone Delivery Stations,” Ryan Walsh, Valqari founder and CEO, said. “This demonstration of AgEagle and Valqari technologies shows just one of the many ways our joint system can be used to optimize fast and secure deliveries for industries ranging from hospitality to commercial deliveries and beyond.”

  Once the drone released the package and departed, the Drone Delivery Station was activated, relocating the package from the top of the station to a lower compartment for the golfer to retrieve the order.

  “We were very pleased to have Sun City serve as the site for the AgEagle and Valqari pilot demo,” Jamey Lewis, Sun City Country Club manager, said. “We were duly impressed with their game-changing approach to delivering drinks, food and snacks to golfers and can envision this system being integrated into our course, and perhaps courses worldwide, in the future. It really does take customer experience and convenience to an entirely new level.”

  Valqari’s system allows the creation of an order through an app. A box is inserted into a slot in the Drone Delivery Station. A global positioning system navigates the drone to the landing pad, where an “elevator system” raises the package to the drone to be attached.

  As the drone approaches the destination, it signals the Delivery Station to open the storage compartment, lowers itself in and releases the package onto a pad. The package is then lowered into the correct compartment, where it is locked and secured until pickup.

  The recipient receives a notification the package is ready for pickup. Upon arrival at the box, the recipient must verify his or her identity and select the proper package for retrieval. The slot will then open once that is all confirmed.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 20:45

• Incoming SEC Chair Gensler Will Scrutinize Trading Apps, Rid Crypto Markets Of "Fraud" And "Manipulation"
  Incoming SEC Chair Gensler Will Scrutinize Trading Apps, Rid Crypto Markets Of “Fraud” And “Manipulation”

  Incoming SEC Chair Gary Gensler has said at the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for the nominees to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that he’s going to be examining the payment for order flow business model closely.

  He committed to looking at the business model that has been at the center of the GameStop controversy for the past several weeks, according to Bloomberg on Tuesday. Critics of the system (including Zero Hedge) have pointed to how frontrunning could be prevalent as a result of the model. This ostensibly could result in clients of zero commission brokerages not getting the best possible execution on trades. 

  Gensler also said he’s going to scrutinize trading apps that encourage “gamification” of trading, according to Yahoo. He is specifically looking at “how to protect investors using trading applications with behavioral prompts designed to incentivize traders to trade more.”

  Gensler also said he will try to rid cryptocurrency markets of fraud and manipulation, in what would likely be a herculean undertaking for his administration. 

  

  Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, CFPB nominee Rohit Chopra said he “backs the U.S. making its own real-time payment system to give consumers faster access to and better control over their own dollars.”

  Gensler is reported to be worth up to $119 million, as we noted last month.  Gensler was previously the chairman of the CFTC and a partner at Goldman Sachs. He disclosed his net worth as part of disclosures he had to file with the Office of Government Ethics last month. A majority of his money was made at Goldman, where he joined in the late 1970’s after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. He became one of the youngest partners in Goldman Sachs history. 

  Recall, we wrote about Gensler’s nomination in mid-January. 

  His arrival will likely be a stark difference from the last 4 years of Jay Clayton, as Gensler’s resume includes going to war with major financial titans when he was head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – and winning. Financial lobbyists sometimes simply called him “the enemy” during the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act battle. 

  Justin Slaughter, a consultant at Mercury Strategies, said: “The sheriff is coming to the preeminent financial regulator in the world. It means regulation and enforcement are about to get much tougher.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 20:25

• "This Is The Best Inflation Hedge": Goldman Doubles Down On Commodity Supercycle
  “This Is The Best Inflation Hedge”: Goldman Doubles Down On Commodity Supercycle

  Less than three weeks after JPM declared that a new commodity supercycle has begun, it is Goldman’s turn to remind clients that it was the first to predict a secular rise in commodities, only instead of using the “supercycle” cliche, Goldman calls it a “new structural bull market in commodities.”

  Commenting on the dramatic outperformance of commodities in 2021, Goldman chief commodity strategist Jeffrey Currie writes that “not only have oil, metal and agriculture prices rallied ytd, but structural impediments on supply have created sustainable deficits, in our view, giving commodities broad-based positive carry. Accordingly, we recently raised our oil, metal and grain forecasts and lowered our gold forecasts, which in aggregate suggests a 12m commodity index return of 15.5%. Further, commodity diversification is back as returns have decoupled from other asset classes.”

  The kicker: “As we have argued since October last year, we believe this is the beginning of a new structural bull market in commodities, and with every market but cocoa and zinc in a deficit we maintain our conviction in this view.”

  In light of this it’s hardly surprising that Goldman still believes that “commodities remain the best inflation hedge” but there is a twist: amid widespread concerns that the coming inflationary spike is cost-push driven and will therefore fizzle shortly amid lack of widespread demand to keep prices sustainably higher, Currie argues that “despite commodities leading the reflation trade, we believe it is not about cost-push inflation but rather demand-pull inflation.” Elaborating on the difference, the commodity strategist notes that “cost-push inflation episodes, which are very rare, are supply-side events that are both very transient in nature and self-defeating by creating a recession and/or supply response such as the oil shocks of the 1970s” not to mention the $140 price in oil hit just months before Lehman collapsed in 2008. Instead, Goldman sees “supply across all of these markets chasing demand higher but not catching up, leading to demand pull inflationary pressures, even in oil.”

  And the punchline: “commodities are the crucial link between growing demand, a weaker dollar and inflation, which is why they have been statistically the best hedge against inflation.”

  And while contrary to JPM, which believes that oil will be the biggest beneficiary from the current supercycle, Goldman sees muted gains in Brent and WTI which it expects to peak in Q3 at $75 and $72 respectively, the bank is positively euphoria on industrial metals such as copper, nickel, zinc and aluminum, expecting all to keep rising for the foreseeable future.

  

  As usual, we would beg to differ with Goldman and while we too anticipated strong commodity gains for the next 6-9 months, the longer-term is far more cloud if for no other reason than China’s all important reflationary credit impulse has now peaked…

  

  …  and will have adverse consequences on all inflation-linked assets over the medium-term.

  

  Just yesterday we saw the adverse impact of this critical impulse as China’s latest mfg PMIs dropped to a nine month low.

  Alas, Goldman glosses over the impact China plays on commodity prices and instead in addressing his latest price forecasts, Currie writes that “strong fundamentals, not money flows, drive prices.”

  Our recent upgrades of 6m oil to $75/bbl from $65/bbl, 12m copper to $10,500/t from $10,000/t and downgrade of our gold price target to $2000/toz from $2300/toz were fundamentally driven. Lockdowns have driven a wedge between the consumption of services and goods, generating additional demand from both households and governments looking to stimulate activity while minimizing the virus spread. Backwardation supports our view that this was fundamental and not money flows, reinforced by the fact oil length is near normal and commodities exposure relative to total AUM remains under-invested, even relative to 2008.

  Goldman then goes back to its most controversial assumption, namely that rising prices are the result of demand-pull not cost-push trends, which explains the key role commodities play by being at the forefront of the macro reflation trade – and are also critical in restarting the reserve recycling flow (better known as petrodollar in the case of oil) – and are therefore the best hedge to inflation:

  In recent weeks reflation has become top of mind as inflation expectations have recovered from the recent pandemic lows and are now close to the Fed’s implicit AIT target of 2.25%. Commodities have sat at the heart of this reflation story and we believe the key here is that this reflation push is demand driven, not cost push inflation, despite being centered on rising commodity prices. Cost-push inflation episodes, which are very rare, are supply-side events that are both very transient in nature and self-defeating by creating a recession and/or supply response such as the oil shocks of the 1970s. Instead, we see supply across all of these markets chasing demand higher but not catching up, leading to demand pull inflationary pressures, even in oil. Further, commodities remain the best hedge against inflation (Exhibit 10), in our view, as they remain key inputs into households consumption bundles, and therefore the components of the CPI. Indeed, commodities are the crucial link between growing demand, a weaker dollar and inflation. Commodities are mostly produced in emerging markets, leading rising prices to enhance their current account surpluses. These surpluses end up as additional dollar reserves at EM central banks, which are then required to diversify these holdings into other DM currencies, selling their excess dollars and driving down the dollar, a process known as reserve recycling. In addition, excess reserves raise the availability of credit in these regions, further spurring demand growth, commodity prices, and dollar depreciation, all of which act as a tailwind for prices.

  

  Having recently extolled the virtues of copper which it views as the most attractive commodity (not least because it anticipates a historic supply shortage in coming years), Goldman then spends some time to justify its oil bullishness which prompted it to hike its Q2 and Q3 oil price projections by $10, referring to the to backwardation in the strip as the primary drive for crude outperformance:

  As a result of a faster-than-expected rebalancing, we now forecast Brent prices will reach $70/bbl in 2Q21 and $75/bbl in 3Q ($10 above our prior forecasts). We expect this rally to be driven by both rising long-dated prices as well as a sustained steep level of backwardation driven by tightening that will likely unwind the entire OECD surplus by summer. As the market reflects the expected level of inventories two to three months ahead, we see this additional level of backwardation being brought forward from 3Q to 2Q. Meanwhile, the non-OPEC supply response has been neutralized by a collapse in energy capex globally as well as a paradigm shift in the shale industry towards FCF generative business models that should generate shareholder returns as US shale producers are sharply disciplined if they raise capex plans. Though JPOCA-related risks to Iranian production remain, we continue to believe it will not derail the tight oil market as there remains work to be done before a renewed agreement can be reached, while OPEC+ – Russia in particular – is likely to help accommodate a ramp up in Iranian production.

  

  But what about the coming OPEC+ meeting where member states, and certainly Saudi Arabia, are widely expected to boost oil output? In response, Goldman writes that it expects that even a 4.4mb/d rise in OPEC production would leave a 1.35mb/d deficit in the summer, leaving headroom for faster-than-expected production ramp ups before the oil rebalancing is derailed.

  Finally, here is a snapshot of Goldman’s current commodity trade recommendations:

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 20:05

• Amazon Quietly Adjusts App "Icon To Make It Look… Less Like Hitler" 
  Amazon Quietly Adjusts App “Icon To Make It Look… Less Like Hitler” 

  Amazon quietly changed its new smartphone app logo that some on social media say resembles Adolf Hitler’s toothbrush mustache. The first redesign was released in January; and without a press release announcement, the second redesign was just released. 

  UK Technology Editor at the Guardian, Alex Hern tweeted:

  “lmao I completely missed that amazon quietly tweaked its new icon to make it look… less like hitler.” 

  

  Hern said, “unsurprisingly, they did not send out a press release to announce the second redesign.” 

  Amazon tweaked the app’s icon following customer feedback after its initial rollout in January. 

  Social media users disturbingly tweeted how the app looked, well, in their eyes, like Hitler’s toothbrush mustache: 

  “Amazon’s new app logo be lookin like they’re the THIRD most downloaded in the ‘Reich’ section,”  one person said on Twitter, referring to the Nazis. 

  “It’s not just a ripped scotch tape, it’s a ripped scotch tape that has a similar shape and is right on top of a smiling mouth. Looks like a happy little cardboard Adolf to me,” another person said. 

  In an emailed response, Amazon told NYPost that it “is always exploring new ways to delight our customers.” 

  “We designed the new icon to spark anticipation, excitement, and joy when customers start their shopping journey on their phone, just as they do when they see our boxes on their doorstep,” a company spokesperson told The Post in an email.

  One person who was unhappy about “cancel culture” said: 

  “I see it as people are stupid. And those people are the one that keep adding fuel to the fire. They are see hate in everything they look at because they are shitty people” 

  Meanwhile, someone said:

  Me: “How silly! That Amazon logo looks nothing like Hitler.”
  Also me: “The UPS logo, on the other hand…” https://t.co/C7R9F3Q4Qz pic.twitter.com/fhFBAW4gcl

  — Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) March 2, 2021

  For more absurdity, Dr. Seuss has now been “canceled” over racist imagery (read: here). 

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 19:45

• Are The Recent UFO Disclosures Setting Us Up For A Mass Deception Of Epic Proportions?
  Are The Recent UFO Disclosures Setting Us Up For A Mass Deception Of Epic Proportions?

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  Have you noticed that UFO sightings have been in the news a lot lately?  Even in the midst of all the other big events that are happening, evidence of mysterious objects flying through our skies continues to make headlines. 

  

  In particular, what one American Airlines pilot says that he saw is really shaking a lot of people up.  According to a radio transmission that was intercepted from American Airlines Flight 2292, a pilot claims that he witnessed “a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing” fly at very high speed right over the top of his aircraft…

  The cockpit audio from American Airlines flight 2292 from New Mexico to Phoenix sounded like something out of a Sci-Fi movie.

  “Do you have any targets up here? We just had something go right over the top of us,” a pilot can be heard saying.

  “I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast right over the top of us.”

  This got so much attention that officials at American Airlines were forced to address it.  They put out a statement in which they confirmed that the radio transmission did actually come from American Airlines Flight 2292…

  American Airlines put out a statement, saying, “Following a debrief with our Flight Crew and additional information received, we can confirm this radio transmission was from American Airlines Flight 2292 on Feb. 21.”

  And the FBI has also publicly announced that it is “aware of the reported incident”, but the agency has not provided any additional details.

  Of course this sort of thing is happening a lot these days.  In fact, the U.S. Sun has just put out an article documenting “a string of strange incidents involving passenger jets” in recent months.

  In the old days, the U.S. government would go to great lengths to deny that anything unusual was happening in our skies.  But over the past couple of years, government officials have started to change their tune.

  For example, last year the Pentagon released footage of Navy fighter pilots encountering a UFO…

  In late April, the Department of Defense released footage of Navy fighter pilots encountering something “unidentifiable.” The black and white videos are grainy and show small objects flying across the in-flight cameras of Navy fighter pilots.

  This footage had already been circulating on the internet. By releasing it, the Department of Defense confirmed the videos’ authenticity—and that it didn’t know what they showed.

  Much more importantly, the Defense Intelligence Agency recently released documents that admit that the U.S. has been testing wreckage from UFO crashes…

  THE Pentagon has admitted to holding and testing wreckage from UFO crashes in a bombshell Freedom of Information letter, shared with The Sun.

  Researcher Anthony Bragalia wrote to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) requesting details of all UFO material, which they hold and results of any tests they had been carrying out on it.

  After all this time, why would the federal government finally admit this?

  Are they trying to mentally prepare us for something?

  According to the 154 pages of test results that were released, some of the materials that have been retrieved from UFOs possess “extraordinary capabilities”…

  In the response, shared with The Sun, the DIA released 154 pages of test results that includes reports on a mysterious “memory” metal called Nitinol, which remembers its original shape when folded.

  Bragalia said it was a “stunning admission” from the US government and the documents reveal that some of the retrieved debris possesses “extraordinary capabilities” including the potential to make things invisible or even slow down the speed of light.

  Obviously the entities that are operating these craft are highly advanced, and they appear to have technology that we do not currently have.

  But are they friend or foe?

  Statements that were recently made by someone that was a top official in Israel’s space program for 30 years have sparked a lot of speculation…

  Haim Eshed, who headed Israel’s space security programs for 30 years, has been in the spotlight in recent days, after claiming that aliens exist, that Israel and the US have long been in contact with them, and that Donald Trump was going to blab but the extraterrestrial beings of the “Galactic Federation” stopped him.

  Eshed said aliens conduct experiments on Earth, and there is a joint base underground on Mars where they collaborate with American astronauts. “They asked that we don’t publicize they are here because humanity isn’t ready,” he said.

  If Haim Eshed is to be believed, the “aliens” are already here and the U.S. is already cooperating with them.

  That makes it sound like we don’t have anything to be concerned about.

  But other experts have come to a completely different conclusion.

  Temple University history professor David Jacobs has been studying the alien abduction phenomenon for decades, and he believes that these “aliens” have a deeply malevolent agenda…

  According to Jacobs, his lifelong research into alien abduction has forced him to the conclusion that an alien race has been implementing a clandestine and sinister program to create an alien-human hybrid race.

  The program has now reached an advanced stage and alien hybrids are now being secretly integrated into human society. The alien hybrids, according to Jacobs, are able to live secretly in human society because they are superficially identical with humans.

  There is so much speculation about these beings, and it can be very difficult to separate truth from fiction.

  But as the number of sightings continues to rise, it is becoming clear that something very strange really is happening in our skies.

  And after decades of very strict secrecy, the U.S. government is now openly admitting that UFOs exist.

  Many people are looking forward to the day when we can openly welcome direct contact with our “space brothers”, but I do not believe that these are “friendly aliens from another planet”.

  In fact, they are not our friends at all.

  Unfortunately, our entertainment industry has spent decades preparing the general public to embrace visitors from “another world”, and I expect that is precisely what would happen.

  We are moving into such a chaotic chapter in human history, and a time may come when intervention by “aliens” will be greatly welcomed by a human race that is deeply suffering.

  The truth is out there, but as far as UFOs are concerned, most people are going to continue to believe whatever it is that they want to believe.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 19:25

• US & EU Hit Russia With Coordinated Sanctions Over Navalny Poisoning
  US & EU Hit Russia With Coordinated Sanctions Over Navalny Poisoning

  As expected on Tuesday shortly after the European Union announced sanctions against top Russian officials accused in connection to the Navalny case, the United States rolled out with its own sanctions in a coordinated effort.

  “Today, as part of a robust inter-agency response to the poisoning and imprisonment of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the Treasury Department is designating seven senior members of the Russian government,” the Biden administration announced Tuesday afternoon.

  In particular the US Treasury penalties target seven Russian government officials who stand broadly accused of orchestrating the alleged ‘nerve agent poisoning’ of anti-Kremlin activist Alexei Navalny, who since his return to Russia from Germany has been sentenced by a Moscow court to 2.5 years in prison stemming from a prior embezzlement case. 

  

  “We join the EU in condemning Alexei Navalny’s poisoning as well as his arrest and imprisonment by the Russian government,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated.

  Russia is further banned from receiving any financial assistance from any and all US departments or agencies for a minimum of one year. An official State Department press release highlighted Russia’s bio-chemical weapons program in relation to Navalny:

  “Today, the Secretary of State determined that the government of the Russian Federation has used a chemical weapon against its own nationals“, the release said. “As a result, the following sanctions will be imposed: Denial to Russia of any credit, credit guarantees, or other financial assistance by any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States government, including the Export-Import Bank of the United States.”

  And according to further details:

  Senior administration officials, speaking to reporters on a conference call, said the sanctions also include export controls on 14 parties — nine Russian, three German and one Swiss, and three Russian government research institutes, most of which are believed to be involved in the production of chemical and biological agents.

  Today, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia for attempting to assassinate Aleksey Navalny with a novichok nerve agent. Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. We stand with our EU and UK partners to counter Russia’s actions and in calling for Mr. Navalny’s release.

  — Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) March 2, 2021

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  Reuters lists the following officials targeted: “Among those blacklisted by the Treasury were Andrei Yarin, the chief of the Kremlin’s domestic policy directorate; Alexander Bortnikov, the Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB); and deputy ministers of defense Alexei Krivoruchko and Pavel Popov, among others, according to a statement.”

  The EU sanctions similarly targeted “high profile individuals” – which includes travel bans against select Russian security officials and the freezing of their assets held in Europe. 

  Meanwhile, the State Department suggested there’s more penalties to come…

  What was announced today certainly not the totality of US action against #Russia for its human rights abuses, says @StateDeptSpox. pic.twitter.com/wVGQg4fLte

  — Steve Herman (@W7VOA) March 2, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 19:05

• New York Legislature Reaches Deal To Repeal Cuomo's Powers
  New York Legislature Reaches Deal To Repeal Cuomo’s Powers

  Update (1600ET): Bloomberg reports that New York legislative leaders announced an agreement to curb emergency powers granted to Governor Andrew Cuomo at the start of the pandemic, in the latest blow to his tenure amid growing calls to resign over dual scandals.

  “These temporary emergency powers were granted as New York was devastated by a virus we knew nothing about,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastiesaid in a statement. “Now it is time for our government to return to regular order.”

  At this point the only question is whether Cuomo will step down peacefully, or will his own Democrats tear him down as more and more “sexual assault” victims emerge. In either case, we assume that the next and final Emmy will be for best dramatic disappearance of a formerly leading male role.

  * * *

  Update (1450ET): New York State Democratic leaders have reached an “informal agreement” to curb Governor Andrew Cuomo’s emergency powers amid twin scandals plaguing the Democratic governor.

  

  “There is an informal agreement at this point that seems that both bodies are coalescing around,” said Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy in a Tuesday interview following a discussion by the Assembly Democratic conference over the issue of Cuomo’s expanded powers. The state Senate Democratic conference agreed.

  Final details will be forthcoming later today according to Fahy, who added “I am very encouraged.”:

  *  *  *

  Update (0820ET): While several New York State Democratic lawmakers have called on Cuomo to resign amid his multiple scandals, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) is now the first Democratic member of Congress to call for the governor to leave office.

  “The time has come. The Governor must resign,” Rice tweeted.

  The time has come. The Governor must resign. https://t.co/GjcvuNfpfQ

  — Kathleen Rice (@RepKathleenRice) March 2, 2021

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  *  *  *

  Update (2005ET):  A third woman, former Obama administration and Biden 2020 campaign member Anna Ruch, has come forward to accuse New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) of sexual harassment at a Sept. 2019 wedding reception, according to the New York Times.

  The governor was working the room after toasting the newlyweds, and when he came upon Ms. Ruch, now 33, she thanked him for his kind words about her friends. But what happened next instantly unsettled her: Mr. Cuomo put his hand on Ms. Ruch’s bare lower back, she said in an interview on Monday.

  When she removed his hand with her own, Ms. Ruch recalled, the governor remarked that she seemed “aggressive” and placed his hands on her cheeks. He asked if he could kiss her, loudly enough for a friend standing nearby to hear. Ms. Ruch was bewildered by the entreaty, she said, and pulled away as the governor drew closer.

  “I was so confused and shocked and embarrassed,” said Ms. Ruch, whose recollection was corroborated by the friend, contemporaneous text messages and photographs from the event. “I turned my head away and didn’t have words in that moment.”

  And there’s a picture… 

  Manhttps://t.co/ix3kHnDiMa pic.twitter.com/lFwCF1eQzm

  — Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) March 2, 2021

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  Ruch said Cuomo’s touch on her bare skin was uncomfortable, and “I promptly removed his hand with my hand, which I would have thought was a clear enough indicator that I was not wanting him to touch me.”

  Cuomo instead called her “aggressive” and placed his hands on her cheeks.

  “He said, ‘Can I kiss you?” claims Ruch. “I felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed when really he is the one who should have been embarrassed.”

  Shaken, Ms. Ruch said, she later had to ask a friend if Mr. Cuomo’s lips had made contact with her face as she pulled away. The governor had kissed her cheek, she was told.

  “It’s the act of impunity that strikes me,” Ms. Ruch said. “I didn’t have a choice in that matter. I didn’t have a choice in his physical dominance over me at that moment. And that’s what infuriates me. And even with what I could do, removing his hand from my lower back, even doing that was not clear enough.” -NYT

  Several days after the example, Ruch discussed the incident with a friend – texting the friend “I’m so pissed,” referring to Cuomo as “this guy,” with an un-reported epithet.

  As the Times notes, “Ms. Ruch’s example is distinct from those of the former aides: A former member of the Obama administration and the 2020 Biden campaign, Ms. Ruch has never been employed by the governor or the state. But her experience reinforces the escalating concerns and accusations about Mr. Cuomo’s personal conduct — a pattern of words and actions that have, at minimum, made three women who are decades his junior feel deeply uncomfortable, in their collective telling.”

  Has anyone heard from Women’s March of late?

  And will this young hotdog swallowing reporter come forward with her #MeToo moment before this is over?

  Creep https://t.co/cwTF8DEjIF

  — Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) March 1, 2021

  Same energy. pic.twitter.com/AduXtUdK5u

  — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 2, 2021

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  Cuomo’s numbers falling off a cliff pic.twitter.com/I2OiyUl3Vs

  — Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) March 2, 2021

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  Update (1755ET): New York Democrats are calling for Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to resign following two sexual misconduct allegations which followed a bombshell COVID-19 nursing home scandal, according to The Hill. A growing number of legislators and journalists, meanwhile, have come forward to accuse Cuomo of various bullying tactics.

  

  “There’s an ongoing pattern here of abuse of power. It’s making the working relationship with the governor a real distraction from the work we have to do for the people,” said state Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara (D). “I firmly believe that the governor’s resignation is for the good of the state at this point.“

  

  Most legislators say Cuomo is almost certain to draw a strong primary challenger in 2022, if he decides to seek reelection to an unprecedented fourth term in office. But most also said they did not believe Cuomo would run for another term — and that if more allegations of improper behavior emerged, even finishing his current term may be a stretch.

  “The governor has had his time. Three terms is long enough,” said Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti (D), who represents Westchester County. “I believe that the governor should not be seeking a fourth term, and if any more complaints arise, he may not be able to finish this term.” –The Hill

  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday that the allegations against Cuomo are “Just disgusting, creepy,” adding later in the day “If someone purposefully tried to use their power to force a woman to have sex with them, of course that’s someone who should no longer be in public service.”

  Accuser Charlotte Bennett said in a Monday statement that Cuomo has yet to take responsibility for his actions.

  “It took the governor 24 hours and significant backlash to allow for a truly independent investigation. These are not the actions of someone who simply feels misunderstood; they are the actions of an individual who wields his power to avoid justice,” said Bennett.

  *  *  *

  Update (1525ET): The WSJ was incorrect in claiming Abramowitz was representing Cuomo’s office for his sexual harassment scandal, telling Bloomberg that he’s only representing the nursing home scandal.

  “My firm and I are representing the Executive Chamber on the Nursing Home matter. We have not been retained on the sexual harassment matter,” he said in an email.

  *  *  *

  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration has retained a prominent white-collar defense attorney following allegations of sexual harassment and Justice Department inquiries over COVID-19 nursing home deaths, according to the Wall Street Journal.

  

  Attorney Elkan Abramowitz – a former federal prosecutor – confirmed with the Journal that he is now representing Cuomo’s ‘executive chamber’, which includes the governor and his closes aides. Abramowitz is dealing with both scandals as New York Attorney General Letitia James joins the DOJ in investigating the embattled New York bigwig.

  

  The Democratic governor faces an investigation overseen by State Attorney General Letitia James into whether he sexually harassed women who previously worked in his administration. Mr. Cuomo acknowledged he had sometimes been overly personal while interacting with staff and said he was sorry if anyone mistook it for unwanted flirtation.

  Cuomo’s apology strategy is going well…. pic.twitter.com/lJ8OY3ORee

  — Jim Roberts (@nycjim) March 1, 2021

  Two women have accused Cuomo of sexual harassment ranging from inappropriate questions, to touching, to forcibly kissing. One accuser says Cuomo clearly wanted to sleep with her.

  Over the weekend, Cuomo denied forcibly kissing former aide Lindsey Boylan, who said the governor would also go out of his way to touch her “on my lower back, arms and legs.” He did, however, seemingly admit to using inappropriate language.

  Cuomo also said last week that the state is cooperating with three inquiries from the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York located in Brooklyn, as well as the DOJ’s Civil Rights and Civil divisions based in Washington. Brooklyn prosecutors have requested data on the number of people who died in New York nursing homes during the pandemic.

  Meanwhile, the governor has stepped out of the public spotlight – last making a televised pandemic briefing on Feb. 19, while his public schedule remains empty according to Bloomberg.

  Cuomo’s uncharacteristic silence comes a day after he agreed to an independent probe by a special investigator after a second former aide accused him of sexual harassment. Cuomo stopped short of having New York Attorney General Letitia James lead the probe, a move championed by dozens of other lawmakers.

  …

  On Monday, state Senator Todd Kaminsky introduced a bill that would allow the attorney general to conduct a criminal investigation without a referral from the governor, a move he said would strengthen independent oversight of the governor and other state officials.

  “Clearly where the governor is involved there is a conflict,” said Kaminsky.

  Veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf told Bloomberg: “The problem is he’s being squeezed on the left and the right, and if there are more accusations of sexual harassment or governmental incompetence or corruption, he’s going to have a very difficult time surviving,” adding “He has very few friends.“

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 18:55

• Biden Pulls Neera Tanden Nomination For OMB: Report
  Biden Pulls Neera Tanden Nomination For OMB: Report

  Having heard from The White House Chief of Staff earlier that they would “fight their hearts out” to get Neera Tanden confirmed as OMB Director and White press Secretary Jen Psaki that Neera Tanden has “wide spectrum of support”, it would appear tonight that the fight is over and the support was not wide enough.

  Chris Wallace: When will the WH pull the nomination of Neera Tanden to be the Budget director?

  WH Press Sec. Jen Psaki: We remain committed to fighting our hearts out for Neera Tanden. We believe she is the right person … pic.twitter.com/aqT3Nfexif

  — The Recount (@therecount) February 28, 2021

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  The Washington Post reports that The White House plans to withdraw the nomination of Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget as early as Tuesday evening, according to people familiar with the matter.

  As we previously detailed, Tanden was facing bipartisan opposition from senators due to past comments she made on her Twitter feed.

  As a reminder, here is what Glenn Greenwald wrote of the Tanden nomination in November:

  The announcement that Joe Biden intends to nominate Neera Tanden as his Director of the Office of Management and Budget — a critical position overseeing U.S. economic and regulatory policy — triggered a wide range of mockery, indignation and disgust from both the left and the right. That should not be surprising: though a thoroughly mediocre and ordinary D.C. swamp creature from the perspective of both ideology and competence, Tanden’s uniquely unhinged, venomous, corrupt and pathologically dishonest conduct as a Clinton Family and DNC apparatchik and President of the corporatist-and-despot-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) has earned her a list of enemies far longer and more impressive than her accomplishments.

  …

  When news of her appointment broke, many of the journalists and activists she has spent years abusing, slandering, and lying about instantly stepped forward to compile just some of her worst political and behavioral lowlights. And some preliminary signs emerged that she might encounter difficulty in obtaining the Senate confirmation needed for her to assume this position. The Communications Director for GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas announced that “Tanden stands zero chance of being confirmed” by the Senate.

  Former Sanders campaign aide David Sirota hypothesized that “it is not a coincidence that they are putting Neera Tanden — the single biggest, most aggressive Bernie Sanders critic in the United States of America — specifically at OMB while Sanders is Senate Budget Committee ranking/chair.”

  Tanden, president of the John Podesta-founded Center for American Progress, saw her nomination began to unravel when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) pulled his support, citing the need for comity.

  

  The Hill reports that even before news of Tanden’s withdrawal, rumors had begun circulating on possible replacements, including former National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, former chief of staff to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Biden’s current nominee for deputy OMB director, Shalanda Young.

  So no $15 Minimum Wage and no Neera Tanden?

  That awkward moment where a reporter asks Biden Press Sec Jen Psaki why the Biden Administration is fighting harder for Neera Tanden’s confirmation than it is to raise the minimum wage. Briahna Joy Gray @briebriejoy & I break it down. https://t.co/ehnoy2cRRm pic.twitter.com/qYi1RHadrx

  — Katie Halper (@kthalps) March 2, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 18:52

• Rocket Blasts Off In Massive Gamma, Short Squeeze Forcing Another "Hedge Fund VIP" Liquidation
  Rocket Blasts Off In Massive Gamma, Short Squeeze Forcing Another “Hedge Fund VIP” Liquidation

  Rocket Companies went to the moon today…

  Just as we warned earlier, RKT was ‘Gamma Squeezed’ over 60% higher today…

  “The Q4 results were good” analyst Donald Fandetti said, “But not good enough to support this move, which is the third trading day after earnings” 

  

  As deep OTM calls (gamma squeeze) were bid in size ($45s thru $50s expiring in 2 weeks)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Reddit comment volume for Rocket surged to nearly 19% of total comments on the forum WallStreetBets Tuesday, according to SwaggyStocks, a ticker and sentiment tracker.

  

  Rocket was the fifth-most-mentioned company on the market social media platform Stocktwits today, at 3% of 271,666 stories carried on Bloomberg.

  It was quite a run… the 3rd straight day of gains, pushing RKT up over 110%…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Largely thanks to this a massive short interest…

  $RKT short interest is $1.21 BN
  49.70M shares shorted
  45.83% of Float
  31.42% S3 SI% Float
  29.32% fee & rising to over +50%
  Shares shorted up +3.8M shares, worth $92M, +8.2%, last week.
  Shorts down -$724M in 2021 mark-to-market losses; down -$497M on today’s +41% move pic.twitter.com/aXn4G6y4ZD

  — Ihor Dusaniwsky (@ihors3) March 2, 2021

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  Almost $13 billion of volume traded today… umm…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  KBW analyst Bose George also cautioned investors on the sharp rally in the stock.

  “We remain cautious on Rocket and don’t believe there’s any fundamental reason for the big move up in the shares,” he said.

  “As far as we can tell, this could be another case of day traders going after a heavily shorted name in order to drive a short squeeze.”

  Notably, as RKT soared, it appears hedgies were caught offside and forced to dump some of their favorites once again…

   

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  As RKT shares became extremely hard-to-borrow…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And while RKT was taking off, crude was crashing (OPEC+ headlines that “the market could handle more barrels”)…

  

  And crypto was crushed, with Bitcoin tagging $50k overnight and sliding (some chatter that the drop around 11amET was driven by Gensler comments)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And Ethereum fell back below $1500…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Stocks were all lower on the day with The Dow the least bad (clinging to unch until the last hour) as Small Caps and Nasdaq lagged (after yesterday’s biggest day in months)…

  

  NOTE – selling was heavy at the Asia open, Europe open, and US open… and US close.

  Nasdaq’s tumble left it right at its 50DMA…

  

  Materials outperformed today as Tech lagged

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Momentum rolled over again today after two days of gains…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Facebook stock tumbled late on after the CFO warned that recovery from COVID could stymie growth….

  

  ARKK and TSLA tumbled today – but remain higher on the week…

  

  Stock-Bond correlation (historically negatively related) reached extreme positive levels today…the last time correlation was this high was July 2017 and 10Y Yields crashed 40bps in the month following…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Treasuries were mixed today with the belly outperforming the tails (2Y unch, 5Y -3bps, 30Y +1bps)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  10Y Yields stuck in a narrow range for second day…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And as yields stabilize so bond implied vol tumbles…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Real yields have tumbled in the last three days, but gold (for now) is ignoring it…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The Dollar ended lower for the second day in a row – after another roller-coaster…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Gold managed modest gains as the dollar slipped…

  

  And silver jumped back up towards $27…

  

   

  Finally, if history is any guide, we are due for a pause in stocks. Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at LPL Financial LLC said “History would say be open to some type of weakness or consolidation”…

   

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The post cited the S&P 500 Index’s performance after bull markets that began in 1982 and 2009, the two fastest starters before the current advance. Both rallies faltered near the one-year mark, and the S&P 500 was little changed to lower six months later.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/02/2021 – 18:48

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