Author: admin

As we noted late last week, the Fed’s money printer has been going brrrr in overtime, and in the past month alone, Powell & Co. has purchased nearly $2 trillion in Treasury and MBS securities, far more than during any of the previous QE episodes (either in the first month or their entirety)…

… which together with the Fed’s POMO schedule which sees the Fed purchasing another $225BN in securities this week…

… will push the Fed’s balance sheet (currently at $6.1 trillion) to $6.4 trillion by next Friday, up more than 50% in the span of just weeks.

That’s just the beginning, because as we showed two weeks ago, BofA strategist and former Fed guru, Mark Cabana expects the Fed’s balance sheet to double to $9 trillion by the end of the year.

What does this mean for Treasury issuance? Well, for one thing it means that the Fed will monetize not only all the debt issuance for 2020 that was scheduled before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, but also the entire fiscal stimulus package (currently $2.2 trillion, soon $3+ trillion). Which is hardly a surprise: last week the Bank of England became the first bank to officially announce it would openly monetize the UK’s deficit. In other words, the central bank and the Treasury are now one and the same, which also means that helicopter money has arrived, first in the UK and soon everywhere else.

It also means that, as DB’s Stuart Sparks puts it “these are administered markets” (or perhaps “administerrrrrred” markets).

Yet while the Fed has unleashed an unprecedented buying spree across the curve, traders are starting to ask when and how will markets price in a “crossover point” when there is more supply than demand (if such a thing is possible), potentially resulting in a violent bear steepening in the yield curve and a spike in long-term yields as the Fed loses control over long-term inflation expectations.

Commenting on this, DB’s rates strategists write that the narrative for bearish curve steepening is rooted in the idea of a crossover point at which the duration impact of additional Treasury supply exceeds that of demand stemming from Fed QE purchases. This is particularly true in the long end, where the Treasury is still expected to begin 20y issuance in the May refunding.  The “crossover” argument is illustrated on the chart below: coupon supply net of Fed purchases is likely to turn positive during Q3, even if the Fed monetizes the entire fiscal stimulus package as it currently stands.

That said, the crossover argument is inherently a flow argument, rather than a stock argument. To mitigate fears that the deluge of Treasurys – now that helicopter money has been unleashed – will lead to a chaotic spike in long-rates, Deutsche Bank writes that an immediate issue with the flow argument that increasing Treasury supply will push yields higher and the term premium steeper “is that it ignores the flows between the present and the time at which this crossover occurs.” That is, large purchase volumes at higher than market WAM should flatten the term premium and push yields lower until the crossover point. Yields might rise and the term premium steepen, but from lower and flatter levels.

At the same time, the Fed’s thought process around QE is inherently more stock-based (an argument that the Fed lost long ago when it was demonstrated conclusively by the like of Goldman and others that only the flow matters): QE “permanently” reduces the stock of risk free government debt, which should cause that government debt to richen. In order to enhance returns, private investors are then obliged to extend duration, flattening the term premium. When the term premium is flat, investors must move out the risk spectrum to enhance returns. This is the Fed’s portfolio balance channel.

Deutsche take a middle ground, and notes that pragmatically, one would expect the effects of large asset purchases to be cumulative, and to occur at a lag. For this reason QE is  something of a hybrid between stock and flow. Intuitively, Fed purchases of, say, $100 billion/month should have a different impact on the market if they were preceded by a period in which the Fed bought $2 trillion in total than they would had the Fed bought nothing previously. Here DB is quick to note that, at its projection of QE demand, the Fed will have fully monetized the first three phases of fiscal stimulus totaling
around $2.2 trillion. Likewise the bank expects Fed purchases to increase to absorb any “phase 4” stimulus as is currently being debated in the US Congress.

In short, without the Fed actively monetizing US debt, the long end would have disconnected long ago.

A second issue is that there is still a reasonable amount of uncertainty about the magnitude of flows on both the supply and demand sides. Let’s start with the supply side.

While a fourth installment of fiscal stimulus of $1 trillion or more would clearly add to potential supply, it is somewhat less clear where on the curve it might come. Specifically, there is a possibility that the Treasury might elect to delay its inaugural 20y issue due to poor liquidity and stretched dealer balance sheets. According to DB, the entire 2040 maturity sector is trading extremely cheap to the fitted curve (chart below).

The bank’s view is that the Treasury will proceed, but the “long end supply thesis” is subject to both the risk that the issue will be delayed for better market conditions, and to the risk that if the issue comes, a smaller issue size could reduce long end supply pressures.

Perhaps the key issue in the “crossover thesis” is what is the true goal of the Fed’s QE program. One argument is that the immense initial size of Fed Treasury purchases was intended as a powerful short term market stabilizer, but a “V”-shaped recovery could obviate the need for an extended program to stimulate the economy (not that one is coming as we will discuss in a subsequent post). This argument is perhaps the most consistent with Treasury cheapening as it could be consistent with a rapid taper of QE purchases in the relatively near term. That said, the probability of this scenario is low as the Fed will not do anything to send rate volatility (MOVE) soaring again.

As a result, DB’s central expectation is that while QE purchase volumes are indeed likely to be tapered further, they will remain sufficiently large to exert further downward pressure on the level of real yields and the term premium. In short: once helicopter money start, it can never again stop.

The fundamental reason the Fed will target these variables is that rising real yields and real term premium run contrary to their policy goals. First, the level of r* has likely fallen due to the acute demand shock caused by virus mitigation. As DB strategists argue, the equity/bond correlation suggests that r* could be as low as -1% (chart below).

And with short rates already at the effective lower bound (at least until we get NIRP), the Fed must ease further by growing its balance sheet (i.e., targeting longer maturities).  Suppressing the term premium crowds return-seeking investors first out the curve, and ultimately out of Treasuries into riskier assets, which means the Fed is now back to blowing the biggest asset bubble ever. The chart below illustrates that the ACM term premium has been reasonably well correlated with a proxy for the equity risk premium. When the term premium is low, all else equal, equities look cheaper, and price appreciation tightens the equity risk premium.

Second, high real yields keep the dollar strong, which keeps downward pressure on commodity prices and hence headline inflation. Note that the spike in real yields as BEI declined coincided with the sharp dollar appreciation during March. Moreover, we think it is important that the broad dollar is stronger than before the Fed began to ease, and remains higher than end-2019 levels in spite of the fact that 10y real yields have fallen 50 bp. The implication is that real yields likely need to fall further to stabilize the dollar and improve the prospects for persistent increases in headline and core inflation, the Fed’s true stated mission.

Which brings us to the key question: what happens once we reach the Treasury supply/demand crossover point, and the answer is most that either the Fed doubles down voluntarily, or the Fed loses control and doubles down because it is forced to keep on monetizing all US debt issuance, which is now in its exponential phase (a lot of exponential curves in recent weeks)…

… as the alternative is that everything that the Fed has been working on for the past decade (and really, 107 years) can be thrown out, and the US – and global – economy implodes.

How long can this can-kicking last? Simple: as long as the world has faith in the dollar as a reserve currency (as discussed earlier) – while that particular fiction persists, the now co-joined Fed and Treasury will be able to pick the US economy up by its bootstarps while giving everyone the impression that printing money somehow makes people richer, when in reality it just devalues purchasing power, cripples labor and makes the “top 0.1%” holders of assets wealthier beyond their wildest dreams.

Submitted by Vince Bielski, of RealClearInvestigations

The Trump administration’s big strike against the federal bureaucracy is quietly unfolding at the Bureau of Land Management, where its senior managers and scientific staff have been told to pack up their desks in Washington, D.C., and move to its new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo. and other western offices. Most employees aren’t climbing aboard the wagon train.

The shake-up, meant to make the bureaucracy more accountable to the drillers, cattle ranchers, hunters and hikers who use America’s public lands, is part of the sweeping deregulation that has fueled a boom in U.S. energy production through last year. In its earliest days, the administration declared energy independence a top priority and two years later oil production on federal and tribal lands and offshore hit record highs — a surge that will likely slow as the coronavirus pandemic cuts demand and rocks the industry.

“It’s more efficient now,” says Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, a trade group representing 300 oil and gas companies that pushed for the BLM move. “You can be productive without fighting for years to get a permit. They are processed more efficiently in less time.”

The gusher that has been feeding the coffers of states like Wyoming and New Mexico, however, is also raising concerns about the impact on some of the country’s spectacular landscapes and wildlife. Noting that only 80 of 174 employees have agreed to move west, environmental groups and some former BLM managers warn that relocating the agency’s headquarters reflects a broader shift of authority to political appointees, from career bureaucrats with years of expertise.

“The relocation will have a substantial impact on the management of our public lands,’’ says Ray Brady, a retired senior manager and minerals specialist who worked in the Washington headquarters for 23 years. “We view it as a dismantling of the organization and turning major decisions on public lands over to political people who have agendas.” The department and bureau didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The move began in November 2019 with a target completion date of July 1, and the pandemic, which may provide an unexpected rationale for getting out of a major population center, is not expected to significantly slow it down. But nonessential BLM travel is on hold for now.

It represents tests both of the power of the administrative state and of striking a balance between the competing forces of development and conservation on public lands. It also promises to be a key regional issue in the 2020 election. At a campaign rally in Colorado in February, a state Donald Trump lost in 2016, the president touted the BLM relocation as part of his effort to end “the tyranny of Washington bureaucrats.” Joe Biden, the likely Democratic nominee, would have the bureau flex its regulatory muscles like never before. He would ban new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters to reduce the threat of climate change. Carbon emissions from energy produced on federal lands amount to one quarter of the U.S. total. 

Americans have a lot riding on the outcome. BLM manages 245 million acres of public lands – 10% of the U.S. land mass — primarily in 12 Western states. The iconic sagebrush deserts, grasslands and rugged mountains hold rich oil and gas deposits, robust elk and antelope herds, desert monuments and tribal cultural sites. Federal and tribal property produce about 10% of U.S. oil and gas sales. BLM also cares for 28 national monuments and other conservation areas encompassing red-rock deserts, jagged coastline and remote tundra.

The bureau was founded in 1946, and in its first three decades quietly served cattle ranchers and coal miners who needed permits to use public lands. The rise of environmentalism and increased pressure on the lands changed the game by the 1970s: The National Environmental Policy Act forced federal agencies to examine ecological and health impacts — and take public input — before making decisions. A few years later the Federal Land Policy and Management Act gave BLM new and broader marching orders to manage public lands under a multiple-use principle. It now had to balance the interests of many competing groups – conservationists, drillers, hunters, miners and ranchers – in carving up lands for grazing, historical preservation, recreation, resource extraction and wildlife protection.

The “Sagebrush Rebellion” sprung up in the West in the 1970s to challenge the government’s tightening grip on public lands and the movement still reverberates today. William Perry Pendley, who was appointed BLM’s acting chief by Interior Secretary David L. Bernhardt, calls himself a “Sagebrush Rebel.” The firebrand property-rights attorney rose to prominence by suing BLM and other federal agencies on behalf of ranchers and drillers who depend on public lands.

BLM has wiggle room in striking that balance between development and conservation, making its job tricky. Its offices spread throughout the West in cities like Boise, Billings and Carson City solicit input from groups with opposing land-use agendas. Staffers then apply scientific expertise to assess the best use of the resources and impact on the environment, and try to reach a consensus. But the hardest part of the balancing act can be navigating Washington politics, as Democratic and Republican administrations zealously push their priorities onto BLM decision-making. The radical swing from Barack Obama to Donald Trump is the latest example
“The Obama administration was laser focused on conservation and I wasn’t a fan of that. It was too far left and not enough in the middle,” says Mary Jo Rugwell, who retired as BLM Wyoming state director in August after 46 years of federal service. “The Trump administration is all about removing barriers and restrictions to development.”

Soon after Trump took office, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced a shift in the balance. While Zinke’s strategic plan  includes fishing, hunting and recreation, it stresses drilling above all else: “An American-First energy policy is one that maximizes the use of American resources in freeing us from dependence on foreign oil,” wrote Zinke, who resigned in late 2018 amid investigations into his conduct and was succeeded by Bernhardt, his like-minded deputy.

To speed up energy production, the department significantly streamlined BLM regulations. In January 2018 officials ended the requirement for public input during environmental review of potential leases and cut the days for protests of lease offerings by more than half to 10. The number of new acres leased shot up by 117% in fiscal 2018 compared with two years earlier. And the time it takes to get a drilling permit on leased land was slashed by almost three months in that period. In 2019, oil production on federal and tribal lands and offshore hit a record of more than 1 billion barrels, almost a 30% jump.

The BLM move shifts more than 200 filled and unfilled career positions in Washington to Grand Junction and other Western outposts — primarily the bureau’s top leaders and staffers with training in biology, geology, forestry, rangelands and archeology.  As the experts leave Washington, major decisions will be made by political appointees who lack scientific training, say current and former BLM managers.

Retiree Brady said the agency’s renewable-energy program, which he helped create and oversaw, requires scientific expertise and collaboration that may be lost in the relocation. The large wind and solar energy developments on public lands can disturb the ecology and cultural sites, threaten endangered species like the desert tortoise and bald eagle and impinge on military installations and parklands. Brady said a technical staff is needed in Washington to collaborate with the National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service and the Defense and Energy departments to reduce possible harm from the renewable-energy projects.

Bernhardt has already put political appointees in charge of major BLM land-use decisions. In 2018, he said a team of six political appointees and one career professional must review all actions that involve an environmental impact statement. This includes pivotal resource management plans created by field and state offices that divide up public lands for conservation, drilling, recreation and other uses for 20-year periods. The appointees on the team are lawyers and former Capitol Hill and department staffers with little or no scientific training. Before the order, BLM experts in Washington had played the leading role in reviewing plans, with occasional input from political appointees on major decisions, says Steve Ellis, who retired in 2016 as BLM deputy director, the top career post.

“The review has been taken over by political people who are not scientists and have never worked in the field,” says Ellis, a forester by training.

State offices that have submitted plans to headquarters for review have been told to open more land to oil and gas leasing. In Wyoming, the biggest energy exporting-state in the country, the Rock Springs field office developed a draft plan that fenced off a limited number of acres from leasing in its region while allowing drilling in other areas. The restrictions, which were requested by local officials and groups, were meant to protect the city’s aquifer and some sensitive big-game habitat. When the plan was presented to headquarters in 2018, the then-BLM director shot it down. He told Wyoming staffers to go back to the drawing board and make a plan that was less restrictive to drilling, says Rugwell, who was in the meeting. 

“He said, ‘Are you trying to turn BLM into the National Park Service?’” Rugwell said. “That insulted me. I take pride in trying to be balanced. When I tried to explain that we had listened to the people of Wyoming, that didn’t make a difference.” The field office is now revising its plan.

In Montana, the Lewistown field office’s draft plan called for setting aside about 100,000 acres because of its wilderness characteristics. The land is next to the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, some of Montana’s wildest habitat with robust herds of bugling elk and mule deer. While this land surface would be off-limits to development, the plan sought to strike a balance by permitting oil and gas drilling on more than 1 million acres in the district.

The political team in Washington asked for changes in the plan that eliminated the wilderness characteristics’ protections. The final 2020 plan allows for drilling and road building under controlled conditions in the wilderness area.

The tradeoff between energy production and wildlife conservation is evident in New Mexico, an epicenter of the U.S. surge in energy production. The state’s San Juan Basin is one of the country’s most prolific oil and gas regions. But the drilling infrastructure in the area has disrupted mule deer migration from Colorado to winter feeding grounds in New Mexico. That prompted Sen. Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, to introduce a bill last year with bipartisan backing giving federal agencies authority to create national wildlife corridors to protect the state’s big game and other animals around the country hurt by the loss of habitat.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park is another flashpoint in New Mexico. Navajo Nation leaders oppose drilling close to Chaco Canyon where ancient ruins have been preserved. After Bernhardt visited the park last year, he said, he “walked away with a greater sense of appreciation of the magnificent site” and announced a one-year moratorium on leasing within a 10-mile radius of Chaco while BLM revised its resource management plan for the area.

The stakes are also high for the greater sage grouse. A 2015 plan from the Obama administration covering 10 states established restrictions on development to keep the bird from being listed as an endangered species. Last year, BLM revised the plan to permit more drilling and other development by reducing restrictions on millions of acres of sensitive habitat. But a federal judge in Idaho blocked the revisions from going into effect, citing a wildlife biologist who found that the bureau ignored analyzing how its changes would impact sage grouse habitat in a way that’s “inconsistent with standard practices and the best available science.” The bureau responded in February with supplemental environmental analysis to justify its revisions.

Amid a string of legal challenges, BLM’s Pendley points to the benefits of the U.S. becoming the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

People in states that depend heavily on energy production — such as Wyoming, New Mexico and North Dakota — are the winners. An astonishing 50% of Wyoming’s revenue comes from energy industry taxes and royalties. Job growth in oil and gas extraction has been robust until a recent slowdown, made worse by the pandemic that has caused oil prices to plunge.

“Barack Obama says you cannot drill your way out of energy dependence. And the president came in and said, ‘We are going to do it,’ and we have done it,” Pendley said in mid-February on a Colorado radio show. “It’s an unprecedented accomplishment.”

BLM employees in Washington appear to be the losers. Brady, the retired minerals expert, says far fewer employees, only about 20%, will end up making the move, based on a survey he has done will most of the leadership and staff. Many of them are disillusioned over their diminished role at BLM and are either retiring or finding positions at other agencies.

“A lot of good people are fleeing the agency,” a BLM senior manager with extensive experience in Washington wrote in an email before retiring in February. “This administration does not respect career employees.”

Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who spearheaded the effort to move the agency to his state, isn’t concerned about the experts the bureau is losing. The Republican lawmaker said BLM is hiring to fill those spots and that it is more important to have career employees living in the West where they’ll learn about the local issues and take a more common-sense approach to regulation.

“If people don’t want to live and work in the West, on the land that they’re regulating, that’s probably a good decision” to leave the BLM, he says. “I find it offensive and elitist that somebody would refuse to live on the land they regulate.”

Hours after Pope Francis on Easter Sunday morning said the debt burden on the most impoverished countries should be forgiven (aka debt jubilee), the Financial Times is now reporting that the G20 group is nearing a critical “action plan” to freeze debt servicing payments for poor countries to stave off an emerging-market meltdown.

The new relief program could be finalized on April 15 on a videoconference of finance ministers and central bank governors. The plan would “freeze on sovereign debt repayments for six or nine months, or possibly through to 2021,” the official told the Times.

The official said developed countries and multilateral institutions would use this period to write up “very clear criteria, country-by-country of what exactly is going to happen. Is it debt relief totally? Is it just a deferment, a rescheduling?”

“For debt relief to happen, it would take time for it to be co-ordinated,” the official said.

 “But what is immediately needed is to give these people space so they don’t need to worry about the cash flow and debt servicing going to other countries, and they can use that money for their immediate needs,” the official said, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the discussions. 

Last week, the British-based Jubilee Debt Campaign called for a worldwide debt jubilee to avoid some of the world’s poorest countries from collapsing into chaos amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, said: “The suspension on debt payments called for by the IMF and World Bank saves money now, but kicks the can down the road and avoids actually dealing with the problem of spiraling debts.”

Clifton is urging for the immediate cancellation of 69 of the world’s poorest countries’ debt payments this year, which would free up at least $25 billion for the countries in 2020, and up to $50 billion if the jubilee was extended to the end of 2021.

“This is the fastest way to keep money in countries to use in responding to Covid-19, and to ensure public money is not wasted bailing out the profits of rich private speculators,” added Clifton.

Much of the debt crisis concern is situated around the poorest countries that line China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The official said there is “very clear recognition that a global co-ordinated approach is a must” to avoid an emerging market debt crisis.

Odile Renaud Basso, chair of the Paris Club, a group of the 22 largest creditor nations, told the Times that all creditor nations and China should work closely with G20 negotiations to resolve emerging market woes. 

 “There must be a level playing field so that all creditors agree to the same key parameters,” she said. “But with that in place there is always a need for bilateral discussions between each creditor and debtor nation, and China could work within that framework. They are very much involved and I think they will be part of an agreement.”

The IIF has also been vocal in calls “to forbear payment default for the poorest and most vulnerable countries significantly affected by Covid-19 and related economic turbulence for a specified time period, without waiving the payment obligation”.

The official also said that governments would not make it mandatory for private creditors to offer relief programs for the poorest countries.

“You cannot force individual investors to waive their rights. That could distort the markets, and could have the negative consequences of liquidity problems. They would not lend if they see any sign that they can be forced to let go of their assets.”

And it appears the world is at the end of a decade’s long monetary experiment, where ushering in more quantitative easing to fix below-trend growth or instabilities in the financial casino will not work this time.

Daniel Lacalle, CIO at fund manager Tressis Gestión, recently said: “QE will not fix this. Swap lines will not fix this. A debt jubilee would fix this or multiple trillions of dollars in write-downs and defaults.”

Internet search term for “debt jubilee” has surged to the highest level not seen since late 2012. 

Increasing calls for a debt jubilee suggests the 100-year debt-super cycle’s “kick the can down the road” plan may have finally hit a wall . 

Submitted by Joseph Carson, former Chief Economist at Alliance Bernstein

As difficult it was to decide to shut down large segments of the economy in order to contain coronavirus it will be even trickier to decide when to end the lockdown. News that the coronavirus curve (i.e., the number of cases) may be flattening will only intensify the pressure on government leaders to relax restrictions on work-life and travel, as well as social and recreational gatherings.

There is a risk in removing government restrictions too early in a war against a virus. History shows it is essential that the “the chain of transmission” of the virus is severed as a second wave could prove to be even more damaging.

In 1980, government-imposed credit restrictions to kill the “inflation” virus. At that time, “inflation” was labeled as public enemy number one much like coronavirus is viewed today.

The decision to impose credit controls to attack the “inflation” virus literally “scared people away from the stores” (The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 1980) triggering the sharpest one-quarter decline in consumer spending in the post-war period.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the official arbiter of dating economic cycles peaks and trough, viewed the sudden drop in business activity to be so severe it announced that the economy was in recession even before the official GDP data showed an actual contraction. That surprising announcement by NBER compelled the federal government and the Federal Reserve to abruptly end the credit-control program, only 90 days after it was first implemented.

Investors will be pleased to learn the removal of government restrictions on credit sparked a quick and powerful rebound in the economy. Real GDP posted back-to-back quarterly gains of nearly 8% annualized in Q4 1980 and Q1 1981. The entire decline in consumer spending and output loss of the short 6-month recession was recaptured.

However, investors should be alarmed to learn the chain of transmission of the “inflation” virus was not severed. Instead it was alive and well, ready to resurface once the economy rebounded.

The second wave of the “inflation” virus proved to be more damaging as it forced the Federal Reserve to implement broader and more stringent monetary constraints. A deeper and more protracted recession followed, lasting 18 months from the middle of 1981 to the end of 1982.

Looking back on the 1980 experience economic and policy experts voiced concern that not enough was done early on to break the chain of transmission for the “inflation” virus.

Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Frederick Schultz in testimony before Congress in late 1980 stated, “Now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight… I think there is a considerable risk that the underlying problems of the economy will be found to be even more intense once the period of credit controls has been ended…the quick-fix or the band-aid policy always looks attractive, but that is a cruel deception”. Mr. Schultz was right.

2020 recession like that of the 1980 recession is similar in that both are government-made, linked to a “contagious” virus, and involve a sudden stop in the economy. The difference is that the 1980 recession involved an economic virus versus today’s medical one.

As such, investors must realize the timing, scale and sustainability of any business rebound are not forecastable. Recovery depends on the coronavirus curve that has no economic properties and the success of medical science.

At this point, it would be best for the government officials to follow science and let the data determine the timing of the “on” switch for the economy. The last thing anyone wants if to have a medical expert testify before Congress in 6 months (like that of Mr. Schultz in 1980) and say “wish we’d done something more in the spring” to break the transmission chain.

The New York Times, which tried to sabotage Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s career with months of baseless #MeToo allegations – not only downplayed Joe Biden’s well-documented history of unwanted physical contact with women on Sunday, they cast extreme doubt on a detailed sexual assault allegation by former Biden staffer Tara Reade.

The original article, which can be seen in the Wayback Machine reads: “No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.“

Which they also tweeted, and have since deleted:

The @nytimes has deleted this Tweet: pic.twitter.com/pdXclM6UwQ

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) April 12, 2020

The current, stealth-edited version now reads: “No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden.“

Reade filed a police report against Biden with the Washington D.C. police alleging that the former Vice President (and then Senator) forcibly penetrated her without consent in 1993. She does not reference Biden by name in the complaint, which the Biden campaign has strongly denied. 

The Times, meanwhile, had the audacity to write: “Filing a false police report may be punishable by a fine and imprisonment.“

Remember the press spent a month essentially arguing that underage drinking was evidence that Kavanaugh committed sexual assault, but a long pattern of “hugs, kisses, and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable” proves Biden’s innocence. pic.twitter.com/CPGr48o8nK

— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) April 12, 2020

Look at how the Times framed Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford – whose allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a gathering in the mid 1980s were refuted by every single person at the party. 

I think what is frustrating about kavanaugh is not only assumption of guilt is they were trying to paint him as this frat boy that did whatever he wanted pic.twitter.com/PSqqIglahu

— UncleDickindeerstand (@Cincyfella) April 12, 2020

In short, “believe all women” unless they’re accusing a Democratic presidential candidate of sexual assault. 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump on Saturday approved a disaster declaration for Wyoming, meaning that all 50 states are under a major disaster declaration amid the CCP virus pandemic.

The declaration for the state comes about three weeks after the first disaster order in New York, the epicenter of the virus.

Non-state territories including the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Washington, Guam, and Puerto Rico are all under disaster declarations. The only one that isn’t under such a declaration is American Samoa.

“Public Assistance Federal funding is available to the state, tribal and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance under Public Assistance, for all areas in the state of Wyoming affected by COVID-19 at a federal cost share of 75 percent,” Trump’s declaration on Wyoming read.

It’s the first time a president has ever declared a major disaster in all 50 states at the same time, said deputy press secretary Judd Deere.

🚨With @realDonaldTrump’s declaration for WY, the President has now declared for the 1st time in history that a major disaster exist within all 50 states at once. The President continues to respond to the needs of every Governor to protect the health of all Americans. 🇺🇸 #COVID19

— Judd Deere (@JuddPDeere45) April 11, 2020

“The President continues to respond to the needs of every Governor to protect the health of all Americans,” Deere wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon sought the declaration last week in a letter to Trump.

“Though Wyoming has not reached the dire situations of some states, this declaration will help us to prepare and mobilize resources when we need them,” Gordon said, according to news reports.

The United States, meanwhile, has surpassed Italy on Saturday as the country with the most deaths related to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, according to a running tally from Johns Hopkins University.

Despite the data, there have been indicators that the social distancing guidelines are working, said Trump on Friday.

“Nationwide, the number of new cases per day is flattening substantially, suggesting that we are near the peak and our comprehensive strategy is working,” he said during a White House briefing.

Trump added that he is now looking to create a taskforce that is comprised of doctors and business leaders aimed at reopening the U.S. economy.

Health authorities have urged Americans to avoid close contact with one another, use good hand-washing hygiene, and not leave their homes as much as possible. Symptoms of the potentially fatal disease include fever, cough, and shortness of breath, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

*  *  *

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After cynically urging Syrian refugees toward coronavirus-hit Europe, Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced on Twitter on Sunday that he was resigning from his post over the chaotic implementation of a two-day curfew in major Turkish cities to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

The resignation followed Turkey’s announcement, late on Friday, of a weekend lockdown but in the brief time before it went into effect many people rushed out to buy food and drink in the country’s commercial hub Istanbul, a city of 16 million people, and other cities.

“Although in a limited period of time, the incidents that occurred ahead of the implementation of the curfew was not befitting with the perfect management of the outbreak process,” Soylu said in his statement.

pic.twitter.com/HDQ5t65vKp

— Süleyman Soylu (@suleymansoylu) April 12, 2020

Soylu, who has held the post since August 2016, shortly after the failed staged coup against Erdogan, said the scenes that took place just following the declaration of the curfew on Friday night did not reflect a smooth implementation of policy. Soylu added that he had been proud to serve as interior minister and would remain loyal to Erdogan.

The lockdown decision was taken with good intention and aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus, he said. The lockdown ended at 2100 GMT on Sunday, prompting questions why it was started in the first place, as a 48 hour lock down achieves absolutely nothing.

However, Soylu’s resignation was even shorter than Turkey’s curfew as just hours after the interior minister’s resignation announcement, President Erdogan rejected the resignation, sparking celebration among Turkey’s nationalists.

#Turkey’s Interior Min resigns, taking blame for botched curfew. Social media erupts with shock that a Turkish politician has actually taken responsibility. AKP rumour mill starts. Erdogan rejects resignation. Nationalists celebrate. As you were, Turkey. pic.twitter.com/PpRNB1EWju

— Mark Lowen (@marklowen) April 12, 2020

If his resignation had been accepted by President Erdogan, Soylu would have been the second Turkish minister to leave his post since the coronavirus pandemic was declared. Transport Minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan was removed two weeks ago after the ministry drew criticism for holding a tender amid the outbreak to prepare to build a huge canal on the edge of Istanbul.

On Sunday, Turkey reported 97 more deaths related to the novel coronavirus, bringing the death toll to 1,198. The country also has nearly 57,000 confirmed cases since the first patient was diagnosed a little more than a month ago.

Deaths breached the 100,000 mark on Friday, another grim milestone for the world engulfed in a pandemic. 

More than a billion people across the world remain in quarantine as the global economy crashes into a depression in the second quarter. The OECD and WTO on Wednesday published two separate reports that both outline global economic activity has collapsed.

The OECD Leading Indicators show the global economy experienced a sharp decline in the last month. 

The WTO shows world trade has plunged well below 2008 levels. One word: unprecedented. 

As a result of quarantines, unemployment claims have rocketed higher in nearly every major developed and emerging market economy. Tens of millions of people have been laid off as streets, highways, shopping districts, and manufacturing hubs have become lifeless. 

While words can only describe so much of a world in lockdown, Bloomberg has published a handful of pictures illustrating what the world looks like after a month of pandemic: 

New York City 

Los Angeles

Paris

Milan

Sao Paulo

Moscow

Jerusalem

Istanbul

London

Toronto

Madrid

Mumbai

Lisbon

It becomes evident that the world has ground to a halt in one of the fastest economic crashes ever. It remains to be seen if the recovery phase is V-shaped, U-shaped, or L-shaped. 

More or less, we’re leaning towards an L-shaped recovery… 

Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

There’s no doubt that the Coronavirus is a serious infection that can lead to severe illness or death. There’s also no doubt that ‘virus hysteria’ has been used for other purposes. Wall Street, for example, has used virus-panic to advance its own agenda and get another round of trillion dollar bailouts. In fact, it took less than a week to get the pushover congress to ram through a massive $2.2 trillion boondoggle without even one lousy congressman offering a peep of protest. That’s got to be some kind of record.

In 2008, at the peak of the financial crisis, Congress voted “No” to the $700 billion TARP bill. Some readers might recall how a number of GOP congressmen bravely banded together and flipped Wall Street “the bird”. That didn’t happen this time around. Even though the bill is three times bigger than the TARP ( $2.2 trillion), no one lifted a finger to stop it. Why?

Fear, that’s why. Everyone in congress was scared to death that if they didn’t rush this debt-turd through the House pronto, the economy would collapse while tens of thousands of corpses would be stacking up in cities across the country. Of course the reason they believed this nonsense was because the goofy infectious disease experts confidently assured everyone that the body-count would be “in the hundreds of thousands if not millions.” Remember that fiction? The most recent estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 total. I don’t need to tell you that the difference between 60,000 and “millions” is a little more than a rounding-error.

So we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes, right? Not as bad as congress, but, all the same, we’ve been hoodwinked and we’ve been fleeced. And the people who have axes to grind have been very successful in taking advantage of the hysteria and promoting their own agendas. Maybe you’ve noticed the reemergence of creepy Bill Gates and the Vaccine Gestapo or NWO Henry Kissinger warning us that, “the world will never be the same after the coronavirus”.

What do these people know that we don’t know? Doesn’t it all make you a bit suspicious? And when you see nonstop commercials on TV telling you to “wash your hands”or “keep your distance” or “stay inside” and, oh yeah, “We’re all in this together”, doesn’t it leave you scratching your head and wondering who the hell is orchestrating this virus-charade and what do they really have in mind for us unwashed masses??

At least in the case of Wall Street, we know what they want. They want money and lots of it.

Have you looked over the $2.2 trillion CARES bill that Trump just signed into law a couple weeks ago? It’s pretty grim reading, so I’ll save you the effort. Here’s a rough breakdown:

$250 billion will go for the $1,200 checks that most of us will receive in a couple weeks.

And $250 billion will be provided for extended unemployment insurance benefits.

That’s $500 billion.

Working people will get $500 billion while Wall Street and Corporate America will get 3 times that amount. ($1.7 trillion)

And even that’s a mere fraction of the total sum because– hidden in the small print– is a section that allows the Fed to lever-up the base-capital by 10-to-1 ($450 billion to $4.5 trillion) which means the Fed can buy as many “toxic” bonds and garbage assets as it chooses.

The Fed is turning itself into a hedge fund in order to buy the sludge that has accumulated on the balance sheets of corporations and financial institutions for the last decade.

It’s another gigantic ripoff that’s being cleverly concealed behind the ridiculous coronavirus hype. It’s infuriating.

So here’s the question:

Do you think Congress knew that working people would only get a pittance while the bulk of the dough would go to Wall Street?

It’s hard to say, but they certainly knew that the economy was cratering and that $500 billion wasn’t going to put much of a dent in a $20 trillion economy. In other words, even if everyone goes out and blows their measly $1,200 checks on Day 1, we’re still going to experience the sharpest economic contraction on record, a second Great Depression.

Maybe they should have talked about that in congress before they voted for this trillion-dollar turkey? Maybe they should have thought a little more about how the money should be distributed: Should it go to the people who actually buy things, generate activity and produce growth, or to the parasite class that blows up the system every decade and drags the economy down a black hole? That seems like something you might want to know before you pass a multi-trillion dollar bill that’s supposed to fix the economy.

It’s also worth noting that the $5.8 trillion is not nearly the total amount that Wall Street will eventually get. The Fed has already spent $2 trillion via its QE program (to shore up the dysfunctional repo market) and Fed chair Jay Powell announced on Thursday that another $2.3 trillion in loans and purchases would be used to buy municipal bonds, corporate bonds and loans to small businesses. The allocation for small businesses, which falls under the, Main Street Lending Program, has been widely touted as a sign of how much the Fed really cares about struggling Mom and Pop businesses that employ the majority of working Americans. But, once again, it’s a sham and a boondoggle. The program is on-track to get $600 billion funding of which the US Treasury will provide the base-capital of $75 billion. The rest will be levered-up by 9-to-1 by the Fed, which means it’s just more smoke and mirrors.

What readers need to realize is that the Treasury has accepted the credit risk for all of the loans that default. In other words, the American people are now on the hook for 100% of all of the loans that go south, and there’s going to be alot of them because the banks have no reason to find creditworthy borrowers. They get a 5% cut off-the-top whether the loans blow up or not. And, that, my friend, is how you incentivize fraud which, as Bernie Sanders noted, “is Wall Street’s business model.”

It also helps to explain why Trump has repeatedly rejected congressional oversight of the various bailout programs. He’s smart enough to know a good swindle when he sees one, and this one is a corker. The government is essentially waving trillions of dollars right under the noses of the world’s most ravenous hyenas expecting them not to act in character. But of course they will act in character and hundreds of billions of dollars will be siphoned off by scheming sharpies who figure out how game the system and turn the whole fiasco into another Wall Street looting operation. You can bet on it.

So, what is the final tally?

Well, according to Trump’s chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, the first bailout installment is $6.2 trillion (after the Fed ramps up the Treasury’s contribution of $450 billion.). Then there’s the $2.3 trillion in additional programs the Fed announced on Thursday. Finally, the Fed’s QE program adds another $2 trillion in bond purchases since September 17, when the repo market went haywire.

Altogether, the total sum amounts to $10.5 trillion.

You know what they say, “A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

Of course, no one on Capitol Hill worries about trivialities like money because, “We’re the United States of America, and our dollar will always be King.” But there’s a fundamental flaw to this type of thinking. Yes, the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, but that’s a privilege that the US has greatly abused over the years, and it’s certainly not going to survive this latest wacky helicopter drop. No, I am not suggesting the US would ever default on its debt, that’s not going to happen. But, yes, I am suggesting that the US will have to repay its debts in a currency that has lost a significant amount of its value. You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that you can’t willy-nilly print-up $10 or $20 trillion dollars without eroding the value of the currency. That’s a no-brainer. Central bankers around the world are now looking at their piles of USDs thinking, “Hmmm, maybe it’s time I traded some of these greenbacks in for a few yen, euros or even Swiss francs?”

So how does this end? Can the Fed continue to write trillion dollar checks on an account that is already $23 trillion overdrawn? Will Central banks around the world continue to stockpile dollars when the Fed is printing them up faster than anyone can count? And what about China? How long before China realizes that US Treasuries are grossly overvalued, that US equities markets are unreformable, that the dollar is backed by nothing but red ink, and that Wall Street is the biggest and most corrupt cesspit on earth?

Not long, I’d wager. So, how does this end? It ends in a flash of monetary debasement preceded by a violent and destabilizing currency crisis. It’s plain as the nose on your face. The Fed knows that when a nation’s sovereign debt exceeds 100% of GDP, “there’s almost no mathematical way to service that debt in real terms.” Well, the US passed that milestone way-back in 2019 before this latest drunken spending-spree even began. It’s safe to say, we’ve now entered the financial Twilight Zone, the Land of No Return. If we add the Fed’s bulging balance sheet to the final estimate, (after all, it’s just another shady Enron-type Special Purpose Vehicle) the national debt will be somewhere north of $33 trillion by year-end, which means that Uncle Sam will be the greatest credit risk on Planet Earth. Imagine how jaws will drop on the day that Moodys and Fitch slash the ratings on US Treasuries to Triple B “junk” status. That should turn a few heads.

So what can we expect in the months to come?

First, the economy is going to slip into a deflationary period as people get back to work and slowly resume their spending.

But once demand picks up and the Fed’s liquidity starts to kick in, the economy will rebound sharply followed by steadily rising prices.

That’s the red flag that will signal a weakening dollar.

Similar to 1933, when Roosevelt took the U.S. off the gold standard and printed money like crazy, economic activity picked up but the value of the dollar dropped by 40%.

A similar scenario seems likely here as well.

Economist Lyn Alden Schwartzer summed it up like this in an article at Seeking Alpha:

“One of the common debates is whether all of this debt, counteracted by a tremendous monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve in response, will cause a deflationary bust or an inflationary problem…..Fundamentally, evidence points to a period of deflation due to this global shutdown and demand destruction shock, likely followed in the coming years by rising inflation….

In the coming years, the United States will be effectively printing money to fund large fiscal deficits, while also having a large current account deficit and negative net international investment position. This is one of the main variables for my view that the dollar will likely decrease in value relative to a basket of foreign currencies in the coming years….” (“Why This Is Unlike The Great Depression”, Seeking Alpha)

So, after decades of lethal low interest rates, relentless meddling and gross regulatory malpractice, the Fed has led us to this final, fatal crossroads: Inflate or default.

From the looks of things, the choice has already been made. Wiemar America, here we come!