Today’s News 4th February 2022

• The Government's Kill Switch For Your Car, Your Freedoms, & Your Life
  The Government’s Kill Switch For Your Car, Your Freedoms, & Your Life

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power.”

  – Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

  If we haven’t learned by now, we should beware of anything the government insists is for our own good.

  Take the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

  Given the deteriorating state of the nation’s infrastructure (aging highways and bridges, outdated railways and airports, etc.), which have been neglected for years in order to fund America’s endless wars abroad, it would seem like an obvious and long overdue fix.

  Yet there’s a catch.

  There’s always a catch.

  Tucked into the whopping $1 trillion bipartisan spending bill is a provision requiring automakers to prescribe a “federal motor vehicle safety standard for advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology, and for other purposes.”

  As Jason Torchinksky writes for Jalopnik:

  It’s pretty clear that the goals of this section of the law are to reduce drunk driving fatalities and crashes via still-undetermined technological tools that somehow are able to “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired,” and/or “passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration described in section 163(a) of title 23, United States Code,” and if either or both of these conditions are proven to be positive — if the car thinks you’re drunk, then it may “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation.”

  As expected, the details are disconcertingly vague, which leaves the government with a wide berth to sow the seeds of mischief and mayhem. For instance, nowhere does the legislation indicate how such a so-called “kill switch” would work, what constitutes a driver who is “impaired,” and what “other purposes” might warrant the government using such a backdoor kill switch.

  

  As former Rep. Bob Barr explains:

  Everything about this mandatory measure should set off red flares. First, use of the word “passively” suggests the system will always be on and constantly monitoring the vehicle. Secondly, the system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected. Thirdly, it will be an “open” system, or at least one with a backdoor, meaning authorized (or unauthorized) third-parties can remotely access the system’s data at any time.

  This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents… The lack of ultimate control over one’s vehicle presents numerous and extremely serious safety issues… If that is not reason enough for concern, there are serious legal issues with this mandate. Other vehicle-related enforcement methods used by the Nanny State, such as traffic cameras and license plate readers, have long presented constitutional problems; notably with the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser.

  Once again, the burden of proof is reversed, and “we the people” find ourselves no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty but suspects in a suspect society.

  These “vehicle kill switches” may be sold to the public as a safety measure aimed at keeping drunk drivers off the roads, but they will quickly become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to put the government in the driver’s seat while rendering null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

  Indeed, when you think about it, these vehicle kill switches are a perfect metaphor for the government’s efforts to not only take control of our cars but also our freedoms and our lives.

  For too long, we have been captive passengers in a driverless car controlled by the government, losing more and more of our privacy and autonomy the further down the road we go.

  Just think of all the ways in which the government has been empowered to dictate what we say, do and think; where we go; with whom we associate; how we raise our families; how we live our lives; what we consume; how we spend our money; how we protect ourselves and our loved ones; and to what extent our rights as individuals can be displaced for the sake of the so-called greater good.

  In this way, we have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by such science fiction writers as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.

  In keeping with Dick’s darkly prophetic vision of a dystopian police state—which became the basis for Steven Spielberg’s futuristic thriller Minority Report, which was released 20 years ago—we have been imprisoned in a world in which the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful, and if you dare to step out of line, dark-clad police SWAT teams and pre-crime units will crack a few skulls to bring the populace under control.

  Minority Report is set in the year 2054, but it could just as well have taken place in 2022.

  Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike—facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on—are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, Spielberg’s unnerving vision of the future is fast becoming our reality.

  Both worlds—our present-day reality and Minority Report’s celluloid vision of the future—are characterized by widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, fusion centers, driverless cars, voice-controlled homes, facial recognition systems, cybugs and drones, and predictive policing (pre-crime) aimed at capturing would-be criminals before they can do any damage.

  Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness—a philosophy that discourages diversity—has become a guiding principle of modern society.

  The courts have shredded the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In fact, SWAT teams battering down doors without search warrants and FBI agents acting as a secret police that investigate dissenting citizens are common occurrences in contemporary America.

  We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state. Much of the population is either hooked on illegal drugs or ones prescribed by doctors. And bodily privacy and integrity has been utterly eviscerated by a prevailing view that Americans have no rights over what happens to their bodies during an encounter with government officials, who are allowed to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

  We’re on the losing end of a technological revolution that has already taken hostage our computers, our phones, our finances, our entertainment, our shopping, our appliances, and now, our cars. As if the government wasn’t already able to track our movements on the nation’s highways and byways by way of satellites, GPS devices, and real-time traffic cameras, performance data recorders, black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications will monitor our vehicle’s speed, direction, location, gear selection, brake force, the number of miles traveled and seatbelts use, and transmit this data to other drivers, including the police.

  In this Brave New World, there is no communication not spied upon, no movement untracked, no thought unheard. In other words, there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

  Herded along by drones, smart phones, GPS devices, smart TVs, social media, smart meters, surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, online banking, license plate readers and driverless cars, we are quickly approaching a point of singularity with the interconnected technological metaverse that is life in the American police state.

  Every new piece of technologically-enabled gadget we acquire and technologically-boobytrapped legislation that Congress enacts pulls us that much deeper into the sticky snare.

  These vehicle kill switches are yet another Trojan Horse: sold to us as safety measures for the sake of the greater good, all the while poised to wreak havoc on what little shreds of autonomy we have left.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we’re hurtling down a one-way road at mind-boggling speeds to a destination not of our choosing, the terrain is getting more treacherous by the minute, and we’ve passed all the exit ramps.

  From this point forward, there is no turning back, and the signpost ahead reads “Danger.”

  Time to buckle up your seatbelts, folks. We’re in for a bumpy ride.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 23:40

• Olympic Winter Games Bring In Billions For The IOC
  Olympic Winter Games Bring In Billions For The IOC

  The Beijing Winter Olympics are officially kicking off on Friday to almost no spectators. However, as Statista’s Katharian Buchholz notes, while the loss in tourism revenue due to the absence of foreign fans certainly has certain local businesses losing out, the International Olympic Committee is still expected to be earning a fair sum with the Winter Games. As seen in IOC data, TV rights make up the bulk of IOC revenue for Winter Games.

  And that sum has only gotten bigger over the years.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  While the 1998 Nagano Games in Japan only brought in around half a billion U.S. dollars in TV rights, that number was closer to $1.5 billion for the latest Winter Games that took place 2018 in South Korea’s Pyeongchang. Ticket sales on the other hand bring in a much smaller revenue share.Even if tourists could visit, the impact on the local economy from Olympic Games is not major anyways. According to a study by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, Olympic Winter Games in the past have not had a measurable economic impact neither on the regional nor on the national economy of the countries that have hosted them. Because of their bigger dimensions, Olympic Summer Games were able to raise GDP per capita by 3 to 4 percent regionally, according to the study.

  This From Feb 4-20, 2022, this year’s Winter Olympians will be competing in the Beijing Games. The competition is the second Olympic Games held under pandemic conditions after the Tokyo 2021 Summer Games. The capital of China was the venue for the Summer Olympics in 2008 and therefore already has an existing infrastructure for the sporting competitions.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 23:20

• Democratic Senators Unveil Legislation To Change Electoral Count Act
  Democratic Senators Unveil Legislation To Change Electoral Count Act

  Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A group of Democratic and Democratic-aligned senators unveiled legislation on Feb. 1 that would make several changes to the 1887 Electoral Count Act (ECA), which Democrats hope will be more acceptable to some Republican moderates.

  

  The draft of the measure was unveiled by Democrat-aligned Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) in conjunction with Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

  “As leaders on the Senate Rules Committee with jurisdiction over federal elections and members of Senate Democratic leadership, we have been working with legal experts and election law scholars to develop legislation that would modernize the framework of the Electoral Count Act of 1887,” King, Klobuchar, and Durbin said in a statement on the proposal.

  Amid ongoing contention over potential fraud in the 2020 election, President Donald Trump tried to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to use his role under the original ECA to challenge the results in several state elections that posed the highest risk of widespread fraud. Pence refused, allowing Joe Biden to be confirmed as the president-elect by the Senate.

  The updated ECA would change federal law to significantly lessen the vice president’s role over elections. The legislation would also significantly raise the requirements for members of the House or Senate to object to certifying election results.

  Under the 1887 law, only one member of the House and one member of the Senate need to object before the objection is moved to a floor vote in the chamber. Under the new draft of the measure, this would be raised to one-third of the Senate needing to object before an objection could be moved to a floor vote.

  The legislation would also narrow the list of potential objections lawmakers can make to certifying a slate of electors.

  During the 2020 election, disputes over election results in various states continued well into December 2020. Under the ECA revision, future state-level election disputes would need to be resolved by a set deadline.

  Through these changes, the new proposal would “[serve] as a foundational outline for key reforms that address the shortcomings of the 1887 law,” according to the trio of lawmakers.

  The proposal is considered by Democrats to be more palatable to Republicans, although it’s less wide-reaching than Democrats had hoped for. There have been some indications that an ECA reform would indeed be more acceptable to Republicans.

  A separate group of lawmakers, including swing-voting Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have spent the past several weeks working on their own draft of an ECA revision. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has also suggested that he may be open to an ECA reform.

  “I think it needs fixing, and I wish them well in that effort,” McConnell told reporters when asked about the effort to revise the ECA. “I’d be happy to take a look at whatever they [come up with].

  “I encourage the discussion because I think [the current ECA] is flawed.”

  He also said these flaws are “directly related to what happened on Jan. 6.”

  The “Stop the Steal” protest at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been a focal point for many of the plan’s proponents, who have marketed the rally as a full-scale insurrection against the U.S. government.

  Over the course of the 117th Congress, Democrats have made several efforts to radically revamp U.S. election law.

  One of the most wide-reaching proposals the majority party has put forward was the For the People Act, which would have, among other things, forced states to allow convicted felons to vote—including convicts actively serving on probation or parole. Critics of the legislation, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, also argued that through its significantly weakened election security rules, the For the People Act would have effectively given illegal aliens the right to vote.

  The effort, which had little chance in any event of making it through the 50–50 Senate, was killed after Manchin said he wouldn’t vote for the measure.

  Since then, Democrats have put forward several other proposals to reform federal election laws, but these have thus far all been killed by Republican filibuster.

  Republicans have argued that the measures were designed to unfairly benefit Democrats over Republicans, and only one of the measures, a compromise measure spearheaded by Manchin, received any Republican support. Manchin’s legislation won over swing-voting Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), but the measure also failed to meet the 60-vote filibuster threshold.

  Enacted 10 years after the electoral crisis of the 1876 election, when states sent competing slates of electors to Congress, the original ECA laid out basic guidelines for electoral counting procedures moving forward. Effectively, the ECA told states that they would need to deal with electoral disputes on their own.

  Congress would only get involved in electoral disputes under limited circumstances. For instance, if a governor certified and sent to Congress competing slates of electors, the ECA gave Congress the power to adjudicate the dispute.

  If approved, either of the proposed revisions to the ECA would constitute one of the largest revisions to U.S. election law since the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 23:00

• January Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Bloodbath
  January Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Bloodbath

  One month ago, when discussing the lousy December payrolls print, we said that “it’s important to consider that through the December employment survey period, the Covid case count was up 50% relative to the relevant November period. In early January, it is already up 440% relative to December, so the Covid drag will be an order of magnitude larger in the January data and could easily push net payrolls into negative territory for the next few months.“

  And sure enough, after several stark warnings by both the Fed and the White House about January’s payrolls report due at 830am on Friday, following a catastrophic ADP print of -301K (which prompted Rabobank to spell out stagflation), we are looking at a payrolls abyss, with increasingly more banks expecting negative prints, while big data estimates based on Google Mobility and the Census Small Household Business Pulse, suggesting a devastating print of -4.6 million and -3.8 million, respectively.

  While the median consensus expectation points to about a still respectable 133K (down from 150K just a few days ago) and down from 199K last month…

  

  … prominent banks such as Goldman are now guiding much lower, expecting the worst jobs report since the covid crash. As Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius writes today, “nonfarm payrolls declined by 250k, 400k below consensus of +150k. Our forecast reflects a large and temporary drag from Omicron on the order of 500-1000k, as survey data indicate a surge in absenteeism during the month. Dining activity also slowed sharply, and all of the Big Data indicators we track are consistent with an outright decline in payrolls.” Needless to say, Goldman wouldn’t take such a contrarian, and reputation damaging, view without justification, and we are confident that this time, Goldman will be on the money with the payrolls print coming at or below the bank’s forecast.

  Other banks are just as negative: TD analysts cite “temporary Omicron fallout” in looking for a -200K headline, adding that they see “downside risk to our -200k estimate.”

  Academy Securities’ analyst Peter Tchir writes that while the “average estimate is 54k, if you look at avg estimate of those submitted/updated in February it is -89k (recent submissions reflect more up to date info)… I wouldn’t be surprised to see a big NEGATIVE headline number in the establishment survey, not the same issue in household survey.”

  While the above estimates are likely on the money, they are incomplete as they all assign the January weakness to Omicron, which is now well on its way out, and thus should have a temporary impact. We disagree: we are confident that the US economy is now rapidly slowing and has already contracted (as the Atlanta Fed’s latest GDPNow indicated) only not because of Omicron, but because the US consumer is finally tapped out, as the gargantuan, record surge in credit card usage indicated.

  

  Still, for at least the next 3-4 months we are living in the “economic weakness is transitory” narrative (just like “inflation is transitory” last year, remember that), and it’s why several Fed officials have already made clear that they will discount weak data as temporary.

  Also, as TD writes, there is upside risk on average hourly earnings, with an already strong trend likely to be added to by temporary Omicron effects relating to the composition of payrolls and the length of the workweek. As such, the bank’s 0.6% m/m estimate for hourly earnings implies 5.3% y/y, up from 4.7% y/y in December, a number which will be interpreted as further pouring gasoline on the Fed’s hawkish fire, when in reality it is just an artifact of an excel model desperately trying to make sense of confusing data.

  And while both Wall Street and the Fed will ignore tomorrow’s dismal number – pretending that it is all due to Omicron – the reality is that just like last year, both will be making a huge mistake (for the second year in a row) as the true state of the US economy will be perfectly reflected in tomorrow’s dismal number.

  Sermon aside, here is what Wall Street expects will happen tomorrow and how it will impact markets, courtesy of Newsquawk

  • Traders will use the January jobs report to assess whether the market’s aggressive Fed bets are appropriate.
  • Money markets currently expect the FOMC to fire the equivalent of four 25bps rate hikes in 2022 to curb upside pressures to inflation, with some risk of a fifth.
  • The Fed is more focused on the inflation part of its mandate and that implies that there may be greater attention on the average hourly earnings measures within the jobs report, particularly since participants generally agree that the US is effectively at maximum employment.
  • The Omicron impact has tainted January’s economic data readings, presenting downside risks to the NFP headline (expected 134k from 199k), and upside risks to wage metrics (+0.5% M/M expected with the annual rate seen rising to +5.2% Y/Y from 4.7%; average hours worked is seen unchanged at 34.7hrs).  Meanwhile, seasonal adjustments may provide support for the headline.
  • It may be difficult to interpret the underlying health of the labor market by using the January jobs data; the market reaction will be based on a combination of how the headline fares in the context of the wage pressures; a headline miss accompanied by further upside to wages would likely embolden hawkish Fed bets; conversely a more resilient headline combined with less upside in wages may have the opposite impact.

  HEADLINE:

  • The pace of payrolls additions has been easing, with the 3-month average currently 365k, the 6-month average at 508k, and the 12-month average at 537k, which many think is more a function of labour market tightness rather than a major downturn.
  • The pace is likely to slow even further in January, with the consensus expecting to see 150k nonfarm payrolls added, and the unemployment rate expected to be unchanged at 3.9%.
  • Many economic data prints for January have been negatively impacted by the Omicron wave, and that is likely to be reflected in the January jobs report too. White House economic advisor Deese has warned that Americans need to be prepared for January employment data that “could look a little strange”. This theme was certainly reflected in the ADP gauge of private payrolls, which saw a reading of -301k in January against an expected +207k.
  • ADP explained that the Omicron effect was to blame, with most of the job losses in the Leisure & Hospitality sectors after hefty gains in Q4; but ADP judged that the impact of Omicron was likely to be temporary.

  Forecast by bank:

  • HSBC +225K
  • CS +200K
  • Daiwa +200K
  • Mizuho +200K
  • AP +170K
  • SocGen +155K
  • BNP +150K
  • DB +150K
  • JPM +150K
  • RBC +150K
  • BMO +100K
  • Citi +70K
  • Median +70K
  • Barx +50K
  • UBS +50K
  • Nom -50K
  • Scotia -100K
  • WF -100K
  • BofA-150K
  • Jeff -200K
  • TD -200K
  • MS -215K
  • GS -250K
  • NW -350K

  OMICRON IMPACT: For the week that traditionally coincides with the BLS employment situation report survey, initial jobless claims jumped to 290k from 231k and continuing claims rose to 1.675mln from 1.624mln. Pantheon Macroeconomics said that this Omicron impact would not last long, however, given that cases have begun to fall back, but still noted that the near-term outlook remains uncertain. “The jump in claims is consistent with the message from the Homebase data for the week which suggests payrolls will be reported falling by about 300K, and that’s after we allow for the usual upward revisions to the initial Homebase data.”

  SEASONAL ADJUSTMENTS: Analysts have pointed out that there could be some seasonal adjustments in January that could give support to the headline; Citi thinks the adjustment could add around 3mln jobs; “if fewer than usual layoffs occur in some industries this year, perhaps reflecting that the level of employment is already lower than desired given worker shortages, adjusted figures would show a large increase,” the bank explains. There is even more uncertainty this month however, given that the January jobs data will also include revisions to the establishment survey; Citi therefore cautions about trying to over-interpret what the January jobs report is saying about the true health of the underlying labour market.

  WAGES ARE KEY: Average hourly earnings are expected to rise +0.5% M/M in January (prev. +0.6%), and to 5.2% Y/Y (prev. 4.7%). With most FOMC participants agreeing that US labour market conditions are consistent with maximum employment, and with the recent upside in price pressures which has resulted in the FOMC pivoting in a hawkish direction, the nonfarm payroll headline will only be part of the story in January. Many analysts will be paying more attention to the average hourly earnings metrics for a gauge on how wages have responded to higher prices amid a tight labour market; the theory is that surging wages will likely lead to FOMC participants leaning towards the more aggressive end of monetary policy expectations (where the possibility of a 50bps incremental rate hike, and/or possible hikes at every meeting this year, and/or a potential acceleration of the balance sheet wind down), whereas slowing wage metrics may see some of the aggressive Fed bets pared back (currently, money markets are pricing the equivalent of four 25bps rate hikes this year, although pricing suggests there are risks for a fifth hike too).

  UPSIDE RISKS TO WAGES: The Omicron impact is likely an upside risk to wages in January. Compositional issues imply that low-paid workers who do not receive sick pay will have dropped out of the wage calculations, as White House economic advisor Deese recently noted, and that would likely result in the average moving upwards for the sample; any downside to average workweek hours could exacerbate this effect (the consensus expects average workweek hours to be unchanged at 34.7hrs). Additionally, overtime pay could also be higher if healthier staff were paid to cover their sick colleagues.

  ARGUING FOR A WEAKER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

  • Arguing for a weaker-than-expected report: Omicron. Covid infections rose sharply in December and remained high during the  January survey period. And as shown in Exhibit 1, the Household Pulse survey from the Census indicates a surge in absenteeism during the month. Based on the historical relationship between the household survey question “not at work due to own illness/other” (plotted in Exhibit 1) Goldman is assuming a drag from Omicron of 500-1000k in tomorrow’s report.

  

  • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market indicate an outright decline in payrolls (see Exhibit 2). We believe the Google series overstated the January employment decline due to a shift to work-from-home this month (these workers are still counted as employed in the nonfarm payroll figures). Relatedly, workers who used sick leave are also counted as employed.

  

  • Dining activity. Dining activity pulled back sharply in January—falling to 20% below 2019 levels. Coupled with the drop in ADP’s estimate of leisure and hospitality jobs, we expect a large pullback in leisure sector payrolls in tomorrow’s report (our estimates embed a drag of 350k).

  

  • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report decreased by 301k in January, against consensus expectations for a 150k increase and likely reflecting a meaningful Omicron drag.
  • Employer surveys. The employment components of business surveys generally decreased in January. Our services survey employment tracker decreased 0.8pt to 53.0 and our manufacturing survey employment tracker decreased 1.7pt to 56.2. The Goldman Sachs Analyst Index (GSAI) fell by 8.7pt to 68.2 in January, and the employment component declined by 9.2pt to 73.2.

  ARGUING FOR A BETTER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

  • End-of-year layoffs. The tight labor market likely catalyzed some employers to retain workers who would normally leave at the end of the year. The BLS seasonal factors assume 3mn net job losses in a typical January. And while initial jobless claims rebounded during the month (227k on average vs. 204k in December) the level is considerably lower than a typical year. Continuing claims in regular state programs also decreased 46k from survey week to survey week—despite a likely boost from Omicron.
  • Education seasonality. Education weighed on job growth during the fall, likely because some janitors and support staff declined to return for the new school year. Many of these individuals typically stop working for the January survey period, implying a seasonally adjusted gain in education payrolls in tomorrow’s report (we assume +50k, public and private).

  NEUTRAL/MIXED FACTORS:

  • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas decreased by 16% month-over-month in January but had increased by 23% in December (SA by GS).
  • Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—decreased by 0.4pt to 43.8. JOLTS job openings increased by 150k in December to 10.9mn and remained higher than the pre-pandemic peak.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 22:40

• J&J And Drug Distributors To Pay $589 Million Settlement To Native American Tribes Over Opioid Crisis
  J&J And Drug Distributors To Pay $589 Million Settlement To Native American Tribes Over Opioid Crisis

  Authored by Tammy Hung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and three of the nation’s largest drug wholesalers and distributors have agreed to pay $589 million in settlement after hundreds of native tribes accused the companies of fueling the opioid crisis in their communities.

  

  The three pharmaceutical distributors—Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen Corp., and McKesson Corp.—will pay more than $439 million in settlement over seven years. The Janssen-owned Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $150 million over two years.

  The plaintiffs accused J&J of understating the addiction risks of opioids in its marketing campaign, and accused the distributors of letting addictive painkillers be diverted into illegal channels, according to court filings (pdf).

  The native tribes, represented by the Tribal Leadership Community, stated in court filings that tribal governments have had to spend “considerable tribal funds to cover the costs of the opioid crisis” including costs for “health care, social services, child welfare, law enforcement, and other government services” which has imposed “severe financial burdens” on the plaintiffs.

  “We’re not solving the opioid crisis with the settlement, but we are getting critical resources to tribal communities to address the crisis,” stated Steven Skikos, a lawyer for the tribes, in a telephonic court hearing, according to Reuters.

  J&J told Reuters in a statement that it did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement and that the company was “appropriate and responsible” in its role of promoting opioid pain relief prescription medications.

  This follows a 2019 lawsuit in which the drug distributors agreed to pay $75 million to resolve similar claims made by Cherokee Nation, one of the largest Cherokee tribes recognized by the federal government.

  A 2016 report (pdf) released by the National Congress of American Indians found that American Indians suffered the highest rate (8.4 overdose deaths per capita) of opioid overdoses, followed by whites (7.9 overdose deaths per capita).

  All 574 federally recognized tribes will be able to receive money from the settlements even if they had not filed the lawsuits, according to Tara Sutton, an attorney for the tribes, in a Feb. 1 statement to The Wall Street Journal.

  The settlement comes a week after 44 U.S. states agreed to a $26 billion settlement proposed by the three drug distributors and J&J to resolve thousands of similar lawsuits accusing the companies of fueling the opioid epidemic.

  The Epoch Times has reached out to Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen Corp., McKesson Corp., and Janssen for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 22:20

• Elon Musk Blocks Kid On Twitter Who Refused To Shut Down Private Jet Tracker
  Elon Musk Blocks Kid On Twitter Who Refused To Shut Down Private Jet Tracker

  A college kid who uses public information to track the whereabouts of Elon Musk’s private jet has been blocked by the billionaire, according to The Guardian. 

  The story began last month when Musk reached out to 19-year-old Jack Sweeney, the mad genius behind the Twitter account, “Elon Musk’s Jet.” He created a Twitter bot that uses public data to track Musk’s private jet movements around the world. 

  

  Musk offered Sweeny a measly $5k to remove the Twitter account. The kid responded by requesting $50k or a Tesla Model 3 though Musk never responded.

  The billionaire told the kid he was concerned about “crazy people” tracking his location. When the two spoke on Twitter direct message several weeks ago, Elon Musk’s Jet account had 88k followers and has since added well over 200k more for a total of about 320k (as of Thursday afternoon). 

  The Guardian first reported the development on Wednesday, saying, “Musk declined to pay and has now blocked Sweeney on Twitter as he plans to track even more celebrity private jets.” 

  Even though Musk tried to payoff the kid to take down the Twitter tracking bot, Sweeny argues:

  “This account has every right to post jet whereabouts, ADS-B data is public, every aircraft in the world is required to have a transponder, Even AF1 ( @AirForceTrack ) Twitter policy states data found on other sites is allowed to be shared here as well.

  “If you want to complain to someone tell the ICAO to make a more privacy-focused ADS-B system. Taking down my account won’t fix the issue, my code is open-sourced others said they would recreate it anyway.”

  “Taking down this account doesn’t stop someone determined from doing something bad they could still go to other websites.”

  While Musk has blocked Sweeney’s Twitter account and denied the $50k payment, what will the billionaire try to do next to censor the college kid? 

  As we noted before, the kid should sell the Twitter bot to hedge funds… 

  Musk’s latest flight was on Tuesday. 

  Landed near Brownsville, Texas, US. Apx. flt. time 45 Mins. pic.twitter.com/1j6y40p0XJ

  — Elon Musk’s Jet (@ElonJet) February 2, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 22:00

• The Media War On Canadian Truckers: Is Freedom Public Enemy Number One?
  The Media War On Canadian Truckers: Is Freedom Public Enemy Number One?

  Authored by James Bovard,

  The denigration of the Canadian trucker protest convoy exemplifies how freedom is now the biggest villain of the Covid-19 pandemic. A Washington Post cartoonist portrayed the trucker convoy as “fascism” incarnate while another Post column derided the “toxic ‘Freedom Convoy.’” Anyone who resists any government command is apparently now a public enemy.

  

  The trucker protest was spurred by the Canadian government’s sweeping Covid vaccine mandate. Many truckers believe the risks of the vaccine outweighs the benefit and, more importantly, that they have the right to control their own bodies. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared on Monday, “There is no place in our country for threats, violence or hatred.” Except for the hatred Trudeau whips up by denouncing vaccine mandate opponents as “racist” and “misogynistic.” And except for the “threats” and “violence” used by government enforcement agents to compel submission to any pandemic decree issued by Trudeau or other politicians.

  Since the start of this pandemic, many people who boasted of their trust in “science and data” also believed that absolute power would keep them safe. According to their scorecard, anyone who objected to government commands was the equivalent of a heretic who must be condemned if not banished from everyplace except the cemetery. North of the border, Quebec epitomizes this intolerance with its new edict prohibiting unvaccinated individuals from shopping at Costco or Walmart.

  The same critics who latch onto any obnoxious behavior by a few wayward Canadian truckers (MSNBC denounced them as a “cult”)’ to condemn freedom are also happy to exonerate any American politician who pointlessly destroyed freedom during the pandemic with bizarre edicts. In December 2020, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti banned all unnecessary “travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit.” The mayor (who was caught violating California mask mandates at the NFC championship game) offered no evidence to justify placing four million residents under house arrest. Governor Ralph Northam dictated that all Virginians must stay indoors from midnight until 5 a.m, with a few narrow exceptions. Federal judge William Stickman IV condemned Pennsylvania’s restrictions: “Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.”

  Preventing politicians from obliterating freedom is now the worst form of tyranny. On Thanksgiving Eve 2020, the Supreme Court struck down Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s edict that limited religious gatherings in New York to ten or fewer people while permitting far more leeway for businesses to operate. The Court declared that Cuomo’s rules were “far more restrictive than any Covid-related regulations that have previously come before the Court… and far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread of the virus.” An American Civil Liberties Union official fretted that “the freedom to worship… does not include a license to harm others or endanger public health.” Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe and Cornell professor Michael Dorf warned that the Supreme Court was becoming “a place like Gilead — the theocratic and misogynist country in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’”

  Many progressives talk as if America faces a choice between reckless freedom and paternalism – i.e., submission to a benevolent elite. But regardless of Fauci’s boundless conceit, omniscient officials have yet to come to the rescue. Government agencies have blundered catastrophically since the start of the pandemic.

  The Centers for Disease Control bollixed America’s initial response by sending out faulty, contaminated test kits to health agencies that failed to detect the rapidly spreading virus. Governors panicked and shut down schools, resulting in vast losses in learning and widening the achievement gap between affluent and low-income students. The vast majority of small businesses were locked down and thousands were bankrupted in a futile effort to prevent an airborne virus from continuing to spread. Placing scores of millions of people under house arrest led to record-breaking fatalities for drug overdoses and a tidal wave of depression and anxiety. New York City’s covid vaccine passport regime failed to prevent the Big Apple from becoming the hottest spot in the nation for the omicron variant.

  President Biden portrayed the vaccines as a magic bullet and falsely promised that people who got injected would not get Covid. The C.D.C. stopped counting “breakthrough” cases of Covid among the fully vaccinated, paving the way for a resurgence of the virus that has now infected more than 70 million Americans. Or maybe 200+ million Americans since C.D.C. previously stated that only one in four cases are diagnosed and reported. Whatever. The Food and Drug Administration is seeking to delay fully disclosing Pfizer’s application for its Covid vaccine approval for 75 years. After Biden issued a mandate that forced hospitals to fire healthy unvaccinated nurses, the CDC said it was OK for hospitals to rely on Covid positive nurses to treat patients – one of the biggest absurdities of the pandemic.

  Freedom is not a panacea for every challenge in life. But it is far superior to boundless submission to tinhorn dictators who know far less than they claim. Politicians like Trudeau and Biden who fuel mass rage against any group that does not kowtow to officialdom are sowing seeds of hatred that will proliferate long after the pandemic ends. In the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from viruses.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 21:40

• Are Global Central Banks (Ex-China) Suddenly Panicking?
  Are Global Central Banks (Ex-China) Suddenly Panicking?

  The last few weeks or so have seen a chill wind run through the halls of global central planners’ offices.

  First (among the majors) it was the Bank of England who surprised investors with a rate-hike in mid-December (after promising they wouldn’t), then this morning ending QE and raising rates again (narrowly avoiding by a 5-4 vote a 50bps hike).

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Then it was The Fed’s various group-thinkers doing an extremely rapid volte-face from forever-dovish to the hawkiest hawks in hawk-land, calling for a halt to QE, imminent and rapidly rising rate-hikes, and the start of QT.

  US STIRs are now pricing in 5 rate-hikes by year-end (and a 25% chance of a 50bps hike in March)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  This morning saw Christine Lagarde change her stripes from uber dove to more fence-sitter (and some would say an actual hawkish bias was overheard with Bloomberg reporting that ECB policymakers “see policy change at the March meeting if inflation doesn’t ease.”

  Rate-hike expectations are spiking in European bond markets…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And rates across the curve are flipping back into positive territory…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  All of which leads us to this evening and the open of Japanese markets.

  Haruhiko Kuroda has been perhaps the doviest of the dovish central bankers over the years which makes the very recent actions in the Japanese bond markets even more exceptional.

  As Bloomberg notes this evening, speculation of monetary policy normalization has reached Japan.

  

  2Y OIS (a proxy for investor expectations of future policy rates) breached zero for the first time since 2016 – the year the Bank of Japan introduced its negative interest rate policy.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  5Y JGB Yields have pushed back above zero for the first time since 2016…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Of even more note is the fact that the 10Y JGB yield has surged up to the top of its ‘yield curve control’ corridor.

  As a reminder, since September 2016, the BoJ has maintained a so-called ‘yield curve control’ policy (allowing 10Y JGB yields to fluctuate within a range regarding of its 0% target – initially +/-10bps but now +/-20bps).

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The last time 10Y yields were at these levels (in Feb 2021), BoJ quickly stepped in, but – for now – this time is different.

  “Market participants see an increasing chance that a successor to Kuroda will lift the negative-rate policy,” said Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at the Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo.

  “As the end of his tenure gets closer, the governor’s influence will decrease further.”

  Some have argued this pressure is market participants’ desire to test the BOJ’s resolve, and we suspect that if 10-year yields continue to climb well above 0.2% today, BOJ action likely will become a reality.

  “The recent rise in the 10-year JGB yield may have gone too far,” Tomonobu Yamashita and Shusuke Yamada, strategists at Bank of America, wrote in a research note.

  “Given the BOJ’s dovish stance and leeway for increasing its JGB purchases, this may be an opportunity to buy JGBs cheaply.”

  It’s too early to raise interest rates or change the yield curve control program now, Kuroda said last week.

  However, once cannot miss the fact that The BoJ has let things get this far without verbal intervention at a minimum. This certainly has the smell of a ‘signal’ that, as Eiichiro Miura, GM of the fixed-income department at Nissay Asset Management notes, the “BOJ may not be seeking to forcibly contain 10-year yield at 0.2% as it may want markets to prepare for a potential change.”

  So why are Bailey, Powell, Lagarde, and Kuroda all suddenly shedding their dovish wings?

  Is this what has the world’s omnipotent puppet-masters panicking?

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Global economic growth expectations are sliding rapidly and inflation (current and forecast) is accelerating.

  The Keynesian boogeyman is back – global stagflation! And with global assets at their bubbliest values ever, is it any wonder those-who-shall-not-be-named are panicking?

  So action is needed, but what? Hike and kill growth even more (and the wealth creation that’s been coveted for over a decade); don’t hike and spark fiat-credibility crushing inflationary fires worldwide?

  One thing is for sure, the market is expecting some action soon (and The Taylor Rule suggests there’s a long way to go)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  For now, however, only the US appears to be allowing financial conditions to tighten (and perhaps modestly Japan).

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  And don’t expect any help from China this time.

  It appears that traders across the world just realized that Central Bankers are serious this time, and as they dump bonds, the global volume of negative-yielding debt has collapsed…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  All of which removes yet another leg from the ‘stool’ of global equity prices. TINA is well and truly dead now.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 21:20

• Cancel Culture Is Now Officially A Snake Eating Its Own Tail
  Cancel Culture Is Now Officially A Snake Eating Its Own Tail

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  The cancel culture story of the week this week has been brought to us by Whoopi Goldberg, who I had literally just written about hours ago due to her grossly uninformed diatribe criticizing Bill Maher, who rightfully ridiculed continuing Covid hysteria publicly on his show last week.

  One day after my article, Goldberg found herself in the crosshairs of cancel culture after she claimed that the Holocaust, a genocide of 6 million people for being Jewish, was “not about race,” but rather “man’s inhumanity to man”, because it involved “two white groups of people.”

  For her deep thoughts and critical thinking, Goldberg was served a 2 week suspension from The View.

  Days earlier, while criticizing Maher, Goldberg had berated him, rhetorically asking:

  “How dare you be so flippant?”

  Well, Whoopi, there’s no shortage of people now asking you the same.

  

  But this article isn’t about Goldberg’s idiotic remarks. She obviously knows not of the deep psychosis and skewed sense of reality she has slipped into and neither you, nor I, nor a whole room full of psychologists have the time to try and untangle the logic behind her statements.

  More importantly, I want to go on record and say that I support Goldberg‘s right to say whatever she wants, despite the fact that I disagree with her comments.

  

  You see, this is the concept that many on the left don’t understand: not only is it possible to support free-speech at times when you don’t agree with its content, but our founders thought that it was necessary in order to form a more perfect union.

  When you don’t understand the nuance of this concept and you spend your days trying to play “free speech hall monitor”, you contribute to the regression of liberty and freedom, rather than supporting it.

  It’s like the economy: the more you try to micromanage it, the further off the path to prosperity it winds up.

  

  Today’s blog post has been published without a paywall because I believe the content to be far too important to deny to anyone. However, if you have the means and would like to support my work by subscribing, I’d be happy to offer you 22% off for 2022:

  Get 22% off forever

  

  It’s clear that the left either doesn’t understand the veracity of Goldberg’s comments or simply doesn’t think that they – on their holy high ground – are even capable of making such horribly off color and offensive remarks.

  For example, MSNBC host Mike Brzezinski came out after Goldberg’s suspension from ABC and lamented that “cancel culture is getting so out of hand”.

  

  She continued: “She’s been on TV for decades. She’s been putting herself out there for decades. If you don’t know her heart, then you haven’t been watching. And so that’s why the two-week suspension to me seems more about … this unbelievable need to punish and judge people when they’ve made a mistake.” 

  Her co-host-turned-beau, Joe Scarborough, added: “We all make terrible mistakes. She apologized for it immediately and took corrective actions. Now, I want to know, who is so frail over at ABC?“

  The answer, Joe, is the very same viewers you and your network have been conditioning to become so frail. That’s who.

  It’s almost like Joe doesn’t know that MSNBC spends entire programming days latching onto generally out-of-context fractions of comments, made by anyone viewed as enemies to the Democratic party, that they then casually attribute to white supremacy and racism with the nonchalance of making small talk about the weather, before advocating for the cancellation of those they don’t agree with.

  Goldberg’s co-hosts on The View were also reportedly “furious” about Goldberg’s suspension. “Whoopi is a lifelong ally to the Jewish community. She is not an antisemite. Period,” Ana Navarro reportedly said.

  Yet these same co-hosts, notably Joy Behar, were calling for the cancellation of podcaster Joe Rogan for simply having a discussion with well credentialed experts about an ongoing current event in the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Behar was encouraging more musicians to leave Spotify as a result of the Rogan “controversy” just hours before the Goldberg incident.

  Behar called Joe Rogan a “horror,” earlier this week, asking: “Hasn’t he been also chastised and corrected and then just goes back to his craziness again?”

  “I mean I don’t know that he can be reformed,” she said of Rogan.

  And while The View co-hosts clamored on this week that Goldberg should be offered leniency because she apologized for her remarks, Behar reportedly “rejected” Joe Rogan’s apology for his content.

  Are they starting to see that when they point one finger, three more point back?

  

  It’s almost as if those on the left can’t see how the situation would’ve went down if the roles were reversed. What would MSNBC, CNN and The View be calling for if these comments about the holocaust would’ve been made by a sitting Republican President?

  Answering that question in your head is a good mental exercise, assuming you have a couple brain cells to rub together for a little bit of game theory.

  Part of the reason the left wing is taking exception with Bill Maher to begin with is the comedian’s stance against political correctness and for free-speech.

  While Maher may have lost part of his far left wing base by keeping a cooler head and subscribing to common sense and reason, it goes to show that there is a large faction of the left – the party that used to be for freedom – that has simply lost their way.

  Like Pac-Man going out the left side of the screen and coming back all the way on the right side, so many on the left fail to see that they are guilty of the same things they spend their days railing against: maskless politicians on vacation during the pandemic, advocating for segregated dorms on college campuses and stifling the free speech they once relied on to get their points across.

  

  Cancel culture is just the latest example in this hypocrisy and, with the obliviousness of the left’s spokespeople on full display, it’s never been clearer that those participating in cancel culture are doing far more harm than their virtue signaling would have ever done good.

  

  Now read:

  1. Has The Red Carpet Been Rolled Out For A Mainstream Pivot On Ivermectin?

  2. It’s Starting To Feel Like Time For A “Limit Down” Morning

  3. Bill Maher Is Right: The Left Has Lost Its Mind

  4. George Gammon: Covid Is In The “Rearview Mirror” Only Because Politicians Know They “Can’t Win Votes Locking You In A Cage”

  5. This Potentially Generational Sector Opportunity Still Looks Ripe

  6. Millionaire Book-Writer And Professional Board-Sitter Chelsea Clinton Attacks Substack Authors As “Grifters”

  7. Waking Up And Derailing The Great Reset

  8. Inflation Is The Kryptonite That Will End Our Decades-Long Monetary Policy Ponzi Scheme

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 21:00

• Biden Administration Forms Board To Examine National Cybersecurity Risks
  Biden Administration Forms Board To Examine National Cybersecurity Risks

  Today in “government agencies creating even more government agencies” news…

  The Biden administration has put together a new “panel of senior administration officials and private-sector experts” tasked with looking into national cybersecurity risks, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. 

  We’re sure this has led many to ask: “Wait. We weren’t doing this already?”

  The new group is going to be in charge of looking into the recently discovered Log4j internet bug, among other “significant cybersecurity events that affect government, business and critical infrastructure.”

  It’ll have 15 members, according to the report, and like any good government entity, it will be tasked with publishing reports on findings and recommendations. Sounds very official, doesn’t it?

  The board is being “modeled loosely” on the National Transportation Safety Board in the sense that its authority is derived from an executive order signed by the President.

  

  But it isn’t an independent board, like the NTSB. Instead, it will be a part of the Department of Homeland Security. 

  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said: “It is not a regulatory authority, it is not a board that is searching for or focused upon accountability or fault. We are going to be looking at ourselves, we are going to be looking at one another, and that really underscores the purpose of this board—to not focus on fault.”

  The board will be chaired by Rob Silvers, the undersecretary for policy at DHS and a lawyer with experience in cybersecurity issues, the WSJ reported. “This is something that has been missing from the ecosystem until now,” he said.

  The board will be used to help cybersecurity agencies at the NSA and elsewhere at Homeland Security liaise with one another. 

  The Board expects to complete its review into the Log4j flaw – “a free piece of code that logs activity in computer networks and applications” – by May. Just in time for it to already be obsolete. 

  Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and co-chairman of the Senate cybersecurity caucus, concluded: “It’s only a matter of when, not if, we face another widespread cyber breach that threatens our national security. I was glad to see this NTSB-like function included in the president’s May 2021 executive order on cybersecurity, and this is a good first step to establishing such a capability.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 20:40

• FDA Issues Warning On 2 Recalled COVID-19 Tests
  FDA Issues Warning On 2 Recalled COVID-19 Tests

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

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about two COVID-19 tests made by Empowered Diagnostics because the tests aren’t approved by the FDA, even though the tests’ labels indicate that they are.

  

  Empowered Diagnostics makes the CovClear COVID-19 Rapid Antigen and ImmunoPass COVID-19 Neutralizing Antibody Rapid tests.

  Both tests have been recalled by Empowered Diagnostics, the FDA said in an announcement in late January. The recall is listed as a Class 1 recall, which the FDA’s website describes as the most serious type.

  “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning people to stop using the Empowered Diagnostics CovClear COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test and ImmunoPass COVID-19 Neutralizing Antibody Rapid Test,” the agency’s statement said. “These tests were distributed with labeling indicating they are authorized by the FDA, but neither test has been authorized, cleared, or approved by the FDA for distribution or use in the United States.”

  RECALL: The @US_FDA has recalled CovClear COVID-19 Rapid Antigen test & ImmunoPass COVID-19 Neutralizing Antibody Rapid Test by Empowered Diagnostics. They are not authorized by FDA, despite the labeling that indicates otherwise. Higher risk of false results…1/2 @LaurelPIO pic.twitter.com/Fo6PuzOijw

  — Laurel City OEM (@LaurelCityOEM) January 31, 2022

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

  The FDA further said that individuals should not use either test due to the “potentially higher risk of false results when using unauthorized tests.”

  People who used either test should talk to their health care provider if they have concerns about their test results, said the FDA.

  “If the antigen test was given less than two weeks ago, consider retesting your patients using an FDA authorized SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test if you suspect an inaccurate result,” the federal drug regulator said.

  SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.

  “False-positive results could lead test users to take fewer precautions to protect themselves from a future SARS-CoV-2 infection if the test result is interpreted to mean that they have had a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection,” according to the agency.

  The CovClear COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test nasal swab technology, while the ImmunoPass COVID-19 Neutralizing Antibody Rapid Test uses a fingerstick blood sample to determine whether one has COVID-19, the agency said.

  The FDA also confirmed that it is working with Empowered Diagnostics to resolve issues around the recall and “will continue to keep the public informed of significant new information.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 20:20

• JPMorgan's Trading Desk Scrambles To Contain The Fallout From Today's Crash
  JPMorgan’s Trading Desk Scrambles To Contain The Fallout From Today’s Crash

  After a catastrophic day for markets, which saw the S&P suffer its worst one-day loss since 2021 and the Nasdaq tumble the most since 2020, Amazon arrived with what was a Hail Mary earnings report which sent its stock soaring, and helping cut the Nasdaq’s nearly 4% loss in half, but as we noted earlier – aside for the Prime membership hike and the solid AWS results – the earnings report was actually not all that good, and the once legendary growth is now gone.

  

  Indeed, as Bloomberg echoes our skepticism, Nasdaq futures have bounced hard in early trading, but some of the details coming through on Amazon’s business outlook seem a bit less exuberant than seen at first blush: while investors “may have been bracing for the worst, following Meta’s disappointing revenue forecast and surprising business pivot towards short form video. But Amazon’s e-commerce sales numbers are still mixed. Its online stores revenue growth rate is slowing and for the third quarter in a row the company gave a sales forecast markedly below Street expectations. Yes, the Prime Membership price hike and Amazon Web Services growth are a positive, but the company’s core e-commerce business is showing no sign of a rebound yet.”

  Worse, as we first showed, margins for both North America and International e-commerce are now negative and only AWS is keeping the company afloat.

  

  Perhaps realizing the tenuous nature of the after hours bounce, JPMorgan’s trading desk is out this afternoon with an attempt to contain the dismal mood that has gripped markets (now that not even Marko Kolanovic’s weekly permabullish sermons do much to boost market optimism). Here is what the bank’s trader Andrew Tyler wrote:

  The FB-induced selloff took MegaCap Tech with it but what is interesting is the relatively muted reaction in Equity vol, especially considering the moves in the 10Y yield (product of BOE/ECB today).

  For avid readers of this note, you will recognize the MOVE Index vs. VIX Index chart but there are some additional vol-related charts below.

  

  My conclusion is that today’s action is expressing a view that this is idiosyncratic rather than systemic in nature. AMZN earnings can help stabilize the NDX. One part of the Bear thesis has been that Tech is in bubble territory. Marko points out that FB’s FY2022 P/E is now trading at 19% discount to that of the SPX (16.3x vs. 20.1x). FB’s forward PE is lower than any broad market at any point since 2014, ex-Mar 2020. This includes times when Fed Funds was at 2.5% vs. current ZIRP level.

  His conclusion is that talk of a Tech Bubble seems misplaced, especially when we have Tech stocks that are now technically Value stocks.

  Despite his uplifting undertone, Tyler concludes cautiously, writing the he remains of the view “that it is prudent to wait until you see the combination of Fed clarity (which may come post CPI print next Thursday) and VIX under 20.” Those two conditions need to be satisfied before we can see a sustainable rally, according to the JPM trader.

  Where to hide in the mean-time? His advice is to “consider commodities or commodity-related equities.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 20:00

• Fundraising Campaign For Truckers Halted After Reaching $7.96 Million
  Fundraising Campaign For Truckers Halted After Reaching $7.96 Million

  Authored by Allen Zhong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A fundraising campaign for truckers in the Freedom Convoy 2022 has been Frozen by GoFundMe after it raised over CA$10 million (US$7.96 million.)

  “This fundraiser is currently paused and under review to ensure it complies with our terms of service and applicable laws and regulations,” reads a message placed at the top of the fundraising page.

  

  The campaign was launched by two people who identified themselves as Tamara Lich and B.J. Dichter.

  The review by GoFundMe appears to be focused on several areas: the identity of the fundraisers, use of the raised funds, and if the fundraising “reflects or promotes behavior in support of violence.”

  GoFundMe said the fundraising campaign didn’t violate their Terms of Service in the perspective of promoting violence at the time of creation.

  However, they’re trying to ensure the funds will be used as intended.

  “As the activity surrounding the protest evolves, we have been monitoring the fundraiser to ensure the funds are going to the intended recipients and that the fundraiser remains within our Terms of Service,” GoFundMe said in a statement.

  The fundraising platform is also collecting information from the organizer regarding the use of the funds.

  

  The organizers of the Freedom Convoy 2022 confirmed the fundraising campaign is part of their movement during a Thursday press conference.

  Tamara Lich, one of the organizers of Freedom Convoy 2022, said that they have sent all information requested by GoFundMe.

  “This morning our lawyer sent GoFundMe all the details that they have asked for. I am confident that GoFundMe now has all the information needed to immediately lift the suspension they put on our campaign,” she said.

  “I am hoping to hear from GoFundMe soon so that we can get the money to the truckers and keep our protest for freedom moving forward,” she added.

  The Epoch Times could not verify that Lich is the same person who launched the GoFundMe campaign.

  GoFundMe confirmed Tuesday that the fundraising campaign created for truckers protesting against the various COVID-19 mandates and restrictions across Canada is the country’s second-largest ever on its platform, with donations reaching over CA$10 million.

  After the Public Health Agency of Canada’s announcement that foreign truck drivers can only enter Canada if fully vaccinated starting Jan. 15, and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announcing similar requirements starting Jan. 22 for non-U.S. national truckers crossing into the United States, thousands of truckers decided to protest and meet in Ottawa in an attempt to stop the mandates.

  Truckers in west Canada started mobilizing on Jan 23.

  As the record-breaking convoy passed through different cities, they were greeted with throngs of people cheering and holding Canadian flags, with some shooting off fireworks.

  U.S. truckers started joining the protest soon after the creators of Freedom Fighter Nation, attorney Leigh Dundas and her personal assistant Maureen Steele, heard the news and started organizing in the United States.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 19:40

• The Roadmap To The Next Recession
  The Roadmap To The Next Recession

  After repeated calls by this website that the Fed is hiking (as much as “six or seven” times to paraphrase Jamie Dimon) right into a slowdown and eventually, a recession, last week Deustche Bank’s head of thematic research Jim Reid went the next step and published his monthly chartbook called “The road to the next recession” (available to pro subscribers), and writes that “with inflation rampant, the US employment and output gaps as good as closed, the Fed playing catch-up, and the yield curve flattening, it’s fair to say that the classic ingredients for the next recession are falling into place.”

  However, where Reid diverges with our – and BofA CIO Michael Hartnett view – that a recession could strike as soon as the second half, his chartbook suggests that those waiting for the cycle to roll over imminently will likely have to be patient.

  The reason for that is that Reid’s guesstimate for when the next recession might start was mid-2024. If true, he writes, this expansion would be only just over 4 years. While this may feel short, Reid shows in the following chart that this would still be the 8th longest US cycle out of the 35 over the last 170 years. And that, of course, assumes that the events of March 2020 were sufficient to reset the business cycle – the longest one in US history, which started in June 2009 and ended with the covid crash – instead of merely pushing the US economy into “super late stage” on the back of a trillions of brand new debt, without the critical deleveraging which marks the true reset of the business cycle which of course never happened.

  

  Reid then observes that all four of the previous cycles (since 1982) have been in the top six longest of all time so what’s to stop this current cycle lasting as long? Here are the things he lists:

  • First, the output and employment gaps have closed much earlier in this cycle than the other four;
  • Second, interest rate rises (likely) and yield curve flattening are generally happening much earlier;
  • Third, inflation is accelerating at a pace not seen at this stage in these previous cycles. The third point is probably the swing factor. Over the 1982-2020 period and four very long cycles, inflation was largely controlled by exogenous disinflationary forces. As such whenever the economy looked likely to roll over, the authorities had carte blanche to loosen policy to extend the cycle. It doesn’t look likely they’ll be so fortunate this time and will have to choose between tackling inflation or reducing economic risks.

  As an interesting aside, the third longest cycle in history occurred in the mid-to-late 1960s when the Fed responded to equity market weakness by cutting rates rather than continuing to raise them in what was an inflationary environment. This extended the cycle but arguably locked in higher inflation before we even got to the inflationary 1970s. CPI ended the 1960s at 6.2% – roughly where it is now – and had already forced a hawkish Fed pivot. They arguably had to hike more aggressively than they might have needed to a few years earlier and this led to the delayed onset of the recession.

  Finally, here are a handful of useful visual themes highlighted by Reid, charting the progression to the next recession:

  • Every recession in the last 70 years has only happened AFTER 2s10s has inverted… Good news we’re still at c.+75-80bps, bad news we were at +160bps last March. Fed hikes in ‘22 could invert curve in H1 ‘23, especially if history is to be believed (see next slide)…

  

  • Average movement in 2s10s US yield curve in Fed Tightening Cycles since 1955 by month (bp change)… the curve almost always flattens after the Fed hikes, on average c.80bps in the first year.. So, could we invert in H1 ‘23 and start the countdown clock to recession?

  

  • Assuming 2s10s stays inverted for 3 months, the lead time to recession is relatively tight between 8-19 months apart from ‘08 (25 months) and mid-late 1960s when Fed re-steepened curve by cutting due to equity market weakness even though inflation was rising (i.e. policy error); a brief inversion is a less strong signal, but still can’t be ignored

  

  • Looking at curve moves, the average movement in 10yr US Treasury yields in Fed Tightening Cycles since 1963 by day (absolute percentage point change). Yields fairly flat into the first hike but then rise after until they fall again in the second and third year.

  

  Average S&P 500 Performance in Fed Tightening Cycles since 1955 by day: the weakness starts to materialise 9-10 months after the first hike and lasts a year or so. At around 8-9 months equities down in only 1 (1976) out of 13 hiking cycles… 1994 (shock rate hikes) around zero though.

  

  That said, this time is different – the current Fed policy is the loosest since the 1950s and only looser around the start and end of WWII

  

  • Meanwhile, the US labor market is acting like it’s already well through full employment: Was the decision to move to FAIT fighting the battle of the last war? Without FAIT would the Fed have tightened earlier due to lead indicators? Quits data has been much better lead indicator of labour tightness than u/e rate.

  

  • Yet even as US inflation has surged and been missed, Q4 2022 expectations risen only slightly over last 12 months. Economists still believe in transitory to a large degree…

  

  • Perhaps the most important chart, and why we don’t think this is a new cycle at all – the Covid M2 spike has taken us well beyond pre-covid trend. Note that the GFC period saw no such spike. Back then banks, consumers were aggressively de-levering and governments soon moved to austerity. It’s a very different this time with helicopter money and no de-leverering…

  

  • Another remarkable observation: the US output and employment gap likely now closed, the quickest in history after the slowest post GFC. A very different cycle to the post GFC one. The inflationary consequence at the same stage of the cycles should be totally different… So by definition we are mid-late cycle earlier.

  

  • Some bad news for central bankers: inflation will struggle to sharply mean revert. Primary rents and owners’ equivalent rent (OER) make up around a third of the basket (40% for core) and our own forecast (see “What Rental Hyperinflation Looks Like: “Soaring Prices. Competition. Desperation“” from August 2021) suggest > 5.5% in 2022..

  

  • A decoupling: Oil has been a big driver of inflation expectations over the last decade, but an interesting decoupling in 2022 though: Fed are lowering breakevens but oil marches on. This is likely due to the jump in Real Rates as the Fed pulls back on TIPS purchases, which in turn is forcing Breakevens (a plug) to slump.

  

  • So will the market get rate hikes right this time. Historically, traders have been mostly too hawkish since the GFC. Will this time be the polar opposite?

  

  • What about the Fed? QT interrupted one of the biggest bull markets in history –  Will it have a similar impact this time? Note though it took 9 hikes and a year of QT for turmoil in markets, but inflation was far, far lower.

  

  • And while we wait for the next recession, we have bad news for tech stock fans: the FAANG index has a long way to drop as it follows the upcoming collapse in the Fed’s balance sheet.

  

  Much more in the full presentation, available to professional subs.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 19:20

• Attorneys Report Spike In Calls For Help From Families Of Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19
  Attorneys Report Spike In Calls For Help From Families Of Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19

  Authored by Nanette Holt via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Attorneys around the country report an alarming uptick in calls for help from families of patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

  

  Some say they’ve talked to family members who were arrested after trying to visit a loved one or to speak with a doctor after communications with the hospital were cut off.

  Attorneys told The Epoch Times about a wide variety of instances of what they call abuse, including hospitals preventing visits from family, failing to provide nutrition and fluids, and coercing patients to agree to treatments they’d already refused multiple times—such as being placed on a ventilator.

  Gainesville, Florida, attorney Jeff Childers has been so alarmed by the cases he’s seen, he posted a tutorial online with tips on how to navigate the legalities surrounding hospitalization with COVID-19.

  Childers warns that he’s not a doctor and that he’s not offering medical advice.

  When his office gets calls from concerned family members, the patient in question is already on a ventilator and the family is desperately concerned about treatment.

  “In many cases, the hospitals have refused to release the patient, citing their unstable condition, meaning that at some point it can become impossible to get off the COVID express,” Childers wrote in his blog.

  “The most common complaints we get include that patients are being pressured to accept Remdesivir, have been given Remdesivir even though they objected to it, or the hospital will not administer alternative widely-used treatments even though the patient is in critical condition where side effects are less risky than imminent death.

  I have personally seen hospitals spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers to keep patients in their facility.”

  

  Childers was one of the attorneys who took on Mayo Clinic Florida in court hoping to help the family of Daniel Pisano try medications they believed would help him. Mayo Clinic attorneys fought back vigorously.

  The Pisano family also had tried to arrange to transfer the 70-year-old grandfather and businessman to a hospital where he could receive the medications an outside doctor had said could save him.

  Pisano passed while the family was still fighting to obtain alternative medications for him.

  “I call it medical kidnapping,” Childers said. “This isn’t over by a long shot,” he added, alluding to a continuation of the fight with Mayo Clinic.

  Mayo Clinic Florida has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the case and hospital attorneys asked judges on multiple occasions to seal documents that would reveal their arguments.

  Another hospital in Naples, Florida, had two sisters arrested when they came to the facility seeking a visit with their father or a conversation with his doctor, Jim Boatman, an attorney, told The Epoch Times. The hospital stopped responding to the family’s requests for updates on their loved one when they started asking about alternative treatments, Boatman said.

  Ultimately the women, who briefly spent time in jail for the offense, decided it would put their father’s care at risk if they filed a lawsuit, Boatman told The Epoch Times.

  Attorney Esther Bodek in Aurora, Colorado, also knows of a patient’s family members who were arrested when communications with a hospital went sour. She says requests from families of COVID-19 patients have flooded in since November.

  “It’s traumatizing,” Bodek said, “because it is a level of civil rights abuses that I have never encountered in my entire life.”

  In case after case, she’s seen a pattern of separating COVID-19 patients from their families and restricting visitation. “And during that period of time is usually when the remdesivir is administered.”

  

  Some families coming to her for help often strenuously object to treatment with remdesivir. When other treatments have failed, they desperately want to try things the hospital won’t allow, such as ivermectin and vitamins.

  Those are part of a popular protocol used by independent doctors around the country and by people treating themselves at home.

  Bodek has fought many times to obtain those medications as a last-ditch effort to save a patient. She said the resistance she faces when dealing with the hospitals is maddening.

  “Any question about treatment starts immediate combativeness [by hospital staff], from what I’ve seen in the pattern of our cases,” she said.

  She’s had clients denied fluids and nutrition to the point of near-starvation. Since taking those cases she works night and day seven days a week.

  On the weekend, “I’ll be on the phone and talking to somebody in tears,” she said. “The hospital’s telling them they want to pull the plug and they’re trying to make a decision. The doctor says, ‘We’re going to take him off life support now.’ And I’ve had to say ‘No! That’s not their choice!’”

  One of her clients works in billing in a hospital and told her that hospitals receive a bonus payment of $17,000 from the federal government for every patient confirmed to have COVID-19, Bodek said. A bonus payment of $37,000 is paid for any patient going on a ventilator, according to that client, Bodek said.

  “And she works in hospital billing, so she would know,” Bodek added.

  

  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not responded to requests for details about payments made to hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

  Bodek’s advice: “Stay out of the hospital, no matter what. And if it happens that you’re admitted, have a medical power of attorney immediately written up to say no to remdesivir.”

  She’s looking into filing civil rights violations lawsuits if claims of medical malpractice won’t work.

  “I’m determined to find a way to stop this abuse,” Bodek said. “This is definitely a fight we’re not giving up.”

  Omaha, Neb. attorney Gerard Forgét, who specializes in trusts and estates, contacted The Epoch Times hoping to offer similar advice for readers.

  Hospitals often ask patients being admitted to sign a health-care directive or living will indicating, in advance, decisions about whether or not to be put on life support.

  “I advise clients against this,” Forgét said. Signing one of those documents “vests your physician with authority that supersedes your spouse, or other family members. This can yield tragic results!”

  Giving a physician that power means he or she can remove life support without consulting family, he says. “Signing that gives your physician permission to kill you!”

  The problems in American health care will take a long time to correct, Childers said.

  “The blessing is COVID has exposed the problems” in health care, he added. “They weren’t created by COVID. COVID showed us where they are.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 19:00

• Tech Wreck Meta-stasizes To Broader Market; Credit Starts To Crack
  Tech Wreck Meta-stasizes To Broader Market; Credit Starts To Crack

  Update (1700ET): No dips were bought in FB today as Zuck saw his net worth evaporate to the tune of around $30 billion. But, after hours – following a 7%-plus plunge in AMZN’s share price in concert with the tech wreck on the day – Amazon’s earnings and outlook sparked an astonishing surge of nearly 20% (adding around $15 billion to Jeff Bezos net worth)…

  

  Here’s the thing though…

  As we detailed earlier, having traded just within striking-distance of CTA “buy triggers” on Wednesday, today’s bloodbathery in the broad markets (gapping lower and further away from that new / incremental ‘buy flow’ from CTA Trend) is now critically important because, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott noted earlier, we have gradually “burned off” those obvious “first stage of mechanical rally” flows… and at the same time ripped through various stops at critical technical levels.

  But…

  Tonight’s move in AMZN is now a major problem for markets. In fact it is, as McElligott warned, a “potential worst case scenario.“

  1) Funds sell Delta and grab back into Vol / Gamma as a reaction to FB on concerns it will knock-on into rest of Equities, just as funds had begun re-risking…

  2) …because the fear is that so many funds are going to “take an L” here on the sheer magnitude of the $drawdown that it will cause liquidation that spills-over into other “liquid” Growth names…

  3) …and then, AMZN releases absolutely blow-out +++ numbers later, forcing yet-another “lunge to the other side of the boat” as the aforementioned flows then reverse.

  Simply out, the Nomura strategist “nailed it”…

  1) FB’s collapse smashed into every other equity index…

  

  2) Growth stocks were systemically clubbed like a baby seal…

  

  3) And then AMZN explodes higher, tearing the underlying indices higher…

  

  All of which leaves stops having been run, positioning chaotic, and gamma extremely offsides (remember this move in AMZN happened after the options market was closed)…

  

  Oh, and just to add some sprinkles to that sundae of risk, do not forget tomorrow is payrolls day – which is setting up to be a disastrous print.

  *  *  *

  

  Today was the worst day for a balanced bond/stock portfolio since Feb 2021 as stocks puked and yields spiked as Risk-Parity funds puked as Zuckerberg’s disaster forced deleveraging and derisking everywhere…

  

  While Facebook’s stock was probably up in the metaverse, in the cold, hard reality in which us plebs live, Meta lost almost $250 billion in market cap today, losing its membership of the ‘four commas’ club and falling to the same market cap as Nvidia…

  

  There was a brief retail-driven BTFD episode at the cash open, but the algos disagreed…

  That is more market cap lost than the total market cap of 475 members of the S&P 500 and equivalent to an Adobe, a Disney, a Broadcom, two Blackrocks, two Goldmans, three General Motors, or five Bank of New York Mellons.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  This is  – as far as we can tell – the largest single-day market cap loss for a company... ever. And dwarfs the next 5…

  • AAPL lost $179bn on 09/03/20

  • MSFT lost $178bn on 03/16/20

  • TSLA lost $140bn on 11/09/21

  • AMZN lost $130bn on 07/03/21

  • GOOGL lost $95bn on 03/16/20

  And aside from the day that Jeff Bezos handed over half his wealth to his ex-wife, this has to be the biggest daily net worth loss for a human ever.

  All of that amid a total lack of liquidity…

  

  All of which weighed most heavily on Nasdaq obviously but that selling overhang metastasized (see what we did there?) across the broader market (and prompted liquidation selling in other assets). There were barely any bounces and those that did manage anything were hit hard. Selling accelerated at around 1430ET (margin call time).

  

  Worst day for the Nasdaq Since Sept 2020

  The S&P and Dow both dropped back below their 100DMAs…

  

  Everything is now red for February (with the late-day purge dragging the Dow down too)…

  

  Credit markets ain’t buying the recent rampage in stocks. HY/IG spreads are at 15-month highs…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  …while VIX decouples lower…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Treasuries were also dumped today with yields up 4-5bps (but only after spiking even more intraday)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The 30Y Yield continues to chop in a relatively wide 10bps range…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  US rate-hike odds rose modestly but Lagarde sent European rate-hike expectations soaring with her surprisingly hawkish sentiment…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The dollar continued its slide, dumping rather notably today…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Bitcoin dropped for the 2nd day in a row, unable to hold above $37k…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Gold was puked at the US equity cash open, back below $1800, but buyers stepped in rapidly and lifted it back above $1800…

  

  Finally, a weak dollar and escalating geopolitical risks sent WTI surging back above $90 today for the first time since Oct 2014…

  

  And that means $3.50 gas at your pump is coming very soon…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Get back to work Mr.Biden!

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 18:44

• "This Is Alex Jones Territory!" Watch Reporter Shred Admin Spox Over 'Russian False Flag' Claims
  “This Is Alex Jones Territory!” Watch Reporter Shred Admin Spox Over ‘Russian False Flag’ Claims

  Earlier on Thursday the Biden administration and US intelligence came out with some explosive and outlandish claims, saying Russia is planning to release a video depicting graphic scenes of a “staged false explosion with corpses, actors depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations and military equipment,” as CNN described it. This in order to justify a military invasion of Ukraine, given the false flag operation would feature Russian-backed separatists under attack by Ukrainian forces.

  Given such a narrative has been advanced in public, grabbing global headlines, but without so much as a shred of evidence – even mainstream media pundits are scratching their heads. Watch Associated Press writer Matt Lee demolish the State Department’s Ned Price, who refuses to provide any level of proof backing the bizarre and surprising claims. “This is like Alex Jones territory you’re getting into now!” Lee points out…

  Reporter: “It’s an action that you say they have taken, but you have shown no evidence to confirm that. […] This is like – crisis actors? Really? This is like Alex Jones territory you’re getting into now.”

  Must-watch exchange between @APDiploWriter Matt Lee and @StateDeptSpox. pic.twitter.com/RPIPb2zwf5

  — The Hill (@thehill) February 3, 2022

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

  Throughout the past month, both sides of the Ukraine crisis have accused the other of waging “information wars” – however, these new claims, complete with details of crisis actors and war scenes and corpses being “staged”, have reached new levels of the absurd. US Secretary of Defense spokesman John Kirby had told reporters earlier Thursday afternoon that “We do have information that the Russians likely to want to fabricate a pretext for an invasion – which again, is right out of their playbook.”

  The AP’s Lee incredulously points this out to an increasingly agitated Ned Price, who doubles down during the testy exchange, even suggesting that anyone questioning the Biden admin narrative is merely being fed ‘Russian disinformation’…

  Lee challenged Price, saying the State Department had presented “no evidence” that Russia has actually created a “crisis actor” video and insisting that he wouldn’t be satisfied with the administration’s claims alone.

  “If you doubt the credibility of the U.S. government, of the British government, of other governments and want to, you know, find solace in information that the Russians are putting out, that is for you to do,” Price responded.

  Lee then pointed that given the extraordinary claims, some level of evidence is demanded given the mounting numbers of whopping government lies over the past two decades, including ‘Iraq WMDs’.

  anyone who questions a statement delivered from a podium is a tool of the russians, the islamic state, or both

  sorry, you know the rules

  — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 3, 2022

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

  Price hid behind the “that’s classified” classic line often used whenever government officials want to shut down legitimate skepticism of their claims…

  “Like, ‘crisis actors’? This is Alex Jones territory you’re getting into,” he said. “Where is the declassified information?,” he repeated multiple times.

  In pressing for evidence to justify the administration’s claims, the veteran reporter referenced numerous U.S. intelligence failures that led to catastrophe in recent decades, including the “weapons of mass destruction” speculation that served as a pretext for America’s 2003 military intervention in Iraq as well as the U.S. timeline for Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban that was totally upended in August.

  State Dept.: Russia is going to launch a false flag attack as a pretext to invade Ukraine.

  Reporter: What’s your evidence?

  State Dept.: I just gave it to you.

  Reporter: No, you made an allegation.

  State Dept.: Yes, that’s the evidence.

  Reporter: 😐pic.twitter.com/lC1pRxNiso

  — Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) February 3, 2022

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  “That’s not evidence, Ned, that’s you saying it.”

  “I would like to see some proof that you can show that shows what the Russians are doing. I’ve been doing this a long time…I remember Iraq and that Kabul’s not going to fall,” Lee then asserted.

  Price retorted: “I’m sorry you’re doubting the information that is in the possession of the US government” – as if it was some kind of gotcha response. Hilariously, it wasn’t the first time today that the Biden administration pulled this kind of clumsy ‘if you doubt what I’m saying you must be with the enemy’ tactic… Price sneeringly dismissed Lee as a Russian propagandist for refusing to accept wild evidence-free government assertions at face value. The administration did the same thing earlier in the day when questioned about the special forces raid on the Syria-Turkey border…

  Aboard AF1, a reporter asked WH press secretary Jen Psaki for evidence to back up the claim that Qurayshi denotated a suicide bomb.

  Psaki asked whether skeptics think the U.S. military is “not providing accurate information and ISIS is providing accurate information.” 2/x

  — Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) February 3, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 18:40

• Controlling The Gold Narrative: The Immoral Trinity Of Weak Governance, Big Business, And Mainstream Media
  Controlling The Gold Narrative: The Immoral Trinity Of Weak Governance, Big Business, And Mainstream Media

  By Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chief Executive Officer at DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre),

  In the quieter days between Christmas and the New Year, it’s not unheard of for the 24-hours news cycle to face a lull when it comes to finding interesting topics to write about, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when I came across an article on Bloomberg titled, “Dubai Can’t Shake Off the Stain of Smuggled African Gold”, which references interviews with non-specified government officials across Africa, who are “desperate to recoup lost revenue” from an “illicit network” where “tons of their gold goes missing in Dubai every year.” In fact, the only two African ministers named and quoted in the article were Congolese Finance Minister, Nicolas Kazadi and Nigerian Mines Minister, Olamilekan Adegbite, the latter of which went on the record to state, “It’s a huge loss… most European countries will ask you for your certificates of export from the country of origin. If you do not have that, the gold is confiscated and returned back to source. But, you see, in Dubai they look the other way.”

  

  While I may find the Honourable Minister’s perception of a utopian and highly ethical Europe farcical, particularly considering the savage, historic treatment of his own country and the wider continent at the hands of their colonisers, his suggestion that Dubai, and Dubai alone is inherently corrupt in the global gold trade is not only a slur, but typical of the distorted narrative that has been propagated by those who are most threatened. Perhaps he is unaware of the criminal complaint lodged against Argor-Heraeus SA for its role in refining three tons of pillaged gold ore from the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 2004 – 2005, thereby making its actions a war crime, or more recently MMTC-PAMP’s involvement at the North Mara mine in Tanzania where documented human rights abuses included murder and rape.

  It would be all too easy for me to point out Nigeria’s extensive socioeconomic difficulties, its ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index, or its escalating challenges with cybercrime. However, it is my firm belief that the only way we are to truly solve these problems is by working together as a global community. When addressing the Lagos Business School in November 2021, Minister Adegbite commented that, “Some challenges of the sector highlighted by the 2016 roadmap include lack of data and geoscience information, weak mining institution, lack of new technology, skills and training and limited engagement with key stakeholders, poor revenue generation and leakages, challenges of industry participants, and many others.” Perhaps the Minister would then also concede that Dubai isn’t the primary issue in his country’s mining supply chain.

  While many of these challenges fall at the feet of the Nigerian government, the UAE has continuously reached out to cooperate with the international community to combat crime and illicit activity, most recently by engaging with organisations such as FATF, HMRC, the FBI and the United Nations to combat money laundering and counter terrorism financing. In light of this, I extend an open invitation to The Honorable Minister to connect and join with me in supporting an outright ban on hand-carry doré gold bars in conjunction with all of us who are serious about stemming the flow of illicit gold. More on this later.

  Aside from its willingness to jump on the bandwagon and lambast Dubai, the Bloomberg article appears to afford other refining centres and producing nations a free pass. Bearing in mind the complete supply chain and volume of bullion sent to Europe each year, there are many other actors, elements and challenges in the gold market. Not just Dubai.

  Considering this, there are three things which make its headline very misleading – the first, sovereign accountability. While numerous countries are referenced throughout the article, not once does it place the onus on the respective governments to better police both their artisan mining communities and their border controls. Having been a major advocate for the complete ban of hand-carry gold doré bars since addressing an audience in Ghana in 2016, I have yet to be contacted by any relevant minister or leader from the continent despite my consistent requests for international cooperation. If the global community, in particular the producing nations are serious about stopping the movement of gold doré, this would be an excellent place to start. Incidentally, our next workshop will be announced in the coming weeks, and I implore all members of the gold community to register and take part.

  Fortunately, I’m happy to report that several countries have taken matters into their own hands. Ghana, under a campaign launched under Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has taken a proactive step towards better regulating its artisan mining community by establishing a gold purchase scheme in conjunction with the Bank of Ghana, an action that will not only help small-scale mining communities, but also better protect its natural wealth.

  In Ethiopia, the government intervened via its central bank by offering miners competitive prices for gold in a bid to curb smuggling and spur investment in the mining sector, while Tanzania has introduced mineral trading centers, thereby helping to reduce the appeal and grip of smuggling.  

  The second misleading element is to what extent should Dubai be accountable for the African gold industry’s supply chain. For instance, in order to live up to the article’s headline we have to acknowledge that all activities up until the point of entry into Dubai, including unregulated extraction, smuggling and bribery are either kosher or not really part of the problem.

  The third element is simply a question of credibility. In order for the article to stand up, it is important to acknowledge that the African countries in question have complete, accurate and reliable data – an unlikely scenario given that of the nine countries where gold smuggling is “rampant”, five fall comfortably into the bottom 22% of the world’s most corrupt countries. Incidentally, if the figures published are to be believed, there is a simple equation to help paint a clearer picture.

   “While it’s impossible to say precisely how much is lost to smugglers each year, United Nations trade data for 2020 show a discrepancy of at least $4 billion between the United Arab Emirates’ declared gold imports from Africa and what African countries say they exported to the UAE.”

  Even if we were to take the high spot price as mentioned in the article ($2,075), it would suggest that 60.24 US tons is being illicitly smuggled, primarily by hand-carry into Dubai. This quickly becomes a case of Occam’s Razor – is it more likely that some of the most corrupt and administratively under-resourced countries in the world with little to no accurate data or control over their national mining efforts can convincingly identify Dubai as illicitly accepting 2.1% of the global annual gold output while showing little to no interest in changing the status quo, or that Dubai represents a threat to the former UK-Swiss-based monopolies of the industry and to the bureaucrats whose pockets remain comfortably lined. If the narrative is to stick, someone will need to accurately answer the following questions. What is the official production of each country? How much is large-scale mining versus artisanal? And what is the breakdown of exports to other gold trading centres including Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Turkey and India?

  It is worth mentioning that Bloomberg L.P’s current Chairman of the Board, Peter Grauer is the former Senior Independent Non-Executive Director for Glencore PLC, the Anglo-Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company from May 2014 – 2018, a company whose extensive criminality across Africa and Asia includes tax evasion, racketeering, embargo breaches, foreign bribery, manipulating oil prices and money laundering charges. Perhaps he could have offered some insight as to how Africa’s mining supply chains actually operate?

  While remixing previous editorials and engagements between the UAE, myself and institutions including the LBMA or SECO are perhaps good for audience numbers, it is also symptomatic of the increasingly homogenised alliance between corrupt government, big tech/ big business, and the mainstream media.

  The global gold market, freighted with politics, commercial competition and national rivalries, is complicated, far reaching and certainly deserves the space that Bloomberg afforded it. However, it deserves better than schoolboy analysis. A two-color map of Africa that arbitrarily demarcates countries with a major gold smuggling problem with no comparisons, no data, no definitions, no numbers and no evidence, yet leaves Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Guinea, Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mauritania, Egypt, Ethiopia and Namibia off the list?

  Ultimately, it suggests a less than authoritative approach and Bloomberg can and should do better. There are a total of eleven journalists credited with this tour de force. The editors might have done better to interview policy makers from the major gold producing, or supposedly exporting nations on the continent, as opposed to Nigeria which doesn’t even rank in the top 15.

  For those who know the gold industry well, and are prepared to be honest, there isn’t a nation on earth which can claim to be fully clean and ethical, even if those circumstances are through no fault of their own, i.e., by falling victim to forged documentation that is indistinguishable from the real thing. There are bad actors, criminal enterprises and holes in our global systems that need to be addressed and carefully analysed as a community before we can claim meaningful progress. My concern about this article and its Dubai-bashing agenda does not blind me to the constant need to review and – where necessary – reform. The DMCC, which I serve as Executive Chairman and CEO has not just been in the vanguard of calls to stop the hand-carry of gold doré, a traffic that is wide open to abuse, but an integral part of the UAE’s complete reform and restructure of gold and bullion trading which will come into operation later this year. We have long embraced the OECD standards and are determined to lead the world in ethical, efficient gold markets. We expect fair competition and welcome informed criticism, however, the subject is too important for holiday journalism.      

  In 1995, the Harvard Business Review published and op-ed by Peter Vanderwicken titled, “Why the News Is Not the Truth” – an analysis based on a thesis by former political scientist Paul H. Weaver whose essay, “News and the Culture of Lying: How Journalism Really Works”, boldly illustrated the corrupt and self-perpetuating relationship between the government and the media. 

  To quote; “The U.S. press, like the U.S. government, is a corrupt and troubled institution. Corrupt not so much in the sense that it accepts bribes but in a systemic sense. It fails to do what it claims to do, what it should do, and what society expects it to do.

  Had Mr. Vanderwicken had the opportunity to revise his piece in 2022, perhaps he would consider the dramatic consolidation of power and wealth that has led to an ever-growing sphere of influence over supposedly democratic nations, the populism and censorship power of the media, and how finding the truth and formulating solutions to our common problems is no longer just a challenge for the U.S, but for our global society.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 18:20

• Why President Biden Simply Can't Say The Word "Tesla"
  Why President Biden Simply Can’t Say The Word “Tesla”

  President Biden’s silence on U.S.-based EV manufacturer Tesla is growing louder.

  What once started as a casual snub by Biden, who has embraced photo ops with GM when speaking about electric vehicles, has now turned into a full-out saga, with Musk jabbing that Biden simply can’t bring himself to say the word “Tesla”.

  The difference of opinion between Biden and Musk lies mostly with unions.

  President Biden has enjoyed the support of labor unions, including the United Auto Workers, Bloomberg noted this week. Musk, on the other hand, has made his distaste for unions well known. He’s also recently moved to Texas, a state where President Biden has little support. 

  Meanwhile, as Bloomberg notes, UAW support is key to Democratic victories both in upcoming midterm elections and in 2024.

  

  Musk hasn’t been shy in making his political stance known over the last year or two.

  Recall, about a week ago, we wrote that the Tesla CEO referred to Biden as a “damp sock puppet in human form” in a Twitter tirade he published two weeks ago.

  Hours before this exchange with Biden, Musk urged Canadian truckers and those support the anti-vaccine mandate in Canada to “vote them out”, referring to the country’s liberal political leaders.

  “If you scare people enough, they will demand removal of freedom. This is the path to tyranny,” Musk wrote. “Canadian truckers rule.”

  Musk has previously said that the unvaccinated are “taking a risk, but people do risky things all the time.”

  “I believe we’ve got to watch out for the erosion of freedom in America,” he commented to Time last year.

  Musk’s latest ire however appears to have been the result of the US president’s photo-op with General Motors chair Mary Barra, according to RT. 

  In the photo op, Biden is seen praising GM’s planned investment in EV manufacturing in the United States.

  “I meant it when I said the future was going to be made right here in America,” Biden said in a tweeted video with General Motors Co. chair and Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra on Thursday.

  “Companies like GM and Ford are building more electric vehicles here at home than ever before.”

  Musk took a jab at Biden for not mentioning Tesla in his remarks weeks ago.

  “Starts with a T, Ends with an A, ESL in the middle,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

  Musk, meanwhile, whether you like him or not, can likely be credited with moving the U.S. and the world closer to the adoption of EVs more than anybody in recent history. 

  Additionally, Musk has a right to some ‘beef’ with one transparently biased Biden policy with an anti-Tesla twist: consumers would be eligible for an extra $4,500-per-car tax credit for EVs if they buy an EV assembled by union workers.

  White House spokeswoman Emilie Simons said in a statement to Bloomberg News, Tesla has “benefited greatly” from EV tax credits in the past, “but, unfortunately, their CEO has suggested an opposition to new EV tax credits.”

  You’re either with us 100% on everything… or you’re hitler!?

  Musk later weighed in on Bloomberg’s report with a one-word tweet: “Sigh.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/03/2022 – 18:00

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