Today’s News 9th January 2023

• The Elitists' Communications Counterrevolution
  The Elitists’ Communications Counterrevolution

  Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via AmGreatness.com,

  The gleaming promise of new technology and its uses blinded us to the insidious extent imperiled elitists would go to protect their unmerited power, wealth, and status. We were naïve. Yet, even if one could have foreseen the metastasizing tyranny brought about by the digital age, it would have strained credulity to watch Americans—especially the young—not merely acquiescing to it, but embracing it.

  

  Though we are now inured to its novelty, it bears recollecting that from the late 20th century to the present, we have lived through a worldwide communications revolution. Profoundly affecting the individual and society, the full impact of this revolution remains unclear. Humanity’s ability to choose and pursue happiness has been empowered to an extent undreamt. In the palm of one’s hand, or upon one’s laptop or desk, and with just a stroke of a key, one can instantaneously communicate with family and friends a world away, conduct business, petition the government for the redress of grievances, or bring calumny upon a major corporation. In sum, the communications revolution is an historically unprecedented technological boon for personal empowerment, growth, enrichment, and self-government.

  It is this last that alarms the elitists.

  The elitists believe they are entitled to wield power for the purpose of governing their inferiors (i.e., the rest of us). To facilitate this inversion of our free republic’s design, the elitists require the complicity of a significant amount of the citizenry who, through acquiescence, apathy, and/or dependency, are more than willing to submit to the elitists’ control over their lives, be it wholly or in part. Thus, for the elitists, the communications revolution is an existential threat. The empowerment of sovereign citizens to self-govern and, be it singularly or collectively, increase their ability to control and curtail—i.e., to subordinate—the power of public and private sector elitists, had to be blocked through co-option and coercion; through a communications counterrevolution.  

  Fear is the key. (Isn’t it always when trying to pry away the people’s rights?) Frightened elitists were able to project and impart their fear into their fellow citizens; once the unwarranted paranoia was sufficiently transferred to a critical mass of them, no social, political, legal, or constitutional bar would be insurmountable. There were foreign and domestic terrorists lurking around the corner, white supremacists scurrying about the block, hate and racism woven throughout our endangered democracy! 

  So commenced and continues the coercive disempowering of the entire sovereign citizenry, as far too many frightened people voluntarily shed their rights and scramble into faux lifeboats bound up serf’s creek without a paddle. Free speech is on the verge of being viewed not as a God-given right but a clear and present danger. A danger only the elitists could prevent through their life-saving censorship—er, “content moderation.”    

  Already, the elitists’ siren song has found fertile ground. The elitists’ indoctrination machine has seduced many of America’s youth to renounce what was once considered an intergenerational, innate yearning by young people to be heard and to reject censorship. But the elitists have tamed and muzzled the rising generation’s innate rebelliousness. Like a teacher handing out participation trophies to boost students’ unwarranted self-esteem, the elitists have granted laurels to collegiates for disempowering themselves, laurels these kids have accepted gratefully in exchange for their rights. Of course, they and everyone who submits to the self-censorship and abets the censorious silencing of dissent will be defenseless when the elitists come for them. But that will never happen, will it?

  This is not a partisan issue, as every American has the God-given right to free speech. And every American is an equal participant in our free republic’s revolutionary experiment in self-government. The elitists’ communication counterrevolution proceeds apace—with the bitterly ironic collusion of Big Tech, which has betrayed its initial promise of providing and promoting personal empowerment and free speech—and with the support of much of the Left, which once championed free speech. Apparently, that was free speech only for themselves and those who aligned with their ideology. 

  In the end, though, it makes perfect, despicable sense: Big Government, Big Tech, and the Left are elitists in common cause to convince the public that the greatest threat to Our Democracy™ is your freedom. Yet, this “democracy” is actually their oligarchy, the preservation of which is the elitists’ communications counterrevolution’s end game.

  Yes, we should have seen it coming. Still, during the communications revolution, to have been blinded by the empowering possibilities and—hope against hope—to have believed individual liberty had ultimately triumphed over the state is to our eternal credit. Such idealism, independence, and faith are hallmarks of Americans; and, incidentally, why the elitists’ communication counterrevolution, finally, will fail.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 23:30

• A Short Essay On Sound Monetary Policy
  A Short Essay On Sound Monetary Policy

  Authored by George Ford Smith via The Mises Institute,

  This will be brief, appropriate to the topic at hand.

  It consists of a quote from Milton Friedman found in Joseph Salerno’s outstanding book, Money: Sound and Unsound:

  If a domestic money consists of a commodity, [such as] a pure gold standard or cowrie bead standard, the principles of monetary policy are very simple. There aren’t any. The commodity money takes care of itself. (emphasis added)

  Imagine that. If we have sound money, we don’t need the Fed. Or Congress. We just need sound money.

  End of essay.

  

  Postscript:

  Economist Nouriel Roubini once attacked the gold standard:

  Roubini raises the following question: If you are on a gold standard, or modified gold standard, what do you do in the event of a bank run—if you don’t have enough gold to fully back the currency?

  Translated: What happens if the banks have created bogus IOUs for their depositors’ gold? Suggestion: Have them indicted for fraud. Gold doesn’t “back” anything. It is the money. The banks issue IOUs for the money. When they issue more IOUs than they have gold on hand, they’re cheating.

  Murray Rothbard:

  In my view, issuing promises to pay on demand in excess of the amount of the goods on hand is simply fraud, and should be so considered by the legal system . . .

  This is legalized counterfeiting; this is the creation of money without the necessity of production, to compete for resources against those who have produced.

  In short, I believe that fractional-reserve banking is disastrous both for the morality and for the fundamental bases and institutions of the market economy.

  Roubini also says that a “gold standard limits the flexibility and range of actions that central banks can take.” He thinks it’s a shortcoming, but that alone should recommend it.

  At the start of World War I, the belligerent governments went off the gold standard so they could fight the bloodiest war in human history. Gold, since it can’t be created on demand, would have severely limited the “flexibility and range of actions” governments could take. 

  Sound money is not a product of central bank policy decisions. But who cares about sound money when you want to engage in massive human slaughter?

  More recently, Roubini said, “The world is on a slow-motion train wreck.” 

  The unmolested gold coin standard avoids train wrecks, “Dr. Doom,” by staying on track.

  A gold standard doesn’t need Roubini. It doesn’t need Jerome Powell. It doesn’t need Congress. It doesn’t need the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. It doesn’t need the WEF, the FOMC, or AOC.

  It just needs to be left alone.

  The gold standard “requires nothing else than that the government abstain from deliberately sabotaging it,” Ludwig von Mises wrote in The Theory of Money and Credit.

  What all the enemies of the gold standard spurn as its main vice is precisely the same thing that in the eyes of the advocates of the gold standard is its main virtue, namely its incompatibility with a policy of credit expansion. The nucleus of all the effusions of the anti-gold authors and politicians is the expansionist fallacy.

  Credit expansion—inflation—is indispensable to a growing government. From Human Action:

  The gold standard removes the determination of cash-induced changes in purchasing power from the political arena. Its general acceptance requires the acknowledgment of the truth that one cannot make all people richer by printing money. The abhorrence of the gold standard is inspired by the superstition that omnipotent governments can create wealth out of little scraps of paper.

  If wealth could be created out of scraps of paper or their digital equivalent, world poverty would be a thing of the past.

  Remember, the commodity money takes care of itself—and us too, if we let it.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 22:30

• Minnesota Art Professor Fired For Showing Depiction Of Prophet Muhammad
  Minnesota Art Professor Fired For Showing Depiction Of Prophet Muhammad

  A Minnesota adjunct professor was fired for showing a 14th-century panting of the Prophet Muhammad, despite taking extensive precautions before doing so.

  

  The now-former professor at Hamline University, Erika López Prater, warned students in the syllabus that images of holy figures, including the Prophet Muhammad and the Buddha, would be shown during the course. She asked students to contact her with any concerns, and said nobody did.

  In class, she told students right before the unveiling that the painting would be displayed in case anyone wanted to step out.

  Then, after showing the image, she was fired, the NY Times reports.

  Officials at Hamline, a small, private university in St. Paul, Minn., with about 1,800 undergraduates, had tried to douse what they feared would become a runaway fire. Instead they ended up with what they had tried to avoid: a national controversy, which pitted advocates of academic liberty and free speech against Muslims who believe that showing the image of Prophet Muhammad is always sacrilegious.

  After Dr. López Prater showed the image, a senior in the class complained to the administration. Other Muslim students, not in the course, supported the student, saying the class was an attack on their religion. They demanded that officials take action. -NY Times

  School officials told López Prater that her ‘services would not be needed’ next semester, and told students and faculty in an email that the incident was clearly Islamophobic.

  According to an email so-signed by Hamline president Fayneese S. Miller, respect for Muslim students “should have superseded academic freedom.“

  

  Meanwhile at a town hall, a Muslim who was invited to speak compared it to teaching that Hitler was good.

  Free Speech Backlash

  In response to the firing, an Islamic art historian wrote an essay defending López Prater and demanding that the university’s board investigate the matter. An associated petition has received over 2,800 signatures.

  Free speech groups such as PEN America called it “one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory,” and as the Times notes, “Muslims themselves debated whether the action was Islamophobic.”

  That doesn’t matter to Miller, who defended the decision – saying: “To look upon an image of the Prophet Muhammad, for many Muslims, is against their faith,” adding “It was important that our Muslim students, as well as all other students, feel safe, supported and respected both in and out of our classrooms.”

  The student who complained about the image, Aram Wedatalla of Sudanese origin, said she was blindsided by the image.

  “I’m like, ‘This can’t be real,’” she said. “As a Muslim and a Black person, I don’t feel like I belong, and I don’t think I’ll ever belong in a community where they don’t value me as a member, and they don’t show the same respect that I show them.”

  The image shown by López Prater is contained in one of the earliest Islamic illustrated histories of the world, “A Compendium of Chronicles,” written by Rashid-al-Din during the 14th century. It’s shown regularly in art history classes, and depicts a crowned Angel Gabriel pointing at the Prophet Muhammad and delivering the first Quaranic revelation.

  

  According to Christine Gruber, professor of Islamic Art at the University of Michigan who wrote the essay defending López Prater, the image is a “masterpiece of Persian manuscript painting.”

  [S]imilar paintings have been on display at places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And a sculpture of the prophet is at the Supreme Court.

  Dr. Gruber said that showing Islamic art and depictions of the Prophet Muhammad have become more common in academia, because of a push to “decolonize the canon” — that is, expand curriculum beyond a Western model. -NYT

  “My perspective and actions have been lamentably mischaracterized, my opportunities for due process have been thwarted, and Dr. Everett’s all-employee email accusation that ‘undeniably… Islamophobic’ actions undertaken in my class on Oct. 6 have been misapplied,” Prater told the student paper.

  Mark Berkson, the university’s department of religion chair and a professor of Asian religions, Islam, and comparative religion, wrote: “In the context of an art history classroom, showing an Islamic representation of the Prophet Muhammad, a painting that was done to honor Muhammad and depict an important historical moment, is not an example of Islamophobia.”

  “Labeling it this way is not only inaccurate but also takes our attention off of real examples of bigotry and hate.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 22:00

• Escobar: Why BRI Is Back With A Bang In 2023
  Escobar: Why BRI Is Back With A Bang In 2023

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  As Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative enters its 10th year, a strong Sino-Russian geostrategic partnership has revitalized the BRI across the Global South…

  

  The year 2022 ended with a Zoom call to end all Zoom calls: Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping discussing all aspects of the Russia-China strategic partnership in an exclusive video call.

  Putin told Xi how “Russia and China managed to ensure record high growth rates of mutual trade,” meaning “we will be able to reach our target of $200 billion by 2024 ahead of schedule.”

  On their coordination to “form a just world order based on international law,” Putin emphasized how “we share the same views on the causes, course, and logic of the ongoing transformation of the global geopolitical landscape.”

  Facing “unprecedented pressure and provocations from the west,” Putin noted how Russia-China are not only defending their own interests “but also all those who stand for a truly democratic world order and the right of countries to freely determine their own destiny.”

  Earlier, Xi had announced that Beijing will hold the 3rd Belt and Road Forum in 2023. This has been confirmed, off the record, by diplomatic sources. The forum was initially designed to be bi-annual, first held in 2017 and then 2019. 2021 didn’t happen because of Covid-19.

  The return of the forum signals not only a renewed drive but an extremely significant landmark as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in Astana and then Jakarta in 2013, will be celebrating its 10th anniversary.

  BRI version 2.0

  That set the tone for 2023 across the whole geopolitical and geoeconomic spectrum. In parallel to its geoconomic breadth and reach, BRI has been conceived as China’s overarching foreign policy concept up to the mid-century. Now it’s time to tweak things. BRI 2.0 projects, along its several connectivity corridors, are bound to be re-dimensioned to adapt to the post-Covid environment, the reverberations of the war in Ukraine, and a deeply debt-distressed world.

  

  Map of BRI (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

  And then there’s the interlocking of the connectivity drive via BRI with the connectivity drive via the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), whose main players are Russia, Iran and India.

  Expanding on the geoeconomic drive of the Russia-China partnership as discussed by Putin and Xi, the fact that Russia, China, Iran and India are developing interlocking trade partnerships should establish that BRICS members Russia, India and China, plus Iran as one of the upcoming members of the expanded BRICS+, are the ‘Quad’ that really matter across Eurasia.

  The new Politburo Standing Committee in Beijing, which are totally aligned with Xi’s priorities, will be keenly focused on solidifying concentric spheres of geoeconomic influence across the Global South.

  How China plays ‘strategic ambiguity’

  This has nothing to do with balance of power, which is a western concept that additionally does not connect with China’s five millennia of history. Neither is this another inflection of “unity of the center” – the geopolitical representation according to which no nation is able to threaten the center, China, as long as it is able to maintain order.

  These cultural factors that in the past may have prevented China from accepting an alliance under the concept of parity have now vanished when it comes to the Russia-China strategic partnership.

  Back in February 2022, days before the events that led to Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, Putin and Xi, in person, had announced that their partnership had “no limits” – even if they hold different approaches on how Moscow should deal with a Kiev lethally instrumentalized by the west to threaten Russia.

  In a nutshell: Beijing will not “abandon” Moscow because of Ukraine – as much as it will not openly show support. The Chinese are playing their very own subtle interpretation of what Russians define as  “strategic ambiguity.”

  Connectivity in West Asia

  In West Asia, BRI projects will advance especially fast in Iran, as part of the 25-year deal signed between Beijing and Tehran and the definitive demise of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – or Iran nuclear deal – which will translate into no European investment in the Iranian economy.

  Iran is not only a BRI partner but also a full-fledged Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member. It has clinched a free trade agreement with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which consists of post-Soviet states Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

  And Iran is, today, arguably the key interconnector of the INSTC, opening up the Indian Ocean and beyond, interconnecting not only with Russia and India but also China, Southeast Asia, and even, potentially, Europe – assuming the EU leadership will one day see which way the wind is blowing.

  

  Map of INSTC (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

  So here we have heavily US-sanctioned Iran profiting simultaneously from BRI, INSTC and the EAEU free trade deal. The three critical BRICS members – India, China, Russia – will be particularly interested in the development of the trans-Iranian transit corridor – which happens to be the shortest route between most of the EU and South and Southeast Asia, and will provide faster, cheaper transportation.

  Add to this the groundbreaking planned Russia-Transcaucasia-Iran electric power corridor, which could become the definitive connectivity link capable of smashing the antagonism between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

  In the Arab world, Xi has already rearranged the chessboard. Xi’s December trip to Saudi Arabia should be the diplomatic blueprint on how to rapidly establish a post-modern quid pro quo between two ancient, proud civilizations to facilitate a New Silk Road revival.

  Rise of the Petro-yuan

  Beijing may have lost huge export markets within the collective west – so a replacement was needed. The Arab leaders who lined up in Riyadh to meet Xi saw ten thousand sharpened (western) knives suddenly approaching and calculated it was time to strike a new balance.

  That means, among other things, that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) has adopted a more multipolar agenda: no more weaponizing of Salafi-Jihadism across Eurasia, and a door wide open to the Russia-China strategic partnership. Hubris strikes hard at the heart of the Hegemon.

  Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar, in two striking successive newsletters, titled War and Commodity Encumbrance (December 27) and War and Currency Statecraft (December 29), pointed out the writing on the wall.

  Pozsar fully understood what Xi meant when he said China is “ready to work with the GCC” to set up a “new paradigm of all-dimensional energy cooperation” within a timeline of “three to five years.”

  China will continue to import a lot of crude, long-term, from GCC nations, and way more Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). Beijing will “strengthen our cooperation in the upstream sector, engineering services, as well as [downstream] storage, transportation, and refinery. The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange platform will be fully utilized for RMB settlement in oil and gas trade…and we could start currency swap cooperation.”

  Pozsar summed it all up, thus: “GCC oil flowing East + renminbi invoicing = the dawn of the petroyuan.”

  And not only that. In parallel, the BRI gets a renewed drive, because the previous model – oil for weapons – will be replaced with oil for sustainable development (construction of factories, new job opportunities).

  And that’s how BRI meets MbS’s Vision 2030.

  Apart from Michael Hudson, Poszar may be the only western economic analyst who understands the global shift in power: “The multipolar world order,” he says,” is being built not by G7 heads of state but by the ‘G7 of the East’ (the BRICS heads of state), which is a G5 really.” Because of the move toward an expanded BRICS+, he took the liberty to round up the number.

  And the rising global powers know how to balance their relations too. In West Asia, China is playing slightly different strands of the same BRI trade/connectivity strategy, one for Iran and another for the Persian Gulf monarchies.

  China’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran is a 25-year deal under which China invests $400 billion into Iran’s economy in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil at a steep discount. While at his summit with the GCC, Xi emphasized “investments in downstream petrochemical projects, manufacturing, and infrastructure” in exchange for paying for energy in yuan.

  How to play the New Great Game

  BRI 2.0 was also already on a roll during a series of Southeast Asian summits in November. When Xi met with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit in Bangkok, they pledged to finally connect the up-and-running China-Laos high-speed railway to the Thai railway system. This is a 600km-long project, linking Bangkok to Nong Khai on the border with Laos, to be completed by 2028.

  And in an extra BRI push, Beijing and Bangkok agreed to coordinate the development of China’s Shenzhen-Zhuhai-Hong Kong Greater Bay Area and the Yangtze River Delta with Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC).

  In the long run, China essentially aims to replicate in West Asia its strategy across Southeast Asia. Beijing trades more with the ASEAN than with either Europe or the US. The ongoing, painful slow motion crash of the collective west may ruffle a few feathers in a civilization that has seen, from afar, the rise and fall of Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Arabs, Ottomans, Spanish, Dutch, British. The Hegemon after all is just the latest in a long list.

  In practical terms, BRI 2.0 projects will now be subjected to more scrutiny: This will be the end of impractical proposals and sunk costs, with lifelines extended to an array of debt-distressed nations. BRI will be placed at the heart of BRICS+ expansion – building on a consultation panel in May 2022 attended by foreign ministers and representatives from South America, Africa and Asia that showed, in practice, the global range of possible candidate countries.

  Implications for the Global South

  Xi’s fresh mandate from the 20th Communist Party Congress has signaled the irreversible institutionalization of BRI, which happens to be his signature policy. The Global South is fast drawing serious conclusions, especially in contrast with the glaring politicization of the G20 that was visible at its November summit in Bali.

  So Poszar is a rare gem: a western analyst who understands that the BRICS are the new G5 that matter, and that they’re leading the road towards BRICS+. He also gets that the Quad that really matters is the three main BRICS-plus-Iran.

  Acute supply chain decoupling, the crescendo of western hysteria over Beijing’s position on the war in Ukraine, and serious setbacks on Chinese investments in the west all play on the development of BRI 2.0. Beijing will be focusing simultaneously on several nodes of the Global South, especially neighbors in ASEAN and across Eurasia.

  Think, for instance, the Beijing-funded Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, Southeast Asia’s first: a BRI project opening this year as Indonesia hosts the rotating ASEAN chairmanship. China is also building the East Coast Rail Link in Malaysia and has renewed negotiations with the Philippines for three railway projects.

  Then there are the superposed interconnections. The EAEU will clinch a free trade zone deal with Thailand. On the sidelines of the epic return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to power in Brazil, this past Sunday, officials of Iran and Saudi Arabia met amid smiles to discuss – what else – BRICS+. Excellent choice of venue: Brazil is regarded by virtually every geopolitical player as prime neutral territory.

  From Beijing’s point of view, the stakes could not be higher, as the drive behind BRI 2.0 across the Global South is not to allow China to be dependent on western markets. Evidence of this is in its combined approach towards Iran and the Arab world.

  China losing both US and EU market demand, simultaneously, may end up being just a bump in the (multipolar) road, even as the crash of the collective west may seem suspiciously timed to take China down.

  The year 2023 will proceed with China playing the New Great Game deep inside, crafting a globalization 2.0 that is institutionally supported by a network encompassing BRI, BRICS+, the SCO, and with the help of its Russian strategic partner, the EAEU and OPEC+ too. No wonder the usual suspects are dazed and confused.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 20:30

• In 2022, The IRS Went After The Very Poorest Taxpayers
  In 2022, The IRS Went After The Very Poorest Taxpayers

  Authored by Liz Wolfe via Reason.com,

  Despite $80 billion in new funding, the agency is living up to its reputation of hassling low-income taxpayers over rich people…

  

  On Wednesday, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) released data provided to it by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on audits performed by the agency in fiscal year 2022. Despite the infusion of new funding earmarked for the IRS via last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, the agency continued historic trends of hassling primarily low-income taxpayers, with relatively few millionaires and billionaires getting caught up in the audit sweep.

  “The taxpayer class with unbelievably high audit rates—five and a half times virtually everyone else—were low-income wage-earners taking the earned income tax credit,” reported TRAC, noting that the poorest taxpayers are “easy marks in an era when IRS increasingly relies upon correspondence audits yet doesn’t have the resources to assist taxpayers or answer their questions.”

  In fact, “if one ignores the fiction of auditing a millionaire through simply sending a letter through the mail, the odds that millionaires received a regular audit by a revenue agent (1.1%) was actually less than the audit rate of the targeted lowest income wage-earners whose audit rate was 1.27 percent!”

  The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, directed $80 billion worth of new funding over the next decade to the IRS so it could hire 87,000 new workers, purportedly to better target millionaire and billionaire scofflaws. The Biden administration and credulous journalists claimed that this would in no way increase audits for those making under $400,000 annually—suspect assurances not provided within the text of the actual bill. This increased capacity meant only those at the top would be targeted, supporters insisted. But this ignores how the IRS’s incentives work and how agencywide reform might be too heavy of a lift.

  Correspondence audits—which are conducted via mail, and are the type frequently used when interacting with the poorest of taxpayers—are much easier and cheaper to conduct than other types of audits. Plus, the earned income tax credit is easy to get wrong. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that new hires with experience in the field will take almost three years of ramp-up time, with more junior new hires taking longer. The lag time between 2022’s infusion of funding, and legitimately increased capacity, will be enormous—if the agency can even snag the best in the industry when TurboTax and H&R Block will surely be swelling their own ranks. It makes sense that, given a dearth of experienced auditors not likely to be fixed soon, the agency would rely on the easiest and least time-consuming types of audits.

  But be suspicious of the idea that an infusion of cash will solve longstanding problems within the IRS. This is, after all, the agency that sent $1.1 billion in child welfare payments to the wrong people over the course of merely five months during the pandemic. It’s the agency that was hacked back in 2015, resulting in the personal information of more than 700,000 taxpayers being compromised. It’s the agency that has been foolishly going after Americans who hold $10,000 or more in a foreign bank since 2010, never mind the fact that many of them are middle-class expats, not folks with yachts in the Mediterranean. And it’s the (leaky) agency that enabled the richest Americans’ intimate financial information to be thumbed through by ProPublica readers. It will take more than a little cash to fix all this, and, as the IRS’s competence and tenacity increase, so too will the tenacity of the vast infrastructure of accountants and lawyers hired by the rich to creatively minimize their tax burdens.

  Though some libertarians may argue such an agency ought not to exist in the first place and cheer its relative ineptitude at going after the well-to-do, it’s decidedly absurd that the agency taxpayers just fed $80 billion to has, for another year, continued its assault on the poor.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 20:00

• Hedge Fund CIO: "To Maintain Control, Government Must Instill Fear While Delivering Economic Growth"
  Hedge Fund CIO: “To Maintain Control, Government Must Instill Fear While Delivering Economic Growth”

  By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

  “Since the outbreak of the epidemic, we have always put people first and life first, adhered to scientific and precise prevention and control, optimized and adjusted prevention and control measures according to the time and situation, and maximized the protection of people’s lives and health,” said Xi Jinping, in a New Year’s address to his restive subjects, who had finally had enough and took to the streets, risking revolution.

  “After arduous efforts, we have overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges,” added Xi, surely awed by the power of one man atop a vast security apparatus to hold a nation of 1.4bln under lockdown, a testament to the overwhelming power of a modern surveillance state. In the history of humanity, no such thing had ever been attempted.

  But it occurred in China of course, a nation where every so often a remarkable social/economic experiment takes place on a scale that is incomprehensible to the western mind. Its Great Leap Forward from 1958-62 led to many unexpected outcomes, one of which was the starvation of 40-50mm Chinese. The one-child policy from 1980-2015 was history’s greatest social experiment. No more brothers, no sisters, no aunts, no uncles. A generation of “missing women” has left today’s China with 723mm boys and just 689mm girls.

  “While it is still a struggle, everyone is working hard with perseverance, and the dawn is ahead,” said President Xi to his nation of lonely, mostly only-children, emerging from the psychological torture of lockdown.

  How such things manifest is anyone’s guess, the outcome of each grand experiment interweaving, compounding, echoing through generations.

  Of course, it’s not all for the worse. No nation in history has lifted so many from extreme poverty, even if was in part self-inflicted. And through it all, amongst the key lessons learned, one is that to maintain control, the government must instill fear while delivering economic growth.

  So having just discovered the limit of its ability to lockdown its people, the time has come to give them economic growth. “Let’s work harder, persistence means victory, and unity means victory,” said Xi Jinping, to his nation, humanity’s remarkable experiment.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 19:00

• AGs Slam White House Over Multiple Examples Of Big Tech Collusion To Censor Dissent
  AGs Slam White House Over Multiple Examples Of Big Tech Collusion To Censor Dissent

  At least two state Attorneys General have slammed the White House for colluding with social media companies to censor dissent.

  

  Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey highlighted this effort in a Friday Twitter thread, noting how the Biden White House directed Twitter and Facebook to censor Robert Kennedy Jr., Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren.

  Here, the Biden White House directs Facebook to shut down conservative voices @TuckerCarlson and @TomiLahren (4/9) pic.twitter.com/BlFunGWc3Z

  — Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) January 7, 2023

  In another example, YouTube assures a government employee that they use machine learning to ‘reduce the recommendations’ of wrongthink. 

  Meanwhile, Louisiana AG Jeff Landry slammed the Biden White House over the Tucker Carlson censorship.

  As Tom Ozimek of The Epoch Times notes;

  Landry shared the document—an email exchange between White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty and an unidentified Facebook employee—in a Jan. 7 post on Twitter, with the comment: “Rob Flaherty tells facebook to censor” Tucker Carlson.

  “Since we’ve been on the phone—the top post about vaccines today is [T]ucker Carlson saying they don’t work. Yesterday it was Tomi Lehren [sic] saying she won’t take one,” Flaherty reportedly said in the message to the Facebook staffer, whose name and email address have been redacted.

  “This is exactly why I want to know what ‘Reduction’ actually looks like—if ‘reduction’ means ‘pumping our most vaccine hesitant audience with [T]ucker Carlson saying it doesn’t work’ then … I’m not sure it’s reduction!” Flaherty continued, per the document shared by Landry.

  Signaling action regarding the request, the unidentified Facebook employee then reportedly wrote: “Running this down now.”

  Rob Flaherty tells facebook to censor @tuckercarlson pic.twitter.com/mxUT2C8nna

  — AG Jeff Landry (@AGJeffLandry) January 6, 2023

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

  The Epoch Times has reached out with a request for comment to Facebook parent Meta, Fox News Channel, and the White House, but no reply was received by publication.

  ‘Hard Evidence’ of Government Collusion With Big Tech

  Landry, together with Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, sued the Biden administration in May 2022 for allegedly pressuring and colluding with social media giants to suppress free speech.

  Schmitt on Jan. 5 was sworn in as a U.S. senator and has been replaced in his role as Missouri attorney general by Andrew Bailey.

  Bailey took to Twitter on Jan. 7 to say that when he took the oath of office, he swore he would protect the Constitution and explained “why.”

  “We now have hard evidence that President Biden’s Administration colluded with social media companies to censor differing viewpoints and silence ‘misinformation’ that was later deemed true,” Bailey wrote in a series of posts.

  Bailey shared a screenshot of an email from White House COVID-19 Digital Director Clarke E. Humphrey to an unidentified Twitter employee with the subject line “Flagging Hank Aaron misinfo” and requesting the Twitter staff to “get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP.”

  In her request, Humphrey provided a link to a Twitter post by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known critic of the Biden administration’s narrative on COVID-19 vaccines.

  The offending tweet links to an article on the website of the Children’s Health Defense, an activist group chaired by Kennedy Jr. that left-leaning Wikipedia labels as “one of the main sources of misinformation on vaccines.”

  The article, from Jan. 22, 2021, says Aaron died 18 days after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine of an “undisclosed cause” and cites Kennedy Jr. as saying that his “tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines.”

  About a week later, the Fulton County Medical Examiner released Aaron’s cause of death as “natural causes” and that he didn’t have any COVID-19 symptoms, with his medical history listing prostate issues and hypertension.

  Besides requesting action on Kennedy Jr.’s tweet, Humphrey also added a request to “keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre,” per the screenshot shared by Bailey.

  The Epoch Times has reached out to Twitter with a request for comment.

  ‘The Truth No Longer Matters to the White House’

  Bailey also shared screenshots of several other messages that he said show collusion between Big Tech and the government to suppress free speech, including another message from Flaherty to an unidentified Facebook employee in which the White House official demands “assurances” that the social media company is taking actions “to ensure you’re not making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse.”

  “The truth no longer matters to the White House,” Bailey captioned the post.

  “These emails confirm what we’ve known all along,” Bailey wrote. “The Biden Admin. has been colluding with social media companies to stifle opposing voices.”

  “I will continue to push back against this blatant attack on the 1st Amendment with every tool at my disposal,” he added.

  With Schmitt gone as attorney general, Bailey has taken his place as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against President Joe Biden, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and other administration officials.

  The lawsuit claims that Biden and other government officials worked with Big Tech companies like Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor conversation around matters relating to everything from COVID-19 and election integrity to the Hunter Biden laptop story, doing so under the guise of battling “misinformation.”

  The two Republican-led states accuse Biden and other officials named in the lawsuit of “falsely” attacking the Hunter Biden laptop story as “disinformation.”

  The story, which was first published by the New York Post in October 2020, detailed the contents of a laptop linked to Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son. The laptop was abandoned in a Delaware computer repair shop and included compromising pictures and emails regarding allegedly corrupt foreign business deals.

  Twitter labeled the story as “potentially harmful” and locked the New York Post’s main Twitter account while also blocking Twitter users from publishing the link to the story.

  GOP to Investigate ‘Weaponization of the Federal Government’

  It comes as House Republicans have pledged to investigate allegations of collusion between federal agencies and private companies, and to do so, they’re looking to establish a subcommittee on the “weaponization” of the federal government.

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 18:30

• Defunct NASA Satellite To Crash Back To Earth
  Defunct NASA Satellite To Crash Back To Earth

  A defunct NASA science satellite is predicted to reenter Earth’s atmosphere and ‘mostly’ burn up upon reentry. The space agency claims that the 5,400-pound (2,450-kilogram) satellite has a low risk of causing harm on the ground. 

  NASA wrote in a press release the retired Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere around 6:40 p.m. EST today, with an uncertainty window of +/- 17 hours. Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded nonprofit organization, has been tracking ERBS. It predicts the satellite could crash back to Earth around 10:49 p.m. Monday.

  NASA’s retired Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere after almost 40 years in space.

  The @DeptofDefense currently predicts reentry at approximately 6:40 pm EST on Jan. 8.https://t.co/3VKDIqDh0X pic.twitter.com/WDpxOC3Hl4

  — NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) January 6, 2023

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

  “The risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth is very low,” NASA said, “approximately 1 in 9,400,” adding “most of the satellite” will burn up upon reentry, but some pieces could survive and reach the surface. 

  NASA launched ERBS in 1984 on the Space Shuttle Challenger. The satellite was expected to survive only two years, though it kept measuring stratospheric ozone, water vapor, nitrogen dioxide, and aerosols until 2005. 

  Aerospace Corporation expects ERBS to track over the westernmost areas of North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia during reentry. 

  

  NASA’s crashing space junk comes as the space agency made a big fuss about Chinese rockets uncontrollably entering the atmosphere last year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 18:00

• Biden Blames Southern Border Crisis On Republicans Before His First Planned Trip To The Region
  Biden Blames Southern Border Crisis On Republicans Before His First Planned Trip To The Region

  The Biden White House has been ignoring the border crisis for the past two years, with Biden refusing to visit the region to see the chaos in person and even denying the reality of the situation despite all evidence to the contrary.  Both Biden and the Department of Homeland Security have been actively seeking to erase Title 42, the only framework in place for slowing the tide of illegal migrants flooding across into the US.  However, now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Title 42 must remain, Biden is suddenly changing his tune.

  For the first time in his residency at the Oval Office, Joe Biden is set to take a trip to the southern border, specifically El Paso.  The Democrat run Texas city has been an epicenter of the ongoing migrant surge, with Mayor Oscar Leeser finally admitting a couple weeks ago that El Paso is in a state of emergency.   Leeser originally refused to label the mass invasion of illegals as a crisis (he says the White House pressured him not to), but with El Paso running out of funds to deal with the influx and thousands of migrants crowding into sleeping bag cities on the streets he has been forced to acknowledge reality.

  It should be noted that, conveniently, El Paso has been engaged in a massive clean-up effort to reduce the level of homeless migrants right before Biden’s arrival, which suggests there is an attempt to hide the scale of the crisis from the American people.  Measures include the building of a make-shift border wall using shipping containers and barbed wire, which reports say has been very effective in slowing the flow of migrants into the city.  It’s rather ironic that the Democrats are now forced to build a border wall just to make Biden’s visit to El Paso look good after years of sabotaging any efforts to build a wall under the Trump Administration. 

  It’s also rather hypocritical that after conservatives spent years trying to get any traction from leftists on border security, Democrats now blame Republicans for the crisis. Biden took to his teleprompter this week to lambast conservatives for rejecting his immigration policies, most of which are designed to make it easier for illegals to get citizenship through amnesty measures.  It is these same policies which are attracting more migrants rather than dissuading the marching caravans from rushing across the border.  

  Biden suggests that Title 42 actually makes the migrant problem worse because, by kicking illegals back to where they came from, they then might try to cross the border again.  This kind of warped logic is pervasive in the White House response to immigration – Biden is essentially saying that if we simply let most of the illegals into the country the first time around, then we won’t have to deal with them at the border again in the future.  Of course, this defeats the purpose of having a border in the first place. 

  Biden also argued that conservatives prefer that the crisis continues so that they can use it to gain more votes in future elections.  One would think that if this were the case, Biden and the Democrats would be anxious to close the border, build a wall and keep Title 42 in place. 

  Border patrol encounters with migrants plummeted under Title 42 in 2020, proving that the law works when enforced properly.  The reason for the sudden surge in encounters is the presence of Joe Biden in the White House and the expectation that Title 42 would be rescinded.  Luckily, the Supreme Court has blocked this action and now the White House is forced to pretend as if they care about the migrant crisis.

  Amnesty measures are a rationalization for open border policies, nothing more.  Biden claims that most immigrants are coming from oppressed nations seeking freedom.  However, nearly 40% of all illegal migrants are from Mexico.  Beyond Mexico, the largest number of migrant encounters are from Ecuador and Brazil (not countries of origin eligible for amnesty).  Set aside the fact that anyone can say they are seeking amnesty and are from an oppressed nation and there is no way to verify their claim.  Finally, there are many countries that real amnesty seekers could apply to for citizenship – Why is the US the only nation that is pressured to take them all in? 

  At least 5 million foreign nationals have entered the US illegally since Biden took office.  Since 2018, at least 60% of all migrants seek some form of welfare benefits, which is why Democrat run cities like New York and DC cannot handle 10,000 to 20,000 migrants, let alone millions.  Without secure borders, there will not be an America left for migrant “dreamers” to come to in the near future.  But perhaps that is the point…     

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 17:33

• Morgan Stanley: After A Chaotic 2022, The Rest Of The World Will Outperform US Stocks
  Morgan Stanley: After A Chaotic 2022, The Rest Of The World Will Outperform US Stocks

  By Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley

  Safety Varies Significantly

  2022 is now over, safely encased in history. It was notable not only for the severity of losses but also their breadth – the first year, since at least the 1870s, that both US stocks and long-term bonds fell by more than 10%. That historical anomaly hints at a broader theme – ‘safety’ varied significantly. Some traditional ‘defensive’ assets worked as advertised. Others didn’t. And some traits associated with higher risk actually protected portfolios. Depending on the asset class, the environment was reliably straightforward or unusually divergent. It was a good reminder that correlations can change, with important lessons for the year ahead.

  Some assets stuck to the script: In a poor year for equity returns, defensive stocks outperformed (as one would expect). US defensives are up 6% (with dividends) over the last 12 months against a broader market down 17%. Our US equity strategy team, led by Mike Wilson, remains overweight US defensive stocks, while Graham Secker and our European equity strategists remain underweight EU cyclicals. Both views are linked to the idea that near-term risk/reward is poor given risks to earnings, and that cyclicality will show ‘usual’ high-beta characteristics.

  Next was the US dollar. A traditional ‘safe haven’, that’s exactly how it behaved, with the correlation between the DXY and global equities comfortably negative throughout 2022. Indeed, despite the dollar’s recent weakness, its diversifying power has actually been increasing, with the 120-day correlation between the dollar and US stocks at its lowest level since April 2012.

  Momentum (the factor) also delivered. Momentum isn’t the cross-asset factor with the highest return, but it can be a powerful diversifier, especially around major turning points. Trend-following/CTA strategies posted strong returns despite widespread cross-asset losses while, more narrowly, momentum was very effective in commodities and short-term rates, and a major driver of returns in our Cross-Asset Systematic Trading (CAST) framework. We think that momentum remains an attractive cross-asset factor.

  But there were also plenty of areas where ‘beta’ was less predictable.

  Small cap and Value equities, often bucketed as ‘high beta’, outperformed in a year where markets fell considerably. The same goes for stocks in Europe and Japan, which are ‘only’ down ~8-10% in the last year if you hedged the currency.

  Meanwhile, the only sector that did better than defensives was…energy. The ‘high-beta’ sector rose 64% in the US and 30% in Europe in 2022. Financials, another ‘risky’ sector, was the second-best-performing sector in Europe, Japan and EM (in the US, financials outperformed the market).

  Latin America’s two largest economies, Mexico and Brazil, also bucked conventional ‘beta’. Despite global cross-asset weakness, Mexican and Brazilian equities are both higher over the last 12 months (in USD terms), and both countries’ currencies are stronger against the mighty US dollar.

  In contrast, high-quality bonds were clearly more risky than advertised. The Bloomberg US Aggregate 10yr+ bond index, the definition of a ‘safe’ asset with an average rating of AA-, is down more than 20% over the last 12 months, more than the S&P 500.

  All this has a few important implications.

  • First, a year like 2022 doesn’t come around very often. But it is a good reminder that concepts like ‘beta’ and ‘defensiveness’ aren’t as cast iron as they may seem. Correlations can change.

  • Second, some of those ‘reliable’ diversifiers remain important. We continue to prefer defensives over cyclicals in the US and Europe and think that the momentum factor remains effective on a cross-asset basis in 1H23, with both themes aided by a continued deceleration in nominal growth. And while our macro narrative is less dollar friendly, USD still provides high carry and diversification. Our FX strategists are currently neutral on USD.

  • Third, a common theme among those ‘beta outliers’ was valuation. MXN, Brazilian equities, financials, energy…where traditional high-beta sectors did better, there was often strong valuation support. Bonds, which did poorly, were at some of their richest valuations in centuries. Real yields have now normalised significantly.

  It’s important to keep this in mind. In a still-tough US equity environment, we think that RoW equities will do better (despite historical ‘beta’), boosted by attractive relative valuation, carry and momentum. [ZH: this is essentially identical to Michael Hartnett’s thesis laid out here on Friday)

  

  We also like Mexican assets and see the economy as a structural winner in a multipolar world. And we think that high grade bonds will do well, helped in part by real yields that have risen back to their highest levels since 2009. We see high grade bonds outperforming equities in the US and Europe, and also returning to a much more diversifying role within cross-asset portfolios.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 17:30

• Arizona's Maricopa County To Investigate Election Day Printer Issues
  Arizona’s Maricopa County To Investigate Election Day Printer Issues

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  Arizona’s largest county is launching an investigation into the issues that caused chaos on Election Day.

  

  The probe will be “an important step in our efforts to get to the bottom of the printer issues that affected some Vote Centers on Election Day last November,” Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and Vice Chairman Clint Hickman said in a joint statement on Jan. 6.

  Voters across the county found their ballots could not be processed by machines in the 2022 midterm elections, a problem that led to long lines at voting centers and workers having to tabulate the votes at a later date. At least 70 of the county’s polling sites were affected, at some 17,000 ballots. Maricopa County was one of the last counties to produce results in the midterms.

  During a trial held for a lawsuit brought by Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a cyber expert who examined ballots said he found 19-inch images printed on 20-inch paper. Clay Parikh, an information security officer with Northrup Grumman, said that the printers would not process the 19-inch images.

  Parikh said there were only two ways the situation could have happened.

  “One way is by changing the printer adjustments that would make the printer adjustments and settings override the image file that was sent, the other is from the application side, the operating system side,” Parikh said.

  County officials said they weren’t aware of the county using 19-inch images and said that the printers were programmed to print 20-inch ballots.

  They’ve denied accusations that the problems stemmed from intentional actions.

  Richard Baris, a pollster, testified that the problems disenfranchised enough voters to swing the election. Republicans vote at much higher numbers on Election Day, while Democrats favor early and mail voting. Democrat Katie Hobbs beat Lake by 17,117 votes, according to the official election results.

  Arizona Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who oversaw the trial, ultimately rejected the case, saying he had not been presented with convincing evidence of misconduct. The Arizona Supreme Court later turned down a request to transfer the lawsuit, meaning an appeal will be heard before the state court of appeals.

  The new investigation will be headed by Ruth McGregor, a former chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. McGregor has led probes in the past, including an investigation into problems with locks on cell doors in state prisons.

  McGregor will hire a team of independent experts “to find out why the printers that read ballots well in the August Primary had trouble reading some ballots while using the same settings in the November General,” Gates and Hickman said. “Our voters deserve nothing less.”

  The officials said previously that the printer settings were the same for the August primary and the November general election, and that the paper was the same thickness.

  

  An election worker sorts ballots at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 9, 2022. (John Moore/Getty Images)

  Election Task Force

  Gov. Hobbs, meanwhile, announced on Friday an elections task force that she said would advise officials on improving elections.

  The task force will “study and make recommendations to strengthen election laws, policies, and procedures in the State of Arizona,” an executive order from Hobbs stated.

  The entity will be chaired by the governor or a designee and include Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, or his designee; a county recorder nominated by the Arizona Senate president; a county recorder nominated by the Arizona House of Representatives president; and two election directors picked by the Election Officials of Arizona Association.

  The task force was directed to submit a report to Hobbs by Nov. 1, 2023, that identifies specific recommendations for legislators to improve the state’s election laws, including recommendations to ensure “consistent, secure, and accessible election administration and voter registration practices across the State.”

  Hobbs said that Arizona’s elections “are fair, secure, and free” but that “more can be done to strengthen and clarify the laws around Arizona’s democratic process.”

  Lake said that the task force would be a “cover-up” unless it probed the problems in Maricopa County, including the 19-inch images printed on 20-inch paper.

  Fontes said that he looked forward to working with Hobbs to make sure the task force “is set up for success” and suggested it would help improve voter confidence.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 17:00

• 9,000 NYC Nurses Preparing To Strike If No Tentative Agreements Reached With Hospitals Tonight
  9,000 NYC Nurses Preparing To Strike If No Tentative Agreements Reached With Hospitals Tonight

  Thousands of nurses from New York City hospitals could strike as early as Monday morning if unions and hospitals cannot agree on tentative contract agreements by midnight. 

  York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) President Nancy Hagans said at a press conference Saturday that 8,700 nurses will strike at 0600 ET Monday if no agreement is reached with hospitals by 2359 ET Sunday. 

  

  BronxCare and The Brooklyn Hospital Center have already reached tentative agreements with the union to increase wages, better health benefits, and improve safe staffing levels. Still, Mount Sinai, Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and Montefiore are hospitals that have yet to reach deals with the union. 

  ABC7 New York said Mount Sinai is preparing for a strike. The hospital began moving newborns under intensive care and vulnerable patients to other hospitals this weekend amid the looming labor action. The hospital could also cancel non-emergency procedures. 

  Hospitals are canceling elective surgeries & moving NICU babies as 10,000 NYC nurses prepare to go on strike next week. @CBSNewYork https://t.co/uCNw5hVscA pic.twitter.com/V4LijcjGpv

  — Ali Bauman (@AliBaumanTV) January 7, 2023

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

  Mount Sinai’s chief nursing officer, Dr. Frances Cartwright, railed against the strike threat:

  “Talk about vulnerable patients, defenseless little babies.

   “We can’t wait until Monday, we have to plan. I sure am hoping for the best, but you have to plan for the worst.” 

  An internal memo from Mount Sinai informed staff of “aggressive planning in response” to a possible strike tomorrow, which would include “diverting a majority of ambulances,” beginning “to cancel some elective surgeries … will perform emergency surgery only,” “starting to transfer patients” to other hospitals and “working to discharge as many patients as appropriate safely.”

  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said days ago her “full expectation is that this will be resolved because there is no alternative.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 16:30

• A Simple And Clear View On Markets And The Economy
  A Simple And Clear View On Markets And The Economy

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  A Simple and Clear View on Markets & the Economy

  For better or worse, I want to be on the record with my rather simple view.

  • 1. The economy is rolling over and the recession will be sooner, deeper, and longer than whatever the current consensus is (and may have already started).
    • a. The 2023 Outlook – PAIN covers this in detail as do the Q1 Deflation and the Rise & Fall of Inflation of Risk Factors pieces.
  • 2. Markets, due to positioning and human nature, will initially misinterpret the data as a “soft landing” only to realize that the landing is going to be very hard.

  We will look at these two themes again.

  Mistaking Hard for Soft Landing

  This was discussed in detail in a “Squishy Landing.” It will largely be a function of two factors:

  1. Positioning will be extremely bearish (check).
  2. Human nature will want to believe that the Fed was “successful” (soft landing) because most people are not as pessimistic as this former CDX market maker.

  The pattern, expressed as pendulums, will be this:

  

  We all see the slowdown, but as the pendulum swings into “recession”, there will be enough mixed signals that many will see a “soft landing”. I don’t see any way for the pendulum to stop anywhere close to a “soft landing” and it will swing all the way through to a “deep recession”. However, we will rally on soft landing hopes (possibly what we started to see on Friday).

  Fed Hikes Are Not the Main Problem Going Forward

  Part of this “transition” into a “soft landing” will be the hope that the Fed, which continues to sound hawkish, will finally be done hiking (or at least will hike at a significantly slower pace). If Fed hikes were the only problem (or even the main problem), then I could get on board with a bigger rally. We’ve outlined the “main” problems in the outlook piece and others referenced above.

  The real problem will occur when markets finally realize that the Fed has already done too much/set too many things in motion that even the end of hikes won’t stop this pendulum from swinging deep into “recession”. The Fed is likely going to continue with QT (even as they talk about the end of rate hikes) and I think that will be problematic as QE and QT have a larger direct impact on asset prices in the short-term compared to cuts/hikes.

  Total Number of Jobs Will Not Be the Main Problem

  This is far more about the types of jobs lost (higher paying due to the incredible wealth creation) and this will impact a large part of the economy. Catering to the owners, employees, and investors in the companies that soared post Covid created not only wealth, but also a number of high paying jobs. Those jobs are under duress and that will have a larger impact on the economy than the total number of jobs (which is still questionable due to the accuracy of the data).

  Annual Versus Monthly

  I have no clue why we insist on talking about some data on a monthly basis (you hear almost no one discuss jobs for the past year relative to the number of times you hear the monthly number tossed around). However, some numbers are almost always looked at as an annual number (inflation seems to be viewed annually rather than annualizing it monthly – which is a potential mistake).

  I fully expect that after we get Thursday’s CPI data, we will realize that Q4 Core Inflation is running at an annual rate of right around 3%! That is darn close to mission accomplished. October was 0.2 and September was 0.3, so another 0.3 would put us at a 3.2% annualized rate (which is declining as more of the past policy and market responses filter their way into the data). We looked into this in more detail in 2+2=5, but I think that we are making a huge mistake by talking about annual inflation rather than annualizing recent inflation data.

  

  Even I don’t suggest annualizing monthly data, but even that is probably more useful than thinking about annual data given what has occurred in policy making/markets over the past 12 months!

  A Word on Housing (or at least a picture or two)

  Thanks to Andrew Brenner for turning me onto ApartmentList.com. It meshes well with Zillow data and other contemporaneous measures of rent that I’ve been harping on.

  

  Yes, we had a huge inflation problem in 2021 that was somehow missed or ignored by the powers that be (and the data collectors). Even now, CPI data is currently including the highest rent increases in the cycle in their calculations. I know which graph makes more sense to me!

  

  Last, but Certainly NOT Least!

  Jobs data was solid across the board, but most of the other data was weak. One piece of data in particular struck me as jaw-droppingly weak and important!

  

  Think about the narrative that we have been spinning on goods for the past year or so:

  • Pent up consumer demand and dealing with potential shortages was mistaken for ongoing levels of much higher demand.
  • Inventory was built up (and continues to build up) as companies responded to what they thought was higher ongoing demand rather than a one-time confluence of factors.

  While so many people were cheering the services sector, maybe it is now going through the same cycle as the product side of the economy. This cycle just started much later because Covid restrictions placed more constraints on the services side of the economy than on the goods side. Some things were slow to open, but many people were also more cautious until they felt safer. Was this bubble in consumption followed by a bubble in services? In the U.S., will it turn out that the consumer put in one last big effort for the holidays and is now about to hunker down?

  In any case, this number cannot be ignored given how rarely it breaks 50!

  Bottom Line

  I think that the economy is headed into a problematic recession.

  I think that the Fed has already set this process in motion.

  I’m trying to thread a needle by being tactically bullish for the head-fake “soft landing” trading ahead of the real risk-off move to follow shortly thereafter.

  At least no one can say that the first week of 2023 was dull! This could be another long year.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 16:00

• Old Dominion Basketball Player Clutches Chest And Collapses Mid-Game
  Old Dominion Basketball Player Clutches Chest And Collapses Mid-Game

  Another day, yet another athlete collapsing in the midst of a game for unknown reasons.

  Just days after Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin had to be administered CPR on the playing field after he collapsed following a play against the Cincinnati Bengals, another athlete has collapsed under what appears to be mysterious circumstances.

  Old Dominion basketball player Imo Essien “had to be tended to by training staff from both ODU and Georgia Southern”, according to WAVY, after collapsing during the middle of a game this past weekend. 

  

  He “did not appear to lose consciousness”, according to the report, and was eventually helped to walk off the court under his own power. “Members of the Old Dominion men’s basketball team watched in shock,” WAVY wrote.

  “Many held back tears,” one account wrote. 

  Old Dominion said in a statement: “He was responsive throughout and was able to sit with team for the duration of the game and travel back with the team. He is in good spirits and will work with the ODU Sports Medicine staff when they return to Norfolk.”

  Video appears to show Essien clutching his chest while on the ground. Old Dominion has yet to make an additional statement. 

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

  Members of the Old Dominion men’s basketball team watched in shock, and many held back tears, as their teammate Imo Essien collapsed during play in the first half of the contest. pic.twitter.com/KepBw9NxNk

  — TruthOnly (@panajeck) January 8, 2023

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 15:25

• Escobar: Bye Bye 1991-2022
  Escobar: Bye Bye 1991-2022

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  The hard work starts now. Welcome to the New Great Game on crack…

  

  2023 starts with collective NATO in Absolutely Freak Out Mode as Russian Defense Minister Shoigu announces that Russian Navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov is now on tour – complete with a set of Mr. Zircon’s hypersonic business cards.

  The business tour will encompass the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, and of course include the Mediterranean, the Roman Empire’s former Mare Nostrum. Mr. Zircon on the prowl has absolutely nothing to do with the war in Ukraine: it’s a sign of what happens next when it comes to frying much bigger fishes than a bunch of Kiev psychos.

  The end of 2022 did seal the frying of the Big Ukraine Negotiation Fish. It has now been served on a hot plate – and fully digested. Moscow has made it painfully clear there’s no reason whatsoever to trust the “non-agreement capable” declining superpower.

  So even taxi drivers in Dacca are now betting on when the much- vaunted “winter offensive” starts, and how far will it go. General Armageddon’s path ahead is clear: all-out demilitarization and de-electrification on steroids, complete with grinding up masses of Ukrainians at the lowest possible cost to the Russian Armed Forces in Donbass until Kiev psychos beg for mercy. Or not.

  Another big fried fish on a hot plate at the end of 2022 was the 2014 Minsk Agreement. The cook was no other than former chancellor Merkel (“an attempt to buy time for Ukraine”). Implied is the not exactly smokin’ gun: the strategy of the Straussian/neo-con and neoliberal-con combo in charge of U.S. foreign policy, from the beginning, was to unleash a Forever War, by proxy, against Russia.

  Merkel may have been up to something telling the Russians, in their face, that she lied like crypto-Soprano Mike Pompeo, then she lied again and again, for years. That’s not embarrassing for Moscow, but for Berlin: yet another graphic demonstration of total vassalage to the Empire.

  The response by the contemporary embodiment of Mercury, Russian Foreign Ministry’s Maria Zakharova, was equally intriguing: Merkel’s confession could be used as a specific reason – and evidence – for a tribunal judging Western politicians responsible for provoking the Russia-Ukraine proxy war.

  No one will obviously confirm it on the record. But all this could be part of an evolving, secret Russia-Germany deal in the making, leading to Germany restoring at least some of its sovereignty.

  Time to fry NATO fish

  Meanwhile, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, visibly relishing his totally unplugged incarnation, expanded on the Fried Negotiation Fish saga. “Last warning to all nations”, as he framed it: “there can be no business with the Anglo-Saxon world [because] it is a thief, a swindler, a card-sharp that could do anything… From now on we will do without them until a new generation of sensible politicians comes to power… There is nobody in the West we could deal with about anything for any reason.”

  Medvedev, significantly, recited more or less the same script, in person, to Xi Jinping in Beijing, days before the zoom to end all zooms – between Xi and Putin – that worked as a sort of informal closure of 2022, with the Russia-China strategic partnership perfectly in synch.

  On the war front, General Armageddon’s new – offensive – groove is bound to lead in the next few months to an undisputable fact on the ground: a partition between a dysfunctional black hole or rump Ukraine on the west, and Novorossiya in the east.

  Even the IMF is now reluctant to throw extra funds into the black hole. Kiev’s 2023 budget has an – unrealistic – $36 billion deficit. Half of the budget is military-related. The real deficit in 2022 was running at about $5 billion a month – and will inevitably balloon.

  Tymofiy Mylovanov, a professor at the Kiev School of Economics, came up with a howler: the IMF is worried about Ukraine’s “debt sustainability”. He added, “if even the IMF is worried, imagine what private investors are thinking”. There will be no “investment” in rump Ukraine. Multinational vultures will grab land for nothing and whatever puny productive assets may remain.

  Arguably the biggest fish to be fried in 2023 is the myth of NATO. Every serious military analyst, few Americans included, knows that the Russian Army and military industrial complex represents a superior system than what existed at the end of the U.S.SR, and far superior to that of the U.S. and the rest of NATO today.

  The Mackinder-style final blow to a possible alliance between Germany (EU), Russia and China – which is what is really behind the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine – is not proceeding according to the Straussian wet dream.

  Saddam Hussein, former imperial vassal, was regime-changed because he wanted to bypass the petrodollar. Now we have the inevitable rise of the petroyuan – “in three to five years”, as Xi Jinping announced in Riyadh: you just can’t prevent it with Shock’n Awe on Beijing.

  In 2008, Russia embarked on a massive rebuilding of missile forces and a 14-year plan to modernize land-based armed forces. Mr. Zircon presenting his hypersonic business card across the Mare Nostrum is just a small part of the Big Picture.

  The myth of U.S. power

  The CIA abandoned Afghanistan in a humiliating retreat – even ditching the heroin ratline – just to relocate to Ukraine and continue playing the same old broken records. The CIA is behind the ongoing sabotage of Russian infrastructure – in tandem with MI6 and others. Sooner or later there will be blowback.

  Few people – including CIA operatives – may know that New York City, for instance, may be destroyed with a single move: blowing up the George Washington bridge. The city can’t be supplied with food and most of its requirements without the bridge. The New York City electrical grid can be destroyed by knocking out the central controls; putting it back together could take a year.

  Even trespassed by infinite layers of fog of war, the current situation in Ukraine is still a skirmish. The real war has not even started yet. It might – soon.

  Apart from Ukraine and Poland there is no NATO force worth mentioning. Germany has a risible two-day supply of ammunition. Turkey will not send a single soldier to fight Russians in Ukraine.

  Out of 80,000 U.S. troops stationed in Europe, only 10% are weaponized. Recently 20,000 were added, not a big deal. If the Americans activated their troops in Europe – something rather ridiculous in itself – they would not have any place to land supplies or reinforcements. All airports and seaports would be destroyed by Russian hypersonic missiles in a matter of minutes – in continental Europe as well as the UK.

  In addition, all fuel centers such as Rotterdam for oil and natural gas would be destroyed, as well as all military installations, including top American bases in Europe: Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels, Ramstein, Baumholder, Vilseck, Spangdahlem, and Wiesbaden in Germany (for the Army and Air Force); Aviano Air Base in Italy; Lajes Air Base in Portugal’s Azores islands; Naval Station Rota in Spain; Incirlik Air Base in Turkey; and Royal Air Force stations Lakenheath and Mildenhall in the UK.

  All fighter jets and bombers would be destroyed – after they land or while landed: there would be no place to land except on the autobahn, where they would be sitting ducks.

  Patriot missiles are worthless – as the whole Global South saw in Saudi Arabia when they tried to knock out Houthi missiles coming from Yemen. Israel’s Iron Dome can’t even knock out all primitive missiles coming from Gaza.

  U.S. military power is the supreme myth of the fish to be fried variety. Essentially, they hide behind proxies – as the Ukraine Armed Forces. U.S. forces are worthless except in turkey shoots as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, against a disabled opponent in the middle of the desert with no air cover. And never forget how NATO was completely humiliated by the Taliban.

  The final breaking point

  2022 ended an era: the final breaking point of the “rules-based international order” established after the fall of the U.S.S.R.

  The Empire entered Desperation Row, throwing everything and the kitchen sink – proxy war on Ukraine, AUKUS, Taiwan hysteria – to dismantle the set-up they created way back in 1991.

  Globalization’s rollback is being implemented by the Empire itself. That ranges from stealing the EU energy market from Russia so the hapless vassals buy ultra-expensive U.S. energy to smashing the entire semiconductor supply chain, forcibly rebuilding it around itself to “isolate” China.

  The NATO vs. Russia war in Ukraine is just a cog in the wheel of the New Great Game. For the Global South, what really matters is how Eurasia – and beyond – are coordinating their integration process, from BRI to the BRICS+ expansion, from the SCO to the INSTC, from Opec+ to the Greater Eurasia Partnership.

  We’re back to what the world looked like in 1914, or before 1939, only in a limited sense. There’s a plethora of nations struggling to expand their influence, but all of them are betting on multipolarity, or “peaceful modernization”, as Xi Jinping coined it, and not Forever Wars: China, Russia, India, Iran, Indonesia and others.

  So bye bye 1991-2022. The hard work starts now. Welcome to the New Great Game on crack.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 14:50

• Mass Arrests And 'Federal Intervention' In Brazil After Bolsonaro Supporters Storm Government Buildings
  Mass Arrests And ‘Federal Intervention’ In Brazil After Bolsonaro Supporters Storm Government Buildings

  Update (1633ET): President Lula has declared a ‘federal intervention’ until January 31 in response to the protest, while police could be seen arresting dozens of people.

  🚨BREAKING

  President Lula declares a federal intervention in the Federal District until Jan 31 👇https://t.co/w23UNiS8tV

  — The Brazilian Report (@BrazilianReport) January 8, 2023

  NOW: Mass arrests of pro-Bolsonaro protesters at the presidential palace.pic.twitter.com/zFTD8m9jka

  — Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) January 8, 2023

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  More via The Brazilian Report: 

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

  BREAKING 🚨

  Images show Brazil’s Supreme Court completely destroyed pic.twitter.com/Sd5wl9BCmA

  — The Brazilian Report (@BrazilianReport) January 8, 2023

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  BREAKING 🚨

  Footage shows the destruction after far-right groups supporting Jair Bolsonaro have broken into the Planalto Palace, the president’s official workplace.pic.twitter.com/7Phf03aWyt

  — The Brazilian Report (@BrazilianReport) January 8, 2023

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  *  *  *

  What appears to be thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the National Congress building in Brasilia on Sunday, as well as the Presidential Palace and the nation’s top court, according to news agency LUSA.

  

  pic.twitter.com/MM7RbiRRJ4

  — Luis de Paula (@luis10870917) January 8, 2023

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  O poder é do povo! 💚💚💚💚 pic.twitter.com/Kt7qC3zYGG

  — Gutbsb PERDI 20K 😭 (@gutbsb) January 8, 2023

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  The protesters are calling for military intervention to overthrow President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was inaugurated last week.

  Since the October 30 elections, in which Lula defeated Bolsonaro, hundreds of people have been camped in front of the Army Headquarters in Brasília.

  Footage shared on social media showed hundreds of people pouring into the building. The protesters were met with police tear gas. 

  A Brasília-based reporter shared a video on Twitter purportedly showing the protesters storm the building. –DW

  Lula blames Bolsonaro

  “Everyone knows that the ex-president stimulated this,” said Lula. “He stimulated the invasions of the three branches of government. This is his responsiblity and the responsiblity of the parties that support him. We are going to investigate profoundly and quickly.”

  URGENTE: Invasores quebram vidraças da chapelaria do Congresso e invadem a Câmara dos Deputados. Extremistas já estão no Salão Verde e nos anexos do prédio. Também houve invasão ao Palácio do Planalto. Presidente Lula não está no local. pic.twitter.com/lP91pLqTuf

  — Renato Souza (@reporterenato) January 8, 2023

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  ### FULL BRAZIL GOVERNMENT COLLAPSE UNDERWAY pic.twitter.com/35xolj1KDe

  — João Henrique da Fonseca (@JHFonseca) January 8, 2023

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  According to LUSA, the group, wearing yellow and green T-shirts and Brazilian flags, crossed police barriers and climbed the ramp which allows access to the roof of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate buildings.

  O terrorismo que Bolsonaro estimulou contra os Poderes e o Estado Democrático de Direito sendo colocado em prática. Criminosos destroem vidraças do @STF_oficial pic.twitter.com/86uBoor5Un

  — George Marques 🇧🇷 (@GeorgMarques) January 8, 2023

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  What the hell pic.twitter.com/eQRcjbxVEg

  — Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) January 8, 2023

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  And a live feed:

  Has anyone seen this guy?

  “Hola, fellow supporters de Bolsinero. We must go ino de palacio!” pic.twitter.com/yoyiKTjMvE

  — b1joe (@b1joe) January 8, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 14:14

• China Extends Aggressive Gold Buying With Another 30 Tons Purchase In December
  China Extends Aggressive Gold Buying With Another 30 Tons Purchase In December

  One week ago, in his latest – and arguably most important note of 2022 – Credit Suisse repo guru Zoltan Pozsar discussed the two key anchors of the Bretton Woods III regime he believes will replace the world in which the dollar is a reserve currency: i) commodity encumbrance (i.e., rehypothecation) and ii) the Petroyuan, and – intertwined inbetween them – China’s aggressive accumulation of gold.

  This was hardly a coincidence: just a few weeks earlier, we learned that for the first time in years, China had bought 32 tons of gold in the month of November, its first official purchase since September 2918 (even as it had unofficially been buying up much more gold over the past three years). We added the following:

  Back in March we pointed out that according to JPMorgan, “while the world is short on commodities, China is not given they have started stockpiling commodities since 2019 and currently hold 80% of global copper inventories, 70% of corn, 51% of wheat, 46% of soybeans, 70% of crude oil, and over 20% of global aluminum inventories.” And now, China is aggressively stockpiling every ounce of physical gold it can get its hands on. Almost as if China is actively preparing for war.

  And while our conclusion appears spot on, especially in light of Zoltan’s latest just published note which we will discuss shortly, what is just as notable is that for the second month in a row, China reported an increase in its gold reserves topping up holdings again after its first reported purchase in more than three years.

  The People’s Bank of China raised its holdings by 30 tons in December, according to data on its website on Saturday. This follows November’s addition of 32 tons, which was the country’s first reported inflow since September 2019. Prior to that, the last previous increase was in October 2016. The recent official purchases bring the nation’s holdings to a total of 2,010 tons.

  

  As reported last month, central bank purchases of bullion hit a record in the third quarter of last year at almost 400 tons, with only a quarter going to publicly identified institutions, according to the World Gold Council’s demand trends report. Since then, China’s disclosure of its gold buying confirms that the identity of the no-longer mystery buyer; and in keeping with Pozsar’s thesis, market watchers speculate that Russia, whose gold holdings are near all time highs…

  

  … could be another purchaser.

  Additionally, China’s end-December foreign currency reserves rose $10.2 billion from the previous month, and totaled $3.13 trillion at the end of last month, People’s Bank of China data showed on Saturday. Asian nations have been replenishing their war chests amid waning dollar strength.

  With its aggressive December purchases, China was likely once again the biggest buyer of the yellow metal in the open market: according to the World Gold Council, central banks bought a further 50 tonnes on a net basis during the month, a 47% increase from October’s (revised) 34t.1 Of this net total, three central banks accounted for gross buying of 55t, while two largely contributed to gross sales of 5t , showing the strength of demand.

  The Central Bank of Türkiye continued to buy gold in November, adding a further 19t to its official (central bank + Treasury) reserves.2 This lifts its YTD net purchases of gold to 123t – the largest reported by any country – and its official gold reserves to 517t (27% of total reserves). The Central Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic added to its gold reserves for the first time this year, buying 3t in November to increase its total gold reserves to 16t (+61% YTD).  

  On the sales side, the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the Central Bank of Uzbekistan were the largest sellers. Kazakhstan reduced its gold reserves by around 4t to 380t (-5% YTD), while Uzbekistan’s gold reserves fell by almost 2t to 397t, 10% higher YTD. We have noted previously that it is not uncommon for central banks who purchase gold from domestic sources – as both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan do – to also be frequent sellers of gold.

  

  The record purchases of gold by central banks has been one of the highlights of the gold market in 2022, having bought a net 673t between Q1 and Q3.  Looking ahead to the full year picture, it’s likely  that central banks accumulated a multi-decade high level of gold in 2022, a number which will be revealed officially in mid-January.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 14:00

• Mr. Market May Be In Denial Over The Shift In Interest Rates
  Mr. Market May Be In Denial Over The Shift In Interest Rates

  Authored by Jesse Felder via TheFelderReport.com,

  They say there are five stages of grief; the same might be said about bear markets as investors typically go through a similar process beginning with denial.

  

  In this regard, the biggest development seen in the markets during 2022 was the breakout higher in interest rates driven by the return of inflation. The 10-year treasury yield broke out of its multi-decade downtrend channel and above the key 3% level which has marked overhead resistance since the Great Financial Crisis ended over a decade ago. It’s hard to overstate the significance of this as it marks a dramatic change in the environment investors had become inured to in recent years.

  

  Last year’s bear market for stocks was largely driven by this reversal in interest rates along with that in both fiscal and monetary accommodation. This combination significantly dampened euphoric risk appetites which had driven the broad stock market to the most extreme valuation levels in history. It’s important to note, however, that even after last year’s decline in stock prices valuations remain more extreme than at any point in time outside of the pandemic-induced blowoff top.

  

  Moreover, there appears to be a lagged relationship between equity valuations and interest rates, with the former following the lead of the latter roughly 18 months later (as it takes time for the effects to be felt in terms of risk appetites, profit margins, etc.). When we overlay interest rates on the indicator above it immediately becomes clear that stock prices have not yet discounted the new, higher level of interest rates as indicated by the 10-year treasury yield.

  

  In other words, the stock market seems to be anticipating a return to ultra-low interest rates in the near future. Of course, this is not the whole story; there are a myriad of other factors at work. However, the chart above is the best visual representation I’ve found to support the idea that most investors believe, rather than marking the start of a new regime, last year’s shifts in inflation and interest rates were an aberration and markets and the economy will soon return to the pre-pandemic paradigm.

  Of course, if they’re wrong and just in denial about a larger regime change underway it means the bear still has a good deal of work left to do.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 13:30

• Russian Military Says "Retaliation" Strike Killed Over 600 Ukrainian Soldiers
  Russian Military Says “Retaliation” Strike Killed Over 600 Ukrainian Soldiers

  The Russian military says it has conducted a major strike on Ukrainian forces in retaliation for the New Year attack on a Russian barracks in Makiivka, Donetsk which marked one of the single deadliest days for Russian forces, and which set off a firestorm of criticism against the top chain of command.

  Russia’s Defense Ministry (MoD) said Sunday that it eliminated over 600 Ukrainian troops in a “retaliation operation” in direct response to the “criminal attack” of a week ago. The MoD identified that the operation was conducted against the Ukrainian-held city of Kramatorsk in the Donbass. Photos are emerging from the site, but Ukrainian media is denying Moscow’s claims of hundreds killed.

  ⚡️Consequences of the reported strike on Kramatorsk that according to Ru MoD, took out 600 Ukrainian servicemen. pic.twitter.com/5UFExDIt9z

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) January 8, 2023

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  Russia says it targeted temporary barracks where Ukrainian troops were congregated, just as Ukraine’s army had done the week before in the deadly Makiivka attack. “As a result of a massive missile attack on these temporary housing areas of the Ukrainian military’s units, more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were killed,” the defense ministry said.

  Further, state media describes as follows: 

  Over the past 24 hours, the Russian military has managed to uncover and confirm the location of Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk in the DPR, the statement read. This data revealed that dormitory No.28 in the city was hosting more than 700 Kiev soldiers, with 600 more staying in dormitory No.47.

  While there’s been no confirmation of these high casualty numbers, photographs of a large building which suffered significant damage have been circulating, and the Russian MoD claim is spreading widely in international headlines.

  The tit-for-tat alleged mass casualty strike came just hours after the end of Russia’s unilateral 36-hour Christmas ceasefire. Ukraine had rejected the Putin declared temporary truce as but a “trap” and “cynical ploy” while vowing not be observe it.

  The Ukrainian government, as well as a handful of Western journalists on the ground and pro-Ukraine media outlets, are disputing that there were any large-scale casualties from strikes on Kramatorsk…

  The consequences of the strike on Kramatorsk on the day of the “truce” announced by Putin.

  2 educational institutions, 8 apartment buildings and garages were damaged. According to the mayor of the city Alexander Goncharenko, there were no casualties. pic.twitter.com/CW78i80Bvx

  — NEXTA (@nexta_tv) January 8, 2023

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  Last week’s Makiivka barracks attack may have been Russia’s single biggest loss of the war and was reportedly carried out by the Ukrainians using US-supplied HIMARS missile systems. Moscow’s official death toll is 89 servicemembers killed, but some pro-Russian military bloggers are saying the true number is likely in the hundreds. Kiev advanced that over 300 were killed in the strike. 

  It triggered rare internal Kremlin criticism of top Russian command, given hundreds of Russian conscripts were not well protected, and given there appeared widespread use of cell phones and open-source communications on the make-shift base which allowed the Ukrainians to pin-point the location. Officially, Russian commanders are blaming the troops for not observing protocols regarding cell phone usage and unapproved communication restrictions.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 01/08/2023 – 13:00

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