July 2022 – Page 251

Oil Is Crashing As Recession Risk Roars, Dollar Soars

Oil prices are puking this morning, after some modest gains overnight, as recession risks roar higher around the world and the dollar’s strength hits the energy complex with a double whammy.

“In the very near term the Dow & S&P will have a major factor on crude direction as recession fears remain,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial.

Fundamentally, there are concerns that fuel demand could “drop significantly now that the 4th of July holiday is behind us.”

WTI has broken below June lows and is testing mid May lows now on its way to $100/bbl…

Brent Crude is trading below $100/bbl from November 2022 out…

The dollar’s explosive surge higher (on the back of a weak euro) is also not helping as it reaches its highest since March 2020…

Interestingly, Citi said that crude could fall to $65 this year in the event of a recession, dramatically different from JPMorgan’s most bullish $380 a barrel scenario.

Most notably, US retail gasoline prices have fallen for 21 straight days according to AAA.

Is President Biden hoping for a recession?

Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/05/2022 – 11:12

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Slippery Slope Arguments in History: The 1950s and Restrictions on Communist Speech

From Justice Frankfurter’s concurrence in Dennis v. U.S. (1951):

It is true that there is no divining rod by which we may locate “advocacy” [which Justice Frankfurter thought could be punished in this case, involving a ban on conspiring to advocate violent overthrow of the government]. Exposition of ideas readily merges into advocacy…. Even though advocacy of overthrow deserves little protection, we should hesitate to prohibit it if we thereby inhibit the interchange of rational ideas so essential to representative government and free society.

But there is underlying validity in the distinction between advocacy and the interchange of ideas, and we do not discard a useful tool because it may be misused. That such a distinction could be used unreasonably by those in power against hostile or unorthodox views does not negate the fact that it may be used reasonably against an organization wielding the power of the centrally controlled international Communist movement. The object of the conspiracy before us is so clear that the chance of error in saying that the defendants conspired to advocate rather than to express ideas is slight….

And the contrary view from Justice Black’s dissent in Barenblatt v. U.S. (1959):

The fact is that once we allow any group which has some political aims or ideas to be driven from the ballot and from the battle for men’s minds because some of its members are bad and some of its tenets are illegal, no group is safe.

Today we deal with Communists or suspected Communists. In 1920, instead, the New York Assembly suspended duly elected legislators on the ground that, being Socialists, they were disloyal to the country’s principles. In the 1830’s the Masons were hunted as outlaws and subversives, and abolitionists were considered revolutionaries of the most dangerous kind in both North and South. Earlier still, at the time of the universally unlamented alien and sedition laws, Thomas Jefferson’s party was attacked and its members were derisively called “Jacobins.” …

History should teach us then, that in times of high emotional excitement minority parties and groups which advocate extremely unpopular social or governmental innovations will always be typed as criminal gangs and attempts will always be made to drive them out. It was knowledge of this fact, and of its great dangers, that caused the Founders of our land to enact the First Amendment as a guarantee that neither Congress nor the people would do anything to hinder or destroy the capacity of individuals and groups to seek converts and votes for any cause, however radical or unpalatable their principles might seem under the accepted notions of the time….

It is, sadly, no answer to say that this Court will not allow the trend to overwhelm us; that today’s holding will be strictly confined to “Communists,” as the Court’s language implies. This decision can no more be contained than could the holding in American Communications Assn. v. Douds (1950). In that case the Court sustained as an exercise of the commerce power an Act which required labor union officials to take an oath that they were not members of the Communist Party.

The Court rejected the idea that the Douds holding meant that the Party and all its members could be attainted because of their Communist beliefs. It went to great lengths to explain that the Act held valid “touches only a relative handful of persons, leaving the great majority of persons of the identified affiliations and beliefs completely free from restraint.” “[W]hile this Court sits,” the Court proclaimed, no wholesale proscription of Communists or their Party can occur. I dissented and said:

Under such circumstances, restrictions imposed on proscribed groups are seldom static, even though the rate of expansion may not move in geometric progression from discrimination to arm-band to ghetto and worse. Thus I cannot regard the Court’s holding as one which merely bars Communists from holding union office and nothing more. For its reasoning would apply just as forcibly to statutes barring Communists and their respective sympathizers from election to political office, mere membership in unions, and in fact from getting or holding any job whereby they could earn a living.

My prediction was all too accurate. Today, Communists or suspected Communists have been denied an opportunity to work as government employees, lawyers, doctors, teachers, pharmacists, veterinarians, subway conductors, industrial workers and in just about any other job. In today’s holding they are singled out and, as a class, are subjected to inquisitions which the Court suggests would be unconstitutional but for the fact of “Communism.” Nevertheless, this Court still sits!

The post Slippery Slope Arguments in History: The 1950s and Restrictions on Communist Speech appeared first on Reason.com.

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Slippery Slope Arguments in History: The 1950s and Restrictions on Communist Speech

From Justice Frankfurter’s concurrence in Dennis v. U.S. (1951):

It is true that there is no divining rod by which we may locate “advocacy” [which Justice Frankfurter thought could be punished in this case, involving a ban on conspiring to advocate violent overthrow of the government]. Exposition of ideas readily merges into advocacy…. Even though advocacy of overthrow deserves little protection, we should hesitate to prohibit it if we thereby inhibit the interchange of rational ideas so essential to representative government and free society.

But there is underlying validity in the distinction between advocacy and the interchange of ideas, and we do not discard a useful tool because it may be misused. That such a distinction could be used unreasonably by those in power against hostile or unorthodox views does not negate the fact that it may be used reasonably against an organization wielding the power of the centrally controlled international Communist movement. The object of the conspiracy before us is so clear that the chance of error in saying that the defendants conspired to advocate rather than to express ideas is slight….

And the contrary view from Justice Black’s dissent in Barenblatt v. U.S. (1959):

The fact is that once we allow any group which has some political aims or ideas to be driven from the ballot and from the battle for men’s minds because some of its members are bad and some of its tenets are illegal, no group is safe.

Today we deal with Communists or suspected Communists. In 1920, instead, the New York Assembly suspended duly elected legislators on the ground that, being Socialists, they were disloyal to the country’s principles. In the 1830’s the Masons were hunted as outlaws and subversives, and abolitionists were considered revolutionaries of the most dangerous kind in both North and South. Earlier still, at the time of the universally unlamented alien and sedition laws, Thomas Jefferson’s party was attacked and its members were derisively called “Jacobins.” …

History should teach us then, that in times of high emotional excitement minority parties and groups which advocate extremely unpopular social or governmental innovations will always be typed as criminal gangs and attempts will always be made to drive them out. It was knowledge of this fact, and of its great dangers, that caused the Founders of our land to enact the First Amendment as a guarantee that neither Congress nor the people would do anything to hinder or destroy the capacity of individuals and groups to seek converts and votes for any cause, however radical or unpalatable their principles might seem under the accepted notions of the time….

It is, sadly, no answer to say that this Court will not allow the trend to overwhelm us; that today’s holding will be strictly confined to “Communists,” as the Court’s language implies. This decision can no more be contained than could the holding in American Communications Assn. v. Douds (1950). In that case the Court sustained as an exercise of the commerce power an Act which required labor union officials to take an oath that they were not members of the Communist Party.

The Court rejected the idea that the Douds holding meant that the Party and all its members could be attainted because of their Communist beliefs. It went to great lengths to explain that the Act held valid “touches only a relative handful of persons, leaving the great majority of persons of the identified affiliations and beliefs completely free from restraint.” “[W]hile this Court sits,” the Court proclaimed, no wholesale proscription of Communists or their Party can occur. I dissented and said:

Under such circumstances, restrictions imposed on proscribed groups are seldom static, even though the rate of expansion may not move in geometric progression from discrimination to arm-band to ghetto and worse. Thus I cannot regard the Court’s holding as one which merely bars Communists from holding union office and nothing more. For its reasoning would apply just as forcibly to statutes barring Communists and their respective sympathizers from election to political office, mere membership in unions, and in fact from getting or holding any job whereby they could earn a living.

My prediction was all too accurate. Today, Communists or suspected Communists have been denied an opportunity to work as government employees, lawyers, doctors, teachers, pharmacists, veterinarians, subway conductors, industrial workers and in just about any other job. In today’s holding they are singled out and, as a class, are subjected to inquisitions which the Court suggests would be unconstitutional but for the fact of “Communism.” Nevertheless, this Court still sits!

The post Slippery Slope Arguments in History: The 1950s and Restrictions on Communist Speech appeared first on Reason.com.

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If Central Banks Do Not Tackle Inflation, Deflation Will Come from A Crisis

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

Most market participants have been surprised by the last six months. The total return of the US Treasury Index was the worst since 1788 according to Deutsche Bank.

Stocks closed June with one of the largest corrections since 2008. Bonds and equities are falling in unison, driven by rate hikes and normalization of monetary policy.

However, there is no such real normalization.

The balance sheet of the main central banks has barely moved and remains at all-time highs according to Bloomberg. The ECB continues to ignore the highest inflation rate in the eurozone since the early 90s by keeping negative rates. The Federal Reserve rate hikes have been more aggressive, but it is still injecting billions of dollars in the reverse repo market and monetary aggregates remain excessive.

In the United States, money supply growth (M2) is still much higher than in the quantitative easing years. M2 money supply has risen to 21.8 trillion dollars and yearly change shows a rise of 1.3 trillion dollars, which is more than double the annual figure of the expansion phase of 2008-2011. Money supply (M2) annual growth in the United States was 6.5% in May, 6.6% in the eurozone. Global monetary growth in May was 9.9%, all figures according to Yardeni Research. In the eurozone money supply growth is higher than in the middle of the so-called “Draghi bazooka”, the famous “whatever it takes”.

Central banks have gone from “whatever it takes” to “no matter what”.

We already explained in a previous article that commodities do not cause inflation, money printing does, and the monetary aspect of inflation is not being addressed properly. One or two prices may rise due to an external crisis, but the rest would not rise in unison given the same quantity of currency. Between 2012 and 2014 we saw energy commodity prices soar, yet inflation measured as CPI was low because the supply of currency was in line with demand. We did see enormous inflation in asset prices, though, and policy makers did not pay attention to the impact on house prices and markets of enormous liquidity injections. When newly created currency stopped going to risky assets and was targeted at government current spending, inflation shot up.

Central banks seem to fear markets. However, it is better to create a correction in bonds, equities, and risky assets after years of all-time highs than to lead the world to a crisis created by the destruction of purchasing power of salaries and deposits.

Policy makers should be very concerned about the so-called “prudent” normalization because the expansion was far from prudent. The pace at which they bloated their balance sheets and cut rates is what they should have been worried about, not the normalization.

Consumer confidence is plummeting around the world, real wages are negative, and families are consuming the little savings they had just to make ends meet. At the same time, businesses are struggling with weaker margins as input prices soar.

The worst thing that governments and monetary authorities could do is to let the economy slip into a crisis where the productive sector, families, and businesses, collapse just because they did not want to cut deficit spending and truly normalize monetary policy. By then, the problem will not be inflation, but deflation coming from the asphyxiation of the private sector.

Once consumers and businesses fall, tax revenues will also plummet, taking government debt to new highs. Even Keynesians should be worried about letting inflation run wild because the result would be that governments face an even worse fiscal crisis when the private sector slumps.

Inflation can be addressed by properly reducing central bank balance sheets, raising rates, and cutting deficit spending. If policy makers send the private sector to a crisis due to inaction, the crisis will be far worse than 2008. It is still time. End the perverse incentives of excessive monetary action. It may still create another leg down in markets, but they will eventually recover. The destruction of businesses and families’ disposable income is far more challenging to restore.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/05/2022 – 10:50

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Ukraine Says $750BN Needed To Rebuild, Wants To Use Seized Russian Assets

Ukrainian officials have issued a new price tag for the country’s post-war “recovery plan” of $750 billion. The huge sum was advanced at a two-day conference on Ukrainian reconstruction which started Monday in Switzerland.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a virtual address that reconstruction of his country is a “common task of the entire democratic world — all countries, all countries who can say they are civilized.” He added, “We are uniting the democratic world…The outlook of free people always prevails.”

“Reconstruction of Ukraine is the biggest contribution to the support of global peace,” Zelensky said at the summit where Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal identified the $750 billion figure as part of a three-stage plan.

Interestingly, part of that plan is to utilized seized Russian assets, as RFE/RL writes of Shmygal’s words, “Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on July 4 at the start of the two-day Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, that Kyiv believes a substantial source of funding for the recovery should come through assets confiscated from Russian oligarchs, which he estimated at $300 billion to $500 billion.”

“We believe that the key source of recovery should be the confiscated assets of Russia and Russian oligarchs,” the Ukrainian prime minister told the conference. “The Russian authorities unleashed this bloody war. They caused this massive destruction, and they should be held accountable for it.”

Additionally the funding will need to come from allied nations agreeing to grants and loans, as well as corporations and independent international institutions.

The conference identified the three-fold plan as follows:

A first stage will be focused on fixing things that affect daily life, such as municipal water supplies.

Second would be a “fast recovery” stage to be launched as soon as fighting ends and would include items such as temporary housing, hospitals, and schools.

A third stage would be aimed at transforming the country over the longer term.

Billions have already been pledged from Western countries, including the US, and major institutions like the EU’s European Investment Bank, which said it raised over $100 billion for reconstruction efforts. Last month the EIB estimated it could cost $1.1 trillion for Ukraine to rebuild.

But it remains that the consensus among US officials, including Pentagon generals, is that the Ukraine war is likely to grind on for many months to come, or possibly even years.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/05/2022 – 10:30

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Rising Interest Rates May Blow Up The Federal Budget

By Jeff Diest of The Mises Institute

In fiscal year 2020, at the height of covid stimulus mania, Congress managed to spend nearly twice what the federal government raised in taxes.

Yet in 2021, with Treasury debt piled sky high and spilling over $30 trillion, Congress was able to service this gargantuan obligation with interest payments of less than $400 billion. The total interest expense of $392 billion for the year represented only about 6 percent of the roughly $6.8 trillion in federal outlays.

How is this possible? In short: very low interest rates. In fact, the average weighted rate across all outstanding Treasury debt in 2021 was well below 2 percent. As the chart below shows, even dramatically rising federal debt in recent years did not much hike Congress’s debt service burden.

This is an exceedingly happy arrangement for Congress. Debt is always more popular than taxes for the same reason starting a diet tomorrow is more popular than starting today. Austerity does not sell when it comes to retail politics; spending trillions today while merely adding to what seems like a nebulous, faraway debt definitely does. And American lawmakers are uniquely fortunate in this regard. As French finance minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing infamously announced in the 1960s, the Bretton Woods monetary system created “America’s exorbitant privilege.” He understood how the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency would allow America to effectively export inflation to its hapless trading partners while maintaining cheap imports at home. But he may not have fully grasped the political privilege which would accrue to Congress.

Is this privilege sustainable? That may well be the most important political question of the twenty-first century. As Nick Giambruno explains, our forty-year experiment in relentlessly lower interest rates may soon end regardless of what the Fed does. Markets and geopolitics are powerful forces. Inflation, huge projected deficits, economic sanctions on Russia, oil disruptions, and a diminished appetite around the world for propping up Uncle Sam forever all exert upward pressure on Treasury rates. The Fed proved it can and will serve as market maker and backstop for US Treasurys, with its sordid QE (quantitative easing) bond purchases after the Great Recession and its deranged response to covid. But it cannot force investors, even crony institutional investors, to buy American bond debt at rates well below inflation forever. This is not hypothetical; Giambruno notes how certain Treasury yields quietly rose five time just since the absolute lows of 2020.

If Treasury rates continue to rise, and rise precipitously, the effects on congressional budgeting will be immediate and severe. Even if we laughably assume total federal debt remains static at around $23.8 trillion (the publicly held portion of the $30 trillion), interest rates of merely 2 or 3 percent will cause interest expense to rise considerably. Average weighted rates of only 5 percent would cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion every year. Historically, average rates of 7 percent swell that number to more than $1.5 trillion. Rates of 10 percent—hardly unthinkable, given the Paul Volcker era of the late seventies and early eighties—would cause debt service to explode to over $2.3 trillion.

Again, even 5 percent average rates would cause debt service to become the single biggest annual expenditure for Congress—ahead of Social Security ($1.2 trillion), Medicare ($826 billion), and the Department of Defense ($704 billion). The starting point for budget makers every year would be an interest expense totaling nearly half of realistic tax revenue. And keep in mind that these figures are for the existing federal debt, exclusive of the vast future deficits that are almost dead certain to happen. Seniors like entitlements, and the percentage of Americans over sixty-five is set to double by 2050. Republicans and Democrats like war, busy as they are installing more US troops in Poland and envisioning new aircraft carriers to patrol the Mediterranean (yes) and the South China Sea. What happens when the interest-bearing debt is $40 or $50 or $60 trillion?

At some point, given the sheer and utter profligacy of Congress, will the world demand junk bond rates to loan America another dime? Everyone knows the US will never pay its debts except nominally through inflation; everyone knows off–balance sheet entitlement promises cannot be kept in any meaningful way. Spendthrifts get cut off eventually, even those with powerful militaries and hegemonic currencies. This may not happen soon, if for no other reason than that the rest of the world holds trillions of US dollars too. But if American exceptionalism goes the way of the British Empire, this will be the reason why.

During the incontinent George W. Bush administration, Dick Cheney infamously chided Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill with the assertion “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” We see the same deluded thinking today among proponents of modern monetary theory, the idea that sovereign governments can command resources at will. This mentality pervades Congress, which in turn is rewarded by voters who want wars and welfare today without thought to future generations. They choose to believe the Cheneys and the MMTers, who tell them deficits and debt are essentially costless.

But debt and deficits do matter. We are about to find out how much they matter. The good news, and it is very good news, is that Americans soon may enjoy the benefits of compounding interest on savings (our grandparents can explain this to us). Civilization begins and ends with capital accumulation, the very thing politics and central banks attack with impunity. It is beyond time to reward savers and punish Congress.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/05/2022 – 10:15

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$52M #TheyLied Libel Arbitration Award

Barron’s Kenneth Corbin reported Friday:

A Finra [Financial Industry Regulatory Authority] arbitration panel has awarded a former partner [Daniel Michalow] with the hedge fund group D.E. Shaw $52 million in damages in a defamation case that stemmed from rumors of sexual misconduct that the arbitrators concluded were untrue….

The arbitrators … concluded flatly: “The panel specifically finds that claimant did not commit sexual misconduct.” …

Michalow’s ouster from the firm came in early 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement. In a letter sent in May that year to David E. Shaw, the hedge fund’s founder, Michalaw acknowledged that he had been “abrasive and intolerant” as a boss, and admitted to instances of inappropriate language and nonsexual physical contact with employees like hugging.

“All I have asked is that the firm say publicly what has repeatedly been told to my representatives and to me privately—that my departure from the firm is not related to sexual misconduct,” Michalow wrote in 2018.

“The firm’s bullying and threats against me over the last week, however, have revealed that the firm is so consumed with creating the appearance of supporting women that it is willing to cast false aspersions on me (and perpetuate false aspersions cast by others) and make me a scapegoat with a proverbial hanging in the town square,” he added….

Thanks to Bruce Wessel for the pointer.

The post $52M #TheyLied Libel Arbitration Award appeared first on Reason.com.

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$52M #TheyLied Libel Arbitration Award

Barron’s Kenneth Corbin reported Friday:

A Finra [Financial Industry Regulatory Authority] arbitration panel has awarded a former partner [Daniel Michalow] with the hedge fund group D.E. Shaw $52 million in damages in a defamation case that stemmed from rumors of sexual misconduct that the arbitrators concluded were untrue….

The arbitrators … concluded flatly: “The panel specifically finds that claimant did not commit sexual misconduct.” …

Michalow’s ouster from the firm came in early 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement. In a letter sent in May that year to David E. Shaw, the hedge fund’s founder, Michalaw acknowledged that he had been “abrasive and intolerant” as a boss, and admitted to instances of inappropriate language and nonsexual physical contact with employees like hugging.

“All I have asked is that the firm say publicly what has repeatedly been told to my representatives and to me privately—that my departure from the firm is not related to sexual misconduct,” Michalow wrote in 2018.

“The firm’s bullying and threats against me over the last week, however, have revealed that the firm is so consumed with creating the appearance of supporting women that it is willing to cast false aspersions on me (and perpetuate false aspersions cast by others) and make me a scapegoat with a proverbial hanging in the town square,” he added….

Thanks to Bruce Wessel for the pointer.

The post $52M #TheyLied Libel Arbitration Award appeared first on Reason.com.

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US Factory Orders Surprised To The Upside In May Despite Collapsing ISM

After decelerating in April – and despite plunging Manufacturing PMIs – analysts expected US Factory Orders to re-accelerate from +0.3% MoM to +0.5% MoM in May… and they were right as orders soared 1.6% MoM (the eight straight month of rising orders)…

Source: Bloomberg

Year-over-year, orders are up 14.0% after April’s data was also revised higher (from +0.3% MoM to +0.7% MoM).

Core Orders (Ex Transports), rose rose 1.7% MoM in May (accelerating from the upwardly revised 0.6% MoM in April).

Let’s get some context for this move in US Factory Orders. ISM Manufacturing New Orders is at its lowest since the COVID lockdowns… and US Factory Orders are reportedly at record highs (ex the July 2014 glitch)…

Source: Bloomberg

Which are you going to believe?

Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/05/2022 – 10:03

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George Washington University Officials Defend Clarence Thomas’ Free Expression Rights

Officials at George Washington University announced this week that they would not remove Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from the faculty at the university’s law school. Thomas has lectured at the law school since 2011, co-teaching a constitutional law seminar. Following Thomas’ vote in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, John Kay, a rising junior at the university, began circulating a petition demanding that Thomas be removed from his post.

The petition, which now has over 9,000 signatures, argues that “with the recent Supreme Court decision that has stripped the right to bodily autonomy of people with wombs, and with his explicit intention to further strip the rights of queer people and remove the ability for people to practice safe sex without fear of pregnancy, it is evident that the employment of Clarence Thomas at George Washington University is completely unacceptable.”

In an interview with The Hatchet, G.W.’s student newspaper, Kay said that “it’s unacceptable that [Thomas is] on campus because this decision and then the three decisions that he’s actively going after explicitly are actively endangering the lives of the students on campus.”

On Tuesday, G.W. Provost Christopher Bracey and Law Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew sent a universitywide email announcing the school’s intent to ignore calls to fire Thomas. The pair argued that “debate is an essential part of our University’s academic and educational mission to train future leaders who are prepared to address the world’s most urgent problems.”

The university “will neither terminate Justice Thomas’ employment nor cancel his class.” The email also noted that Thomas’ views “do not represent” the official views of the university.

Though this move is laudable, G.W. officials have not always been so consistent in their defense of free speech principles—at least not when it comes to defending students’ rights.

In February, posters critical of the Chinese government appeared on the G.W. campus. The posters satirized the 2022 Olympics, which were hosted in Beijing, condemning the nation’s human rights abuses. The posters were designed by Badiucao, a dissident Chinese artist based in Australia.

Students began filing complaints about the posters, alleging that the posters “[discriminated] against Asians,” as one student group’s letter claimed. The university quickly announced an investigation into the incident, seeking to find the students responsible for the flyers. In response to the incident, Mark Wrighton, the university’s president, wrote that he was “personally offended” by the posters.

However, following involvement from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), and criticism from Sen. Marco Rubio (R–Fla.), the school backtracked and announced that it would not discipline those who distributed the posters.

Consistent support for free expression on campus is difficult to come by. It’s one thing to publicly defend a Supreme Court justice when faced with public pressure. It’s another to muster the courage to defend the rights of relatively powerless students when administrators are faced with the full force of their classmates’ fury.

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