Month: April 2021

While Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be great sophist – skilled in the arts of dramaticism and hubris, her record on Capitol Hill leaves much to be desired according to a survey from the nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking.

Of the 21 “substantive” bills she’s introduced, her legislation has received absolutely no action in committees; no floor votes and no laws, according to the Center – a joint project between Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia, according to the New York Post.

“She introduced a lot of bills, but she was not successful at having them receive any sort of action in committee or beyond committee and if they can’t get through committee they cannot pass the House,” said Vanderbilt political scientist, Alan Wiseman, who co-directs the center.

“It’s clear that she was trying to get her legislative agenda moving and engage with the lawmaking process,” he added. “But she wasn’t as successful as some other members were — even among [other] freshmen — at getting people to pay attention to her legislation.”

When looking at the legislative effectiveness of all congressional Democrats, AOC was ranked 230th out of 240 Democrats. Among the 19 Dem lawmakers from New York state, she ranked dead last.

Among the bills that died at birth were a federal overhaul of public housing, a ban on fracking, and a mandate to provide full federal public benefits to illegal aliens.

Democratic House insiders said many of Ocasio-Cortez’s colleagues found her approach alienating. -NY Post

“Tweeting is easy, governing is hard. You need to have friends. You need to understand the committee process, you need to be willing to make sacrifices,” said one of AOC’s colleagues. “Her first day in Congress … she decided to protest outside of Nancy Pelosi’s office.”

Another Democratic insider who worked with AOC in the New York delegation told the Post that “legislation was never her focus. It was media and narrative.”

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Brooklyn/Staten Islannd) told the Post “Her ludicrous policy ideas would destroy our country — Americans should be thankful she’s not effective.”

Oddly, AOC may be trying to curry favor with fellow Democrats – having donated $5,000 to several vulnerable House Democrats has “raised awkward questions among her colleagues as some swing-district Democrats fret over whether to return her money before the GOP can turn it into an attack ad,” according to Politico.

And while Ocasio-Cortez may be bad at lawmaking, her fellow “Squad” members were a bit more productive – with Rep. Ilhan Omar sponsoring 33 bills (which also went nowhere), while Rep. Rashida Tlaib saw three of her ‘substantive’ bills advance into committee, with one even becoming law.

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

Do you remember the end of Dr. Strangelove? When the Russian ambassador reveals the existence of the Doomsday device Strangelove makes the point that such weapons only have deterrent power if everyone knows about them.

Secret weapons have no ability to deter cataclysmic violence.

The reply from the Russian ambassador is one for the ages, “It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday.”

Remember this when we consider the curious question of the demise of Archegos Capital.

Because sometimes I watch something unfold and I have zero opinion on it whatsoever.  The Suez blockage was one of them.  I had to will myself to care beyond the obvious, “this is bad” reaction. The more I think about it, however, the more significant it becomes (more on that in future posts).

On the other hand, the minute I read a single article about the vaporization of Archegos capital on Moday morning I smelled a rat, or least something vaguely rat-like.  And what immediately popped into my head was this thing is important, but not for the reasons anyone will admit to on CNBC or in the financial press.

In fact, they would go out of their way to demonize Bill Hwang, the head of Archegos, who ‘acted irresponsibly,’ ‘ran a scam,’ et cetera while everyone goes into cover thine own ass mode.

The first thing that stuck out at me was who got hit.  Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Nomura.  Today we can add Goldman-Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, UBS, Deutsche Bank in Europe, to Nomura and Mitsubishi Financial Group. There may even be others.

All Western Institutions. Clue #1

Zerohedge has done impeccable work helping us to understand this story. Today’s article puts the whole thing together (which I heartily recommend you read from top to bottom… twice). The background is in this graf:

As a reminder, and as we previously discussed, we already knew how Archegos was building up stakes in its various holdings: unlike most other investors, the fund never actually owned the underlying stock or even calls on the stock, but rather transacted by purchasing equity swaps known as Total Return Swaps (TRS) or Certificates For Difference (CFD). Similar to Credit Default Swaps, TRS exposed Archegos to the daily variation margin on the underlying stock, and as such while the fund would benefit economically from increases in the underlying stock price (and, inversely, would be hit by price drops forcing it to put up more cash as margin any day the stock price dropped) it would never be the actual owner of record of the underlying stock. Instead, the stock that Archegos was long would be “owned” by its prime broker, the same entity that allowed it to enter into TRS in the first place. As such Archegos also never had any disclosure requirements, allowing it to transact completely in the dark while being fully compliant with SEC disclosure requirements – since it didn’t own the underlying stock, Archegos did not have to disclose it. Simple and brilliant.

The next thing that came out of this article that didn’t shock me in the very least is that Hwang refused to purchase any downside protection for his $100 billion Ponzi Scheme of leveraged credit lines. Clue #2

As Bloomberg adds, at several points during those exchanges, bankers implored Hwang to buy himself breathing room by selling some stocks and raising cash to post collateral. But “he wouldn’t budge.” [emphasis mine]

Now let’s get into what actually happened here.

Archegos is a Chinese family office.  The Biden administration is rapidly descending into anti-diplomatic relations with Russia, China and Iran.  Every possible provocation of the Chinese nd the Russians you can think of is happening.  On March 24th, Ukraine quietly declared war on Russia by making it Ukrainian security policy to retake Crimea (H/T to Mike Snyder at Economic Collapse Blog for finding this little goodie).

Earlier this week we have the Ambassador from the U.S. call Taiwan ‘a country’ in the worse kind of calculated offense and escalation you can think of.

So I have to ask the question, “If you were the Chinese and you were now in a hybrid war with the U.S. how would you send a message back across the Pacific?”

This state of hybrid war, in effect a proxy for a direct military World War III began with the coup in Ukraine in 2014, and has been escalating for years. The entire Trump administration was one big hybrid war exercise of asymmetric attacks on each others’ capital markets and internal domestic policies — sanctions, counter-sanctions, tariffs, currency manipulations, etc.

Would you send warships some place or would you attack our credit markets?

Or more importantly would you plant literal financial tac nukes across multiple sectors of the financial world to combat any big push from the U.S. and Europe to foment a financial crisis on the eve of a conflict going kinetic?

When we go back over the past few weeks of FOMC statements and assess the placidity of the Fed in the face of one of the biggest quarterly moves up in long-term interest rates in U.S. history we have to ask these questions.

The dollar has been rising since the beginning of the year. Russia and China have been accumulating gold like mad to protect themselves from this which has been under sincere attack since last August’s flirtation with $2100 per ounce.

Gold’s Q1 performance was abysmal.

I’ve said before I thought this approach from the Fed was deliberate despite the markets screaming for it to do something. And when all the Fed does to change policy in March is to open up the limits banks can use to access the repo window (from $30B to $80B) while this is happening, again, I ask the question, what are they preparing for?

So, if I’m China and I’m reading the tea leaves coming from the lack of diplomatic skill, if not intentionally amateurish behavior from the Biden administration, what would I do?

How hard is it to think that there aren’t 20 or 30 family offices, unregulated and opaquely trading in CFDs and TRSs, out there with positions just like Archegos’ ready to go off if the Fed continues to allow a rising dollar and rising long-term rates.

The biggest useable weapon the U.S. has is monetary policy.  If you want to blow up China’s rising economy right now you have to allow the dollar to rise, liquidity to drop and induce panic all throughout emerging and frontier markets many of whom are now allies of Russia and China, think Turkey for example.

If you were China how would you defend against that?  By creating asymmetric time bombs that blow back on western capital markets the second the dollar begins to drain overseas liquidity.

To quote Zerohedge, “Simple and brilliant.”

In any prelude to kinetic war there is always a financial war that precedes it.  First give the world excessive amounts of easy money and allow overseas export markets to overlever to supply U.S. consumption markets, then pull the punch bowl away and watch the cheap dollars become albatrosses around their necks.

Welcome to Russia and SE Asia in 1997-99, Turkey in 2018, etc.

There’s been a massive correction in Chinese large caps since the dollar began strengthening in January.  As the Dow Jones Industrials climb higher, the MSCI A50 China Large Cap Index has given back nearly 40% of its gains since last March.

If I’m China, I allow Archegos to go poof and then watch the plumbing of the financial West clog up like the Suez was last week.

This is how you play the real game. And I would be shocked if this is the only family office nuclear time bomb out there.  

Look at the stocks they bought and targeted… Viacom, Discover, Tencent Music, Baidu, etc.  

Remember the first rule of derivatives trading: notional becomes net when the other guy can’t pay. It’s why these prime brokers were running around all weekend selling off major blocks of stock at steep discounts to avoid a deeper panic while assuring us that all is well.

In order to really play this game you have to think a couple of moves ahead.

I’m sure that Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and the others all thought they had these derivatives owned by Archegos properly hedged, but only if Archegos paid up. They never expected to be on the wrong side of the trade.  

What if these were intentionally poison pills? The goal being to take the positions, allow market conditions to blow them up never intending to raise the capital to pay but rather leave the prime brokers of your enemy up the creek?

Because Hwang would never have gotten that kind of credit to play with to make this kind of ‘rookie mistake.’ This wasn’t incompetence on his part. Why else would he steadfastly refuse to buy himself some downside protection?

$10 billion seems a small price to pay to send that kind of message on behalf of the Chinese government.

Zerohedge is again right when it reminds us that the most likely response by the U.S. here is nothing, because to do so would invite real scrutiny as to how many of these tactical nuclear financial bombs exist and how much panic that knowledge would induce.

Which, when you think of it that way, was exactly the point of the lesson Archegos just taught everyone. The Party Congress on Monday announced this to the world.

Boom.

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For many months ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have dealt with massive congestion of ships as trillions of dollars in stimulus results in one-sided trade with Asia. The congestion is so bad at the US West Coast port that the port’s head told importers to expedite container pickup to alleviate congestion on Tuesday. 

“The container dwell time is much higher than it was pre-pandemic,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka told CNBC, referring to the duration a container spends at the port. 

“We’re asking our importers to pick up the cargo as quickly as they can, devan the products and return those containers back to the port,” Seroka said, who added the port is the busiest in North America. 

Data compiled by Marine Exchange of Southern California shows a massive congestion crisis of moored container ships waiting to unload their cargo. 

It’s not just a ship pileup Californian ports are dealing with; one-sided trade with Asia (mainly China), sparked by fiscal stimulus, has resulted in the greatest demand-pull of consumer products ever. Over the months, we’ve documented the massive container shortage in Asia as containers pileup at US West Coast ports. 

“The time it takes for the importer to pick up their cargo at the port is now over four days, but it’s off its high of five days sitting under dwell,” Seroka said, adding there’s been improvement in other metrics, too.

“Truck turn times — the amount of time that it takes a trucker to move in and out of the port to drop off and pick up containers — has decreased to 77 minutes from 88 back in December. So we’re starting to see some of the trendings in the right direction,” he said.

With ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach a complete mess, it’s unlikely congestion issues will diminish as the Biden administration continues to hand out free money to US consumers who turn around and purchase products that are not manufactured in the US. With no easing in sight, Seroka warns higher volume periods will continue and spike at the end of summer due to demand for back-to-school goods and importers preparing for holidays. 

“Before we know it, August will be upon us and we’ll start to see back-to-school goods, other sale items, and then the year-end holidays, the all-important season for retailers,” he said.

As long as the Biden administration continues handing out stimulus checks to Americans who are buying things made in Asia and or the rest of the world, the trade deficit is evidence of this, port congestion on US West Coast ports will continue. 

Authored by Stacey Lennox via PJMedia.com,

Georgia State Representative Park Cannon returned to the State Capitol on Monday following an arrest on May 25, 2021, for making a scene banging on the door to the office where Governor Brian Kemp was signing the election security bill. How that works out is of little interest to me personally. She is not my state representative and legislators who pull stunts to make themselves the story rather than their accomplishments annoy me.

She claimed that she should be able to watch Kemp sign the bill along with the activists who accompanied her. Cannon could have done that by pulling out her phone and watching on YouTube. She claimed she was arrested for fighting voter suppression when she was actually arrested for refusing to follow the police’s instructions and stomping on one officer’s foot repeatedly. That’s conduct unbecoming her position, in my humble opinion.

Her return was quite a spectacle with a presser and an entourage that garnered additional media attention, including from national outlets like Fox News. There were many pictures on social media and in the press showing the activists supporting her. Here is an example from the ACLU of Georgia:

Images from the escorting of Representative Park Cannon into the state Capitol today. #StandWithPark #protectthevoteGA #gapol pic.twitter.com/bCrKjrguLk

— ACLU of Georgia (@ACLUofGA) March 29, 2021

Here is the video from Channel 11:

The circus and attention-seeking have not stopped. Cannon is raising funds and still getting in front of microphones. She is also wearing a sling for what may or may not be an injury related to her arrest. You may make your own assessment. And the entourage seems permanent. On Wednesday, members of the Georgia Republican Party were on-site to witness the spectacle, and they noticed something interesting: an armed guard escorting the entourage. Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer tweeted the images after eyewitnesses sent them to him:

Masked, helmeted private militia carrying AK47s and AR15s showed up today at the State Capitol. You have not heard about it because the gunmen are radical leftists. Imagine the news coverage if one of them was wearing a MAGA cap. pic.twitter.com/4dEatissEk

— David Shafer (@DavidShafer) March 31, 2021

It is unclear if this group was present earlier in the week, as I have not found any images of them on social media from Monday or Tuesday. However, ignoring this element of the entourage would be typical of the media and the Left. At the end of March 2021, armed radical left protestors swarmed the Oregon State Capitol to disrupt a Freedom Rally — to crickets in the establishment press. Only new media covered the story. Many Americans probably do not even know it happened or that antifa destroyed personal vehicles, along with other things.

Yet when armed protestors showed up at the Michigan State Capitol to protest draconian lockdowns or rallied in Virginia to support their Second Amendment rights, the corporate media gave pearl-clutching coverage in advance. The establishment media still reference the U.S. Capitol riot in January after weeks of showing the same reels repeatedly. No arrest to date of someone who entered the Capitol that day includes charges for possession of a firearm.

Here is the full video of Cannon entering the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday:

I will give these individuals the benefit of the doubt regarding the legality of their guns. This article is not a commentary on open carry by legal gun owners. Instead, I intend to point out which type of protestors with firearms the media chooses to comment on and which ones they don’t. The premise for covering the protests in Michigan and Virginia involving members of the political Right was that emotions were high on significant policy issues. Georgia is in the same circumstance now, with the erroneous national and local coverage of the election security law. Even President Biden received four Pinocchios from the Washington Post for his incorrect comments.

The eyewitness who took the video gave PJ Media his impression of what he witnessed:

A half dozen heavily armed militia surrounded the state legislator who was arrested last week for assaulting a state trooper, presumably to protect her from another arrest. It was surreal. There was no clash between the leftists and the state troopers although we saw one trooper with a rifle. There were a half dozen more who were similarly dressed but not openly bearing firearms.

If Cannon has received threats requiring this type of security, providing it requires licensure in the state. If not, the rank hypocrisy of her allowing this on her behalf is pretty astonishing. Here she is at the March for Our lives in 2018, which advocates for gun control, including outlawing the very guns these individuals are carrying:

There is absolutely nothing other than the lack of political will holding us back on passing common sense #gun control measures. The general public is with us not the #NRA. #MarchforourlivesATL@Cannonfor58 @SenNanOrrock @MomsDemand #gapol pic.twitter.com/LZAApczl5o

— Rep. Renitta Shannon (@RenittaShannon) March 24, 2018

She also called Representative Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) her mentor, and McBath ran on a gun control agenda:

Have you seen my mentor @LucyWins2018 in @ELLEmagazine!? Early voting for her runoff is taking place right now in Northern Atlanta where our other strong leader #Ossoff awakened voters last year! https://t.co/QV5P59uRGJ#VoteEarly #MomsDemand #Vote #FlipThe6th #GApol

— Representative Park Cannon (@Cannonfor58) July 9, 2018

You can bet if armed citizens showed up to escort a Republican legislator amidst the election security bill controversy, it would have made national coverage. When left-wing groups do it, it is completely ignored. Perhaps Cannon has just adopted the Democrat ruling class perspective “guns for me but not for thee.” You don’t see anyone in Hollywood or Washington D.C. giving up their armed guards while advocating for commonsense gun control. It makes complete sense to them that you shouldn’t have one.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warned mortgage firms Thursday “to take all necessary steps now to prevent a wave of avoidable foreclosures this fall.” 

As of March 30, approximately 2.54 million homeowners remain in forbearance or about 4.8% of all mortgages, according to the latest data from Black Knight’s McDash Flash Forbearance Tracker.

CFPB said mortgage firms should “dedicate sufficient resources and staff now to ensure they are prepared for a surge in borrowers needing help.” To avoid what the agency called “avoidable foreclosures” when the forbearance relief lapses, mortgage servicers should begin contacting affected homeowners now to guide them on ways they can modify their loans.

“There is a tidal wave of distressed homeowners who will need help from their mortgage servicers in the coming months,” said CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio. He said,

“There is no time to waste and no excuse for inaction. No one should be surprised by what is coming.” 

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided a safety net for borrowers with federally-backed mortgages who could access forbearance programs. With millions of borrowers in the program set to lapse in the second half of the year, unavoid foreclosure will occur despite the government trying everything under the sun to keep people in their homes.

“Our first priority is ensuring struggling families get the assistance they need. Servicers who put struggling families first have nothing to fear from our oversight, but we will hold accountable those who cause harm to homeowners and families,” Uejio said. 

With the CFPB focused on preventing avoidable foreclosures, the government’s forbearance programs ends in September, which could result in the quick unraveling of the social fabric for many households who may find themselves homeless. 

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity?

Here’s our weekend roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

Parents against critical race theory placed on enemies list

A Facebook group called “Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County,” a weathy suburb of Washington DC, includes teachers, school board members, and even the county prosecutor.

This group saw fit to create an enemies list to name and target parents who have criticized critical race theory.

We’ve talked about critical race theory in schools before. It teaches children to view themselves as either victims or oppressors, based on superficial characteristics like skin color.

One member of this “anti-racist” parents group decided anyone who doesn’t want their child indoctrinated in racially divisive identity politics is a “racist”.

She asked for volunteers who could help list people who were opposed to critical race theory in schools, and “expose these people publicly.”

She also wanted to find people who could “create fake online profiles and join these groups to collect and communicate information, hackers who can either shut down their websites or redirect them to pro-CRT/anti-racist informational webpages…”

Sadly, other members of the group eagerly provided the names, locations, and other information on people who don’t believe in the holy faith of critical race theory.

One parent landed on the enemies list because she criticized the banning of Dr. Suess, and because she was “very carefully neutral” about critical race theory.

A teacher in the district accused another teacher’s husband of blasphemy against critical race theory.

One mom commented, “Ian Prior spoke about First Amendment concerns… Austin Levine criticized the School Board.”

This is a religious inquisition to exile non-believers from society.

Because the group encouraged actual crimes to be committed against these people, law enforcement is now investigating.

Click here to read the full story.

Masks containing harmful chemical distributed to schoolchildren

Masks distributed to schoolchildren in Quebec were found to contain harmful chemicals.

Health Canada is now warning schools not to distribute the masks since there is a risk of “early lung damage associated with inhalation of microscopic graphene particles.”

Keep in mind that children are the least likely demographic to suffer serious complications from Covid-19— or even notice they have it.

But now in the name of slowing the spread, they have been exposed to a much bigger health risk, with the potential to cause long term health effects.

Once again the cure may be far worse than the disease.

Click here to read the full story.

World-renowned infectious disease expert censored by Twitter for Covid heresy

Harvard Professor Martin Kulldorff, one of the most cited epidemiologists and infectious -disease experts in the world, was censored by Twitter for saying not everyone needs a vaccine.

HERESY! REPENT!

When asked if he thought everyone needed a vaccine, he replied:

“No. Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.”

Twitter slapped the Tweet with a Covid misinformation warning, and blocked it from being liked or retweeted.

Only Twitter can decide which science is true.

Click here to read the Tweet.

Yet CNN says you can’t tell a baby’s sex at birth; NOT censored by Twitter

The governor of South Dakota recently banned biological men from participating in female sports.

In response, CNN promptly reported that “It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.”

Don’t you love the phrasing of, “assigning” sex at birth, as if the doctor just arbitrarily decides, or flips a coin before announcing, “It’s a girl!”

The “consensus” for all of human history has been that, if a baby has a penis, it is “assigned” to the male biological sex, and that if it has a vagina, its a female.

But the science deniers at CNN decided that proper woke journalism requires editing that history out of existence.

Honestly I dislike covering stories like this, because I’m very much in favor of everyone having the freedom to be whoever they want to be. If someone wants to identify as a seedless watermelon, so be it.

But when they start reinventing biology, their social justice propaganda goes way too far.

Ironically, though, Twitter, had no problem allowing CNN’s story (which is decidedly anti-science) to be shared… while the highly-respected infectious disease expert I wrote about in the previous story was censored.

Click here to read the original story using the web archive.

Elizabeth Warren says Senators should be too powerful to heckle

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Amazon got into a Twitter spat on taxation. Amazon said that Warren was one of the people who writes the tax code, and Amazon follows the rules to perfectly legally minimize their tax bill.

Elizabeth Warren replied:

“I didn’t write the loopholes you exploit, @amazon – your armies of lawyers and lobbyists did. But you bet I’ll fight to make you pay your fair share. And fight your union-busting. And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets.”

This is hilarious given that Warren started the spat. Amazon only responded, respectfully, with facts and common sense. But to Warren this is heckling, snotty, and shouldn’t be allowed.

The real irony is that the entire exchange took place on platform built by… a Big Tech company… So Lizzie wants to break ‘em up, but she can’t bring herself to stop using their services. I’d bet she’s an Amazon Prime member too…

Click here to read the Tweet.

UK wants more powers to charge protesters

The UK wants to update public order laws to create a new crime of “Intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance.”

According to Part 3, Section 59, anyone who “obstructs the public or a section of the public in the exercise or enjoyment of a right” can be charged if anyone in their vicinity “suffers serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity.”

And what is the punishment for causing “serious annoyance” or “inconvenience”?

Ten years in prison

The rule also applies if a perpetrator puts someone at risk of suffering annoyance, inconvenience, or “disease.”

Ignore a Covid lockdown rule, potentially exposing others to disease? Ten years in prison.

This bill is so broad that you could face ten years in prison for walking too slowly on the sidewalk.

This insane proposal would allow the government to arrest and imprison just about anyone it wants.

Click here to read the 307 page bill for yourself.

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On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.