Category: zerohedge

The ECB policy announcement is due at 07:45ET (12:45BST) with the press conference 45 minutes later at 08:30ET.

No adjustments are expected to current policy settings. The meeting takes place against the backdrop of lockdown restrictions offset by increasing pace of vaccinations. Messaging from the ECB is likely to focus on financing conditions and support from PEPP purchases.

With the euro below its multi-quarter average and the European Central Bank already announcing front-loaded purchases in March, the April ECB meeting should have a muted impact on the single currency, according to ING. Instead, the focus will be on improving eurozone data in coming months, and with EUR/USD still trading cheap, further upside lies ahead.

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Courtesy of Newsquawk here is a detailed preview of what to expect.

OVERVIEW: The upcoming meeting is set to pass with little in the way of fanfare. Rates are expected to remain unchanged with the PEPP envelope held at EUR 1.85trl until the end of March 2022. The meeting takes place against the backdrop of lockdown measures across the Eurozone and a vaccination campaign that is continuing to pick up steam. Balancing these factors will likely be a key part of the ECB’s messaging, alongside the preserving of financing conditions in the region. Elsewhere, Lagarde will likely be questioned on the current pace of PEPP purchases and risks surrounding the recent challenge by the German Constitutional Court to the EU’s Recovery Fund. Note, the upcoming meeting will not be accompanied by staff economic projections.

PRIOR MEETING: As expected, the ECB stood pat on rates and maintained the size of the PEPP envelope at EUR 1.85trln, which will run until at least the end of March 2022. The key change to the policy statement was the inclusion of guidance that the Governing Council expects purchases under the PEPP over the next quarter to be conducted at a significantly higher pace than during the first months of this year. When questioned what “significantly” meant when it came to purchases, Lagarde refrained from giving a specific number. However, sources after the meeting said that policymakers agreed on a monthly PEPP purchase target at the meeting, saying it will be lower than EUR 100bln but well above the EUR 60bln seen in February. Sources also noted that opinions differed, with one source suggesting yields should be pushed down to the range seen in December, while others said improved prospects meant part of the recent yield increase was justified. Lagarde stressed the importance of financial conditions for policymaking, but refrained from giving detail on how to exactly quantify these metrics. Meanwhile, the ECB’s macro projections saw little changes to the growth forecasts, whilst 2021 inflation was revised higher to 1.5% from 1.0% amid transitory factors, and headline HICP is seen cooling to 1.4% by 2023, and therefore short of the ECB’s target.

RECENT DATA: The March inflation figures revealed an increase in Y/Y CPI to 1.3% from 0.9% with the core metric (ex-food and energy) languishing at 1.0%. On the growth front, Q1 Eurozone GDP will not be released until 30th April. However, the latest survey data for March revealed that the manufacturing sector climbed further into expansionary territory with a reading of 62.5 vs. prev. 57.9, while services picked up to 49.6 from the 45.7 but remained in contractionary territory. Overall, the composite came in at 53.2 vs. prev. 48.8 with Markit noting the survey “indicates that the economy has weathered recent lockdowns far better than many had expected”. However, this statement might be further tested in upcoming reports with German states recently agreeing to extend lockdown measures by a further three weeks and local press suggesting that Germany could see six to eight weeks of heightened infections and longer restrictions than initially expected.

RECENT COMMUNICATIONS: Since the previous meeting, commentary from President Lagarde largely echoed that of the March press conference. Lagarde reaffirmed that the ECB will respond to yield increases that get ahead of the economic recovery, adding that PEPP will be used with maximum flexibility and even going as far as saying that the “markets can test as much as they want”. Chief Economist Lane has continued to strike a cautious tone noting that the near-term economic situation continues to be dominated by uncertainty, adding that inflation can be largely attributed to the pandemic shock and there is no basis for the shift in inflation dynamics. Germany’s Schnabel has remarked that lowering interest rates further from very low levels may not only result in diminishing returns, it may also come with increasing costs. Additionally, the policymaker noted that an increase in real interest rates is not necessarily a sign that financing conditions are becoming less favourable, however, there are instances when rising rates would unduly tighten the policy stance. On the more hawkish end of the spectrum, Netherland’s Knot drew attention with comments stating that if the ECB’s baseline forecast holds up, the ECB could begin phasing out PEPP as of Q3 and conclude purchases in March 2022. This received pushback from the likes of France’s Villeroy. However, the comments from Knot indicated the potential areas of debate that will take place on the Governing Council in H2. Elsewhere, policymakers have continued to stress the importance of the EU passing its Recovery Fund.

RATES: From a rates perspective, consensus looks for the Bank to stand pat on the deposit, main refi and marginal lending rates of -0.5%, 0.0% and 0.25% respectively. Some policymakers have previously suggested that the ECB is yet to hit its reversal rate for the deposit rate, however, a move further into negative territory is not expected at this stage. When faced with the option of lowering the deposit rate in March as the crisis was unfolding, policymakers refrained from doing so. As a guide: markets currently assign a 4% chance of a 10bps cut to the deposit rate at the upcoming meeting and around a 13.5% probability by the end of 2021.

BALANCE SHEET: Expectations are for the PEPP envelope to be held at EUR 1.85trl and run until the end of March 2022, whilst the APP is to be maintained at a clip of EUR 20bln per month on an open-ended basis. Given the ECB’s declaration that it will increase the pace of purchases at the prior meeting, great attention has been placed on how closely the Bank is fulfilling this pledge. Prior to the past few weeks (which were distorted by the Easter holiday), PEPP purchases were running at a clip of EUR 19-21bln vs. ~EUR 12bln ahead of the March announcement, whilst the most recent update revealed a pace of EUR 16.9bln. ING has speculated that any leveling off of purchases could underscore the ECB’s reluctance to micromanage markets and even let rates rise if that is deemed justifiable by an improving backdrop. Looking further ahead, UBS expects the ECB to announce in December that PEPP will not be extended beyond March 2022. However, alongside the conclusion of PEPP, the Governing Council will “beef up” its regular APP (currently EUR 20bln/month) by either raising the monthly volume or setting the APP volume as an envelope over a longer timeframe.

EURO REACTION: While the ECB is still cautious and unlikely to provide a positive catalyst for EUR any time soon, the EUR/USD uptrend which started this month should remain in place. Plenty of bad news has now been priced in, the currency has been trading with a persistent risk premium over the past few months and despite the recent rise, EUR/USD still screens cheap based on our short-term financial fair value model. The first quarter was rather dismal for eurozone economic data but this is likely to change in coming months as the pace of vaccination picks up. Improving eurozone data should translate into some upside for the euro. Indeed by summer, eurozone growth should be more synchronised with the US (particularly throughout the second half of the year – Fig 3) and this should provide support to the euro.

PRESS CONFERENCE: Areas of focus for the press conference will centre around the ECB’s assessment of the Eurozone outlook (not accompanied by staff economic projections). As it stands, “the risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook over the medium term have become more balanced, although downside risks remain in the near term”. The key for Lagarde will be balancing the pessimism surrounding existing lockdown measures across the Eurozone with increased vaccine optimism in recent weeks; ABN AMRO recently noted that the EU is on track to fully vaccinate 70% of the population by September. However, Lagarde will likely wish to avoid being too bullish on the outlook for the region as it could provide some ammunition to the hawks on the Governing Council with regards to the eventual unwind of monetary support. Furthermore, from a fiscal standpoint, the President will need to continue to make the case for the passage of the EU’s Recovery Fund, particularly in lieu of the recent challenge from the German Constitutional court, which could issue a ruling on the matter next month. Financing conditions will likely be a key aspect of the ECB’s messaging, on which, Lagarde will likely stick to the script outlined at the March meeting and offer a relatively technical, yet unspecific view on how the Bank characterises conditions. Last week, UBS observed that the ECB should draw comfort from the fact that the “imported tightening of financing conditions had stalled”. However, journalists might probe the President on whether some of the recent market moves warrant attention with ABN AMRO noting that (as of April 20th), “the eurozone 10y yield stood at +0.12% (average for April is +0.05%), even though the upswing in US yields has lost momentum”. Elsewhere, Lagarde will likely be questioned on how significant she deems the pick up in PEPP purchases to be and whether or not purchases will be ramped up further/lowered in the coming weeks and months. Finally, Lagarde will likely also be questioned on the Bank’s ongoing strategic review, however, the President is unlikely to front-run its findings, with the review set to be concluded in September.

CHEAT SHEET (from ING):

Just yesterday, India reported more than 2,000 COVID-19-linked deaths in a single day, a new record for the world’s second-most-populous country, which is struggling with a brutal resurgence of the virus that reportedly has crematoriums working overtime.

One day later, India has just reported a new disturbing record: According to the Associated Press, India reported a global record of more than 314,000 new infections on Thursday, sending more Indians scrambling for medical care as the country’s health-care system struggles with a critical shortage of hospital beds and oxygen.

Deaths also increased by a record 2,104 (a record for India, though still far short of the record daily death numbers from the US and Brazil).

Source: Johns Hopkins

The 314,835 new cases added in the past 24 hours raise India’s total past 15.9 million cases since the start of the pandemic, the second-highest total in the world next to the US. India has nearly 1.4 billion people.

On Wednesday, the New Delhi High Court ordered the government to divert oxygen from industrial use to hospitals to save lives. And the government of PM Narendra Modi is rushing oxygen tankers to replenish supplies to hospitals.

“You can’t have people die because there is no oxygen. Beg, borrow or steal, it is a national emergency,” the judges said responding to a petition by a New Delhi hospital seeking its intervention.

During a televised address earlier this week, PM Modi begged local leaders to avoid reviving lockdown measures unless it was truly a last resort. Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of India’s Congress Party, slammed Modi in a tweet, accusing his government of dropping the ball on COVID restrictions. “Modi govt has put us into a situation where a lockdown is going to come and now again we are going to go through the same – migrants going back, no money to the migrants. Modi govt has already broken their legs, now they are going to cut off their heads.”

India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday that “demand and supply is being monitored round the clock.” He said in a tweet that to address the exponential spike in demand, the government has increased the quota of oxygen for the worst-hit seven states.

The AP reported that scenes of ambulances rushing from hospital to hospital, desperately trying to find beds for the sick and dying, have once again become common.

“I get numerous calls every day from patients desperate for a bed. The demand is far too much than the supply,” said Dr. Sanjay Gururaj, a doctor at Bengaluru-based Shanti Hospital and Research Center.

“I try to find beds for patients every day, and it’s been incredibly frustrating to not be able to help them. In the last week, three patients of mine have died at home because they were unable to get beds. As a doctor, it’s an awful feeling,” Gururaj said.

India has launched a vaccination drive but only a tiny fraction of the population has had the shots. While the country’s Serum Institute has been lauded as a key cog in the global vaccine rollout, the country this week announced that it would halt vaccine exports for at least two months. Authorities have announced that vaccines will be available to anyone over the age of 18 from May 1 but India won’t have enough shots for the 600 million people who will become eligible, experts say, according to NBC News.

Some experts say new, more infectious virus variants, in particular a “double mutant” variant that originated in India, are largely responsible for the spike in cases but many also blame the politicians. But others blamed Modi and his government for getting “complacent”.

“The second wave is a consequence of complacency and mixing and mass gatherings. You don’t need a variant to explain the second wave,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.

Epidemiologists have slammed Modi’s government for holding packed political rallies for local elections and allowing a Hindu festival at which millions gathered.

Submitted by Joseph Carson, former chief economist at AllianceBernstein,

A non-market price—implied rents for owner-occupied housing.— acts as an anchor for reported consumer price inflation. Does that mean policymakers will be right in that the uptick in consumer price inflation emanating from monetary and fiscal policies will prove to be “transitory”? Yes, it does, but that does not mean the economic and financial outcomes will be benign.

There are significant adverse consequences and dangers of relying on a non-market price to anchor reported inflation. Policymakers end up setting official rates too low, allowing real estate and equity values to trade at higher valuations than underlying fundamentals would otherwise support.

It is not a coincidence that two asset bubbles occurred in the past two decades when reported price inflation has been anchored by a non-market price. Is the third bubble in train?

Non-Market Anchor In Reported Consumer Inflation

Following the consumer price index (CPI) release, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (FRBC) publishes a median consumer price index. The FRBC press release says, “The median CPI excludes all price changes except for the one in the center of the distribution of price changes, where the price changes are ranked from the lowest to the highest (or most negative to the most positive).

FRBC also argues that the median CPI provides a more accurate assessment of underlying inflation than the overall CPI and is “even better forecasting personal consumption inflation” (the Fed’s preferred inflation measure) in the short-run and the long term.

Yet, decades of data show that the median CPI mainly tracks a single component–the non-market owners-rent— of the CPI. The correlation between the median CPI and the owners-rents index is 90%. Medical services are the only other component of the CPI with a correlation value of over 50%, but its weight of 7% is relatively tiny compared to the 24% weight of owner-rent.

The relatively high correlation of owners’ rent to median or core inflation is significant for two reasons. First, the anchoring process means that core or median CPI inflation cannot deviate from the non-market owners’ rent price trends for very long. The non-market owners’ rent is very stable month-to- month and year-to-year, increasing on average between 2% and 3, unlike market housing prices which can rise or fall at double-digit rates. Second, the owners’ rent index exhibits non-cyclical behavior. That means the owner’s rent price index will act as a counterweight to the cyclical price increases that result from the stimulative monetary and fiscal policies and pent-up demand from the pandemic.

The latter point is significant. That’s because dampening or camouflaging actual inflation creates a false picture which, in turn, compels policymakers to maintain a lower official interest rate than what otherwise would be the case.

One of the consequences or dangers of linking the stance of monetary policy to a non-market-driven inflation rate is that it can lead to an escalation of asset prices that fundamentals alone don’t justify.

Since the late 1990s, the ratio market value of the residential real estate and domestic equities to Nominal GDP ranged between 2.5x and 3.75x times, nearly twice the level that existed in the prior 50 years. The tipping points for the tech and housing bubbles occurred at a ratio of 3x times. At the end of 2020, the ratio stood at 3.75x times, a new record.

In the late 1990s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped using the price signal from the single-family housing market to estimate the owner’s rent.

That statistical change resulted in owners’s rent being less of a market-based indicator. And since 2012, monetary policy has been using a 2% consumer price inflation rate as one, if not the main one, of the critical factors in determining the official rate policy.

Is it a mere coincidence that asset valuations relative to GDP have soared in the past two decades, and even more so after policymakers directly linked monetary policy to reported inflation, or is there cause and effect?

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently stated, “When something happened twice, it really time to go ahead and fix it.” Not only did policymakers not fix monetary policy after the two asset bubbles, but they went in the wrong direction as it now directly links official rates to a non-market anchored inflation rate.

I would argue that the odds of a third bubble is relatively high for the simple reason monetary policy is more bubble-friendly nowadays, given the direct link between policy rates and non-market anchored inflation.

The tourism industries of Spain, Greece and other popular European destinations can breathe a sigh of relief. Because according to a leaked report published Wednesday afternoon in the Telegraph, the UK is preparing to make COVID-19 passports available as early as next month, allowing Britons to book their summer holidays without any apprehension.

Britain’s Department for Transport wants an official certification scheme that gives British travelers a document they can show at borders overseas in place by May 17.  In order to help avoid yet another brutally slow tourism season, the EU has recommended that vaccinated travelers should be able to bypass quarantines and other travel restrictions, even though the WHO recently argued that country’s shouldn’t impose vaccination checks on travelers.

The Telegraph first caught word of the plan when it heard about details of a call involving the travel industry and government regulators.

The advanced state of the plans emerged after The Telegraph learnt of details of a telephone call between government officials and industry figures.

The call took place on Wednesday afternoon between members of the Tourism Industry Emergency Response Group and involved discussion of the latest thinking on border reopenings.

A government official on the call is understood to have said: “We aim to give people the ability to prove their vaccine status by the time international travel restarts where other countries require it. The earliest that will restart is May 17.”

The comment was noted during the call by one industry source. A second confirmed the broad accuracy of the remark. DfT sources did not dispute it.

The comment is in line with private briefings from government figures that the ban on overseas holidays is expected to be lifted on May 17 at the next stage of reopening.

However, for now, the Government is yet to lock in the May 17 return of overseas holidays, with a final decision expected to be taken early next month once more Covid case data are received.

The paper added that the new “vaccine passport” would likely grant vaccinated Britons (roughly half of Britons have had at least one jab) access to 20 countries that have indicated they could ask travellers for proof of vaccination, such as Israel, Croatia, Turkey, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus. According to data from the NHS, over 33 million people have had a first vaccine dose and more than 10 million have had a second.

Greece will likely be especially grateful for the British vaccine passport, particularly after the US added Greece to the list of nations hit by a new level four State Department travel advisory.

Despite this, Greece has moved to reopen its tourism industry by dropping quarantine rules for travelers from more than 30 nations if they can prove they have been vaccinated, or recently tested negative, for COVID-19.

Just because it’s embracing “vaccine passports” doesn’t mean the UK won’t adopt travel advisories of its own. Though these advisories, like those implemented last year, will apply to foreigners traveling to the UK. When borders reopen, countries will be divided into green, amber and red categories, with testing required in the former and hotel quarantine in the latter. It is unclear how vaccination status will be factored into this system.

Source: the Telegraph

Circling back to the UK, the vaccine certificate could come in either digital or physical form. Right now, government officials exploring the best way to make it work in the tight time frame, and a final conclusion has yet to be reached.

By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management, which has invested over $1 billion in cryptocurrencies.

“By shining light on this, we’ll draw people’s focus,” said Marcel, my head of research. “More accurate electricity generation and consumption data will naturally come to us – you’ll see. And with clean data, industry will push for faster progress.”

His idea was sparked when I shared info from my network about a Brazilian company that pioneered private carbon-offset-credit tokenization. We were brainstorming with Sebastian, my new digital president, about how to tackle Bitcoin’s ESG concerns.

We see Bitcoin’s social and governance score as a 10 out of 10 given that its decentralized protocol is governed by a remarkable form of democracy and transfers power from usurious financial institutions to individuals.

But miners who secure the network use lots of electricity. This is by design – a feature, not a bug.

Electricity secures the global Bitcoin network. The environmental impact is material. And as with any remarkable innovation in human history, it is rightly scrutinized and held to a higher standard than archaic incumbents — that’s how progress happens.

“We can already approximate the global electricity required to power the network, then through a range of geolocation estimations calculate the percentage produced by carbon-emitting generators, which allows us to calculate the carbon footprint,” explained Marcel, marching me through the math.

Bitcoin miners increasingly gravitate to the world’s lowest-cost electricity which is increasingly generated from renewables which create surpluses that can’t be stored (e.g. hydro-electric in a rainy season, gas flaring, wind turbines at night). The electricity they purchase supports the electrical grid, funding renewable infrastructure.

“We can conservatively estimate that 44% of the 144 terawatt-hours of annual electricity consumption that powers the network is still generated by carbon-emitting producers.”

That percentage will decline, approaching 0% as renewables gain dominance, in part funded by electricity consumed by Bitcoin miners.

“I’ve figured out how to purchase tokenized carbon-offset credits for our digital asset products, and also be the first to launch a Carbon-Neutral Bitcoin ETF – we can lead in our approach to regulation and ESG,” said Marcel. “Others will follow – that’s how we drive change.” Three months of quiet work later, we built it.

Here’s the carbon-neutral Bloomberg article:  Brevan Howard-Backed Firm Plans Carbon-Neutral Bitcoin Funds

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has issued what is being called a “dire warning” about CO2 emissions, stating that global emissions are going to rise 5% this year – likely as a result of the economic rebound attributed to Covid.

The agency said the levels would be “anything but sustainable” for the climate, Reuters reported Tuesday. However, estimates for emissions wound come in under 2019’s peak. 

The IEA released its Global Energy Review for 2021 and predicted CO2 levels would rise to 33 billion tons this year, up 1.5 billion tons from 2020. It marks the “largest single increase in more than a decade”. 

In 2020, as power use dropped due to the pandemic, energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 5.8% to 31.5 billion tons. They peaked in 2019 at 33.4 billion tons. 

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said: “This is a dire warning that the economic recovery from the COVID crisis is currently anything but sustainable for our climate.”

The rise will be chalked up to a resurgence in coal power due to the economic re-opening. Yet, despite the panic and the talk of a “dire warning”, 2021 emissions are set to come in under 2019’s peak – and there’s a reasonable explanation for the 5% rise that the IEA is making noise about.

Meanwhile, overall global energy demand is expected to increase 4.6% in 2021, led by emerging markets and developing economies. Fossil fuel demand is also forecast to grow in 2021, as coal and gas demand is expected to rise above 2019 levels. “More than 80% of the projected growth in coal demand in 2021” will come from Asia, the report noted.

The report is expected to “put pressure” on the Biden administration to act (read: print money we don’t have and allocate it to every “green” boondoggle in sight) on climate change. 

By Kim Link-Wills of FreightWaves,

Hapag-Lloyd has ordered 150,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in an effort to combat slow turn times. The cost — about $550 million — represents one of the German ocean carrier’s largest container orders ever.

Import surges at U.S. ports, labor shortages caused by COVID-19 outbreaks and severe port congestion, particularly on the West Coast, all have contributed to a slow turnaround of containers to be sent empty back to Asia to be refilled.

Hapag-Lloyd said in the announcement it “needs significantly more than the normal number of boxes to carry the same volume because boxes are turning slower.”

CEO Rolf Habben Jansen explained in February, “Normally you would sail 12 days [to LA/Long Beach]. You unload two or three days and then you get the box back one or two weeks later from the customer. Today you sail 12 days, you wait for a week. The dwell time of the container is double what it is normally and then you have another delay on the rail side, so you easily lose a week or two weeks before you get the box back.” 

Despite the challenges, Hapag-Lloyd’s 2020 net profit was up a staggering 155.4% to $1.06 billion. 

Some of the 150,000 TEUs were delivered in the first quarter and have been integrated into Hapag-Lloyd’s container fleet. But most of the dry boxes and “state-of-the-art” reefer containers will be delivered in the coming months, Hapag-Lloyd said. The shipping line also has ordered 8,000 TEUs of special containers for oversized or dangerous goods. 

“The container shipping industry is currently seeing unprecedented demand, which has led to a shortage of containers all over the world,” Habben Jansen said in the announcement. “With its recent container orders, Hapag-Lloyd is contributing to efforts to ease the current situation and will be able to offer its customers a much better service.”

Exxon is trying to cash in on some of the ESG hysteria that has gripped markets over the last 18 months by offering up the idea of a $100 billion hub to capture carbon dioxide along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

And given all the hot money in ESG and the Biden administration’s propensity to print and throw cash at anything that sounds the slightest bit “green” without paying any rhyme or reason to cost/benefit, we can’t say we blame Exxon. 

Exxon “along with a multitude of private and public partners” would build the facility to trap emissions from refineries and facilities along the Houston Ship Channel, the Houston Chronicle reported. The facility “could bury 50 million tons a year beneath the Gulf of Mexico by 2030”, the report notes. This is more than all CCS projects currently in operation. 

The cost of such a facility had never made sense in the past, which is why Exxon is now lobbying for taxpayer money to engage in the project. “It will need government and private-sector funding, as well as enhanced regulatory and legal frameworks that enable investment and innovation,” the company said.

The company had started a similar, smaller project in Wyoming last year, but it was put on hold due to (surprise) the economics amidst the pandemic. 

And while Exxon is trying to tap into the ESG mania, Board Member Jeff Ubben has also been warning about some of the ESG products on the market. Back in March we noted that there probably isn’t much of a better weathervane on ESG investing than Ubben. Ubben was ahead of the curve in embracing the idea of ESG investing before it became the FOMO-investing-technique du jour for most of 2020 and 2021. 

Back in January 2020, Ubben was praising BlackRock for its stance on climate change. “It is pretty exciting,” he said. “ESG, that’s the ticket that’s how we get the long-term back.” 

But then in March 2021, just 15 months after his original comments, Ubben went on record in saying BlackRock’s ESG products “won’t address climate change”. 

In what now was perhaps a bit of telegraphing and pre-planning, Ubben called them “misguided” last month and said he takes exception to the ESG products because “they don’t reward carbon-intensive companies that are reducing emissions”.

Ubben said that simply buying ETFs because they have a high ESG score has a “very second or third derivative effect” on climate change.  

And, of course, Ubben is right and is waking up to a reality that, eventually, we expect the rest of the market to open its eyes to. We have constantly documented the numerous “ESG” funds that have hilariously bought up names like Chevron, Exxon, Microsoft, Apple and other names that seemingly don’t have any “extra” added environmental benefits to them.

ESG is the biggest virtue signaling scam ever:

“BlackRock iShares ESG Aware ETF (ESGU) includes stakes in Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., for example, while its biggest holdings are in tech companies under investigation for monopoly abuse”https://t.co/Gbwpw5RKPR

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 25, 2020

Some ESG funds break down to look just like index funds. Others seem hilariously askew to be “ESG” focused. 

Last month we wrote that Tariq Fancy, former chief investment officer for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, wrote an op-ed in USA Today, admitting that Wall Street is greenwashing the financial world, making sustainable investing merely PR, which is a distraction from the problem of climate change.

Fancy appeared later in the day on CNBC and stunned the always-ready-to-virtue-signal anchor by telling her that that “the financial services industry is duping the American public with pro-environment, sustainable investing practices.”

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A university teacher has published a fascinating article in which he argues that the shut down of pubs in the United Kingdom is about silencing dissent.

The article by Sean Walsh, which was carried by LockdownSkeptics, questions why pubs are still semi-closed while other “non-essential retail” stores are allowed to fully open despite the fact that the entire hospitality industry was responsible for just 3 per cent of total COVID infections last year.

“It’s tempting to conclude that the SAGE types are not worried that pubs are possible vectors of transmission, but that they are concerned that hospitality venues are potential theatres of dissent,” writes Walsh.

He also notes that health bureaucrats seem to be intent on the British public remaining joyless as part of some demented puritanical drive to oversee the “crude sanitisation of our understanding of the human soul.”

Walsh accurately identifies the pub not just as a place of fun and frivolity, but an organizing forum where populist sentiment takes shape.

“It is in the pub that people can whisper conspiracy against a Government narrative. And conspiracies always require that the like-minded are allowed to gather. It is over a drink that the millionaire and the pauper can come together and compare notes,” he writes.

“(Boris) Johnson is currently offering us a sinister inversion of what a pub is, one in which you are tracked, traced, audited, judged, and humiliated. The “road map”, in this industry at least, is one that leads you not into “normal” but into a “Twin Peaks” version of it,” adds Walsh.

He concludes by arguing that if the government was trying to build a police state, one of the first things it would do is to “stamp on the enjoyment of the great unwashed and confiscate all mechanisms of dissent.”

“The Government’s war on pubs is ticking both those boxes,” writes Walsh.

One has to question whether government efforts to punish pubs while allowing throngs of crowds to gather outside retail outlets goes deeper than health considerations given the minimal contribution bars and restaurants had to the spread of the virus.

Could the war on pubs have also been a deliberate attempt to prevent people from coming together to pierce the monopoly control the media wielded over the entire lockdown narrative?

As we highlighted yesterday, many pub landlords are infuriated with the attack on their livelihoods, leading in one case to an owner kicking out Labour leader Keir Starmer after a heated confrontation about his party’s support for lockdown.

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Israeli intelligence officials days ago told Axios that they beleive a restoration of US participation in the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) is as little as “weeks” away. Top Israeli officials have lately tried to lobby Washington against pursuing the ongoing Vienna talks. 

“We are not very optimistic to say the least,” a senior Israeli official had said to Axios. “We will not be surprised if within weeks the US and other world powers sign a deal with Iran.”

This assessment appears to be accurate, as the latest statement out Tuesday from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani indicates the negotiating sides have already resolved 60-70% of the key barriers that previously stood in the way of restoring the deal.

In the face of recent Israel ‘sabotage attacks’ – particularly against the Natanz enrichment facility on April 11, which Tehran had denounced as “nuclear sabotage” – Iran’s leaders have remained resolute in seeing Vienna talks through, essentially boasting that Tel Aviv’s machinations will not stand in their way.

The Times of Israel presented Rouhani’s latest words on the Vienna talks as follows: 

The “negotiations have achieved 60-70 percent progress,” Rouhani said, according to the IRNA news agency.

“If the Americans act honestly, we will reach a conclusion in little time,” he added.

US statements have also suggested ‘positive’ signs but have still emphasized “a long road ahead”. “I think it’s fair to say we have more road ahead of us than in the rearview mirror,” US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said this week.

It’s as yet unclear how quickly the US side said it’s willing to drop sanctions, which has been the firm and unwavering position of the Islamic Republic from the start. At this point for Rouhani to give such an optimistic assessment of “70 percent progress” on key issues, Washington must have vowed significant and rapid sanctions relief. 

Meanwhile, with the writing on the wall for Tel Aviv, Israeli officials are now doing some damage control in terms of pressing for at least more far-reaching nuclear inspections and oversight as part of the US return to the deal. Israel is also attempting to spotlight Iran’s conventional ballistic missile program:

Israel is lobbying the US to include improvements to the oversight of Iran’s nuclear program, the Kan public broadcaster reported on Tuesday night. Jerusalem is pushing for International Atomic Energy Agency officials to have greater powers in inspecting the nuclear sites, according to the report.

Mossad intelligence agency director Yossi Cohen and National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat will both head to the US early next week to push the position on Jerusalem’s behalf, the report said.

Recently the Biden administration reportedly told the Israelis to stop the covert attacks against Iranian assets which appear bent on derailing the Vienna process. 

Israeli media reported over the weekend that in backchannel communications the White House voiced “displeasure” not only with recent covert attacks – particularly the April 11 Natanz nuclear site incident – but its willingness to ‘leak’ its culpability to the public.

The next round of talks in Vienna are expected to commence in earnest next week.