Tag: finance

Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

Events of the last few days have made one thing crystal clear: The Democratic Party (and therefore the nation) is being led by two doddering old fools who should be domiciled in a rest home, not the Oval Office and the Speaker’s Chamber.

How that baleful reality coexists with Wall Street’s expectation of an awesome economic future and stock prices which never stop rising to the sky is one of the great enigmas of our times. Or maybe it’s just because $10 trillion of fiscal and monetary “stimulus” in the past year can turn the proverbial sow’s ear into a silk purse. For a time.

By now, of course, we expect idiocy from Sleepy Joe, especially on the economic front.

Accordingly, at his virtual global summit he will be reading-out from the White House teleprompter the demented agenda of the Climate Change Howlers. Therein he will promise to cut greenhouse gases by 50% by the end of this decade, which calamity we can also promise would cut America’s debt-entombed economy to its knees.

That comes after Tuesday’s White House contretemps when he first prayed for a guilty verdict in the Chauvin trial even as the jury was sitting in its deliberations, and then, afterwards, made the risible claim that this tragedy was the spawn of systemic racism.

In fact, Nanny State over-reach was the underlying cause of George Floyd’s arrest and unjust death—just as it is the source of most of America’s unfortunate violence between police and unarmed citizens, back, white and otherwise.

In both cases, of course, we find Sleepy Joe fronting for the hideous core agenda—race baiting and climate hysteria— of a Democratic Party which has lost its way and has been taken over by a camarilla of woke zealots.

Indeed, if there were any doubt about the latter, Nancy Pelosi’s truly venal deification of George Floyd should remove it once and for all.

Yes, the man was a victim, but he was also a drug-addicted criminal lout and grifter, who deserves no place of honor anywhere; and who’s estranged family deserves sympathy and support, but not a $27 million gift of blood money from a woke city council that takes Minneapolis one step closer to its demise every time it meets.

“And thank God, the jury validated what we saw, what we saw,” Pelosi said in front of the U.S. Capitol Building as she delivered remarks with the Congressional Black Caucus. “So, again, thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call out to your mom. How heart-breaking was that? To call out to your mom, ‘I can’t breathe.’ But because of you – and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came out for justice – your name will always be synonymous with justice.”

For crying out loud. George Floyd didn’t sacrifice himself in the cause of justice. He got hopped up on a lethal dose of fentanyl and then foolishly resisted arrest when the original officers on the scene attempted to place him in the backseat of a squad car.

That is to say, the entire narrative culminating in Nancy Pelosi’s hideous idolization of George Floyd has been blatantly wrong from the get go. This case is not about racial justice at all, to say nothing of striking a blow against so called “white privilege”.

For want of doubt, we need to repeat the facts. That’s because they show that episodes like the George Floyd case do not fit the stereotypes of either the BLM and its race-card playing progressive/Dem allies or, for that matter, the Foxified Right’s knee-jerk defense of the nation’s over-empowered, over-budgeted, over-militarized police.

Needless to say, the George Floyd case was not an aberration. During the recent past there were 38 such police killings of unarmed black citizens in 2015, and then 19, 21, 17 and 9 during 2016 through 2019, respectively. That’s 104 black lives lost to the ultimate abuse of police powers.

Of course, the number should be zero police killings of unarmed citizens. There is no conceivable excuse for heavily armed cops—-usually working in pairs or groups—to cause the death of lone, unarmed civilians, regardless of race or anything else.

And in this case that was especially so, and not withstanding several mitigating factors.

For instance, the Minneapolis police officers originally attempted to put George Floyd safely in the back seat of a squad car after his arrest for the petty crime of attempting to pass a counterfeit $20 bill, but he resisted them intensely for up to five minutes. That’s plain as day in the other videos—those from the cops’ body-cams.

The trial evidence from these body-cams also showed that during this struggle around the squad car Floyd said he couldn’t breath six times owing to a severe medical reaction to the fatal level of fentanyl in his blood and the methamphetamines that he had ingested shortly before the incident. These reactions were surely compounded by the man’s “severe” and “multifocal” arteriosclerotic heart disease and clinical history of hypertension, which the Minneapolis medical examiner said was the underlying cause of his death.

Yet after Floyd was cuffed and placed prone on the street, as he himself had requested, and the officers had called for an ambulance owing to his obvious medical distress, the arrest went haywire and Chauvin exposed himself to Manslaughter 2, at least, for no plausible or justifiable reason.

That’s because Floyd had been unarmed throughout the incident, was hand-cuffed and incapable of flight or harming others and was surrounded by four armed officers. Accordingly, he was no threat to them, nor anyone else, and he therefore presented no policing reason for the extended knee-hold on the back of his neck—especially after the surrounding crowd had warned the police that Floyd was in self-evident dire distress.

So as we see it, Chauvin’s conviction on second degree manslaughter does indeed comport with the Minnesota statute, which reads as follows:

…..by the person’s culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another;

But here’s also where the Woke/Progressive Left narrative goes even more haywire. Floyd’s death was due to an arrest which shouldn’t have happened and bad police behavior that has nothing to do with race.

As to the former point, what should have been on trial in this case was not “systemic racism”, but the Nanny State for grotesquely excessive use of force to enforce a petty counterfeiting complaint that should not be police business in the first place. It’s the job of retail store owners to handle petty counterfeiters or people who unknowingly pass bad greenbacks and to absorb the cost of self-protection just like they do in the case of refusing charges on bad credit cards.

So there is zero reason why George Floyd should ever have been arrested.

As to bad police behavior, you do not have to look too hard to see that it’s essentially color-blind and that being non-black is no guarantee against the same unjust fate.

During the same five-year period in which 104 black lives were lost, a total of 127 unarmed white lives were wasted by the police, as well. That included 32 white killings in 2015 followed by 22, 31, 23 and 19 in 2016 through 2019, respectively.

Overall, 302 unarmed citizens were killed by the police during those five years, with the balance accounted for by 71 deaths among Hispanic and other victims. That is, the real issue is illegal and excessive police violence, not racial victimization.

Indeed, the fact that 34% of these police killings involved black citizens compared to their 13% share of the population is not primarily a sign of racism among police forces, although it is continuously construed to be.

It’s actually evidence that the Nanny State, and especially the misbegotten War on Drugs, is designed to unnecessarily ensnare a distinct demographic— young, poor, often unemployed urban citizens— in confrontations with the cops, too many of which become fatal.

Alas, young black males are disproportionately represented among this particular inharms’-way demographic, and that’s the reason they are “disproportionately” represented in the 302 cases cited above.

Stated differently, the Nanny State results in too many black victims of plain old injustice, even if that is not necessarily the intent of the crusaders and zealots who have launched the state into anti-liberty wars on drugs, vice and victimless iniquities and peccadillos.

That is to say, statism in the sphere of law and order is every bit as dysfunctional as it is in the realm of economics, yet neither conservatives nor progressives recognize it.

Conservatives want way too much law and police empowerment in the service of cultural norms that are none of the state’s damn business in the first place; and progressives confuse the often brutal and unjust over-reach of law enforcement agencies as a manifestation of racism, when it is actually just policing expectorations in behalf of inappropriate missions such as the enforcement of drug laws.

Indeed, the main trouble in America today is not overt racism or even simmering racial animosity. The real evil is the relentless aggrandizement of state power in the form of the Nanny State—a conflation of too many laws, crimes, cops, arrests and thereby opportunities for frictions between the state and its citizenry and for abuse by the gendarmes vested with legal use of violence.

In a word, some citizens sometimes can’t breathe their last breath because in far too many instances liberty can’t breathe in today’s unhinged Nanny State, either.

Among the most recent notorious cases, of course, are George Floyd’s fatal arrest for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill; Eric Garner (NYC 2014), subdual for selling untaxed cigarettes; Rayshard Brooks for falling asleep drunk in his car at a subsequently incinerated Wendy’s in Atlanta; and Breonna Taylor of Louisville for being awake in her own apartment at 1:30 AM when police barged in with guns blaring in a drug enforcement raid.

These are anecdotal cases, of course, but the big picture statistics tell the same story. In the most recent year of complete data (2018), there were 9.3 million arrests in the US excluding traffic enforcement charges of DUI. Yet among this massive number of arrests, those involving serious crimes against persons and property accounted for just 521,000 or 5.6%. These included:

• Negligent murder and manslaughter: 11,970;

• Rape: 25,205;

• Armed robbery: 88,128;

• Aggravated assault: 395,800;

That’s it. That’s the contribution to core public safety delivered by the 850,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the USA—about 0.6 arrests per year for serious crimes per law enforcement officer.

As for what they were doing the rest of the time and the other 8,777,000 arrests that occurred in 2018, we can say this: They clearly provided more occasion for conflict between citizens and the gendarmes and for policing actions to go haywire, as in the George Floyd case, than any additional increments of public safety.

After all, the single largest category of arrests in 2018 was for drug abuse violations, which totaled 1,654,282.

In fact, while total arrests for all crimes in 2018 were no higher than they were in 1977 despite a 100 million/50% growth in the US population, and had actually dropped from a peak of nearly 13 million in 2006, the opposite trend was extant in the case of the nation’s misbegotten War on Drugs arrests.

As shown by the chart below, drug arrests in 2018 were nearly at peak levels and were up by more than 171% since 1977—the vast majority of which are made for drug possession generally, and marijuana possession most often.

War on Drugs Arrests, 1980-2016

Not surprisingly, the next largest arrest category after drugs is one called “other assaults” for which 1,063,535 arrests were made in 2018. Yet the FBI’s own definitions raise considerable doubts as to why these are even a proper matter for law enforcement by the state:

Other assaults (simple) – Assaults and attempted assaults where no weapon was used or no serious or aggravated injury resulted to the victim. Stalking, intimidation, coercion, and hazing are included.

Then, of course, we have all the victimless and vice crimes, including the following number of arrests:

• Prostitution and commercialized vice: 31,147;

• Sex offenses excluding rape and prostitution: 46,937;

• Gambling: 3,323;

• Liquor law offenses: 173,152;

• Curfew and loitering law violations: 22,031;

• Vagrancy: 23,546;

• Public drunkenness: 328,772;

• Disorderly conduct: 329,152;

• Forgery and counterfeiting: 50,072;

• Weapons carrying and possession: 168,403;

• All other offenses: 3,231,700.

The latter huge number tells you all you need to know. The UCR lists 27 enumerated categories of crime including all of those itemized above–plus the usual suspects like fraud and embezzlement for which there were about 135,000 arrests in 2018. Yet when the whole lists is exhausted, 32% of arrests occurred for crimes that are so minor even the FBI is embarrassed to enumerate them!

So, yes, we do think there are way, way too many crimes and cops, and that decriminalizing and de-funding law enforcement are the only route to reducing police violence.

But by the same token, the unwarranted and often mendacious racializing of police malfeasance, which the George Floyd case has brought to a fever pitch, will only insure retrogression. That is, it will unleash a blind rallying to the defense of law enforcement by conservative Republicans, blue collar whites and the Foxified Right, thereby insuring a continuing failure to attack and drastically curtail the Nanny State regime, which is the real source of policing injustice.

Of course, don’t expect Nancy Pelosi or Sleepy Joe to be any more enlightened on the matter than Sean Hannity. These doddering old fools are now enthrall to the wokedom of the progressive-Left; and, as Maxine Water’s blatant performance as agent provocateur in Minneapolis the night before the verdict makes clear, these people want the problem to fester and metastasize, not be alleviated.

Indeed, it is probably not too far fetched to say that Congresswoman Waters’ call for a guilty verdict or else a new round of violent uprisings amounted to an insurance policy. Three guilty verdicts could not trigger the latter, but a judicial appeal resulting in a mistrial order surely would.

In other words, the Democratic Party has fallen into the grip of vicious leftist zealots and power-hungry authoritarians. And the events of the last two days suggest that two dangerously wrong-headed and ugly narratives—-race-baiting and climate hysteria— now stand at the center of the Dem agenda because the party’s two supreme leaders are too weak and too senile to resist the mob.

So we’d say to the feverish punters of Wall Street, yes, embrace the putative Economic Boom impending and buy the Greatest Financial Bubble in history, if you must.

But, really, if the events which culminated in Tuesday’s triumph of mob justice do not scare the living bejesus out of you, then, well, you probably deserve to suffer the thundering financial gotterdammerung which is surely coming your way.

Just when some thought the SPAC phenomenon was an ominous warning of an impending market top, Bloomberg reports shocking new details about the Biden administration’s capital gains tax plan, sending markets into a tailspin Thursday afternoon.

And it appears, however briefly, the reality of Biden’s ‘soak the rich’ plan is finally hitting equity markets.

More importantly, DJIA is at critical crossroads attempting to flip a 92-year resistance line as support around the 33,000 handle. The line dates back to resistance from 1929 high to the Dot Com bust. The DJIA has come close to this resistance line since 2018, usually resulting in significant market instability. 

A closer view of the last couple of years and the 92-year log-scale resistance line, notice every time DJIA approached the line, a market panic would form. Since March, DJIA breached the line of resistance and tagged 34,000. 

DJIA’s level in the sand to watch is around 33,000 mark.

Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison and editor Jack Farley tackle the whispers of a capital gains tax hike on America’s wealthiest investors, which triggered a midday sell-off in U.S. equities. Harrison analyzes the progress of global vaccination efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 and argues why he believes the “fourth wave” of COVID-19 in the U.S. is very unlikely to destabilize the economy. Harrison shares with Farley how he sees industries evolving their businesses in a world that is fully re-opened yet still wracked by infection risk, something he terms “the new normal.” This conversation leads to Farley’s analysis of the earnings reports of Southwest Airlines Co ($LUV) and American Airlines Group ($AAL). Lastly, Farley and Harrison take a brief detour into Dogecoin as well as commercial real estate.

Authored by Pat Buchanan,

When President Joe Biden announced he would withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, GOP hawks like Sens. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham responded predictably.

“Grave mistake,” muttered McConnell.

“Insane,” said Graham, “dumber than dirt and… dangerous.”

Of more interest were the responses of conservative Republicans who commended the president. Among them were Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a group that contains several potential candidates for the GOP nomination in 2024.

Donald Trump himself weighed in Sunday, saying Biden’s decision was “wonderful,” but Joe should have stuck to Trump’s May 1 deadline for withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Adding a veteran’s voice to the broad consensus was the American Legion which called for an end to America’s “forever war,” and repeal of congressional authorizations to fight this war.

While many older Republican leaders remain wedded to a Bush foreign policy, some of the prospective leaders of the party seem to be adopting their own versions of “America First.”

Opportunity may be at hand. The door may be open for a leader to articulate a new U.S. foreign policy vision, beginning with a review of our Cold War commitments that became irrelevant with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the Soviet Union three decades ago.

Consider. NATO, which dates back to 1949, today contains 30 allied nations, while U.S. security treaties with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand all date back to the 1950s.

How do all these war guarantees to other nations secure our vital interests, when our first vital interest is to stay out of any great war?

According to The New York Times, a 2020 survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found, “Republican voters preferred a more nationalist approach, valuing economic self-sufficiency, and taking a unilateral approach to diplomacy and global engagement.”

Almost half of Republicans surveyed agreed that the “United States is rich and powerful enough to go it alone, without getting involved in the problems of the world.”

A survey by pollster Tony Fabrizio found that “only 7 percent of Republicans prioritize national security and foreign policy issues.”

The opportunity is transparent.

As domestic concerns are predominant — the COVID-19 pandemic, the invasion across our Southern border, soaring crime rates, race relations as raw as they have been in decades — it is time for U.S. statesman to look out for America and Americans first, and let the world look out for itself.

Biden is a perfect foil — a trans-nationalist and globalist committed to the whole panoply of old security treaties and war guarantees that had existed for a generation even before he came to Washington 50 years ago.

The favorable reaction to his pullout from Afghanistan should have told Biden that. And it should tell Republicans that now may be the time to seize the moment.

Let Republicans openly reject the Biden administration’s unilateral commitments to fight China for tiny reefs claimed by the Philippines in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea.

And, surely, it is time for that “agonizing reappraisal” of NATO promised by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the 1950s.

Why are we still committed, under NATO, to go to war with Russia on behalf of Germany, when the Germans, with their Nord Stream 2 pipeline, are doubling their dependency on Russia’s natural gas?

According to the Atlantic Council President Richard Haas, the U.S. should abandon its policy of “strategic ambiguity” as to what we would do if China attacks Taiwan — and make a commitment to defend Taiwan.

But why should the United States commit to a war with China for an island President Richard Nixon conceded in 1972 was part of China?

Among the reasons Trump won in 2016 is that he offered a foreign policy of easing tensions with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, getting us out of the endless wars of the Middle East, and making free-riding allies pay the cost of their own defense.

Yet, though, currently, we have commitments to fight for 29 NATO nations, there is a push on among our foreign policy elites to add new nations, such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Finland and Sweden.

But, again, why surrender our freedom to decide whether to fight?

As for South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, each could build a nuclear deterrent, as Israel, Pakistan and India have done. If a war were to be fought with China that could go nuclear, why would we want to be a mandatory participant?

Among the reasons the U.S. emerged victorious in the 20th century was that we stayed out of the two world wars longer than any of the other great powers.

“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up,” wrote G. K. Chesterton. Sound advice. But some of these fences were built before most Americans were born, and the world has changed.

Outrage over the shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant has intensified since her death on Tuesday, with activists denouncing it as yet another unjustified police killing, even as police bodycam video clearly shows the young woman raise her knife as if she were about to stab another young girl.

The bodycam footage, which was released by the Columbus PD just hours after the incident, has done little to quell the outrage, possibly because, instead of sharing the unvarnished footage with their audience, MSM outlets have instead engaged in deceptive editing, while the White House has laid it on thick with the virtue signaling.

But a neighbor who owns the home across the street from the spot where she was killed – reportedly right in front of a home owned by her foster parents – has come forward in an interview with the Columbus Dispatch to offer an eye-witness account portraying the shooting as potentially justified – or, at the very least, the result of an extremely difficult split-second decision made in a moment where multiple lives appeared to be in jeopardy.

Donavon Brinson, who recently bought the home from his father, who lived there for 14 years, said that he arrived home from running errands on Tuesday afternoon and saw a commotion among some girls outside.

“They were calling each other the B-word, so I figured it was just a girl fight,” Brinson said.

But when he stepped outside to walk his dog, Max, the situation had escalated. Shortly after he popped back inside, he heard four gunshots ring out across the street. And while his wife hit the floor, he immediately thought about the security camera installed outside his garage, which captured the fight.

After reviewing the footage, he told the newspaper that while what happened is unquestionably tragic, he doesn’t see how the officer involved could have made any other choice but to take action: “It was violent and all just happened so fast,” he said.

The footage from his security camera shows the scene at a much wider angle than the police body camera footage released by the CPD. In it, as many as 7 other young people were on or near the property when the attack occurred. Brinson, whose father also spoke with the Dispatch, said the video has been turned over to police. Readers can watch it below:

Another witness who spoke with the Dispatch, Ira Graham III, was working from home when the incident occurred. He works in registration at Ohio State University’s James Cancer Center and also is a photographer and videographer. He said that while he didn’t know Ma’Khia personally, he had sometimes seen her walking through the neighborhood.

“I believe in truth and facts. Video doesn’t lie,” he said. “She was in full attack mode.”

Bryant “was literally aiming a knife at this young lady,” Graham said of the female in pink. “She needed to be stopped at that point. That young lady’s life was at stake.”

Contacted by the Dispatch, Bryant’s foster mom, who hasn’t been identified in the report, said she was at work when the incident occurred. She declined to say anything else. Another witness who spoke with the Dispatch was seen leaving a bouquet of flowers at a makeshift memorial that sprung up at the spot where Bryant was shot. The 23-year-old young woman, who said she knew Bryant, was somewhat less sympathetic toward the police. She wondered why the cop couldn’t have used a taser. “He should have told her to put down the knife,” Taylor said.

In the video released by the CPD, the officer could be heard repeatedly shouting at Bryant to get down before firing off the shot.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has hilariously received the 2021 Free Expression Award – which, as one can tell by looking in the upper-right corner of the ‘awards ceremony’ – was sponsored by YouTube.

The award, given last week, ‘supports the educational work of the Freedom Forum Institute by recognizing individuals for their courageous acts of free and fearless expression.’

Of course, one is free to express themselves on YouTube – unless you’re Steven Crowder, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, The Epoch Times, OANN, or anyone else hoping for visibility or monetization of any content slightly right of Mao.

Thankful for the freedom of expression afforded to me by YouTube. pic.twitter.com/Z2DtLcwz5i

— Gar🐝 J👀man (@Gee2TheAitch) April 18, 2021

More via SHTFplan.com:

In the digital awards ceremony, YouTube video creator Molly Burke praised Wojcicki as a “free speech leader” before the YouTube CEO detailed in her acceptance speech how much the platform censors its users, according to a report by RT. 

“The freedoms we have, we really can’t take for granted,” Wojcicki declared, adding that “we also need to make sure there are limits.” Literally, right after giving herself an award for being a free speech activist, she admits that she’s not a free speech activist and censors people, putting a limit on free speech.

If there are limits, it isn’t free speech. But Wojcicki doesn’t care because she gave herself this award, so it can be as hypocritical as she wants.  She added that YouTube removed nine million videos in the last quarter, 90% of which were taken down by machines. She also said there is “a lot of content that technically meets the spirit of what we’re trying to do, but it is borderline, and so for that content, we will just reduce – meaning we’re not going to recommend it to our users.”

Thankfully, the irony was not lost on the public. YouTube and Wojcicki were thrashed for this:

since no one else has, it looks like i’m going to have to be the one who posts this pic. pic.twitter.com/1P50ipw9Qg

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) April 19, 2021

Politico has turned narrative-shaping up to 11 with it’s latest decision to ban its journalists from using the word ‘crisis’ to describe the flood of illegal immigrants currently overwhelming US border detention facilities after President Biden essentially invited them with campaign promises followed by a flurry of Executive Orders on immigration which all but rolled out the red carpet.

According to an internal Politico memo written by deputy production director Maya Parthasarathy and obtained by the Washington Examiner, journalists are to: “Avoid referring to the present situation as a crisis, although we may quote others using that language while providing context. While the sharp increase in the arrival of unaccompanied minors is a problem for border officials, a political challenge for the Biden administration and a dire situation for many migrants who make the journey, it does not fit the dictionary definition of a crisis,” adding “If using the word ‘crisis,’ we need to ask of what and to whom.”

And while Biden himself used the word “crisis” when describing the border situation last week, the White House has repeatedly denied that the word applies – which means Politico is toeing the official party line regarding the border crisis.

“Avoid emotive words like onslaught, tidal wave, flood, inundation, surge, invasion, army, march, sneak, and stealth,” the memo reads.

More via the Examiner:

Dictionary.com defines a crisis as “a condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change.” The Cambridge English Dictionary describes a crisis as “a time of great disagreement, confusion or suffering.”

The White House has denied the word applies, but Biden and spokeswoman Jen Psaki have both used the word in unguarded moments, prompting walk-back efforts. Politico did not respond to a request for comment.

Border patrol officials logged over 14,000 unaccompanied minors in custody last month. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that roughly 117,000 migrant children will enter the country by the end of the year. For context, 80,000 unaccompanied minors entered through the southern border in all of 2019, when the media seemed to have no problem labeling the surge as a crisis.

After immense pressure from both Republicans and Democrats, Biden himself referred to the situation on the border as a ” crisis” earlier this month.

“We’re going to increase the number. The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people,” he said following a round of golf. “We couldn’t do two things at once, but now, we are going to increase the number.”

Psaki moved swiftly to soften her boss’s words.

“The president does not feel children coming to our border, seeking refuge from violence, economic hardships, and other dire circumstances, is a crisis,” she said when asked about his comments. “He does feel that the crisis in Central America, the direct circumstances that people are fleeing from, that that is a situation we need to spend our time, our effort on, and we need to address it if we are going to prevent more of an influx of migrants from coming in years to come.”

*  *  *

The report also notes that Politico has casually used the word crisis to describe ‘a wide array of other topics.’

Last October, for example, the outlet reported on the “crisis” of “empty retail space.”

Last June, there was a “police brutality crisis.”

They regularly report on the “climate crisis”

But more than 18,000 unaccompanied migrant children crammed into overflowing federal facilities – requiring the government to rent hotel rooms along the border – is not a crisis, according to the Biden administration and Politico – who going forward must avoid using terms “which could portray migrants as a negative, harmful influence” despite the fact that their presence is extremely ‘negative’ and ‘harmful’ to legally immigrated low-income workers who now have more people to compete with for a limited number of low-income jobs.

Intel is currently undergoing a dramatic transformation, and as such its just completed quarter is hardly indicative of what to expect, moments ago INTC reported revenue and earnings which both handily beat expectations, while the company also guided higher. Here are the key Q1 numbers:

• Revenue 19.7BN, down 0.8% Y/Y, but beating exp. of 17.86BN
• Adj. EPS 1.39, beating exp. of 1.15

Looking closer at the company’s segments reveals the following revenue picture:

• Data Center Group Revenue $5.56 billion, -21% y/y, estimate $5.89 billion
• Internet of Things revenue $1.29 billion, +46% y/y, estimate $781.5 million
• Mobileye revenue $377 million, +48% y/y, estimate $332.6 million
• Non-Volatility Memory Solutions revenue $1.11 billion, -15% y/y, estimate $607.9 million
• Programmable Solutions revenue $486 million, -6.4% y/y, estimate $441.4 million
• Client Computing revenue $10.61 billion, +8.2% y/y, estimate $10 billion
• Adjusted EPS $1.39 vs. $1.45 y/y, estimate $1.14 (range $1.10 to $1.25)

Yet not all was great: Intel’s gross margin was 55.2% missing analyst expectations of 57.98%, as the global semiconductor supply-chain fiasco is clearly impacting even companies like Intel. Why does this matter – because until 2019 margins were regularly above 60%, but it was the covid pandemic that really hammered profit margins.

There was more bad news in the company’s Q2 guidance, where the company projected EPS that missed the Wall Street estimate by 6 cents, despite projecting stronger revenue. This makes sense in a world where Intel is having troubles passing on rising costs:

• Sees adjusted revenue about $17.8 billion, beating the estimate $17.64 billion (range $17.14 billion to $18.22 billion); Sees GAAP revenue $18.9 billion
• Sees adjusted EPS $1.05, missing the estimate $1.11

However, the poor Q2 guidance was offset by Intel’s stellar full-year revenue forecast, which was raised by $500MM to $72.5BN, while EPS is expected to come just above the Wall Street consensus:

• Sees adjusted revenue $72.5 billion, up from the $72 billion forecast previously, beating the estimate $72.09 billion; Sees GAAP revenue $77.0 billion, saw about $76.5 billion
• Sees adjusted EPS $4.60, saw $4.55, beating the estimate $4.56

Intel admits to sandbagging guidance, saying that the forecast could be even strong if supply (i.e., the chip shortage) normalizes considering the record demand for PCs. Sure enough, notebook platform volumes increased 54% compared with last year, as demand for laptops remains off the charts:

• *INTEL GAVE CONSERVATIVE FORECAST, COULD BE HELPED BY SUPPLY
• *INTEL SAYS PC ENVIRONMENT VERY STRONG, COULD BE RECORD YEAR
• *INTEL SEES NO INDICATION OF PC DEMAND SLOWDOWN

Some more headlines from an interview with CEO Gelsinger:

 

• Intel Upside Constrained by Supply, CEO Gelsinger Says
• Intel Says PC Environment Very Strong, Could Be Record Year
• Co. Gave Conservative Forecast, Could Be Helped by Supply
• Co. Sees No Indication of PC Demand Slowdown
• Intel Profitability in 2H Crimped by Costs, Competition
• CEO Says Will Be Aggressive in Gaining Market Share
• CEO Says Signs of Enterprise Spending Returning
• Co. Has 50 Customers in Pipeline for Foundry Effort

Despite the solid beat and even more solid full year guidance, investors were not excited by the company’s disappointing quarterly guidance and margin miss, and pushed the stock lower after hours, although much of the kneejerk snap lower has been recovered.

Authored (satirically… kinda) by Charles Cooke via NationalReview.com,

Since when do we need the cops to intervene in the recreational stabbings of our youth?

Just when I thought that America couldn’t possibly get any softer, people start suggesting that there’s a role for the police in preventing knife murders. The snowflake generation strikes once again.

Is there any tradition that the radicals won’t ruin?

As the brilliant Bree Newsome pointed out on Twitter, “Teenagers have been having fights including fights involving knives for eons.” And now people are calling the cops on them? I ask: Is this a self-governing country or not? When Newsome says “we do not need police to address these situations by showing up to the scene & using a weapon,” she may be expressing a view that is unfashionable these days. But she’s right.

“we should let the kids stab each other to death” is quite the take

— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) April 21, 2021

Disappointingly, my colleague Phil Klein has felt compelled to join the critics. In a post published yesterday, Phil asked in a sarcastic tone whether the police should “somehow treat teenage knife fights as they would harmless roughhousing and simply ignore it.”

My answer to this is: Yes, that’s exactly what they should do – yes, even if they are explicitly called to the scene.

I don’t know where Phil grew up, but where I spent my childhood, Fridays were idyllic: We’d play some football, try a little Super Mario Bros, have a quick knife fight, and then fire up some frozen pizza before bed.

And now law enforcement is getting involved?

This is political correctness gone mad.

It’s hypocrisy, too.

Who among us hasn’t come within a second or two of murdering someone else with a steak knife? My best friend in school, Bobby “The Blade” Simpson, used to throw shivs at the smaller kids in the music room. Did we need the authorities to step in when that happened? No, we did not.

As MSNBC’s Joy Reid argued smartly on her show last night, pranks such as these were dealt with by our teachers – just as we all expected they would be.

And if something went wrong? Well, that’s why we had substitutes.

In all honesty, I worry that this sort of helicopter policing is making us weak. Back in my day, the people who survived a good stabbing came out stronger for it. I learned a lot of lessons from my time in the ring: Self-reliance, how to overcome fear, the importance of agility, the basics of military field dressing. And, given the turnover, I also learned how to make new friends.

Today, the free-range generation to which I belong is dying out — and, this time, it is not from the wounds inflicted by everyday teenage knife fights but because our politicians and activists simply cannot leave us be. From the time of the Colosseum, our civilization has had a tradition of lightly regulated, highly entertaining combat. Who are we, exactly, to think we know better?

A Bloomberg report suggesting Biden will pay for some of his “infrastructure” bill by doubling the capital gains tax for high income Americans sparked some brief unrest in US equity markets today…Nasdaq was the hardest hit on the day but we note that Small Caps were sold most after the Biden headline…

Notably, Small Caps briefly got green for the week (after being down over 4% on Tuesday) before Biden buggered it all up…

This is in line to be the worst week for stocks since mid-Feb.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained that President Biden “thinks spending can be on the backs of the wealthiest Americans who can afford it… and our economic team believes that won’t have a negative impact.”

Way to go Joe! pic.twitter.com/wyWti5BLhL

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) April 22, 2021

Leaving many to ask…

Small Caps broke back below their 50DMA…

The day started as usual with a short-squeeze but the Biden headlines spoiled that party pretty quick…

Source: Bloomberg

Stocks fell to a key support level…

Nasdaq closed back below February’s highs…

COIN’s collapse continues, now down 33% from its listing day highs…

by now COIN insiders must have sold all their holdings and are now shorting the stock and buying puts

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 22, 2021

Yesterday’s ridiculous panic puke in VIX (after opex), was destroyed today the fear index spiked back up near 20…

A choppy day in bonds today (albeit another tight range) with the entire curve ending unch aside from the long-end (-1.5bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

The 30Y Yield closed at its lowest since March 2nd…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar continued its flip-flopping trend lower (up on the day)…

Source: Bloomberg

Meanwhile, in crypto land, Ethereum surged to a new record high…

Source: Bloomberg

Breaking out relative to Bitcoin (to its strongest since Aug 2018…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold slipped lower on the day…

WTI managed very modest gains, bouncing off $61 intraday…

And finally, here is the chart that scares Fauci, Biden, and the Washington mob the most… the rising percentage of the US population that is “immune” either by vaccination or infection…

Source

Tick-tock on those spending bills… this “emergency” is running out of steam