Half Of Russia’s 20 Richest Men Haven’t Been Targeted By Western Sanctions
Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, 20 Russian billionaires have been sanctioned by the EU, US, UK, Switzerland, or Canada. But for every Russian oligarch who has been targeted by Western sanctions, there’s another who has slipped under the radar, and who is still free to largely go about their business abroad without any constraints.
Half of Russia’s 20 richest people have not been sanctioned over its war in Ukraine, leaving a group of super-rich, powerful billionaires free to operate around the world without legal restriction.
As we have previously reported, Russian oligarchs with a combined net worth of about $200 billion have been sanctioned. But according to Bloomberg, the patchwork pattern of cross-border penalties that has spared many Russians with “business interests in key global markets.” The UK has sanctioned 10 of the richest billionaires and the EU nine. By contrast, the US has sanctioned just four. And while three men feature on all three lists, four of Russia’s five richest men haven’t been sanctioned anywhere.
Energy executive Leonid Mikhelson, steel tycoon Vladimir Lisin and Vagit Alekperov, chairman of oil giant Lukoil are among the other richest Russians who have not been sanctioned. All own significant holdings of publicly traded companies operating in Russia’s highly politicized business environment, according to Bloomberg.
The most notable member of this group is Russia’s richest man, Vladimir Potanin. A metals magnate who was worth $30 billion on Feb. 18, the final day from which data are available.
Moving beyond Russia, western sanctions impact hundreds of people worldwide, with the UK leading the US and EU in terms of the number of sanctioned individuals. Meanwhile, fewer than 300 people face sanctions from the US, UK and Europe.
While Russia’s incursion into Ukraine inspired the west to “supercharge” their sanctions regimes, the fact is that most of those targeted were already facing some level of sanctions before the war began.
That means most of those who have been sanctioned in recent weeks have already had years to develop strategies to blunt the impact of sanctions. For example, after being targeted by sanctions, steel baron Alexey Mordashov transferred his majority stake in gold miner Nordgold to his wife, Marina. Most oligarchs have real estate ownership in relatives’ names or have assets registered in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands or the Isle of Man. It’s a strategy that has also purportedly been used by President Putin himself.
The long-running General Social Survey has found that more than 20 per cent of post-lockdown Americans describe themselves as “not too happy” for the first time since the survey began in 1972.
Respondents to the survey were asked, “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?”
“The percentage of Americans saying “not too happy” has been consistently below 20% since the question was first posed in 1972,”writes Noah Carl.
“But in the latest survey, something rather concerning happened: there was a dramatic rise in the percentage saying “not too happy” – from less than 15% in 2018 to more than 22% in 2021.”
In addition, in 2018, the percentage of Americans who described themselves as “very happy” stood at 30 per cent. Four years later, post-lockdown, it’s below 20 per cent.
“Changes of this magnitude in social surveys are extremely rare, especially when it comes to questions like the one about happiness,” points out Carl, suggesting that the dramatic drop in happiness could have been caused by lockdown measures.
He points to a 2021 Gallup survey which found that 12 per cent of Americans said they were “very dissatisfied” with their quality of life, up from just 4 per cent the year before.
Carl explains how loss of life due to COVID isn’t likely to explain the increase in depression.
“Well, we know that the fall in life expectancy in the U.S. in 2020 was ‘only’ about 1.8 years, and part of that fall was due to the massive increase in homicide. Now, 1.8 years sounds big, and it is a large year-on-year change. But it only takes the country back 18 years in terms of rising life expectancy.”
“In other words, U.S. life expectancy was lower in 2001, 2000, 1999 and every year before that. Yet, as we can see in the chart above, happiness was substantially higher back then. In fact, it was substantially higher in the 1970s – when life expectancy was up to six years lower than in 2020.”
“This suggests that the response to the pandemic – including lockdowns, mandates and the spreading of fear by the media – is a more plausible explanation for the drop in happiness than the pandemic itself,” he concludes.
As we previously highlighted, COVID-19 lockdowns were found to have been a major contributing factor to a doubling in attempted suicides of those aged between 5-25 in Australia.
A study released last month by the renowned Johns Hopkins University concluded that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
NYC Office Glut Hit Highs Not Seen Since Dot-Com Bust
Since the virus pandemic, Manhattan landlords have been struggling with a glut of commercial real estate properties as companies shrink corporate footprints and implement hybrid work models that allow white-collar workers to work remotely.
Demand for office space in NYC was dismal in the first quarter. Space available hit another record high as the availability rate across the metro area hit 19%, the highest since the dark days of the Dot Com bust (2000), according to Bloomberg, citing a new report from Savills Research.
A quarter of all offices were dormant in the Financial District, compared with 17% a year ago. Savills attributes the jump to a pair of redevelopment projects, including the former Deutsche Bank headquarters building.
Firms searching for space focus on “new top-tier space,” said Sarah Dreyer, senior vice president of research and data services at Savills. Asking rents for new buildings in the quarter were up 1.7% to $77.34 a square foot. Average rents in the Financial District were $57.60 a square foot, compared to $83.70 in Midtown.
There will be no recovery in the city’s office sector unless workers return to the office.
Keycard swipes tracked by security company Kastle Systems show NYC offices are about 36% occupied, far below pre-COVID levels. Even as companies announced return-to-office dates, many implemented a hybrid work model that allows white-collar workers to work remotely part of the time. Some companies have entirely reduced their corporate footprint and enforced remote working for some employees.
Without white-collar workers, economic recovery will be slow to materialize in the city as the 7.6% unemployment rate is shockingly high compared with the rest of the country (nationwide average of 3.8%). The ripple effect of reduced officer workers damns the local economy.
The Partnership for New York City business group published a recent survey showing that only 16% of top NYC firms say daily attendance in their Manhattan office was above 50%. The poll showed that about 75% of employers delayed return-to-office plans due to a spike in COVID infections year, and 22% said they don’t have a timeline on when offices will be full again.
Clearly, America is not leading the “green” new world order, and Biden seems to have no meaningful plan for how to get us there other than radical disruptions to our lifestyle and a heightened reliance on China.
When it comes to oil and gas, it seems Biden’s new world order would continue his policy of decreasing American energy independence and increasing U.S. reliance on bad-faith state actors — thereby ironically funding their efforts to undermine America in the global order.
What does Biden’s record in the Middle East suggest that the new world order will resemble there? Well, the president is pushing to sign an agreement brokered by Russia, and backed by China, reportedly to remove sanctions on Iran, delist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the terrorist organization it is, and allow Russia to purchase Iran’s “excess” enriched uranium — perhaps to use against its next “Ukraine”?
Finally, what is Biden’s vision for this new world order with China? The message could not be more mixed. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, suppressing freedoms in Hong Kong, militarizing at least three of the artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, perfecting hypersonic missiles and “satellite crushers”, threatening Taiwan, and signing new friendship agreements with Russia. Meanwhile the Biden administration was sharing intelligence about Russia with China. Apparently, the administration had some quixotic hope that China would join the U.S. in discouraging Russia from attacking. At the same time, it turns out, China was sharing its intelligence information from the U.S. with Russia. One can only wonder who came up with the crazy idea that the CCP would join with the U.S. in maintaining order and stability in Europe.
Apparently, the administration had some quixotic hope that China would join the U.S. in discouraging Russia from attacking. One can only wonder who came up with the crazy idea that the CCP would join with the U.S. in maintaining order and stability in Europe.
Indeed, Biden’s vision of a new world order led by America looks more and more like a new world of disorder.
So, while it is not clear what Biden meant when he referenced America leading a new world order, his record over the last 15 months suggests it consists of a weakened U.S. economy hamstrung by inflation, war in Europe, unraveling alliances in the Middle East and growing uncertainty in Asia.
If this is the unintended consequence of Biden’s new world order, it is time for him to go back to the drawing board. The world has suffered enough. The time has come for him to recalibrate the global nightmare that his policies have created.
U.S. President Joe Biden recently closed his remarks to the Business Roundtable with a confusing reference to a “new world order.” He stated, according to the White House transcript of his speech:
“It occurs every three or four generations. … [A] time when things are shifting. We’re going to — there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. And we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”
What was the president talking about? It came at the end of his speech; he did not elaborate on what he meant. Presumably he was referring to the ongoing shifts in the post-World War II global power structures, but does Biden have a plan for America’s role in what this new world order would look like, as Europe finds itself potentially engulfed in a major war?
The American people are left to find the clues and try to figure out what Biden might have meant. The best we can do is turn to the policies he has implemented during his first 15 months in office to see if any elements of his plan for America in this “new world order” can be discerned.
The central animating policy push for Biden and the Democrats has been the “Green New Deal.” Given America’s vast energy reserves and technological know-how, will the U.S. lead in “greening” the planet and providing safe, stable energy supplies to the West and its allies and partners? The short answer seems to be no. China dominates in the production of rare earth materials, solar panels and windmills; six of the top 10 manufacturers are based in Communist China. Clearly, America is not leading the “green” new world order, and Biden seems to have no meaningful plan for how to get us there other than radical disruptions to our lifestyle and a heightened reliance on China.
Other Biden energy decisions are just as baffling. When he took office, Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline in America, but greenlit Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would lock in Europe’s dependence on Russia for gas. He also opposed congressional efforts to sanction the pipeline in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, I was a vocal proponent of the Trump administration’s policy to oppose Nord Stream 2. Along the same lines, Biden, on his first day in office, unequivocally accepted the Paris Agreement on climate, reentering America into this deeply flawed pact.
Rather than support America’s energy independence and oil and gas production, Biden has left American consumers holding the bag as gasoline prices in the U.S. have spiked to anywhere from $4 to $7 per gallon of gas. The energy crisis is so bad that the Biden administration is talking about purchasing oil from Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to oil and gas, it seems Biden’s new world order would continue his policy of decreasing American energy independence and increasing U.S. reliance on bad-faith state actors — thereby ironically funding their efforts to undermine America in the global order.
Is the Europe of today, a continent consumed by the fear of war with Russia, part of Biden’s vision for a new world order? His backing for Nord Stream 2 only seemed to embolden Russia, and his the undermining of U.S. production left America buying a half million barrels of oil per day from Russia. At $110 per barrel, American taxpayers are therefore funding Russia’s war machine by more than $20 billion a year. Since the administration’s gifts to Russia — the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and extending the New START Treaty for another five years — have not worked out for the U.S., the people of Ukraine, or Europe, is Biden modifying or reconsidering his plan for a new world order? In an interview aired the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden administration “climate czar” John Kerry showed that the administration was still consumed by its “Green New Deal” fantasies, lamenting:
“But equally importantly, you’re going to lose people’s focus… I hope President Putin will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.”
We are left to wonder if any number of decisions made by the administration prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would have changed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculus for the war. What if Biden had not signed off on Nord Stream 2 and had, instead, kept the Trump administration’s policy in place? What if Biden had heeded calls by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and members of Congress to enact sanctions prior to Putin’s invasion? What if Biden had decided to lead instead of follow Europe? Apparently, in Biden’s new world order, America does not lead, it only follows or reacts to others.
What does Biden’s record in the Middle East suggest that the new world order will resemble there? Well, the president is pushing to sign an agreement brokered by Russia, and backed by China, reportedly to remove sanctions on Iran, delist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the terrorist organization it is, and allow Russia to purchase Iran’s “excess” enriched uranium — perhaps to use against its next “Ukraine”?
The president’s confusing desperation to reenter the bad Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran is driving U.S. allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to question their relationship with the U.S., and evidently moving them at least to consider strengthening their ties with Russia and China. Israel has tried to balance the U.S. and Russia on Ukraine. Saudi and UAE leaders have declined to take calls from Biden but did take calls from Putin. It also cannot be missed that just prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia, China and Iran conducted joint military drills.
Finally, what is Biden’s vision for this new world order with China? The message could not be more mixed. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, suppressing freedoms in Hong Kong, militarizing at least three of the artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, perfecting hypersonic missiles and “satellite crushers“, threatening Taiwan, and signing new friendship agreements with Russia. Meanwhile the Biden administration was sharing intelligence about Russia with China. Apparently, the administration had some quixotic hope that China would join the U.S. in discouraging Russia from attacking. At the same time, it turns out, China was sharingits intelligence information from the U.S. with Russia. One can only wonder who came up with the crazy idea that the CCP would join with the U.S. in maintaining order and stability in Europe.
Indeed, Biden’s vision of a new world order led by America looks more and more like a new world of disorder. Instead of articulating a clear vision of American leadership, our actions on the world stage have been directed by Russia, Iran, China, and even Europe. The situation has undermined America’s ties to its traditional allies; they seem to be having difficulty understanding the president’s global vision, and seeing the new world order evolving to one where America leads, but only from behind, in reaction to the whims of others.
So, while it is not clear what Biden meant when he referenced America leading a new world order, his record over the last 15 months suggests it consists of a weakened U.S. economy hamstrung by inflation, war in Europe, unraveling alliances in the Middle East and growing uncertainty in Asia.
If this is the unintended consequence of Biden’s new world order, it is time for him to go back to the drawing board. The world has suffered enough. The time has come for him to recalibrate the global nightmare that his policies have created.
* * *
Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.
The Washington Postreports that the Biden administration may be planning to end Title 42 “public health” expulsions migrants at the southern border:
The Biden administration is planning to lift the Title 42 border controls that authorities have relied upon during the past two years of the pandemic, but the restrictions will not end immediately, according to two officials familiar with the preparations.
The administration is expanding border facilities and migrant processing capacity with the goal of fully lifting the pandemic restrictions in May, according to one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly. Biden officials have insisted they will defer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is completing a review of the Title 42 restrictions and said it will announce its determination this week.
The Trump administration implemented the Title 42 order in March 2020, characterizing the measure as an emergency safeguard to prevent the spread of infection inside detention cells, border stations and other crowded settings. The order has allowed border authorities to bypass normal immigration screening procedures and rapidly expel border crossers to their home countries or to Mexico without affording them a chance to seek humanitarian protection under U.S. law.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has carried out more than 1.7 million of these “expulsions” over the past 24 months, the majority under President Biden.
The Title 42 expulsions have caused immense suffering, while doing little or nothing to stop the spread of Covid-19. As I explain in this article (pp. 439-40), the expulsions were begun by Trump and perpetuated by Biden for primarily political reasons, over the opposition of public health experts at the CDC and elsewhere.For many of those expelled, the Title 42 policy has resulted in terrible suffering, including “death, torture, and rape.”
While it’s a good thing that Biden may finally end the expulsions, it’s reprehensible that the White House continues to hide behind the skirts of the CDC, perhaps hoping to convey the impression that they’re just “following the science.” In reality, this was a White House-driven and politics-driven policy from first to last.
More generally, the CDC’s record during the pandemic undercuts the case for giving that agency vast discretionary authority and broad judicial deference when it exercises it, because it can be relied on to base policy purely on “objective” scientific considerations. Again and again, the agency has proven susceptible to political pressure from both left and right. That happened with the Title 42 expulsions, the eviction moratorium eventually invalidated by the Supreme Court, the transportation mask mandate, school mask mandates, and much else, besides.
Even if government agencies deserve special deference when they enact policy based on specialized scientific expertise, such disinterested expertise has been notable primarily by its absence, when it comes to CDC’s role in Covid pandemic policy. Both Trump and Biden have used the agency’s veneer of scientific expertise as a cover for dubious policies actually enacted for other reasons. Courts and others should take note.
Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit partly invalidated the Title 42 policy, ruling that the CDC had the authority to expel migrants, but not to countries where they are likely to face persecution or torture. In my view, the Court should have invalidated the entire policy, as going beyond the authority delegated to the CDC by Congress, and raising “major question” and nondelegation problems. I cover these issues in detail in a forthcoming article about the case and its parallels with the earlier eviction moratorium litigation.
But, legal questions aside, Trump should never have instituted this terrible policy in the first place, and Biden should never have perpetuated it. Even if legal, it was pointless, cruel, and unjust.
The Washington Postreports that the Biden administration may be planning to end Title 42 “public health” expulsions migrants at the southern border:
The Biden administration is planning to lift the Title 42 border controls that authorities have relied upon during the past two years of the pandemic, but the restrictions will not end immediately, according to two officials familiar with the preparations.
The administration is expanding border facilities and migrant processing capacity with the goal of fully lifting the pandemic restrictions in May, according to one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly. Biden officials have insisted they will defer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is completing a review of the Title 42 restrictions and said it will announce its determination this week.
The Trump administration implemented the Title 42 order in March 2020, characterizing the measure as an emergency safeguard to prevent the spread of infection inside detention cells, border stations and other crowded settings. The order has allowed border authorities to bypass normal immigration screening procedures and rapidly expel border crossers to their home countries or to Mexico without affording them a chance to seek humanitarian protection under U.S. law.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has carried out more than 1.7 million of these “expulsions” over the past 24 months, the majority under President Biden.
The Title 42 expulsions have caused immense suffering, while doing little or nothing to stop the spread of Covid-19. As I explain in this article (pp. 439-40), the expulsions were begun by Trump and perpetuated by Biden for primarily political reasons, over the opposition of public health experts at the CDC and elsewhere.For many of those expelled, the Title 42 policy has resulted in terrible suffering, including “death, torture, and rape.”
While it’s a good thing that Biden may finally end the expulsions, it’s reprehensible that the White House continues to hide behind the skirts of the CDC, perhaps hoping to convey the impression that they’re just “following the science.” In reality, this was a White House-driven and politics-driven policy from first to last.
More generally, the CDC’s record during the pandemic undercuts the case for giving that agency vast discretionary authority and broad judicial deference when it exercises it, because it can be relied on to base policy purely on “objective” scientific considerations. Again and again, the agency has proven susceptible to political pressure from both left and right. That happened with the Title 42 expulsions, the eviction moratorium eventually invalidated by the Supreme Court, the transportation mask mandate, school mask mandates, and much else, besides.
Even if government agencies deserve special deference when they enact policy based on specialized scientific expertise, such disinterested expertise has been notable primarily by its absence, when it comes to CDC’s role in Covid pandemic policy. Both Trump and Biden have used the agency’s veneer of scientific expertise as a cover for dubious policies actually enacted for other reasons. Courts and others should take note.
Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit partly invalidated the Title 42 policy, ruling that the CDC had the authority to expel migrants, but not to countries where they are likely to face persecution or torture. In my view, the Court should have invalidated the entire policy, as going beyond the authority delegated to the CDC by Congress, and raising “major question” and nondelegation problems. I cover these issues in detail in a forthcoming article about the case and its parallels with the earlier eviction moratorium litigation.
But, legal questions aside, Trump should never have instituted this terrible policy in the first place, and Biden should never have perpetuated it. Even if legal, it was pointless, cruel, and unjust.
Tesla Signed A “Secret Deal” To Sidestep The Spike In Nickel Prices
As the aftershocks of unprecedented volatility in the nickel market continue to play out, one area of collateral damage that has been in focus has been the electric vehicle market.
Nickel prices, despite falling from highs, still remain at roughly double what they were just months ago and the metal is a key component for electric vehicle manufacturers, as it is used in EV batteries.
But it Looks as though the world’s most well-known EV manufacturer, Tesla, has been able to sidestep the volatility in the market through a “secret” deal it has made with mining company Vale.
Bloomberg reported this morning that a multiyear supply deal for nickel has been in place and covers nickel from Canada. “Unlike most of its peer automakers, Tesla has spent years focusing on how to secure its own nickel supplies,” the report says.
Gene Munster of Loup Ventures said: “What Tesla has done with nickel is a hidden competitive advantage. Tesla continues to be a couple of steps ahead of the rest.”
And Munster is right, in that Musk has “repeatedly” flagged nickel as a concern for the company amidst broader sector demand that is expected to more than triple by 2030.
On an earnings call two years ago, CEO Elon Musk urged: “Please mine more nickel. Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way.”
Meanwhile, other EV manufacturers are left scrambling. “The nickel price surge and the implications from the Russia-Ukraine invasion are likely to push battery manufacturers, particularly in the U.S., to secure alternate supply chains,” Bloomberg wrote.
Tesla’s “secret deal” is one of many it has put in place over the last year, the report says.
Todd Malan of Talon Metals, who Tesla also buys from, said: “People don’t realize how far ahead Tesla is when it comes to securing the supply chain for raw materials and an integrated approach to battery materials.”
Vale, meanwhile, has said it plans on increasing its sales to the EV market between 30% and 40%, from 5%.
Hours after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a fourth shot of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans 50 and older, an FDA official said a fifth shot may be needed in the fall.
“I don’t want to shock anyone but there may be a need for people to get an additional booster in the fall, along with a more general booster campaign if that takes place, because we may need to shift over to a different variant coverage,” Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA center that regulates vaccines, told reporters on a call on March 29.
The fresh emergency use authorization is for a fourth shot for Americans 50 and up and a fifth shot for people as young as 12 with weakened immune systems. The boosters from Moderna and Pfizer target the strain of SARS-CoV-2, or the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, that was circulating in early 2021. Multiple strains have since emerged and become dominant in the United States. Omicron is the latest.
Moderna and Pfizer are testing vaccine formulations that specifically target Omicron.
“It may be that a decision is made that rather than what we currently have, the vaccines we currently have—which are called vaccines against the prototype virus—that we will move to a vaccine that is either against one of the variants—whether it’s Omicron, Beta, or Delta, or something else, I can’t say right now that’s for discussion—or whether it’s some mix of different ones,” Marks said. “But it’s possible that people will need to get another vaccine.”
The FDA authorized the outdated boosters because regulators felt doing so could save lives and because it will likely take several months to discern whether an Omicron-specific booster works, he added.
“And it’s not actually clear yet what the optimal booster should be,” Marks said.
The matter will be discussed during an April 6 meeting with the FDA’s expert advisory committee.
Some experts have raised concerns about repeatedly injecting people with COVID-19 vaccines. The worries stem in part from the main vaccines being built on a technology, messenger RNA, that had never been cleared for use before the pandemic, with others noting that other vaccines provide sufficient protection through shots administered annually, or at less frequent intervals.
If repeated boosters are administered, “we will end up potentially having problems with immune response and immune response may end up not being as good as we would like it to be, so we should be careful in not overloading the immune system with repeated immunization,” Marco Cavaleri, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) head of vaccines strategy, told a briefing in January.
Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the mRNA technology, said research he’s reviewed indicates the vaccines can lead to immune suppression, a condition where the body’s natural immune system is weakened against all kinds of infection and disease.
“This is the risk associated with this strategy of reboosting,” he told The Epoch Times.
Presented with Marks’ remarks, Malone said they were “pure speculation and unfounded.”
“That’s a forward looking statement. There’s no scientific basis for evaluating it. And it’s inappropriate for the FDA to be speculating like that, in my opinion,” he said.
Reuters reports that local authorities have begun locking down some western parts of Shanghai two days ahead of schedule as the number of new cases detected in China’s most populous city increased by one-third despite stringent measures already in place to try to stop the virus spreading. The city’s lockdown is only in its third day.
While residents in the eastern part of the city have been locked down since Monday, those in the west were previously scheduled to start their four-day lockdown on Friday. Now, they’re being told to prepare for the lockdown to begin immediately.
Several residents living in western districts on Tuesday received notice from their housing committees that they would be stopped from leaving their compounds for the next seven days.
“We will resume normal life soon, but in the next period of time we ask everyone to adhere closely to pandemic control measures, do not gather, and reduce movements,” said one housing committee notice seen by Reuters.
Meanwhile the city’s southwestern district of Minhang, home to more than 2.5 million people, said it would suspend public bus services until April 5.
It’s widely expected that locking down Shanghai could have a serious impact on China’s economic growth. According to economists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, locking down Shanghai full-scale could result in a 4% reduction in the national real gross domestic product, economists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University and other institutes estimated in mid-March.
On Wednesday, Shanghai reported a record 5,656 asymptomatic COVID cases and 326 symptomatic cases, up from 4,381 new asymptomatic cases and 96 symptomatic cases during the prior day.
Shanghai authorities said Wednesday that they had conducted 9.1 million nucleic acid tests. They also said they planned to disinfect office buildings, construction sites, wet markets and schools in a month-long campaign to try and stamp out the virus.
China’s “dynamic clearance” approach means it aims to clear all cases, and all people who test positive are sent to central quarantine centers or hospitals. Close contacts and neighbors must quarantine at home.
Many across the city have taken to social media to vent their frustrations in lockdown, posting videos and images of crowded quarantine centers and issuing cries for help for food and medical supplies, while grotesque robots bark orders at them.
Oil Slides As Biden Admin Mulls Huge SPR Release (Again)
Tell us if you’ve heard this one before…
For those keeping score, we believe this is the third time in the last month that the Biden administration has tried to jawbone crude oil prices lower with an ever-increasing ‘threat’ of releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
This time is different though as Bloomberg reports that, according to people familiar with the matter, the Biden administration is weighing a plan to release roughly one million barrels of oil a day for several months. The total release may be as much as 180 million barrels, the people said, which is quite a step up from the 30mm barrel release ‘mulled’ on March 25th (yes 5 days ago).
The instant reaction from the algos was to sell, knocking WTI down around 4%…
However… as much as we want lower gas prices, these actions by the administration are bordering on the insane.
Of course, just like last year’s SPR release, which actually sent oil prices higher as the strategy backfired spectacularly, another shot of supplies from the reserve would probably be futile.
To further illustrate this point, the chart below shows that a release of 180M barrels from the reserve (which is supposed to be reserved for emergencies) would take the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest since 1984…
In fact, this time around, it’s possible – even likely – that the backlash could be even more punishing, since, when adjusted for the present level of implied demand, SPR levels are already at their lowest levels since 2002, with just 33 days of supply.
But like the old saying goes: if at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again. In all likelihood, President Biden and his team probably aren’t all that concerned with the short-term market impact, since political decisions like these are all about optics anyway.
Of course, Einstein seems to have been right: “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
And when this SPR release (should it ever actually happen) fails to do much of anything to drive prices lower, how much longer until the administration resorts to the next logical steps, being 1) gas stimmies (like our European allies) before 2) price controls?
Bear in mind that OPEC+ is still shunning any demands from Biden to increase production ‘for the sake of global democracy….or his approval ratings or some such…’ and the cartel is widely expected to ratify a production increase of 432,000 barrels a day for May.
Simply put, as old saying goes, the cure for high oil (gas) prices, is high oil (gas prices), and notably, there is some evidence of demand destruction starting to happen as gas prices soar to record highs.
And as we noted earlier today, the decline in implied gasoline demand is fairly concrete proof that record high prices are dampening consumption across the country.
On a four-week moving average basis, demand appeared to have stalled out around 8.8 million barrels a day as levels fell behind seasonal trends. Now, it appears to have fully turned around, falling 61,000 barrels a day week on week.
However, of course there is government intervention to consider, consumer subsidies may actually worsen the situation by limiting demand destruction, with California, France, Brazil and Mexico being the latest to enact policies to cut prices at the pump.
We give the last words to @RufusXavierSar2 who succinctly summed up the real farce of all this desperation…
That’s great until the SPR is empty and we have a real oil shock
— RufusXavierSarsaparilla (@RufusXavierSar2) March 31, 2022
And don’t expect any short-term help from this modest drop in oil…
Sadly for Biden’s approval rating (and drivers across the country), the recent resurgence in crude prices suggest pump prices will soon be on the rise again.
