Jan 08

Today’s News 8th January 2024

  • The Great Taking Exposes The Financial End Game
    The Great Taking Exposes The Financial End Game

    Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

    One of the very best exposés of the covert, very well-hidden, bellicose attempts to rob all of humanity – barring the miniscule number of psychotic individuals comprising the inimical opposition – of their material possessions and their ‘immaterial’ freedom, was published fairly recently. It is accurately titled The Great Taking (2023), and was written by David Webb, one of the most courageous and finance-savvy authors I have ever come across.

    He introduces the book on p. 1 in uncompromising terms: 

    What is this book about? It is about the taking of collateral, all of it, the end game of this globally synchronous debt accumulation super cycle. This is being executed by long-planned, intelligent design, the audacity and scope of which is difficult for the mind to encompass. Included are all financial assets, all money on deposit at banks, all stocks and bonds, and hence, all underlying property of all public corporations, including all inventories, plant and equipment, land, mineral deposits, inventions and intellectual property. Privately owned personal and real property financed with any amount of debt will be similarly taken, as will the assets of privately owned businesses, which have been financed with debt. If even partially successful, this will be the greatest conquest and subjugation in world history. 

    We are now living within a hybrid war conducted almost entirely by deception, and thus designed to achieve war aims with little energy input. It is a war of conquest directed not against other nation states but against all of humanity.

    In the Prologue of the book Webb paints a richly textured, autobiographical picture of his provenance as finance guru, obviously with exceptional intelligence and, it turned out, courage. His knowledge of finance and economics has been the result of long years of work in the field, but he recalls the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, before the start of his professional career, when he was a child, and what he calls (witnessing) the subsequent “industrial collapse” of the US in Cleveland, where the family lived, culminating in “the complete destruction of everything we had known” (p. vii). Before he gets into the details of his life, he commences the Prologue with an indirect intimation of his reasons for writing the book (p. vi): 

    Presently, as we well know, families are divided. People are experiencing a kind of isolation, perhaps not physically, but in spirit and mind. This has been made to happen through the dark magic of false news and narrative. This alone has been a great crime against humanity. The tactical purposes are many: to confuse and divide; to cause disengagement; to demoralize; to instill fears and to introduce false focal points for these fears; to manipulate the historical narrative; to create a false sense of the present reality; and ultimately, to cause people to acquiesce to what has been planned.

    It is impossible to overstate the urgency of Webb’s message – everyone who reads this article should download the book (free) at the link provided above, or at least view the documentary based on it at CHD.TV, Rumble and (I don’t know for how long) YouTube. It makes for compulsive reading – a kind of non-fictional, real-world detective story, where you, the reader, are both the victim of the crime and the one looking over the detective’s shoulder at the evidence that he is digging up.

    And is there persuasive evidence! In the ‘court of human justice’ – which should be established, if it does not exist – the primary documentary evidence adduced by Webb would be sufficient to incarcerate all of these culprits, if not condemn them to capital punishment (recalling that, etymologically, ‘capital,’ or ‘of the head’ in Latin, relates to one’s head, which was usually implicated in hanging and decapitation; it also echoes in ‘wearing a cap’). That Webb knows only too well how he has exposed himself (and his family) with this book – and earlier, in addresses where he shared his findings with audiences in Sweden and the US – is clear where he writes, against the backdrop of the two occasions where he presented his insights, together with evidence (p. xxx):

    Less than a month after speaking at that conference in the U.S., a man contacted me who asked to meet in Stockholm. He had been the Chairman of a U.S. political party, and had a long career related to the defense establishment. He stayed at a hotel within a short walking distance from my apartment. We had lunch. He suggested a pint of ale. He asked me to explain the subject of which I had spoken at the conference. I went through the evidence and implications. The odd thing is that he then asked no questions about the subject. Instead, he fixed me in the eye and said, ‘Does your family know you are doing this?’ He said nothing more; that was the end of the meeting. I paid the bill and left. Perhaps it had been a ‘courtesy call.’

    We all have to die sometime, and being assassinated must be among the most honorable ways to do it. One must have been doing something right! Made a difference! No classier way to die, really. I always wanted to be like John Lennon!

    One could easily be fooled by Webb’s debonair shrugging-off of what could indeed have been a thinly veiled death threat from his dinner guest, but the fact remains that anyone who has the courage to oppose the psychopaths trying to hijack the world runs a tremendous risk, the more high-profile such opposition becomes. This is shown in the recent death ‘by suicide’ (yeah, right!) of Janet Ossebaard, who made the series, The Fall of the Cabal, and was involved in the unmasking of a network of pedophiles. The chances that she committed suicide, as reported, are pretty slim, I would say; she was evidently a thorn in the side of the murderous cabal.

    Returning to Webb’s book, he tellingly recounts how, after 9/11, when he saw all the signs of a deteriorating US economy everywhere, concomitantly there were undeniable indications that the Bush administration was spreading disinformation on this, covering it up by disseminating spurious reports of American economic strength. 

    In reality, however, the opposite was the case, symptomatic of which was the rapid shutting down of American manufacturing capacity and outsourcing it to China (which was obviously in on the deal). Nothing less than the (planned) loss of the American industrial base was occurring, while, accompanying this, Alan Greenspan was lauding the putative “productivity miracle” resulting from technology investment and development. It was a masterly performance of pulling the wool over Americans’ eyes. 

    Simultaneously, the impression of prosperity was further solidified by projecting the illusion that there was no risk in borrowing money; the ability to repay loans was ostensibly guaranteed. Webb’s persistent, perspicacious sleuthing has uncovered the trail which reveals the steps taken years ago to prepare for the global economic collapse we are facing now. This included the 2008 financial collapse, of which he writes wryly (p. xxviii): 

    In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis it eventually became known that tens of trillions in losses in derivative positions were housed in the biggest banks, which were then bailed out with newly created money. The prime brokers would have failed, but to prevent that they were made banks and also received direct injections of created money from the Fed. No one was prosecuted. On the contrary, the perpetrators were rewarded with enormous bonuses. It was almost as if it had all gone according to plan.

    If I understand Webb correctly, this is the strategy that has been repeated several times, at least since the second half of the 19th century, resulting in the rich getting (much) richer and the poor getting (much) poorer. In brief, focusing on “Velocity of Money” (VOM) – “Velocity multiplied by Money Supply = GDP. Lower Velocity results in lower GDP” (p. 3) – Webb shows that, given the cyclical collapse of economies and empires in the 20th century, following the Great War, and the demonstrable benefit, despite all this hardship, of certain banking interests regarding control (and creation) of money, as well as of key institutions, the contemporary ‘heirs’ of all this control knew that a similar collapse would recur. They have been preparing for it. And they are determined to remain in control. Hence the supposed ‘Great Reset.’ 

    During the Dot-com bubble and bust period Webb studied the relationship between financial markets and the Federal Reserve bank, and realised that the latter was deliberately influencing the former by manipulating the money supply – that is, routinely printing more money than, correlatively, GDP growth. If money supply growth is more than GDP growth, a financial bubble develops, divorced from any real economic growth. By the end of 1999 the money supply had increased by more than 40% of GDP annually, signaling that VOM was imploding. 

    Does this sound familiar? Since the start of the plandemic trillions of US dollars have been printed, accelerating the widening of the gap between money supply and real economic productivity, and thus hastening the financial collapse. This is what the cabal wants. After all, as Webb tersely remarks (p. 4), “Crises do not occur by accident; they are induced intentionally and used to consolidate power and to put in place measures, which will be used later.” Rather apocalyptically, he continues (pp 5-6):

    VOM has now contracted to a lower level than at any point during the Great Depression and world wars. Once the ability to produce growth by printing money has been exhausted, creating more money will not help. It is pushing on a string. The phenomenon is irreversible. And so, perhaps the announcement of the ‘Great Reset’ has been motivated not by ‘Global Warming’ or by profound insights into a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution,’ but rather by certain knowledge of the collapse of this fundamental monetary phenomenon, the implications of which extend far beyond economics.

    Just how far becomes increasingly clear as one reads through this densely documented book – not a book with many pages, but a ‘big’ book as far as the importance of its theme (and its substantiation) is concerned. Given the number of reports and other sources which Webb cites, it is impossible to do justice here to all their details and their pertinence for Webb’s argument, that the so-called elites have spent years to prepare for a ‘super-cycle’ collapse that will necessitate the transition to a New World Order, with them still in control. I can therefore only lift out the salient parts of his argument. The first is neatly captured where he writes (p. 7):

    There are now no property rights to securities held in book-entry form in any jurisdiction, globally. In the grand scheme to confiscate all collateral, dematerialization of securities was the essential first step. The planning and efforts began over half a century ago.

    Not only was the CIA intimately involved in this “dematerialization” – which essentially meant moving from paper-based stock certificate archiving, to a computer-based system – but the CIA project leader was moved to a senior position in the banking sector without any banking experience. Webb raises the possibility, interrogatively, that the ensuing “paperwork crisis” was “manufactured” to justify the dematerialisation process, which paved the way for the present electronic archiving system worldwide.

    Small wonder the epigraph for this chapter is a quote from Sun Tzu (which is just as applicable to today): “All warfare is based on deception.” This also covers the topic of the next chapter: “Security Entitlement,” of which Webb writes (p. 9): “The greatest subjugation in world history will have been made possible by the invention of a construct; a subterfuge; a lie: the ‘Security Entitlement.’”

    And indeed, having informed one that, since their inception more than 400 years ago, these “tradable financial instruments” were recognised, by law, as personal property, he hits the reader with the news that this is not the case any longer. In practice, Webb explains, this implies that even if, wishing to avoid the complications of a car dealership possibly going bust after purchasing a car on an installment plan, one has bought it for cash, this will no longer work. Security entitlements have been changed legally to permit creditors of the bankrupt car dealership to seize your car as an asset that still belongs to the dealership. 

    Webb sums this legal coup up as follows (p. 10): “Essentially all securities ‘owned’ by the public in custodial accounts, pension plans and investment funds are now encumbered as collateral underpinning the derivatives complex…” The “protected class” have legally stolen all our assets from us even before the anticipated (and engineered) global financial implosion occurs (if it does). Moreover, through additional legislation, this has been ‘harmonised’ to ensure that “secured creditors” be guaranteed that their assets be protected through “cross-border mobility of legal control of such collateral” (p. 16). Furthermore, ‘safe harbour’ provisions were made timeously to protect the ruling class (p. 32): 

    In 2005, less than two years before the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, ‘safe harbor’ provisions in the U.S. Bankruptcy code were significantly changed. ‘Safe harbor’ sounds like a good thing, but again, this was about making it absolutely certain that secured creditors can take client assets, and that this cannot be challenged subsequently. This was about ‘safe harbor’ for secured creditors against demands of customers to their own assets.

    It gets worse. It turns out that, if something called Central Clearing Parties – tasked with providing “clearing and settlement for trades” in a variety of financial transactions – is insufficiently capitalised to prepare for the eventuality of failing, and such a failure occurs, “it is the secured creditors who will take the assets of the entitlement holders. This is where it is going. It is designed to happen suddenly, and on a vast scale.” Webb goes on to disabuse readers of the belief that the so-called “Bank Holiday” ended the Great Depression (Chapter VIII), and of believing Ben Bernanke’s promise, in 2002, that the Federal Reserve “won’t do it again” (i.e. make its mistakes regarding what led to the Great Depression). Instead, he cautions (p. 46):

    Is the Fed indeed ‘very sorry?’ Can one believe the promise that ‘we won’t do it again?’ They have studied the lessons of the past in detail; however, their purpose has been to prepare a new and improved global version for the spectacular end of this debt expansion super-cycle. That’s what this book is about.

    Webb’s elaboration on The Great Deflation (Chapter IX) is a salutary reminder that this kind of thing has happened before, in the 1930s, albeit not on the scale that is being planned this time. In the Conclusion (p. 64) he drives his point home by confronting readers with the stark reality of what is happening; I feel like quoting the whole of this powerful chapter, but obviously that is redundant, because the book can (and should) be downloaded free via the link provided near the beginning of this article – please read it; it is imperative to read all the detail that cannot be supplied here. Here is a smattering of citations from it:

    As a human being, should this not concern you? What part of the organized slaughter of vast numbers of innocent people can you find acceptable? Do you believe that you are special in some way, that you were being protected, or that you will be protected now?

    There has been abundant evidence of great evil at work in the world, throughout time and in our present time. Do you really wish to be ignorant of its existence and operation? (p.64.)

    To not know is bad. To not want to know is worse. 

     Willful ignorance of the existence and operation of evil is a luxury even the wealthy can no longer afford. 

    We are in the grip of the greatest evil humanity has ever faced (or refused to acknowledge, as the case may be). Hybrid war is unlimited. It has no bounds. It is global, and it is inside your head. It is never-ending. (p. 65.)

    We have witnessed designs and real attempts to exert physical control over every person’s body, globally, and this is continuing…Why is this happening? 

     I will make a startling assertion. This is not because the power to control is increasing. It is because this power is indeed collapsing. The ‘control system’ has entered collapse. 

     Their power has been based on deception. Their two great powers of deception, money and media, have been extremely energy-efficient means of control. But these powers are now in rampant collapse. This is why they have moved urgently to institute physical control measures. However, physical control is difficult, dangerous and energy-intensive. And so, they are risking all. They are risking being seen. Is this not a sign of desperation? (pp. 67-68.)

    Never before has a system benefitted so few at the great expense of so many. Is this not inherently unstable and unsustainable? Physical control, as opposed to rule by deception, requires enormous energy. Can this be sustained while destroying all economies, and abusing all people, globally? They do not know how to ‘build back better.’ Look at their footprint around the world—the destruction, the economic devastation. (p. 68.)

    Let me close with John F. Kennedy’s own words: 

    Our problems are man-made;

    therefore, they can be solved by man. (p. 70.)

    In turn, I shall conclude with the last paragraph of Webb’s Prologue; let us take this to heart, spread the link to his book far and wide, and, to quote Naomi Wolf’s recent book’s title, ‘face the beast’ bravely and resolutely:

    It is my hope that in making this unpleasantness explicit, and doing so at this time when developments are becoming more apparent, that awareness might spread, and that the worst might be averted. Perhaps this Great Taking might not be allowed to happen if we each hold up our end—even the investment bankers—and say forcefully: we will not allow this. It is a construct. It is not real.

    Amen.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 23:20

  • The Argentine Peso Was NOT The Most-Devalued Currency Of 2023
    The Argentine Peso Was NOT The Most-Devalued Currency Of 2023

    According to Bloomberg’s financial monitor, the currencies of Lebanon and Argentina experienced significant devaluations against the dollar last year.

    The Lebanese pound recorded the highest loss of value against the U.S. currency, depreciating by 89.89 percent.

    Following close behind is the Argentine peso, which lost nearly 78 percent of its value.

    Infographic: The Most Devalued Currencies of 2023 | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Argentina holds the record for the highest number of years with negative GDP growth in the last half-century – a total of 21 years between 1971 and 2022, according to the World Bank.

    Furthermore, Argentina ranked as the fourth country with the highest inflation rate in the world last year, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 22:45

  • Behind The West’s Collective Failure To Prepare For The Trouble We Now Face
    Behind The West’s Collective Failure To Prepare For The Trouble We Now Face

    Authored by Michael Bonner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    In 1992, both writer and scholar Francis Fukuyama and Disney’s film “Aladdin” promised us “a whole new world.” Thirty-two years later, the world seems much worse than anyone expected, and 2024 may prove to be a major turning point.

    Chinese soldiers march past Tiananmen Square before a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

    “Aladdin” wasn’t very specific about what new world would be like, but Fukuyama, author of “The End of History and the Last Man,” was.

    History was an evolutionary process with a goal, he wrote. That goal was liberal democracy, and we had reached it in the late 20th century. The whole world would put aside ideology, and be drawn into the promises of free trade, prosperity, and ever-expanding freedoms. Liberal democracy would not change into anything else, because all other forms of political order or ideology were so bad in comparison. The new world would not be one in which nothing new happened. It would be boring, though, because politics would be more about managing economies than competing visions of the Good Life, or mediating tribal and ideological conflicts. Nevertheless, the only challenge to liberal democracy would come from within: not everyone would want to be equal to everyone else, and some would struggle not within the liberal system but against it. Or so the argument went.

    Fukuyama’s vision was easily misinterpreted. Post-Cold War exuberance was seemingly impossible to resist. We had won, and the only serious challenge or potential alternative to Western power and culture was gone. Figuratively speaking, it was easy to sit back, relax, and enjoy the unfolding of an evolutionary process that was not only good but inevitable. This explains the West’s collective failure to predict and to prepare for the trouble we now face. We stopped taking external threats seriously, we systematically disarmed ourselves, cut military budgets, and gave up on our culture. History was over, after all.

    This was foolish. There clearly are, and always have been, malign actors in the world who do not wish us well, and who do not want liberal democracy at home. They resent it abroad too. Strongmen and autocrats of adversarial regimes have little in common except the desire to see the West humiliated or at least taken down a few pegs. But they are now working together to try to achieve exactly that. They detected weakness and acted as soon as the West was most vulnerable and distracted.

    So far, we have seen constant election interference, warfare in Ukraine, and more recently war in Gaza (initiated by Hamas and Iran’s prompting). Will these problems grow and spread? Will China seize the opportunity to invade Taiwan soon?

    Any of those possibilities may test Western, and especially American, resolve to the breaking point. Our enemies know this. They also know that the main question will not be whether Western militaries are up to the challenge—though that is definitely a question worth pondering. What we need to ask ourselves above all is whether or not the West, and especially America, has enough self-confidence to stand up for its own interests. There will be no point in continuing to defend a Western-made international system if no one believes in it and no one wants to preserve our values.

    If the West, with America at its head, is too divided or preoccupied with internal matters to police the world system that it created, and to punish those who seek to undermine it, then authoritarians and strongmen will keep pushing, taunting, and attacking us until we give up and withdraw.

    I raise these matters now, because the world in 2024 looks set to be much more dangerous and violent than it has been in a long time. The trouble is not just abroad, but also at home in the form of violent protest and hyper-polarization. Looming in the distance, drawing closer by the day, is the spectre of the U.S. presidential election in November. Whatever the outcome, it seems likely that the losing side won’t recognize the legitimacy of the winner as in 2016 and 2020. But let’s hope this isn’t how things turn out.

    In the meantime, let’s hope and pray that we can reconnect ourselves with the values that made the West great, and recover the nerve required to defend ourselves and the world that we built.

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 22:10

  • The AARP Just Told Its 38 Million Members To Get An 8th (Yes, Eighth!!) Shot Of mRNA
    The AARP Just Told Its 38 Million Members To Get An 8th (Yes, Eighth!!) Shot Of mRNA

    Authored by Alex Berenson via ‘Unreported Truths’ substack,

    AARP? Or AARPfizer?

    The lobbying group for older Americans just told its nearly 38 million members to “hustle” for another Covid jab, even if they have already had five boosters.

    See for yourself. The following question-and-answer column ran in the organization’s December “AARP Bulletin”:

    AARP is open to anyone 50 or older.

    The column does not specify a narrower or higher age range for its recommendation.

    Thus it implies that even a 50-year-old who has not already had six “Covid boosters” needs to “catch up” with another immediately.

    Keep in mind that someone who has had “five Covid boosters” has actually received seven mRNA jabs – the initial two-shot primary vaccination regimen, followed by five boosters.

    Thus AARP is suggesting its members should be taking their eighth jab of mRNA in the last three years.

    Yet scientists have essentially no safety data beyond a third shot, much less a fourth or more, and thus no way of knowing if the risks of repeated mRNA dosing rise with each shot.

    AARP’s unbelievably bad advice doesn’t end there.

    The column then goes on to tell members that “the most recent shot, which was released in September 2023, isn’t actually a booster. It’s a new vaccine that targets the latest variants.”

    A what-now? A new vaccine?

    Wow.

    Guess it must have gone through the randomized trials that are required in the United States for any new drug or vaccine.

    No?

    Let’s just call it a new vaccine anyway, since our elderly readers have gotten kinda suspicious of the failure of the Covid shots they’ve already taken.

    But the article ends on a happy note: Researchers are even working on a combined COVID-flu vaccine, so a few years from now, a single shot from your doctor or pharmacy may be all you need to protect yourself fully…

    If the side effects from the 23 mRNA jabs you’ve taken by then don’t kill you first!

    (No, you shouldn’t. REALLY.)

    *  *  *

    Subscribe to ‘Unreported Truths’ substack here

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 21:35

  • Which US Cities Have The Most Million-Dollar 'Mansions'
    Which US Cities Have The Most Million-Dollar ‘Mansions’

    Nearly one-in-ten U.S. homes are now worth at least $1 million.

    Analysis from Redfin has found that 8.2% of homes in America were million-dollar homes as of June 2023, nearing the June 2022 peak of 8.6%.

    In the graphic above, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu uses Redfin and MLS data to highlight the top 15 U.S. cities by their percentage of million-dollar homes, based on June 2023 home values in metropolitan statistical areas (MSA).

    Top 15 U.S. Metros by Share of Million-Dollar Residences

    California has seen an exodus of residents over the last few years due to many factors, but the state still has the highest share of million-dollar homes in the country by far.

    Cities in California claimed the top six spots by share of million-dollar homes in June 2023. Here are the top 15, along with the change since June 2022 in percentage points (p.p.).

    First is San Francisco, where 81% of homes were worth at least $1 million. This is actually lower than the year previous, which saw 84.2% of homes cost more than one million dollars.

    Neighboring San Jose, home of Silicon Valley, was second place with million-dollar homes accounting for 80% of residences. The entire San Francisco Bay Area is the most expensive real estate market in America, with Oakland also having 49% of homes costing $1 million or more.

    Southern California also featured prominently, with Anaheim (55%) actually outranking San Diego (40%) and Los Angeles (38%). The first non-California metro to make the rankings was Hawaii’s Honolulu at 38%.

    Other regions to feature at the top of the rankings were the Western U.S. (Seattle and Salt Lake City) and the Northeast (New York City, Bridgeport, and Boston). Miami was the sole entry from the South, with far lower shares of million-dollar homes in major metros like Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Phoenix.

    Share of Million-Dollar Homes Doubled Since 2019

    One reason for the increase in housing prices is intense competition for those trying to enter the housing market.

    Many existing homeowners are opting to stay put in their current residences to retain their relatively low mortgage rates, with the U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgage reaching its highest level since 2002.

    Subsequently, the high cost of financing has also caused development to slow down. But high demand from new potential homeowners has propelled prices to new heights. According to Redfin, the share of homes worth seven figures has doubled since before the pandemic.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 20:25

  • 'High On Likes': Driving Under The Influence Of Social Media At The Crossroad Of Freedom & Serfdom
    ‘High On Likes’: Driving Under The Influence Of Social Media At The Crossroad Of Freedom & Serfdom

    Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via American Greatness,

    As the New Year commences, I peeked into the rearview mirror and rediscovered an article that appeared in Lisa DePasquale’s diurnal newsletter, Bright. Published on January 3, 2023, by StudyFinds [one word], the headline was a terse red flag for the future of our free republic: “The Social Disaster: Children Who Frequently Check Social Media Face Significant Brain Changes.”

    Based upon a then recent study from the University of North Carolina, the gist of the article is in equal parts instructive and alarming:

    ‘The findings suggest that children who grow up checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from their peers,’ says Eva Telzer, a professor in UNC-Chapel Hill’s psychology and neuroscience department and a corresponding author, in a statement.

    ‘Social media platforms provide adolescents with unprecedented opportunities for social interactions during a critical developmental period when the brain is especially sensitive to social feedback,’ the study concludes. This longitudinal cohort study suggests that social media behaviors in early adolescence may be associated with changes in adolescents’ neural development, specifically neural sensitivity to potential social feedback.

    It is not difficult to understand Big Tech’s venal motives for catering to customers’ psychology to increase their use of social media: the corporations’ already humongous profits.

    But the societal dimension of hardwiring youth to become hypersensitive to “social feedback”—i.e., “peer pressure”—within their network will have an immense and deleterious impact upon a free society.

    Certainly, it is not lost upon the administrative state, who is hellbent upon controlling (often in conjunction with legacy/regime media) both the means and messages of citizens’ interactions on social media, be it censorship, pushing bogus, statist narratives, etc.

    Per the paper published in JAMA Pediatrics, “students who look at social media at least 15 times daily were the most sensitive to social feedback.”

    While these students are the most at risk, their peers are not far behind them:

    “Previous research shows that 78 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds report checking their devices at least hourly each day and 35 percent look at the top five networks ‘almost constantly.’”

    Understandably, the researchers assert that “further research examining long-term prospective associations between social media use, adolescent neural development, and psychological adjustment is needed to understand the effects of a ubiquitous influence on development for today’s adolescents.”

    Let’s give them an admittedly non-expert head start on this research by gazing back even further in our rearview mirror to March 20, 2018, where StudyFinds previously published another alarming article, “It’s Not Your Smartphone You’re Addicted to, It’s the Social Interaction.”

    It’s author, Ben Renner, succinctly lays out the findings by the researchers at McGill University:

    “[people’s] urge to socialize is actually an ingrained human need resulting from eons of evolution. For those who argue spending too much time on a smartphone makes a person anti-social, the authors say overuse is actually the product of being hyper-social.”

    McGill psychiatry professor Samuel Veissière admitted, “There is a lot of panic surrounding this topic. We’re trying to offer some good news and show that it is our desire for human interaction that is addictive – and there are fairly simple solutions to deal with this.”

    What, one may ask, is “this?”

    “Many of the most addictive smartphone apps such as Facebook or Snapchat tap into this constant search for meaning and the ingrained desire to see others and be seen by them… Veissière insists the need for social interaction is a positive instinct, but in the age of constant connectivity to the internet and the variety of social platforms it provides, that instinct can be kicked into ‘overdrive,’ leading to unhealthy addictions.”

    Okay, but what are the proposed “simple solutions?”

    “Veissière and his team recommend turning off push notifications on your phone if possible and purposefully setting aside time to check your phone to help battle these addictive impulses.”

    Yet, for a hypersocial citizenry addicted to social media and “high on likes,” these simple solutions are the hardest, as anyone experienced in treating substance abuse addictions can attest.

    And it is almost impossible when the institutions subverted by the elitist Left are colluding to use social media “approval” to compel the citizenry into compliance with the state’s directives.

    Adjusting the rearview mirror to 2020, the COVID pandemic provided the paradigm by which we can view the damaging effects of the administrative state’s coordinating with Big Tech, Big Pharma, the legacy/regime media, academia, and their shock troops of left-wing trolls (paid and otherwise) to enforce its arbitrary and capricious effects upon the populace.

    “Wear the mask” and “get the vaccination” meant you are a good citizen; if not, you are a homicidal cretin “killing people” and worthy of any punishment society wishes to inflict upon you.

    So, too, 2020 also showed how the administrative state and Big Tech could collude on election interference by denying and censoring stories about the Hunter Biden laptop.

    Anyone trying to bring the truth to light was censored and “deplatformed” from their social network and its feedback—a cyberspace shunning.

    Now, in 2024, through the deliberate, debilitating din of the Communications Revolution, we can glean the insidious aim of the administrative state, Big Tech, and a host of leftist institutions and minions: the erosion of individual liberty and the perverse inversion of subordinating sovereign citizens into subjects of the government. Doesn’t history instruct how, in attempted revolutions/coups, the cabal urgently prioritizes capturing and controlling society’s means of communication? Using social media to cajole, coerce, and inure citizens into conforming within the “collective” and its “hyper-socialism,” the Left’s first punishment for exercising non-state-sanctioned, independent thought and dissent is and will continue to be the ostracization from one’s social interactions. Other punishments, such as job loss, harassment lawsuits, etc., will follow. Frankly, what is being “cancelled” but being locked in a virtual gulag?

    Thus, while the solutions may be simple, such as dismantling the administrative state, reforming their colluding leftist infested institutions, and offering hope to those addicted to “likes,” etc. – they will be decidedly difficult. But the future of our free republic requires an intervention. Inaction is not an option, especially given the speed AI is metastasizing within an already social media addled populace.

    For those whose decisions are driven in whole or in part by social media, they may well refuse to admit the problem as they wheel and whistle past the graveyard of individuality and liberty. For those of us not driving under the influence of social media, as we peer out the windshield to the crossroad of freedom and serfdom ahead, one has the sensation of time slowing down as a collision unfolds.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 19:50

  • New Hampshire House Passes Bill Banning Genital Transgender Surgery On Children
    New Hampshire House Passes Bill Banning Genital Transgender Surgery On Children

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Abigail Martinez (R), the mother of a transgender teen who committed suicide, sheds tears as Erin Friday comforts her and transgender activists block TV cameras from capturing her story in Anaheim, Calif., on Oct. 8, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The New Hampshire House of Representatives has passed a bill that prohibits some transgender surgeries on minors, though the measure falls short of the initial intent of the measure that sought to ban all so-called “gender reassignment” procedures for children.

    Twelve Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to pass House Bill 619 by a vote of 199-175 on Jan. 5, in a move that came amid a series of other transgender-related bills that the House voted on earlier in the day.

    The bill that passed was a watered-down version of the original proposal, which, if passed as introduced, would have banned giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children and would have prohibited the surgical removal of breasts in girls who identify as boys.

    The current version of the bill prohibits the carrying out of “genital gender reassignment surgery” on anyone under 18 while also banning health care workers from referring minors for such producers to out-of-state facilities.

    Genital gender reassignment surgeries are defined in the bill as surgical procedures to alter the genitalia of children who have no sex development disorders or whose genitals are not “malignant,” meaning cancerous or otherwise dangerous to their physical health.

    Banned procedures include removal of the penis and testicles or surgically creating a penis from other parts of the body, with the exception of reconstructive surgery to restore normal form and function to tissue affected by physical pathologies like malformation or trauma.

    Male circumcision is also exempt from the ban.

    The bill now heads to the GOP-controlled Senate and, if it passes there, then to the desk of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican.

    Reactions and Other Bills

    Proponents of the bill argued that children should be protected from irreversible gender reassignment surgeries—especially since there’s not much data about their impact and claimed benefits—while opponents said it goes against parental rights and medical freedom.

    Rep. Erica Layon, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, said that genital reassignment surgeries should be prohibited—at least until more data is available.

    “We need to wait,” she said, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin, a local news outlet.

    The text of the bill states: “Adolescent genital gender reassignment surgery generally lacks both adequate information for informed consent and involves a high risk of coercion for parental consent when parents believe that they are faced with a choice between their child committing suicide or consenting to their child’s genital gender reassignment surgeries.”

    Rep. Jonah Wheeler, a Democrat who voted with most Republicans in favor of the measure, explained his reasoning in a speech ahead of the vote.

    “This is a question of whether or not you believe children should be able to get an irreversible surgery,” Mr. Wheeler said, per the New Hampshire Bulletin.

    “Despite being a liberal who believes in human rights, I do not think that children should be able to get irreversible surgery. So I’ll take all the heat that comes from this,” he added.

    Rep. Dan Hynes, a Republican who switched to an Independent, said the bill “goes against parental rights and goes against medical freedom.”

    Passage of the genital gender reassignment surgery bill came alongside House votes on other transgender-related measures.

    Earlier on Jan. 4, the House voted in favor of House Bill 396, which would allow the state and public schools to differentiate based on sex in “places of intimate privacy” such as bathrooms, as well as in prisons and sports competitions.

    Also, the House voted against House Bill 264, which would have allowed people to get a new birth certificate reflecting the gender they identify with without having to get a court order.

    Medically Necessary?

    A number of mental health and pediatric organizations in the United States and abroad advocate for so-called gender-affirming care, saying that medically transitioning children and adults will alleviate suicidal tendencies.

    Professionals often dismiss objections to transitioning children by telling parents that a transgender son or daughter is better than a dead child.

    About a half-dozen U.S. federal courts have blocked bans on so-called gender-affirming care for children, which proponents argue is “medically necessary” to lower the likelihood that people suffering from gender dysphoria will commit suicide.

    Opponents have pushed back on the claim that transgender procedures reduce suicidality, with a research review in March that purports to be the first ever to evaluate mental health outcomes solely from the standpoint of likelihood of suicide, finding that the results are inconclusive.

    That’s in part because most of the underlying research failed to control for the time elapsed after transgender procedures, with the researchers suggesting that people who get such procedures may be subject to an initial “honeymoon period” that evaporates over time as they revert to similar levels of suicidal ideation as before.

    “There may be implications for the informed-consent process of gender-affirming treatment given the current lack of methodological robustness of the literature reviewed,” the study authors wrote.

    Meanwhile, a recent Finnish study found that mental health issues for people who medically transition continue despite “treatment.”

    The need for psychiatric care was greater both before and after medical transitioning compared to a control group, the data showed.

    The results of the peer-reviewed study also showed that more individuals are seeking help for gender dysphoria and that it is happening at ever younger ages, with a marked increase in female patients.

    Darlene McCormick Sanchez contributed to this report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 18:40

  • ZeroHedge January 6th Debate Highlights With Glenn Greenwald, Alex Jones & More
    ZeroHedge January 6th Debate Highlights With Glenn Greenwald, Alex Jones & More

    Saturday night marked the second ZeroHedge debate, which pitted Glenn Greenwald, Alex Jones and Darren Beattie against the Krassenstein brothers and Destiny – with Ian Crossland from Timcast moderating. The topic: Was January 6th a manufactured crisis?

    For those who lasted all three hours of this incredible debate, our hat goes off to you.

    Meanwhile, here are a few highlights in case you missed it:

    To kick off the festivities, everyone was asked the fundamental question over whether the Capitol riots of 2021 constituted an insurrection. Stephen Bonnell (a political commentator by the name of “Destiny”) succinctly made the affirmative case, while journalist Glenn Greenwald deemed it “laughable.”:

    The darkest day in American history?

    InfoWars founder Alex Jones asked panelists whether the Jan 6 riots surpassed Pearl Harbor and 9/11 in severity. Ed Krassenstein replied that “it depends” but ultimately concluded it wasn’t while Destiny answered by calling Jan 6 a “uniquely horrible event”:

    Trump’s Culpability

    On the question of whether Trump bears responsibility for the “insurrection”, Brian Krassenstein cited the high number of convicted rioters who claimed to have acted in service of the former President. Revolver News founder Darren Beattie alluded to the infamous murderer Charles Manson — who was motivated by imagined secret messages contained in The Beatles’ song Helter Skelter. “Trump is essentially Helter Skelter?” Beattie asked:

    Was the 2020 election “stolen”?

    It’s a question that lies at the heart of this debate. The answer to determines whether Trump and his supporters’ grievances and actions taken as a result were legitimate.

    Destiny — asserting the negative — raised the issue of Trump’s close advisers telling him there was insufficient evidence of widespread voter fraud, while Greenwald offered a nuanced perspective: perhaps the election was not “stolen” but “rigged” by entrenched forces within the U.S. intelligence apparatus:

    Ray Epps

    Beattie — whose outlet Revolver.news reported extensively on the mysterious Epps — answers a series of pointed questions scrutinizing his reporting from Destiny and the Krassensteins:

    Watch the full debate here and help our debate series by subscribing to ZeroHedge Premium, as well as our Rumble and YouTube channels:

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 18:15

  • Speaker Johnson Announces $1.66 Trillion Bipartisan Package To Avert Shutdown
    Speaker Johnson Announces $1.66 Trillion Bipartisan Package To Avert Shutdown

    House Speaker Mike Johnson told colleagues on Sunday that Congressional negotiators have reached a topline spending figure to avert a federal government shutdown on Jan. 19 for some government agencies, and Feb. 2 for others.

    According to a Sunday “Dear Colleague” letter, the topline deal – which mostly adheres to a deal reached between the White House and former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), limits discretionary spending to $1.66 trillion overall. It also secures $16 billion in additional spending cuts vs. the McCarthy deal, and is around $30 billion less than what Senate Democrats wanted.

    “This represents the most favorable budget agreement Republicans have achieved in over a decade,” wrote Johnson, adding “As has been widely reported, a list of extra-statutory adjustments was agreed upon by negotiators last summer. The agreement today achieves key modifications to the June framework that will secure more than $16 billion in additional spending cuts to offset the discretionary spending levels.”

    Breaking it down, the deal sets aside $886.3 billion for defense spending, $772.7 billion in domestic discretionary spending, and rescinds $6.1 billion in coronavirus emergency spending authority. The deal also accelerates $20 billion in cuts from the $80 billion IRS funding allocated under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

    “The bipartisan funding framework congressional leaders have reached moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities,” President Biden’s staff said in a statement assigned to the 81-year-old. “It reflects the funding levels that I negotiated with both parties and signed into law last spring. It rejects deep cuts to programs hard-working families count on, and provides a path to passing full-year funding bills that deliver for the American people and are free of any extreme policies.”

    House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement in support of the new agreement.

    “It will also allow us to keep the investments for hardworking American families secured by the legislative achievements of President Biden and Congressional Democrats,” the pair said. “Finally, we have made clear to Speaker Mike Johnson that Democrats will not support including poison pill policy changes in any of the twelve appropriations bills put before the Congress.”

    Let’s see if this sticks…

    Johnson and the Democrats’ biggest challenge will be House conservatives, who have opposed earlier debt ceiling agreements over a lack of spending offsets.

    That said, this agreement is separate from funding for Israel and Ukraine – a growing sticking point among some Republicans.

    As Mike Shedlock from MishTalk.com noted on Saturday, many problems remain.

    What’s the Real Deadline?

    January 19 is less than two weeks away. The real deadline is allegedly February 3.

    Since Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is not incessantly yapping over this, I suspect the real deadline is further away.

    Republicans can always punt with another “temporary” and “clean” continuing resolution. And that would not surprise me in the least. It would buy everyone time to avoid budget cuts that would kick in on April 30.

    But eventually, it will come down to my long-stated beliefs, expressed below.

    Expect More of This for More of That

    The Republican hard-line House Freedom Caucus won’t accomplish anything because there is not enough of them and they are not even united on what they want.

    Some want funding for Israel but that is conveniently lumped with funding for Ukraine which they generally don’t want.

    H.R.2 is a nonstarter. As a result, there will be some Republican holdouts who will not vote for whatever Speaker Mike Johnson concocts with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

    If any bill passes in the House, it will be with Democrat support. The Freedom Caucus will howl.

    The only question is how big this final boondoggle is.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 18:05

  • MSNBC Host Ridiculed For Crying Over January 6
    MSNBC Host Ridiculed For Crying Over January 6

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news.

    An MSNBC host faced ridicule after he performatively cried over January 6 in a cringe stunt during his live show.

    Jonathan Capehart was talking with former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone about his new book when the incident occurred.

    “I’m going to try to get through this…erm…” stuttered Capehart as he appeared to wipe tears from his face.

    “Thank you for what you did three years ago today,” he continued as his voice quivered.

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    Fanone looked rather awkward as Capehart blubbered, but played up to the contrived theatrics.

    “We are still in the midst of the same fight that began on January 6, 2021 and we have a lot at stake in this country and I think that it deserves every American’s attention,” he said.

    Capehart’s ludicrous behavior was quickly skewered on X.

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    Meanwhile, if it’s a competition based on hysterical weirdo behavior, Rep. Steve Cohen will give Capehart a run for his money.

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    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 17:30

  • BRICS Expands Footprint In The Global South
    BRICS Expands Footprint In The Global South

    Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates formally joined the BRICS group of major emerging economies on January 1, 2024, expanding the bloc’s footprint in the Global South and growing its economic and political clout on the world stage, establishing a real counterweight to the Western-dominated G7.

    Infographic: BRICS Expands Footprint in the Global South | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In August, the bloc had announced that it would be admitting six new members, including Argentina.

    However, as Statista’s Felix Richter reports, the South American nation declared a formal rejection of the offer on 29 December, 2023 with Argentina’s President Javier Milei stating in a letter published by several media outlets that the membership “was not considered appropriate at this time.”

    Speaking on the expansion of the BRICS, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said at a press briefing:

    “We shared our vision of BRICS as a champion of the needs and concerns of the peoples of the Global South. These include the need for beneficial economic growth, sustainable development and reform of multilateral systems.”

    He also indicated that the addition of the six new members is just the beginning of the bloc’s expansion process.

    “As the five BRICS countries, we have reached agreement on the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the BRICS expansion process, which has been under discussion for quite a while,” he said.

    “We have consensus on the first phase of this expansion process, and further phases will follow.”

    Adding major fossil-fuel producers may give the bloc more scope to challenge the dollar’s dominance in oil and gas trading by switching to other currencies, a concept referred to dedollarization.

    However, expansion is “more about politics and less about economics,” according to analysts at Bloomberg Economics.

    Other groupings that are already promoting a move toward a more “multipolar” world – and away from the post-Cold War dominance of the US — include OPEC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), and the African Union.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 16:55

  • Supreme Court Allows Idaho To Enforce Strict Abortion Ban, Will Hear Case
    Supreme Court Allows Idaho To Enforce Strict Abortion Ban, Will Hear Case

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Supreme Court on Friday granted Idaho the authority to enforce its strict abortion ban while legal clashes play out over a federal law mandating emergency care.

    Pro-life supporters celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington after the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

    Responding to emergency requests from Idaho state officials, the nation’s highest court temporarily suspended a federal judge’s ruling that found parts of the ban conflicted with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986.

    “The applications for stay … are granted,” the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday stated. “The preliminary injunction issued on August 24, 2022, by the United States District Court for the District of Idaho … is stayed.”

    The high court said it would hear oral arguments on the matter in April.

    Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador welcomed the decision, writing on X, formerly Twitter, “Idaho will continue to fight to protect life.”

    Federal Law Turns Hospitals ‘Into Abortion Clinics’

    EMTALA, the federal law at the center of the case, stipulates that emergency room care must be provided to anyone, irrespective of their ability to pay.

    The Biden administration cited this law in a 2022 federal guidance for health care providers regarding abortion. The guidance told hospitals they were obligated to provide “stabilizing” care under EMTALA to patients experiencing an emergency condition, extending this to include abortion.

    It applies to hospitals receiving federal funding through the Medicare program.

    On Monday, lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), acting on behalf of the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, filed an emergency application for a stay pending appeal with the Supreme Court. Their motion asked for an immediate injunction against the 9th Circuit’s ruling, arguing that EMTALA preempts Idaho’s abortion ban, the Defense of Life Act.

    “Hospitals—especially emergency rooms—are centers for preserving life. The government has no business transforming them into abortion clinics,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley in a statement.

    “Emergency room physicians can, and do, treat ectopic pregnancies and other life-threatening conditions. But elective abortion is not life-saving care—it ends the life of the unborn child—and the government has no authority to override Idaho’s law barring these procedures.

    “We urge the Supreme Court to halt the lower court’s injunction and allow Idaho emergency rooms to fulfill their primary function—saving lives,” she added.

    District Court’s Block of Ban

    Idaho’s abortion ban has been partially blocked from being enforced to the extent it conflicts with EMTALA since U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Winmill issued an injunction in July 2022 after the Biden administration sued.

    Judge Winmill, in making his ruling, noted that the state’s actions put doctors in an ethical bind.

    The dilemma, as described in the ruling, revolves around doctors grappling with the obligation to provide emergency care under EMTALA and the state’s blanket prohibition of abortions in Idaho.

    “The doctor believes her EMTALA obligations require her to offer that abortion right now. But she also knows that all abortions are banned in Idaho. She thus finds herself on the horns of a dilemma. Which law should she violate?” Judge Winmill wrote.

    Idaho challenged this ruling, arguing that the two laws were not conflicting and emphasizing that the federal law did not expressly mandate doctors to perform abortions in specific circumstances.

    The Biden administration, represented by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, disagreed, asserting in court filings that the Idaho law “criminalizes care required by federal law.”

    The Epoch Times contacted Ms. Prelogar’s office for comment.

    Appeals Court’s Suspension of Block

    The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals briefly suspended Judge Winmill’s ruling in September but later allowed its reinstatement, prompting Idaho to appeal to the Supreme Court in November 2023.

    Idaho aimed to expedite resolution, seeking an injunction to limit the full enforcement of its abortion ban. An appeal is pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

    In light of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling for Texas earlier this week in a similar case involving EMTALA and stringent abortion restrictions, Idaho’s attorney general pushed the Supreme Court to act on their request, pointing to the 5th Circuit’s Jan. 2 opinion.

    In a win for Texas, the 5th Circuit unanimously declined “to expand the scope” of EMTALA to include enforcing abortions. The state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, argued the Biden administration’s rule would force doctors to perform elective abortions against state law.

    “The question before the court is whether EMTALA, according to HHS’s Guidance, mandates physicians to provide abortions when that is the necessary stabilizing treatment for an emergency medical condition. It does not,” wrote 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kurt Engelhardt in the opinion.

    “EMTALA does not mandate any specific type of medical treatment, let alone abortion,” the opinion added.

    ADF lawyers are also litigating the Texas case.

    Idaho’s abortion law was enacted in 2020 with a provision stating it would take effect if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in July 2022, which effectively overturned Roe, Idaho’s law came into force.

    The Defense of Life Act imposes criminal penalties, including up to five years in prison, for anyone performing an abortion, with health care professionals risking the loss of their licenses if found in violation. An exception is granted if the abortion is deemed necessary to protect the life of the pregnant woman.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 16:20

  • Is Biden About To Put 10 Million Hispanics On The Path To American Citizenship?
    Is Biden About To Put 10 Million Hispanics On The Path To American Citizenship?

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    If Biden gets the Republicans to go along with his Mexican counterpart’s proposal to grant work visas to those 10 million Hispanics who the latter claims have worked in the US for 10 years, then they’d be able to apply for a green card and eventually citizenship five years after that, which could lead to the imposition of one-party rule by 2032 if those new citizens in battleground states vote Democrat as expected.

    Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who’s known by his initials as AMLO, revealed during a press conference on Friday that “Mexico asked US authorities to grant visas to at least 10 million Hispanic migrants that have worked for more than 10 years in the country.”

    It also asked that the US pay regional states $20 billion in exchange for helping stem illegal immigration. AMLO added that the sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela should be lifted too since he partially blames them for this process.

    If Biden complies with the first of his three requests, then that would place 10 million Hispanics on the path to American citizenship since they could turn their work visa into a green card, after which they could apply for citizenship with full voting rights after five years. The Pew Research Center cited US Census Bureau data from 2020 to report last November that at least 1.6 million illegals live in Texas and 900,000 in Florida, which could have serious implications for forthcoming elections if they’re legalized.

    The UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative “determined that Latino voters were decisive in sending President-elect Joe Biden to the White House”, with Latinos in 12 of the 13 states that they analyzed “support[ing] Biden over President Donald Trump by a margin of at least 2 to 1. And in nine of the 13 — including the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — the margin was at least 3 to 1. Only in Florida was Biden’s margin among Latino voters less than 2 to 1.”

    With this trend in mind and recalling that Trump won Texas by a little more than 600,00 votes and Florida by less than 400,000 according to the Federal Election Commission’s official results from the 2020 election, those two could permanently turn blue by 2032 if their illegals obtained citizenship. Battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin could join them considering the thin margins within which Biden won them and their own large illegal populations.

    Referring back to the Pew Research Center’s official Census-informed report, it’s estimated that between 75k-175k live in Michigan and Wisconsin while 175k-400k live in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Seeing as how Biden won those states by around 150,000, 20,000, 10,000, 10,000, 40,000, and 80,000 votes respectively, each of them with the possible exception of Michigan would easily turn Democrat if those illegals obtained citizenship and the UCLA’s identified trend holds as expected.

    It was predicted in mid-November 2020 that “Biden’s America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole” because “Amnesty & Open Borders Will Revolutionize The Electoral Landscape” by placing the US on “The Path To One-Party Rule”, which could then lead to mass disarmament and more state-backed racist violence. The first step in this plan is to place all illegal immigrants on the path to US citizenship, which is precisely what AMLO just proposed amidst the US’ fierce debate over its de facto open southern border.

    The issue is so serious that the Republicans won’t approve more Ukraine aid unless Biden implements comprehensive border security reform to stem the tide after literally millions of illegals flooded into the country over the past three years of his presidency. Seeing as how so-called “moderate” Republicans have a tendency to sell out their principles after some time, and the vast majority of the party consider themselves to be “moderates” instead of MAGA, they might agree to amnesty as a “compromise”.

    Biden could promise to implement more robust border security and order the government to turn back all illegals caught crossing the frontier instead of retaining his “catch-and-release” policy that’s encouraged so many to invade the country in exchange for them going along with amnesty. He might even add a humanitarian and economic dimension to his argument by claiming that it’s “the right thing to do” and could lead to them paying more taxes, which could sway most “moderate” Republicans.

    If the Republicans agree to this “compromise”, then they’d be handing the country over to one-party Democrat rule by 2032, after which the dystopia that was warned about three years ago would become an irreversible reality. Their opponents’ liberal–globalist policies that would be imposed in the aftermath would also forever put an end to their own conservative-nationalist ones that they claim to support, thus completing the latest “American Revolution” that’s been ongoing since Obama’s time in office.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 15:10

  • "Gobsmackingly Bananas": Weather Models Predict Polar Vortex Invasion Into US 
    “Gobsmackingly Bananas”: Weather Models Predict Polar Vortex Invasion Into US 

    While it’s still uncertain, weather models suggest that a polar vortex might plunge large swaths of the Lower 48 into dangerously cold temperatures sometime late next. 

    There has been a lot of speculation on social media platform X about the incoming polar vortex. 

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    Weather watchers and meteorologists point out that an ongoing stratospheric warming event could displace the polar vortex from the Pole and pour cold air into the Lower 48. 

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    It’s not just X users chatting away about a potential polar vortex. Bloomberg data shows headlines across corporate media with “Polar Vortex” have spiked in the last two weeks. We overlaid the headline data with natural gas futures, in which prices are rising, an indication traders could be pricing in a cold snap premium. 

    New weather outlooks from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center show a cold blast arriving late next week for Central and Eastern parts of the US. 

    Couple this with the higher precipitation probabilities—great news for snow lovers. 

    Longer-term outlooks show more cold is in store after the midpoint of the month. 

    Sigh. 

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    A new weather note from John Baranik, a meteorologist for DTN, provided more details about the incoming cold blast for the Lower 48:

    Those of us in the US and Canada have had short bursts of colder air, but nothing that would be labeled as arctic just yet.

    That will all change early next week, as an arm of the polar vortex is pinched off from the North Pole and settles into Western Canada by Jan. 9. Two upper-level ridges, one in Alaska, and another in the North Atlantic, will do the pinching. We have not had a dramatic ridge in either location to start the winter; this is a primary reason why we have yet to see a polar vortex event take place.

    But even with the polar vortex starting to develop in Western Canada, it will take another day or two for it to pull down the air from the North Pole, with those arctic-cold anomalies below normal starting to show up on Dec. 10 in northwest Canada.

    The cold will expand south and east from there into the U.S. during the following couple of days as the southern jet stream causes a few storm systems to move through the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains Jan. 10-12. The extent and depth of the cold air are currently in question, as of Jan. 5.

    Model forecasts suggest that a ridge in the Southeast may be able to contain that cold air to the western half of the U.S. and Canada, at least the harshest of the cold. That would mean from the Canadian Prairies down to the Texas Panhandle up to Missouri and Minnesota will be the areas east of the Rockies to be put into the icebox for an extended period of time.

    Again, models are still working out how cold it might be, and some of that depends on the recent and forecast snow cover. A system that goes through the Plains and Midwest early in the week could lead to some very low temperature readings over the snowpack when the arctic air comes in.

    Meanwhile, the incoming cold snap reminds us of the multi-billion dollar weather disaster that paralyzed Texas’ power grid for over a week in February 2021. 

    Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy for JPMorgan Asset & Wealth Management, recently published a note, reminding clients about power grid instabilities across the US:

    Due to retirement of dispatchable power generation (nuclear, coal, gas) and underinvestment in pipelines, gas storage and winterization, major US cities will face electricity outages and/ or natural gas outages (which are much worse). The North American Electricity Reliability Association just released its 2023 risk assessment. The region NERC highlights as having the greatest risk of power outages, even in normal peak conditions: Midwest MISO, which stretches from Minnesota down to Lo Louisiana. Outage risk in more extreme weather conditions is cited for New York, New England and the entire Western US. NERC cites peak loads rising at “ an alarming rate ” due to electrification, coinciding with increasingly intermittent new sources of generation ( wind and solar power ) and 80 – 110 GW of nuclear and fossil fuel generation retirements by 2033, which is ~7% of current installed capacity. Reserve margins indicate the buffer each region has to a spike in summer demand; the chart on the left summarizes NERC’s assessment of future reserve margins. Note as well how unplanned outages have been rising during cold weather storms.

    If you think power outages are bad, natural gas outages would be far worse. During winter storm Elliott in December 2022, cold weather resulted in the failure of gas production wellheads, pipelines, and distribution. Dry gas production in the lower 48 states fell by 16%, with Marcellus and Utica production falling by 23% – 54%. On December 25, interstate natural gas pipelines serving Con Edison experienced drops in pressure due to production losses and operational issues. Con Ed restored pressure from a backup LNG system until systemwide pressure was normalized, and ended up narrowly avoiding a gas system outage.

    During a gas outage, local gas distribution companies would need to go building-by-building and shut off gas valves to ensure that residual gas does not seep through units whose pilot lights are out. During the system restoration process, the main distribution system would be purged; then workers would have to insure at each point of service th at heating and cooking gas lines are safely purged and operational before restoring service and relighting pilot lights. Any homes or buildings with safety issues would need remediation before any gas restoration. Even losing service to 130,000 customers would be considered a major outage and could have taken five to seven weeks (!!) to restore. A large outage could also cause extensive property damage due to burst water pipes within homes and buildingssince water expands when it freezes.

    All eyes are on the incoming cold blast and possible grid strain issues due to high heating demand. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 14:35

  • Paxlovid Does Not Reduce Risk Of Long COVID, Potentially Linked To Rebound Symptoms: Study
    Paxlovid Does Not Reduce Risk Of Long COVID, Potentially Linked To Rebound Symptoms: Study

    Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (Emphasis ours),

    (Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters/Illustration)

    Paxlovid, an antiviral medication prescribed to treat symptoms associated with COVID-19, does not reduce the risk of developing long COVID in vaccinated people recovering at home.

    The report comes from a new study published in the Journal of Medical Virology on Thursday. Conducted by a team of researchers from the University of California–San Francisco, the study also found that more people are experiencing rebounds of their COVID symptoms after taking Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir-ritonavir) than previously reported.

    Paxlovid is the first antiviral pill approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat mild and moderate COVID-19 in adults. It is typically prescribed to those at high risk of having the virus progress to a severe illness, including hospitalization or death. The medication has also been authorized for use in children 12 and older who are at risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19.

    According to manufacturer Pfizer, initial trials of Paxlovid showed it reduced hospitalizations and death in unvaccinated COVID patients by 86 percent to 89 percent. A real-world study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that adults who took Paxlovid within the first five days of a COVID-19 diagnosis had a 51 percent lower hospitalization rate within 30 days than those who did not take the medication. More recent studies have indicated lower efficacy rates, with patients having about 37 percent reduced hospitalization and death risk.

    However, no study has pointed to whether the drug helps protect people from getting long COVID, noted authors of the UC San Francisco study.

    Paxlovid Did Not Prevent Long COVID

    To determine if Paxlovid protects against long COVID, the research team examined over 4,600 vaccinated individuals from the UC San Fransisco COVID-19 Citizen Science study who experienced their first positive COVID-19 tests between March and August 2022. None of the patients was hospitalized. About 20 percent of patients took the three-pill course of Paxlovid, while about 80 percent did not.

    In December 2022, the patients answered a follow-up survey that included questions about long COVID, COVID rebound symptoms, and how long they continued to test positive.

    “We found a higher proportion with clinical rebound than previously reported, but did not identify an effect of posttreatment rebound on Long COVID symptoms,” researchers wrote.

    The team found little difference between the two groups. For example, roughly 16 percent of patients prescribed Paxlovid had long-COVID symptoms compared to about 14 percent who were not prescribed the medication. Long-COVID patients in each group experienced fatigue, shortness of breath, confusion, headache, and changes in sense of smell and taste.

    Paxlovid Rebound Symptoms Confirmed

    The UC San Francisco study reported that just over 1 in 5 individuals (21 percent) who reported getting better after taking Paxlovid experienced rebound symptoms, or a return of their COVID symptoms. Among those who experienced rebounds, 10.8 percent reported one or more long-COVID symptoms.

    Additionally, retesting positive was common among rebound patients; 25.7 percent of individuals who took Paxlovid and repeated antigen testing after testing negative ended up testing positive.

    In all, just over 26 percent of participants reported either rebound symptoms or test positivity, the study noted.

    Of the roughly 75 percent who didn’t experience rebound while on Paxlovid, 8.3 percent reported at least one long-COVID symptom.

    The study echoes a Nov. 13, 2023, study conducted by Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers also indicating that 1 in 5 individuals who took Paxlovid experienced a rebound of symptoms.

    “We conducted this study to address lingering questions about Paxlovid and virologic rebound in COVID-19 treatment,” senior author Dr. Mark Siedner, associate professor of medicine at HMS and an infectious disease clinician and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, said in a HMS press release. “We found that the virologic rebound phenomenon was much more common than expected—in over 20 percent of people taking Paxlovid—and that individuals shed live virus when experiencing a rebound, which means they may be contagious after initial recovery.”

    Previous clinical trials suggested that between 1 percent and 2 percent of patients who took Paxlovid experienced rebound, according to the press release.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 14:00

  • EU Adopts "Emergency Airworthiness Directive" After FAA Grounds Boeing 737-9 Max Jets Over Blowout
    EU Adopts “Emergency Airworthiness Directive” After FAA Grounds Boeing 737-9 Max Jets Over Blowout

    Shortly after the US Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order to ground 171 Boeing 737-9 (MAX) jets used by major airlines due to an incident where an emergency door separated from an Alaska Airlines Max jet over Portland on Friday evening, European aviation authorities have adopted the FAA’s directive.

    EASA wrote in a statement that “specific configuration” of the 737-9 MAX aircraft will be grounded for immediate inspection following “an event on an Alaska Airlines flight, where an exit panel detached from the aircraft inflight, leading to rapid decompression of the cabin.” 

    “EASA took the decision to adopt the FAA Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) despite the fact that, to the Agency’s knowledge and also on the basis of statements from the FAA and Boeing,” the regulator said. 

    However, the EU regulator noted, “No airline in an EASA Member State currently operates an aircraft in the relevant configuration.” 

    Safety precautions in the EU for the troubled 737 MAX come as the FAA grounded 171 737-9 Max jets on Saturday after a mid-cabin exit door on an Alaska Airlines flight separated from the plane mid-flight over Portland.  

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    Here’s a list of the latest actions by airlines in the US and worldwide that operate these troubled jets (list courtesy of Bloomberg): 

    • Alaska Air Group Inc., the airline at the center of the turmoil, initially grounded all 65 of its 737-9 Max jets hours after the accident. It later allowed 18 of the planes to resume flying after receiving detailed maintenance inspections pre- dating the event. However, it subsequently pulled all jets from service again.
    • United Airlines Holding Inc., the biggest operator of the affected Max type, says all 79 of its jets are temporarily grounded. The next step is for the airline to determine with the FAA the inspection process and requirements to return the planes to service. It earlier said 33 of the jets had met necessary inspections before grounding all planes.
    • Panama’s Copa Airlines SA said it grounded 21 of its impacted jets. The carrier has a total of 29 in its fleet, but operates them in two different configurations. – Aeromexico has followed United and Alaska Air in pulling all 19 of its 737-9 Max jets from service for inspections.
    • Icelandair said its small fleet of 737-9 Max jets are not affected by FAA inspections. The carrier has been in contact with Boeing and the FAA.
    • Turkish Airlines said its country’s civil aviation authority asked it to examine its small fleet of five 737-9 Max planes. Until the technical review is complete, the carrier has withdrawn the jets from service.
    • FlyDubai said its three 737-9 Max jets are unaffected by the FAA directive, the company told Bloomberg News.

    One X user wrote:

    The Boeing 737 Max hull failure is bad This was a brand-new aircraft. ~150 revenue flights. Probably no more than 250 pressurization cycles on it total (if that) While failures of this sort are not unknown, they tend not to occur on a new airframe. Which suggests that a production issue is at fault…

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    Remember this… 

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    We suspect Boeing shares might be red come Monday morning. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 13:25

  • An Eclectic Mix Of Things To Mull Over
    An Eclectic Mix Of Things To Mull Over

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    An Eclectic Mix of Things to Mull Over

    Let’s start with the one thing that has annoyed me more than anything else. I kept hearing over and over “what a good report” the jobs report was. That disturbs me, because with some digging, there were a number of issues that we highlighted in Strange Jobs Reports. I accept that my interpretation could be wrong, but some people who I trust (and have been consistently good) pointed out that it was probably worse than I wrote. Something that I found curious (but haven’t verified) is supposedly 11 of the last 12 reports have been revised down (seems odd).

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    There was a very good radio interview I listened to with someone from a temporary employment company who pointed out that for the second month in a row, there were losses in temp employment – usually a leading indicator. Oh, and the ISM was awful, but enough ranting! Or, more accurately, enough ranting on that subject, and let’s move on to other things that perturb me.

    First the “Normal” Stuff

    America the Divided, may well be how we fill in the blank for America the ______ (the 2024 Outlook piece). The election is heating up as we near the primaries and President Biden launched his first campaign commercial. The slogans might sound “unifying,” but from a distance, they seem more likely to be divisive (rather than unifying) at least at this stage.

    Paying lip service to Geopolitical Risk. I’m certainly aware of the risk that having such great access to and interaction with our Geopolitical Intelligence Group could be influencing me too much (for a hammer, every problem looks like a nail). But we are not the only ones talking about geopolitical risk. It has been mentioned in corporate report after corporate report (right up there with AI). Certainly, asset managers mention that geopolitical risk could pose the biggest risk to markets in 2024. Yet, for all the talk, I think that it is largely being ignored. Times Have Changed – Position Accordingly, details my thoughts on how geopolitical risk is impacting market signals and correlations. These changes in turn should impact your business decisions and portfolio management.

    General Robeson and Peter Tchir were on Bloomberg Radio discussing the Middle East, shipping, and oil (Bloomberg Podcast). Academy was also on Bloomberg TV with our macro take on markets, the economy, and geopolitical risks (Bloomberg TV first 2 segments).

    The Non-Strategic Petroleum Reserve

    From turning a blind eye to Iran’s sale of oil (well above any sanction limits) to the feeble attempts to exchange oil for free elections in Venezuela, to the disingenuously named Inflation Reduction Act, I cannot help but be concerned. The U.S. (as a nation) has painted itself into a corner and is not doing a good job of getting out of that predicament.

    We have tensions in the Middle East. We have competitors for Venezuela’s supply. The finds in Guyana may prove challenging for the U.S. (as opposed to other countries) to access.

    “We,” or at least the incumbent politicians, have demonstrated a real fear of inflation. Probably, at least in part, rightfully so, but that fear seems overdone – especially in an era where jobs and pay raises have been plentiful.

    There is no way that our adversaries (and even some “friends” like the Saudis) haven’t noticed this depletion and are taking advantage of it when and where they can. It is one reason why I like energy and energy stocks so much.

    COVID “Bumps”

    We argued, quite violently, it seems, that much of the goods inflation was transitory. That not only did you have supply chain issues, but you had consumer behavior radically altered, at least for a little while.

    • Government money was sloshing around. Job availability was incredibly high.
    • Mobility was high and many were exploring a “new way of life” that “work from home” brought, creating demand in its own right.
    • Finally, consumers aren’t stupid, and knew about supply chain issues, so they bought what was available, even if they didn’t need it at the time.

    Here is how I see the COVID bump playing out for goods (already discussed) and for services (up next).

    We have argued, less violently, but increasingly so, that the services industry experienced a similar bump, but with some key differences!

    • It started later for many. In some cases, states or countries precluded certain services from being offered. Even in areas where services were available, individuals had their own comfort level as to when they were comfortable using various services.
    • The travel industry was particularly hard hit by COVID, and it was difficult to return to normal after such a dramatic COVID pullback in demand. So, the “supply chain” issues in services like travel were hampered even after they started normalizing.
    • There was less money sloshing around by the time services got into full swing. Let’s admit it, 2023 should be labeled as the Summer of Vacation. It also happened to be the summer that America really discovered Europe and overseas travel.

    If I am correct about the difference, I think that we are in the early stages of declines in service usage. That will hit the economy hard.

    QQQ – Or When Passive Isn’t So Passive

    The top 7 companies (one stock has two share classes, so I counted both classes) totaled over 55% of the weighting in QQQ. Now, primarily due to a reweighting methodology, the top 7 companies are 38% of the index. Still a hefty chunk and an index skewed towards the titans, but that is a pretty significant drop. The methodology (I think more than market moves) also changed the top 7 companies in the index, with one dropping out and one entering.

    Let’s just say for a moment that you want to “bet on a reversal” of some of last year’s moves. Maybe you want to bet on small caps. For many, you could express it in futures (which has the same changes), or you could express it in ETFs (easier for many). If you thought, for example, that the Nasdaq 100 and the Russell 2000 would converge (I encouraged that trade until recently), it would seem to make some sense. Yet, all your charts going back to the changes in the Nasdaq in December will be heavily skewed by the top 10 stocks, which represented a far bigger portion of the index than it does now!

    Let’s say, and I think this is interesting, you owned the Magnificent “Pick a Number” stocks. Some number of the biggest tech companies. If you periodically hedged that position with Nasdaq 100, you had potentially a 55% overlap. It is far less than that today.

    Some of the biggest names in tech have struggled since late December (underperformed from early November to outright negative performance in some cases starting late December). Presumably, the rebalancing had an impact (QQQ alone is $225 billion as of Friday – not an insignificant number in a market that I view as being less liquid at any depth, than the frantic, algo driven, markets would make you believe).

    I cannot help but wonder what other shenanigans this reweighting is potentially having on portfolios?

    In any case, if the Magnificent “Pick a Number” falter, it won’t impact the Nasdaq 100 like it would have last year.

    Maybe it is nothing, but it seems strange enough to me to warrant consideration. Especially when you are talking about strategies and positioning that involved the behemoths in terms of market capitalization. If “hedges” are less effective, will we see more outright selling?

    Who Will Buy Treasuries Ever Again?

    If feels like it was just a few months ago when:

    • We watched every Treasury auction as a harbinger of doom (they haven’t stopped issuing, just no one pays much attention).
    • We talked about Chinese TIC data and the dwindling holdings (they are still reducing their holdings at a steady clip, but no one cares).
    • Every missile shot in the world seemed to cause immediate fears about the U.S. budget deficit (they are still being shot and the cost will add up, but that isn’t today’s problem).
    • As we issue debt at higher yields, our overall cost of debt increases, further increasing the risk of deficits and increasing the proportion of tax revenue spent on budget service. This is still happening, though new issue yields aren’t as bad as they were. However, most longer-dated debt is replacing debt with lower coupons – and about 65% of debt with high coupons is owned by the Fed at their limits. It takes years to increase (or decrease) the average coupon and it is still happening.
    • DC is dysfunctional and divisive but will keep spending money. No comment.

    Oh, it was just a few months ago! This is probably the biggest reason why I can’t get comfortable betting on a “flight to safety” trade. I just don’t think that we are done with these legitimate fears, and something will trigger them again (probably bad price action, since price action more often than not instills the narrative, rather than responds to the narrative).

    Bitcoin ETF’s

    I will be so happy when these are finally approved! I think that there are something like 14 applications for Bitcoin “spot” ETFs (that is the terminology when things like “cash” ETF or “physical” ETF don’t work because Bitcoin is neither cash nor physical).

    I’ve understood the amount of hype surrounding this from the existing holders of Bitcoin. It will apparently open up a whole new wave of buyers. There is so much excitement that many firms are “backing” a bitcoin ETF, which must indicate a Wall Street (or at least an ETF manager) love affair with Bitcoin. All that may be true, but I’m leaning towards this being a massive “sell the news” opportunity. Apparently, that is consensus (though I think that it is consensus in terms of voices, not money put to work, and money put to work is all that matters when looking for contrarian views).

    One thing that is very different about the chase for the Bitcoin ETF is the Greyscale Bitcoin Trust (ticker GBTC). This is not an ETF, but in my opinion, it is the main reason why everyone who can is trying to get a Bitcoin ETF.

    As of Friday, GBTC had a market value of $25 billion. The expense ratio, as published on Bloomberg, is 2%. That one security, therefore, generates about $500 million in fees! QQQ at $225 billion has fees listed as 0.2%. So before actual costs (which I presume are higher for GBTC), GBTC generates more income than QQQ! SPY, at $478 billion, has an expense ratio of 0.095%, so it also generates less than $500 million in fees. I suspect that GBTC alone is competitive with some much larger ETF suites, which is why so many are going after this obvious pie!

    I cannot think of an ETF launch (in recent memory) where you could just point to one asset and say, “if I can just get X% of that AUM, I’m doing extremely well!” That I think is a big motivator.

    GBTC is interesting in its own right, because it can trade at a premium or discount to NAV. There is a methodology to increase the shares outstanding, typically done when it is trading at a significant premium to NAV (likely indicating excess demand for GBTC). That was done and is how GBTC got so large.

    GBTC averaged around a 40% discount to NAV for much of the first 5 months of 2023. 40%! That discount to NAV has narrowed to 5.5% as of Friday – great for anyone who stuck with GBTC as not only did Bitcoin appreciate, but the gains from the discount to NAV closing were extremely good as well!

    But presumably, if an ETF that will trade close to NAV becomes available, investors would prefer that to something that can trade at meaningful discounts. In “normal” times, equity ETFs have almost no variation and credit products can deviate 1% or so depending on the availability of the create/redeem arb and the quality of the Net Asset Value calculation (not as straightforward for credit). I’m assuming that due to how Bitcoin trades, there will be some deviation even in the ETF NAV versus trading price, but it will be much more manageable (and not as one-sided) as the trust vehicle in place.

    The provider of GBTC is one of the applicants for an ETF (or at least that is my understanding). So, in my opinion, the first “battle” will be to divvy up the GBTC pie, with people trying to get money out of that. I wonder, at this point, how many of the GBTC holders own that versus being short Bitcoin, in anticipation of being able to get out at flat? If that is true, the pie might be smaller than everyone looking to ride the ETF wave realizes.

    I’ve heard that some ETF providers have lined up large crypto holders to swap their crypto into the ETF (once launched). That is interesting from an AUM standpoint but should do nothing for Bitcoin price (once the headlines of “billions enter Bitcoin ETF in first weeks of trading” have run their course). It just transfers the holding format, rather than creates real demand. If Bitcoin is so great, and you already figured out how to custody it yourself, why would you use an ETF? It seems almost bizarre – Bitcoin is great, the future of money, it trades 24/7, etc., but do I prefer to hold it in ETF form?

    I think that money will transfer from other ways of holding Bitcoin into ETFs, but that seems more of an admonishment of holding Bitcoin (the costs, the risks, the liquidity) than anything else.

    Will some new money come in? Sure, without a doubt marketing will ramp up and there are still some people who want Bitcoin but haven’t figured out how to buy Bitcoin. Though I suspect that number is far less than when the Bitcoin futures launched, and they do not seem (to me) to be a resounding success (if they were, we’d probably be hearing a lot less about “spot” bitcoin ETFs).

    The people most excited about the bitcoin ETF seem to be HODLers of Bitcoin (my gut is that they have ramped up their holdings in anticipation of ETFs unleashing a wave of demand) and the media (who want something else to talk about). I don’t have many conversations with people (with money) that indicate there is some massive pent-up demand for Bitcoin ETFs. Some, yes, massive, no. Maybe RIAs will all allocate 1% to it, but that remains to be seen.

    I view the Bitcoin ETF as much more about Wall Street seeing a pie that they can get their hands on (so why not) rather than heralding in some new wave of acceptance of crypto. And let’s be honest (and cynical), why else would I pay attention and write about it, if there wasn’t a chance that it might evolve back into something I have to incorporate into my daily work!

    Bottom Line

    Verbatim from Thursday.

    • I’m the most bullish I’ve been on energy and energy stocks in sometime (probably toss all commodities into that mix).
    • I’m the most bearish I’ve been on equities and am targeting 4,500 on the S&P 500 sooner rather than later.
    • Credit spreads will widen in sympathy with equities, though this is largely an equity valuation and “set-up” problem (the set-up being the conditioning to lower yields = higher stocks) so credit should outperform equities quite handily here.
    • On bonds, maybe, just maybe, we get some “flight to safety” trade, so I’m only mildly bearish on bonds right now, but will sell any rally in bonds as I think that the problems facing the bond market (from geopolitical risk) will outweigh the “traditional” safety bid.

    Lots to think about as we start 2024, and none of my “little tidbits” do anything to make me more comfortable with risk, just more reasons to remain cautious on everything.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 12:50

  • Saturday Night Drive-By: Citing Anonymous Sources, WSJ Smears Musk As Drug Abuser
    Saturday Night Drive-By: Citing Anonymous Sources, WSJ Smears Musk As Drug Abuser

    The Wall Street Journal fired some serious shots at Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday night, dropping a lengthy hit piece accusing him of illegal drug use to an extent that has worried executives and board members while potentially jeopardizing Musk’s various federal government contracts.

    The article relies heavily on anonymous sources, described, for example,” as “people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.” Here are two of the more potent paragraphs:  

    The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.

    …

    In 2018… he took multiple tabs of acid at a party he hosted in Los Angeles. The next year he partied on magic mushrooms at an event in Mexico. In 2021, he took ketamine recreationally with his brother, Kimbal Musk, in Miami at a house party during Art Basel. He has taken illegal drugs with current SpaceX and former Tesla board member Steve Jurvetson.

    Many of the article’s accounts go back a few years or more, and there are no specific descriptions of where or when Musk supposedly used cocaine or ecstasy. As for ketamine, the 52-year-old has previously said he’s been prescribed the drug for depression, and last year tweeted that it was a better avenue than antidepressants that are “zombifying” patients. In 2018, he famously shared some cannabis on Joe Rogan’s show.

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    Musk’s lawyer told the Journal that Musk is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test,” and said there were “other false facts” in the quasi-exposé, but didn’t specify what they are. The lawyer didn’t respond to the Journal’s query about which drugs are screened for in the tests. 

    The Journal says former Tesla director Linda Johnson Rice was so fed up with Musk’s unpredictable behavior and worries about drug use that she opted out of pursuing re-election in 2019. Here again, it’s not Rice telling the Journal that, but “people familiar with the matter.”  

    Among the purportedly concerning anecdotes outlined in the story is a 2017 SpaceX all-hands meeting to discuss the firm’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) prototype. According to the Journal, Musk showed up an hour late, only to slur his words in a rambling speech in which he repeatedly called the product the “Big Fucking Rocket.” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell was said to have intervened and taken charge of the session, with executives later quietly speculating that Musk was on drugs. An unidentified witness described his performance as “nonsensical,” “unhinged,” and “cringeworthy.” 

    In another speculation-centric element of the Journal story, Tesla board members were said to have worried that Musk was on drugs in 2018 when he took to Twitter and said he planned to take the firm private and had “funding secured.” That market-moving tweet put Musk in hot water with the SEC, which alleged he’d misled investors. Some of the worried board members considered pushing Musk to take a leave of absence, according to “people familiar with the discussions.”

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    The Journal’s Emily Glazer and Kirsten Grind seemed bent on putting Musk’s business in danger. They note that, in addition to potentially violating his own companies’ policies, drug use of the types alleged in the story could imperil Musk’s dealings with the federal government, including $14 billion in SpaceX business. Regardless of more permissive state laws, federal contracts require compliance with the Drug-Free Workplace Act.

    In addition to drug testing, the law requires that firms publish a statement “notifying employees that the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession, or use of a controlled substance is prohibited in the person’s workplace.” Contractors must also inform employees that compliance with that statement is a condition of employment. Drug use can also lead to the cancellation of security clearances. 

    Musk hit back at WSJ: 

    “After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing. Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. @WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird 💩 7.” 

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    Let’s not forget that Musk’s social media platform X is an attempt to fracture corporate media. So, of course, it’s only in the best interest of legacy media to churn out hit piece after hit piece on the billionaire. 

    However… 

    It’s worth highlighting that the 1988 law’s scope is focused on the “workplace.” With Musk a notorious, globe-trotting workaholic, defining his workplaces could be a challenging lawyerly endeavor. 

    Multiple federal agencies have already been weaponized against Musk, and now one of the establishment’s leading newspapers has piled on with its own shot. At year-end, we reported that Musk had regained the title of “world’s richest person,” suggesting it could render him “too big to cancel” — but they’re clearly not going to stop trying.  

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    Legacy media’s smear campaign didn’t stop with Musk. 

    Last Thursday, Business Insider targeted hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman. The report noted she plagiarized multiple paragraphs of her 2010 doctoral dissertation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This comes directly after Ackman’s war on ‘woke’ Harvard University resulted in the ousting of Claudine Gay, former president of the school, over plagiarism.

    These smear campaigns are becoming very noticeable to the untrained eye – or the average American – suggesting a diminishing impact on discrediting individuals’ credibility and reputation by legacy media. Therefore, it seems likely that the era of canceling folks by corporate media and elites is in decline. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 12:15

  • After Shooting Ashli Babbitt, Capitol Police Lt. Made False Radio Report: Lawsuit
    After Shooting Ashli Babbitt, Capitol Police Lt. Made False Radio Report: Lawsuit

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

    Within a minute after firing the fatal bullet that struck Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd broadcast a radio report claiming shots were being fired at him in the Speaker’s Lobby and he was “prepared to fire back,” a federal lawsuit alleges.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Jayden X)

    The previously undisclosed radio dispatch is also contained on an audio recording obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times of the “OPS2” dispatch channel used by Capitol Police on Jan. 6.

    Information on the recording is contained in a federal lawsuit filed on Jan. 5 by Ms. Babbitt’s widower, Aaron Babbitt of San Diego. Mr. Babbitt, backed in his lawsuit by Judicial Watch, is seeking $30 million from the U. S. government for wrongful death.

    According to the lawsuit, Mr. Byrd fired his Glock 22 .40-caliber pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder, then announced that he was being fired upon and was ready to return fire.

    “In fact, no shots were fired at Lt. Byrd or his fellow officers,” the lawsuit stated. “The only shot fired was the single shot Lt. Byrd fired at Ashli. He heard the loud noise of the gunshot. He saw her fall backward from the window frame.”

    Aaron Babbitt, Ashli Babbitt’s husband, in San Diego, Calif., June, 2022. (Zhen Wang/The Epoch Times)

    The Epoch Times reached out to Capitol Police and Mr. Byrd’s attorney for comment on the lawsuit and its allegations. Mr. Byrd is now a captain with U.S. Capitol Police.

    A few minutes prior to the shooting, a police dispatcher mistakenly reported, “They’re taking shots into the House floor.”

    “Lt. Byrd erroneously believed and acted on a false radio call and/or false report of shots fired on the House floor occurring before he left the House floor and moved across the Speaker’s Lobby to the adjacent Retiring Room,” the suit said.

    “A reasonably prudent officer in Lt. Byrd’s position would have been aware that, in fact, the report was false and the sound heard on the House floor was glass breaking, not shots fired,” the lawsuit alleged.

    It is not clear why Mr. Byrd made the statement that he was taking fire and was prepared to fire back. His radio dispatch occurred up to a minute after he fired on Ms. Babbitt, the suit said.

    “The facts speak truth. Ashli was ambushed when she was shot by Lt. Byrd,” the lawsuit said. “Multiple witnesses at the scene yelled, ‘You just murdered her.’”

    “Lt. Byrd was never charged or otherwise punished or disciplined for Ashli’s homicide,” the suit stated.

    Video shot from the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby shows Mr. Byrd emerging in a shooting stance with both hands holding the Glock.

    In his only public statements about the shooting—made not to investigators but to an NBC television anchor—Mr. Byrd never mentioned his radio dispatch or his claim that shots were being fired at him and other officers. Nor did he use that as justification for firing his weapon and killing Ms. Babbitt.

    An unknown U.S. Capitol Police officer first reported shots fired in the U.S. House just before 2:43 p.m., followed later by Mr. Byrd’s shots-fired announcement, according to the audio recording obtained by The Epoch Times. Both reports turned out to be unfounded.

    Officer: “Shots fired, House floor. Shots fired, House floor. Immediate assistance.”

    Dispatch: “Shots fired, House floor. Shots fired, House floor.”

    2nd Dispatcher: “I need units to re…,” which was cut off mid-sentence. That message ceased on the OPS2 channel but was heard in full on the OPS1 channel:

    “I need units to respond to the chamber, the House chamber floor,” the dispatcher said. “Again, units need to respond to the House floor in reference to shots fired. They were shots fired at the House floor. Again, units to respond. They’re taking shots into the House floor. We need units to respond to that location. 1443 hours.”

    Lt. Byrd: “405-B. We got shots fired in the lobby. We got fot (sic), shots fired in the lobby of the House chamber. Shots are being fired at us, and we’re prepared to fire back at them. We have guns drawn. [Unintelligible] Don’t leave that end! Don’t leave that end!”

    Mr. Byrd’s dispatch was followed by 11 seconds of radio silence.

    The transcript of the OPS2 radio communications provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ) as evidence in Jan. 6 criminal cases does not include the words “we’re prepared to fire back at them.” The DOJ transcript instead says, “and it went, so we locked it down.”

    Dispatcher: “Simulcasting, shots fired on the House floor again.”

    Lt. Byrd: “We’ve got an injured person. I believe that person was shot. It was…” (cut off by another transmission).

    Unknown officer: “…Shot, one down, civilian. We need EMTs. We need… Come through on the west side of the building … to the House lobby.”

    Dispatch: “That’d be House…”

    Lt. Byrd: “405-B, did you copy?”

    Dispatch: “I copied. House lobby, west side. Individual…”

    Mr. Byrd retreated from the entrance to the seated area in the Speaker’s Lobby. Officer Mike Brown, a member of the USCP Containment and Emergency Response Team (CERT), said Mr. Byrd was “down and out and almost in tears.”

    The revelation of Mr. Byrd’s previously undisclosed radio statements raises fresh questions about the shooting of Ms. Babbitt, 35, and the investigation that cleared him of potential charges of excessive use of force.

    Ashli Babbitt’s route inside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Public Domain)

    The DOJ report explaining why no charges were pursued did not mention Mr. Byrd’s radio dispatch.

    Mr. Byrd never made a statement to internal affairs officers who investigated the shooting on behalf of U.S. Capitol Police. When he met with DC Metro internal affairs the night of Jan. 6, 2021, he said he wanted to retain an attorney before saying anything.

    Mr. Byrd and his attorney did an informal walk-through of the shooting scene with a Capitol Police official in late January 2021 but he was never subjected to questioning.

    DOJ Report Contained Errors

    The DOJ report absolving Mr. Byrd from culpability included numerous errors and incorrect statements.

    The report says that after the glass in the doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby was smashed out, rioters “were then able to reach through the broken glass and push the chairs off the top of the barricaded furniture.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 01/07/2024 – 11:40

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