Month: February 2023

Turmoil remerged in the Adani group Wednesday after a top Swiss bank stopped accepting bonds from companies tied to Gautam Adani’s corporate empire for margin loans. 

Bloomberg reported Credit Suisse Group AG halted the acceptable of bonds of Adani’s companies as collateral for margin for banking clients. This news led to further declines in Adani shares and dollar bonds. 

The Swiss lender’s private banking arm has assigned a zero lending value for notes sold by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Green Energy and Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It had previously offered a lending value of about 75% for the Adani Ports notes, one of the people said.

When a private bank cuts lending value to zero, clients typically have to top up with cash or another form of collateral and if they fail to do so, their securities can be liquidated. –Bloomberg 

Shares of Adani Enterprises crashed, closing down by more than 28%. Market cap losses across all Adani companies hit $93 billion since US short-seller Hindenburg Research accused it of corporate fraud one week ago. 

Hindenburg’s allegations sparked a crisis of confidence for Adani despite Adani Enterprises completing a $2.5 billion follow-on stock sale Tuesday, which briefly calmed investors. 

“Caution on Adani group stocks has increased after the news on action taken by Credit Suisse. 

“This can put a financing hurdle for the group’s further growth,” said Sameer Kalra, founder of Target Investing in Mumbai. 

Dollar bonds of Adani Group also plunged. 

Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S, said the problem now is “the dynamics are becoming a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop and investors are now just dumping the shares and asking questions later.”

Garnry added: “This is potentially a bigger problem for Indian equities which have done so well during the pandemic as China pursued its zero Covid policy. The long-term ramifications could be quite negative.”

The worsening rout in Adani weighed on India’s broader equity benchmarks. 

The contagion has been quick, and so has the wipeout of Adani’s personal wealth, plummeting by $44 billion to about $72 billion in one week, according to the latest Bloomberg data. 

Adani is no longer the richest person in Asia. 

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com,

South Africa’s energy crisis is teetering on the edge of a major political and economic crisis.

Bogged down by inefficiency, ineptitude, and severe levels of corruption, the country’s power utility Eskom has proven incapable of providing sufficient and reliable energy to the nation’s grid, despite the domestic abundance of coal. Once one of the most reliable utilities in Africa, Eksom now exists in a state of constant emergency which is currently threatening to push the country into civil disarray and economic catastrophe.

Eksom desperately needs to service its poorly maintained power plants. On any given day, Eksom operates at about 50% capacity. Rolling blackouts, known locally as ‘load shedding’ have become a normal and expected part in day-to-day life in South Africa. “It even has predictable stages,” Forbes reported in a recent excoriation of Eksom operations, “ranging from Stage 1 (reducing power for two hours at a time over a four-day period) through Stage 8 (reducing power for 12 hours out of every 24).”

In the last 12 months, however, these blackouts have gone into overdrive, with the power going out several times a day and up to 12 hours at a time. Adding insult to injury, Eksom has added a steep energy tariff to help bolster their own failing finances. The issue has transformed to a semi-accepted nuisance to a barrier to local livelihoods and the functioning of the national economy. Supply chains that rely on refrigeration to keep the shelves stocked, such as the dairy industry, have had to throw out their products. As a result, South Africans are angry. Civil unrest is on the rise, and protesters are not only targeting Eksom but also the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party. 

Challenging Eksom won’t be easy, however. The utility has shown that it isn’t afraid to fight dirty. Former CEO André de Ruyter tried looking into the company’s systematic corruption, and was fed cyanide-laced coffee in his office in what is now being looked into as an assassination attempt. The ANC, too, is protective of the current way of running things and starkly opposes taking away Eksom’s monopoly by privatizing South African power plants. While the platform is unwilling to budge on this point, many ANC delegates have expressed that they think the current power crisis will likely cost the party the next election. 

If South Africa can’t wrangle Eksom, however, there is likely no end in sight for the nation’s economic woes. The country faces a “perfect storm of inflation, electricity cuts and corruption accusations that will continue to deteriorate South Africa’s profile and to pose risk for investments in the country,” as Aleix Montana, Africa analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC. 

While South Africa doesn’t hold much interest for many foreign investors, however, foreign governments are under the gun to work out a deal with South Africa to help the struggling nation to wean itself off of coal. Cleaning up South Africa’s act is an essential part of the pathway to keeping global warming within acceptable limits. At present, coal represents 80% of the country’s energy mix, more than any other industrialized nation. Furthermore, in order to try to meet energy demand and limit blackouts, Eskom is currently completing two coal-burning power plants that will be some of the largest in the world, partially financed by billions of dollars in World Bank loans.

Phasing out coal and building up green energy infrastructure is a huge challenge for any country, but especially so for a nation that’s already cash-strapped and lacking energy security even with plenty of fossil fuels. To help make such a lofty goal possible, the United States and Europe are currently working on putting together a $8.5 billion international aid package to help fund South Africa’s green energy transition. This ongoing deal is part of a push for climate financing, the importance of which was re-emphasized at COP27 last fall. While wealthy nations have historically fallen dismally short of their climate finance pledges, some word leaders are starting to make good on those promises, and South Africa is set to be one of the first and biggest benefactors.

Ironically, Eksom’s dismal track record could provide an invaluable entry point for weaning South Africa off of coal. Huge parts of the nation’s fleet of coal plants are in desperate need of being updated and replaced; as such, converting these existing plants into renewable energy plants won’t be much more costly than what the country has to invest in the energy sector regardless. With the financial support of wealthier nations, South Africa could conceivably revamp its energy industry in a remarkably short time span. 

Transparency International has released its 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index which gauges levels of perceived public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world.

As Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, the index scores them on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (clean) with the average score just 43 out of 100.

More than two thirds of countries scored lower than 50, as 155 countries have made “no significant progress against corruption over the last decade.”

The last edition of the research found that anti-corruption efforts have stalled of late, as many countries used the Covid-19 pandemic “as an excuse to curtail basic freedoms and side-step important checks and balances.”

In 2022, the countries with the lowest perceived level of public sector corruption were Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, followed by Norway, Singapore and Sweden.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The opposite end of the index saw Somalia scoring just 12, making it the world’s most corruption-stricken country.

Syria and South were close behind with a score of 13, followed by Venezuela and Yemen.

The United States only came in 24th with a score of 69 – a slight increase on last year’s score which was the country’s lowest since 2012.

Despite the Biden administration establishing corruption as a core national security concern, Transparency International noted last year that the country’s relatively low position on the CPI can be explained by the “persistent attacks against free and fair elections, culminating in a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, and an increasingly opaque campaign finance system.”

Although it still scores low, war-torn Ukraine is one of few significant improvers on the CPI, having gained eight points since 2013.

The country has long struggled with systemic abuse of power, but has taken important steps to improve oversight and accountability.

However, Transparency International  reports that Russia’s war of aggression has disrupted some of the reform processes and exacerbated corruption risks. Reconstruction and recovery efforts can be drastically undermined by wrongdoers pocketing funds, both during the war and after.

Such a case was discovered in mid-January when investigations exposed war profiteering by the defence and the communities and territories development ministries. The scandal clearly underscores the need for reforms to prevent such violations in the future, from both domestic and global actors.

As foreign aid will play a vital role in rebuilding Ukraine, the international community must support the Ukrainian government in strengthening its national anti-corruption agencies and civil society.

But, remember, the US Treasury Department just reported that it found ” no indication that U.S. funds have been misused in Ukraine.”

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon says transgender criminals convicted for raping women are women, despite a car crash interview in which she appeared to flip flop all over the place.

The controversy began after 31-year-old Adam Graham, who was was found guilty of raping the two women during frenzied sex attacks, was sent to Scotland’s only all female prison.

Only when on trial for the attacks did Graham announce that he was “transitioning” into a woman, a process which seemingly culminated in him wearing a bad wig and cheap make-up.

The rapist was clearly trying to exploit Scotland’s ludicrously woke legal system in which biological males who identify as women can be sent to female prisons.

After a massive public backlash, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reiterated her belief that “trans women are women,” no matter how many actual women they have violently raped.

During an excruciatingly awkward interview, Sturgeon flip-flopped back and forth on the question of whether violent male rapists are actually women on the basis of them claiming to be so in order to get more lenient treatment in prison.

Nicola Sturgeon clarifies matters. pic.twitter.com/Y9TqYmCB29

— The State Media (@The_StateMedia) January 30, 2023

Sturgeon’s assertion that men with penises should be accepted as women was backed up by Keith Brown, her justice secretary, who said: “If somebody presents as a trans person, then we accept that at face value.”

Brown said the decision on where to send male sex offenders who identified as women rested with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), and its risk assessment, which Brown claimed had a “tremendous track record”.

Another biological male, who now calls himself, Tiffany Scott, was also set to be transferred to the same all woman prison after being convicted of stalking a 13-year-old girl.

Another transgender inmate also started identifying as a baby in order to get better treatment in prison, a demand that was “taken seriously” by prison bosses.

That sounds like a Babylon Bee article, but it’s a real story.

As we document in the video below, the situation in Scotland completely vindicates those who have been warning for years that sexual predators are exploiting the acceptance of transgenderism to target victims.

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Cutting to the chase, ahead of tomorrow’s Fed decision (due at 2pm, Powell press conference 2:30pm, no projections so no new dots so no way to push back more on market expectations for sub-5% terminal rate), the key question – as Goldman puts it – is “what the FOMC will signal about further hikes this year” since 25bps tomorrow is in the bag and what matters to stocks is i) will this be the final rate hike and ii) how long will the Fed keep rates here before starting to cut.

“The Fed is approaching a critical inflection point and whether they finish with 25bp tomorrow (at 4.75%) or 25bp on 3/22 (at 5%), the end is very much in sight (but what really matters is how long they hold this level which i am betting will be much longer than most currently expect).” – Goldman trader John Flood

As Goldman further discusses in its FOMC preview (excerpted below, full note available to pro subs), “we expect two additional 25bp hikes in March and May, but fewer might be needed if weak business confidence depresses hiring and investment, or more might be needed if the economy reaccelerates as the impact of past policy tightening fades. Fed officials appear to also expect about two more hikes and will likely tone down the reference to “ongoing” hikes being appropriate in the FOMC statement.”

Some more big picture observations from Goldman’s David Mericle:

The FOMC’s goal for the year is clear. It aims to continue in 2023 what it began so successfully in 2022 by staying on a below-potential growth path in order to rebalance the labor market so that inflation will return to 2% sustainably. We agree with Fed officials that there is still a long way to go—after all, our jobs-workers gap is still about 3 million above its pre-pandemic level.

How many hikes will be needed to stay on this path is less clear. We expect two additional 25bp hikes in March and May, but fewer might be needed if weak business confidence depresses hiring and investment, or more might be needed if the economy reaccelerates as the impact of past policy tightening fades. Fed officials appear to also expect about two more hikes and will likely tone down the reference to “ongoing” hikes being appropriate in the FOMC statement.

FWIW, the market gives just 2% odds of a 50bps hike tomorrow (i.e., 25bps tomorrow), and just 26% odds that there will be more than one more hike by May (i.e. another 25bps in March), at which point the Fed will be done and is then expected to start cutting as much as 50bps in the second half of 2023, and more in 2024. It is here that one should expect the most pushback from Powell tomorrow if indeed, as consensus overwhelmingly expects, the Fed Chair will be extra hawkish during his press conference.

But why just 25bps tomorrow? After all, if the Fed really wanted to punish stonks – as he clearly did at Jackson Hole with has hastily rewritten 8 minute speech, why not just do 50bps and crush risk?  Here Goldman has an explanation too:

Since the FOMC last met in December, two trends in the economic data have made the case for slowing the pace of rate hikes to 25bp next week surprisingly easy.

• First, incoming data on wage growth and inflation have been encouraging, including a deceleration in average hourly earnings and the Atlanta Fed wage growth tracker, another round of soft inflation data, a continued collapse in alternative leading indicators of rent inflation, and a further decline in one-year Michigan consumer inflation expectations, which have now fallen 1.5pp since the Fed started hiking.
• Second, signals on activity growth have become more mixed and at times concerning. A large gap has opened up between GDP and our current activity indicator (CAI), and between the “hard data” components of our CAI and the “soft data” components like surveys. We suspect that nominal bias and negative sentiment driven by recession fears are depressing the survey data, similar to the pattern seen during the 2019 trade war, and that activity growth actually remains modest but positive. But uncertainty about the near-term outlook has risen.

While tomorrow’s 25bps may be a done deal, where the Fed will clash with the market is how many more hikes are on the way. As noted above, the market now expects at most 1 more 25bps rate increase before May. However, the Fed December dots indicated that the median FOMC participant expects two additional 25bp hikes after tomorrow’s rate hike. As a result, Goldman – if not the market –  expects the FOMC will probably tone down the reference to “ongoing” hikes being appropriate in the FOMC statement, perhaps by replacing “ongoing” with “further.

There is more in the full Goldman note available to professional subs.

One more point from Goldman economist Zach Pandl, and this has to do with today’s Employment Cost Index, which came in softer than expected, and which sparked today’s frenzied rally as it hinted potential dovishness from Powell tomorrow, to wit:

Zach Pandl on ECI: “Clear deceleration in ECI; even larger downshift than in average hourly earnings growth during the quarter; very big drop in one of the underlying series that people focus on (wages ex-incentive paid occupations); more good news for soft landing camp/team transitory; on the margin I would think this raises odds of more dovish message from Powell tomorrow, although employment report on Friday will still have a lot to say about their overall read of labor market.”

Away from GS, here is what JPM thinks, starting with today’s powerful rally following the weaker than expected ECI, and culminating with a warning that even a hint that Powell may not keep rates at 5% through year-end “could be enough to lead to a market rally. “

Stocks rallied as Employment Cost Index came in cooler than expected this morning, which provides more comfort on slowing wage inflation. While expectations on Fed’s terminal rates remains stable, equities and bonds are rallied on optimism around a Fed pause in May and potentially rate cuts in 2023. Despite recent Fedspeaks all supports holding terminal rate at 5% for the entire year, the OIS market currently expects the FFR to be around 4.5% by YE, implying a 50bp cut in 2H23. Will tomorrow’s meeting reshape this expectation? Feroli expects Powell’s speech to remain hawkish to push back against the easing financial conditions, but given this consensus view, any pivot from the view of holding FFR at 5% till YE could be enough to lead to a market rally.

As usual, much more from JPM – and other Wall Street firms – to pro subs in the usual place.

JPM is not the only one listening closely to what Powell will say: Jeff Gundlach just tweeted that he expects the Fed to “push back against the pivot narrative and thereby current bond market pricing.” Which of course they will: the question is all about the nuances.

I suspect Fed messaging tomorrow will push back against the pivot narrative and thereby current bond market pricing. Should be interesting.

— Jeffrey Gundlach (@TruthGundlach) February 1, 2023

Finally, here is a quick and dirty FOMC preview snapshot from our friends at Newsquawk:

• OVERVIEW: The analyst consensus sees the FOMC lifting its Federal Funds Rate target by 25bps to 4.50-4.75%, with a small minority noting the potential for a larger 50bps hike increment. Money markets are pricing the smaller move with almost certainty, but further through the year, are underpricing the December SEP-implied terminal rate of 5.1% and are even pricing risks of Fed easing at the back half of 2023. Chair Powell is likely to stay the course around the fight against inflation not being over and the “higher for longer” policy stance, guiding to more hikes in the future despite the latest encouraging disinflationary data, but it’s seen as unlikely that any efforts to jawbone tighter financial conditions will be successful barring a change in the data, with markets themselves in data-dependency mode. Meanwhile, Powell may provide the Fed more optionality to cater for a ‘soft landing’ by leaning into recent Fed Speak regarding the potential for disinflation absent a meaningful rise in unemployment.
• STATEMENT: The Fed is priced with almost certainty for a 25bps hike to take the FFR to 4.50-4.75%, with a less than 5% chance of a 50bps hike implied by money market pricing. The statement is expected to be updated to reflect the deceleration in the hiking pace and acknowledge the cumulative tightening already in place. With speculation building over whether the Fed will follow through with its guided rate hike path to 5.00-5.25%, it’s worth keeping an eye out for any adjustments to its line that “ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate”, albeit it’s probably a bit premature.
• POWELL: The Fed Chair is likely to reaffirm the party line of more work needing to be done on inflation. He likely highlights the promising string of declines in the inflation data, but also warns that it is still far above the 2% target, whilst expressing concerns over the stubbornly high services inflation. Perhaps more interestingly will be if Powell warms further towards the possibility of falling inflation without the need to cool the labour market. Members of the Board, from dove Brainard to hawk Waller, have recently alluded to the possibility of such. So, if Powell looks to cement that line of thinking, that the Fed doesn’t require rising unemployment to bring inflation back down, recession risks/pricing are likely to reduce greatly, something that could be a driving factor in the recent pick-up in stock appetite given the data lately has evolved in favour of a ‘soft landing’.
• DATA: Core PCE Y/Y has now declined for three consecutive months, sitting at 4.4% in December, and down from cycle peaks of 5.4% in February 2022, building belief that the peak may be in. A lot of that decline has been spurred by falling goods prices, asking the continued strength in the services sector, particularly core services ex-housing, which many Fed officials keep pointing to as an area that needs to be addressed. That decline has also come against the backdrop of initial jobless claims reaching 9-month lows and limited progress in JOLTS job openings falling to support a loosening in the labour market, but at the same time, wage growth data has shown some signs of cooling, with Tuesday’s Employment Cost Index for Q4 a key focus after the promising wage data in the BLS employment report. Meanwhile, fears over an imminent recession have abated, with US GDP rising again in Q4 (+2.9%), and despite the dip in November and December real personal consumption, as well as December retail sales, real-time credit card data has picked up again into January and earnings commentary has been sanguine on the consumer.

Cash is now king in Lebanon, where a three-year economic meltdown has led the country’s once-lauded financial sector to atrophy and turned the country into a Venezuelan-esque hyperinflationary hell. The country has been hit hard by events over the past few years, starting with COVID.

In August 2020, the city of Beiruit was practically destroyed by a massive blast which killed at least 200 people and triggered as much as $15 billion in damage…

In March 2021, violent protests erupted across Lebanon as the currency collapse accelerated and with it the economy and people’s living standards.

And most recently, In December 2022, the Lebanese parliament failed for the eighth consecutive time to elect a new president, as a majority of lawmakers opposed the options laid on the table.

The prolonged power vacuum only exacerbates the situation, as Beirut is currently unable to enact sweeping reforms demanded by international lenders as a condition for releasing billions of dollars in loans.

All of which has sent the ‘parallel’ FX rate to a stunning 60,000/USD (compared to the official Pound – often nicknamed ‘Lira’ – rate of 1500/USD)…

Source: LiraRate.org

As Reuters reports, Zombie banks have frozen depositors out of tens of billions of dollars in their accounts, halting basic services and even prompting some customers to hold up tellers at gunpoint to access their money.

This has prompted bank runs…

Not a week goes by without Lebanese depositors storming their own banks in a desperate attempt to access savings frozen after the country’s economy collapsed.

Banks began imposing draconian limits on withdrawals and transfers in 2019, leaving depositors able to access only a fraction of their savings in dollars and Lebanese pounds.

and heists…

The National has recorded 27 depositor bank “heists” since the start of the year, including armed and unarmed hold-ups and sit-ins.

Former director-general of the Ministry of Finance Alain Bifani estimated that $6 billion was “smuggled” by bankers outside Lebanon for the political and economic elites while they were blocking transfers abroad for ordinary people.

“These forced withdrawals — we do not call them heists, because this would imply that these depositors are stealing other people’s money — are a solution of last-resort after the exhaustion of all possible ways for depositors to recover their money,” said lawyer Fouad Debs, co-founder of Lebanese Depositors Union.

People and businesses now operate almost exclusively in cash.

The local currency in circulation ballooned 12-fold between Sept. 2019 and Nov. 2022, according to banking documents seen by Reuters.

With more bank notes in circulation, crime has risen. Elie Anatian, CEO of security firm Salvado, said yearly sales of safes had grown steadily, with a 15% increase in 2022.

And that has seemingly forced officials’ hands as Reuters reports that Lebanon will adopt a new official exchange rate of 15,000 pounds per U.S. dollar on Feb. 1, central bank governor Riad Salameh said, marking a 90% devaluation from its current official rate that has remained unchanged for 25 years.

The shift from the old rate of 1,507 to 15,000 is still far off the parallel market rate of around 60,000.

Salameh said the change to 15,000 was a step towards unifying multiple exchange rates, in line with a draft agreement Lebanon reached with the International Monetary Fund last year that set out conditions to unlock a $3 billion bailout.

Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Lebanon’s Byblos Bank, said the pound’s continuing decline meant the cash economy was now also dollarised, “with dollars accounting for approximately 70-80% of operations”.

“The transformation to a cash economy means the collapse of the economy,” said Mohammad Chamseddine, an economic expert at Lebanese research group Information International.

The IMF deal is widely seen as the only way for Lebanon to begin restoring confidence in its financial system and recover from the collapse.

However, as we previously noted, there have also been fights in supermarkets as people try to buy bread, sugar, oil, and other goods before they run out, with inflation 400 percent, the report said.

Murder rates and other crimes are also rapidly rising.

The economic collapse could reduce the country into a failed state, experts have warned.

“Not only do we have an absence of government and a political vacuum, but we’re going to have a severe problem with the function of the state of Lebanon,” Lebanese American University political scientist Imad Salamey told The Wall Street Journal. “We are heading toward the unknown.”

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com,

Europe’s benchmark gas prices have rebounded this week as traders closed short positions at the expiry of the front-month contract and some weather forecasts suggested colder weather in northern and central Europe next week than previously expected.

The Dutch TTF benchmark price jumped by 11% at over $65 (60 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh) at the opening of trade in Amsterdam on Tuesday, extending small gains from Monday and recovering some of the losses from last week, when prices slumped by 17%.

On Monday, the prices were supported by short covering and an unplanned outage at a Norwegian gas processing plant. However, wind power generation is still expected to be strong, which could curb some demand for gas-fired power generation.

But next week, temperatures could be lower than initially expected, which would boost demand for household heating. Colder spells are set to return to northern and central Europe next week, according to weather models by Maxar Technologies Inc, cited by Bloomberg.

Still, the record gas prices in Europe could be behind us, according to ING’s revised outlook on natural gas for this year.

“Mild weather and weak industrial demand have ensured that gas storage has remained strong. The region should get through this winter comfortably and prospects also look better for the 23/24 winter,” Warren Patterson, Head of Commodities Strategy at ING, said on Monday.

The bank expects the TTF price to average around $65-70 (60-65 euros) per MWh over the first half of 2023—around current levels, before increasing to $81-87 (75-80 euros) per MWh over the second half of the year.

“The more comfortable storage situation does put Europe in a better position to handle the 2023/24 winter. It certainly isn’t looking as dire as it did just several months ago. Therefore, prices do not need to go as high as originally expected going into the next heating season,” ING’s Patterson said.

The “domino theory” was once used to great effect in order to manipulate the American public into supporting the Vietnam War, but will the same narrative work to get the west to support World War III with Russia? 

Former UK Defense Minister Sir Gerald Howarth seems to think so as he uses this exact claim to justify NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. 

FORMER DEFENSE MINISTER OF UK SAYS NATO FORCES MAY NEED TO FACE RUSSIA ON THE GROUND pic.twitter.com/7LJ3Nksniq

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) January 31, 2023

It should be noted that a large percentage of the American populace and most of Europe have no interest whatsoever in engaging with Russia and possibly its allies in all out war, but the establishment appears intent on forcing the issue anyway.  The delivery of NATO tanks and the possibility of longer range missiles will no doubt trigger a wider response from Russia, which will then be used by NATO as a reason to escalate further. 

At the very least, Howarth does admit what many in the alternative media have been saying for some time – That Ukraine’s efforts have ground to a halt without further support from NATO troops.  The deliveries of money and weapons are nothing more than a stop-gap; wars are won by men. 

The former minister suggests that Ukraine is essentially too big to fail and that NATO cannot allow Russia to prevail in the region, otherwise they will be emboldened to strike other nearby nations.  There is zero evidence to support this argument, but it is clear that NATO talking heads are desperate to drum up some kind of public fervor. 

Are western citizens willing to fight and die for Ukraine?  It’s highly unlikely.