Month: December 2022

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

The Biden White House says it “isn’t taking a side” on the cause of anti-lockdown protests in China, a ‘walking on eggshells’ remark seemingly designed to protect the administration from charges of hypocrisy.

Over the past week, multiple major cities across China have seen massive protests against lockdowns, with the normally compliant Chinese exploding into rage in response to their government’s ‘zero COVID’ policy.

Much of the unrest blew up in response to an incident in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, where at least 10 people, some say up to 40, were killed during an apartment fire because lockdown rules stopped residents from fleeing the burning building.

Most of the city’s residents have been prevented from leaving their homes for over 100 days as a result of the draconian rules, which are still in place nearly three years after the pandemic began.

While Chinese citizens are now clearly being subjected to human rights abuses in the name of maintaining a brutal lockdown, the White House could only respond with a mealy-mouthed statement.

Appearing on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” White House NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby was asked if the Biden administration agreed with protesters that COVID restrictions should be lifted and whether President Xi Jinping should stand down.

Kirby prevaricated by saying the White House was “on the side of peaceful protest,” but that the administration was not “taking a side in terms of what these protestors are about.”

WATCH:

“I would not say at all that we would agree with criticism that we’ve been less than firm or consistent. In fact, Brian, we’ve been very, consistent about the right of peaceful protest and we’ve been very vocal about it in China just over the last few days,” said Kirby.

“We believe that these individuals should be able to peacefully protest and assemble and to make their minds known to their government there in China just like we’ve said the same in Iran and around the world. And we stand up for peaceful protest, and again, we’ve been very consistent about that,” he added.

Co-host Steve Doocy then asked, “Absolutely, the White House is always for peaceful protests, but, John, you know what the protesters are saying, they’re saying, hey, Xi Jinping’s got to go or loosen the COVID restrictions that are keeping people stuck in their houses for months. So, between he’s got to go or loosen restrictions, which side is the White House on when it comes to supporting the protestors?”

Kirby responded, “Steve, we’re on the side of peaceful protest. We’re on the side of individuals being able to freely assemble and to express their views, whatever those views are. We’re not taking a side in terms of what these protestors are about. Largely though, Steve, you know that these protesters are really out there about the lockdown. Their main concern, what drove them to the streets was the very severe, very stringent COVID policies by Xi’s administration, and that’s what’s really been driving all this public protest.”

The spokesman then asserted, “we don’t believe, here in the United States, that lockdowns are the answer.”

This doesn’t correlate with what Biden himself has said on many occasions.

Back in August 2020, the president said he wouldn’t hesitate to lockdown the entire United States if it was necessary to stop COVID.

“I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists,” said Biden at the time.

In comparison, two months previously in June, President Trump told Fox News, “We won’t be closing the country again. We won’t have to do that.”

Indeed, if the presidential election had taken place a year earlier, there’s almost no doubt that Biden would have lobbied for for more draconian lockdowns that those that were imposed by states during the final 10 months of the Trump administration.

As we highlighted yesterday, Anthony Fauci once again defended brutal Chinese lockdowns, admitting that the Communist government is forcefully locking people inside buildings but adding that if it means people get vaccinated then he is “okay” with it.

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Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, the world’s largest active volcano, continues to erupt, and there are new fears that lava flows could take out a major road connecting the east and west sides of Hawaii’s Big Island in the coming days. 

There’s “a very high probability that this lava flow, if it continues, will definitely reach the road,” Ken Hon, scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, told CBS News. 

Hon said the lava could reach Saddle Road, also known as Daniel K. Inouye Highway, in “about two days.” As of Wednesday, the lava flows were about 3.6 miles from the major highway

Although the flow is slow-moving, it is still persistent, and emergency managers are ramping up their planning as it threatens to cross over the Daniel K. Inouye Highway, also known as the DKI Highway or Saddle Road. -CBS 

On Sunday, Mauna Loa’s eruption marked the end of its longest quiet period in recorded history. The last time the volcano spewed lava into the air was in 1984. 

Footage of the eruption posted on Twitter is stunning. 

More amazing videos of Mauna Loa’s eruption in #Hawaii. Lava is about 3 miles from the major highway that connects Hilo and Kona. Officials say they’re equipped to shut down roads as early as Friday if lava crosses l l the road.
Courtesy: Mick Kalber and Paradise Helicopters pic.twitter.com/vK7ZFnYxcZ

— Annalisa Burgos (@AnnalisaBurgos) December 1, 2022

Incredible footage from Paradise Helicopters this morning at Mauna Loa.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reports that lava is now just more than 3 miles away from Daniel K. Inouye Highway (Saddle Road). pic.twitter.com/Pfk1m6X9lj

— Sam Spangler (@SamSpanglerHI) November 30, 2022

Here’s a look near the base of Mauna Loa. @KHONnews went on a media tour Wednesday night with @dlnr @USGSVolcanoes to get a closer look at the lava flows past Mauna Loa Access Road which remains closed to the public. pic.twitter.com/2z0MFTmMKR

— Kristy Tamashiro (@kristytamashiro) December 1, 2022

On the third day, #MaunaLoa started having increased lava flows. Saddle road had the best sighting. The night sky was glowing orange in color. The lava appeared to be flowing towards Big Island’s Saddle road (an important highway for locals & tourists). #MaunaLoaErupts #Hawaii pic.twitter.com/qBlwUXoj38

— Sudhish (@sudhishkr) December 1, 2022

Stunning views of lava fountains and flows from Wednesday

All eyes are on the major highway as lava flows near, which could force officials to suspend traffic. 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Greed is a powerful motivation to be an ardent believer in the central banking cult.

The ideal cult convinces its followers that it isn’t a cult, it’s simply the natural order of things. In current terms, this normalizes insane behaviors and beliefs. Sacrificing youth to appease the gods isn’t a cult; it’s simply the natural order of things. If we don’t sacrifice youth, bad things will happen, so we have to follow the natural order of things.

Despite the lofty claims made by our rational mind, we want to hear and obey the voices of the gods. This non-rational desire is the root of cults and episodes of mass hysteria, i.e. the madness of crowds.

Humanity is in the grip of the secular cult of central banking. The cult’s seers and prophets periodically emerge with arcane signs and readings, offering divinations to guide the followers.

The motivation to believe the cult is the natural order of things is powerful: greed. Those who heed the oracles of the cult enrich themselves, unbelievers impoverish themselves.

Rationalists outside the cult discern the structure of the cult and its core beliefs. The cult creates credit and “money” out of thin air and distributes it to the few extremely wealthy to further expand their wealth. These few do not improve productivity or the well-being of the many; they use the cult’s gifts to exploit the cult’s rigged casino of speculation to maximize their private gains.

In other words, the cult benefits the few at the expense of the many while proclaiming it benefits everyone. This is of course insane. The cult’s core beliefs are: 1) enriching the already-rich magically trickles down benefits to the masses, and 2) this vast enrichment of the already-wealthy is cost-free. The economy prospers with no downside or consequences other than the glorious expansion of wealth at the top and the trickle-down of sweet goodness to the masses.

This is of course insane. The costs are borne by the masses and by the socio-economic system, which is now in thrall to a cult that has made the economy dependent on an ever-expanding credit bubble which feeds an ever-expanding asset bubble, which then enables a further expansion of credit which then fuels ever-higher assets prices.

And so on, forever, because the cult and its ever-expanding bubble are the natural order of things. If we don’t sacrifice the many to benefit the few, the sun will stop rising and the Earth will be cast into endless shadow.

This is of course insane, but greed is a powerful motivation to be an ardent believer in the central banking cult. Expanding credit based on the expanding collateral of asset bubbles, each feeding the other, is held up not as insane but as a financial perpetual-motion machine, overseen and managed by the seers and prophets of the central bank cult. Followers heeding the cult’s oracles become rich, non-believers and skeptics become impoverished.

Alas, cults and bubbles both come to an inglorious end. What seemed self-evidently true for the ages is revealed as a brief moment of self-serving delusion, supported by the immense powers of greed and the madness of crowds.

Do you hear the voices of the gods? Yes, yes, oh yes.

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One day after Jerome Powell’s dovish speech sparked a stock explosion which helped the S&P close November up more than 5%, and with October’s 8% return stocks have sotmed higher after tumbling into a deep bear market in September (just as JPM permabull Marko Kolanovic turned bearish) to return more than 13% in the past two days…

… not to mention push the Dow Jones into a new bull market…

… on Thursday stocks were effectively unchanged with the S&P hugging the flatline after some early excitement.  

Spoos initially extended gains this morning after mixed data that included cooler-than-expected month-over-month PCE figures. Personal income beat, though spending was in line with estimates. However, futures slid about 30 minutes into the US cash session when manufacturing surveys indicated first contractionary ISM print since May 2020…

… spoos drifted lower to close just around the flatline…

… but much more importantly, futs never break back below the oh-so-critical 200DMA which as regular readers will recall, proved to be an insurmountable resistance during the August bear market rally. Well, not so much this time, and the S&P closed comfortably above the all-important moving average even if it still has to convincingly break above the downward trendline.

Peeking below the surface we find that the key catalyst behind today’s move was the continued sharp drop in TSY yields, which saw the 10Y plunge as low as 3.50%…

… as every part of the curve was dragged lower…

… courtesy of a furious dovish repricing in fed funds which saw the terminal rate (red) continue to drop while bets on rate-cuts in H2 2023 (green) continued to rise.

The plunge in yields boosted tech and hammered banks…

… and financial institutions, especially Blackstone, whose 69 Billion Real Estate fund hits redemption limits.

But not even that was enough to spook markets which now appear to be preparing for a ful-blown year-end rally and the VIX finally tumbled back under 20 for the first time since the August meltup.

There is another reason why VIX is plunging: the put to call ratio made another near-record high this week and all those puts are now being furiously unwound and monetized for what little value they have.

There is another reason why we may be facing a huge meltup: the latest Job Cuts data soared, suggesting NFP could be disastrous tomorrow…

…. which of course would force the Fed to be even more dovish, and send stocks even higher. Incidentally, consensus expectations for tomorrow’s NFP are for around 196k. Our prediction: much, much lower.

Finally, with the market now aggressively repricing the Fed’s tightening intentions and betting on much more easing in 2022, with bitcoin and crypto nursing huge wounds and playing defense…

… as Bitcoin remains stuck between $16K and $17K since the FTX fraud shock….

… the big winner today was gold and silver, with the yellow metal soaring above $1800, the highest level since August.

 

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth spoke at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday to warn about the Biden administration’s cunning plan to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve around the $70 a barrel level. He said filling the SPR at that level is “not necessarily a wise move.” 

Wirth explained the SPR should be refilled regularly to maintain adequate reserves at reasonable levels while limiting volatility in price. He said Biden’s communication to the oil industry about a minimum price floor at which the US government will purchase crude provides no “meaningful” incentive for oil companies to ramp up production. 

The chief executive continued to say if companies operated this way, their trading desks could easily hedge the price of crude in markets themselves, adding the SPR is currently “at a level where we wouldn’t want to see it go any lower.”

Wirth was on a roll criticizing the Biden administration. He said their energy policies were very “lazy” and “sloppy” because of the inability to tap into the nation’s abundant resources. He means that the Biden administration has inhibited the fossil fuels industry from expanding, indicating a considerable need to improve energy infrastructure such as pipelines, transmission lines, and ports to ensure all parts of the country are well supplied at all times. 

“Durable and meaningful permitting reform” would be a “huge step forward,” he said. 

Wirth’s comments followed a CNBC report Wednesday that cited multiple sources who said the Biden administration is mulling over more SPR releases ahead of winter. 

The White House appears to be bracing for another potential energy spike in the coming months. Their ability to release additional oil from the reserves could face more pressure from a Republican-led House of Representatives at the start of the new year.  

“It is imperative that DOE maintain the nation’s petroleum reserves in a manner that does not limit our ability to prevent or reduce the adverse impacts of true energy supply shortages,” Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. recently said. 

Wirth’s comments provide valuable insight into how the fossil fuel industry views the Biden administration: an inexperienced bunch of clowns ruining the country’s energy independence. 

Authored by Stephen Katte via CoinTelegraph.com,

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried apologized or admitted failure at least 12 times during his appearance at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Nov. 30.

In a wide-ranging video interview, Bankman-Fried was asked to answer a number of questions surrounding the downfall of the now-defunct exchange, with some even suggesting that some of his statements could be used to incriminate him in legal proceedings.

In a Nov. 30 Twitter post, crypto attorney Jeremy Hogan, partner at Hogan & Hogan, said that the “light cross-examination” of Bankman-Fried at the DealBook Summit has already returned “at least 3 incriminating statements so far.”

SBF is getting a light cross-examination at the NYT/Dealbook Summit and has made at least 3 incriminating statements so far.

Why are his lawyers (or parents) letting him do this?? pic.twitter.com/Nd0poutAA0

— Jeremy Hogan (@attorneyjeremy1) November 30, 2022

Alan Rosca from the law firm Rosca Scarlato said it was “pretty astonishing that he’s in effect testifying at the DealBook summit. Hard to think of a precedent for this.”

Bankman-Fried’s first concession came while greeting interviewer Andrew Sorkin, when he said in reference to the collapse of FTX:

“Clearly, I made a lot of mistakes or things I would give anything to be able to do over again.”

An apology came moments later when Sorkin confronted him with a letter written by an FTX customer who lost $2 million in life savings after the exchange collapsed.

“I’m deeply sorry about what happened,” said Bankman-Fried in response to the customer’s story.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried during the hour-long live-video appearance. Source: New York Times’ DealBook Summit.

Later, when discussing the allegations that Alameda used FTX client funds to cover loans, Bankman-Fried said that while he “didn’t know exactly what was going on” at Alameda, he concedes it was still his duty as FTX CEO to “make sure I was doing diligence.”

“A lot of these are things that I’ve learned over the last month that I learned […] I mark that as a pretty big oversight that I wasn’t more aware of,” he said.

Bankman-Fried admitted failure again when quizzed about FTXs former standing in the industry and the loss of trust in crypto now that the exchange has collapsed, stating: “I mean, like, look, I screwed up:”

“I was CEO, I was the CEO of FTX. And I mean I say this again and again, that that means I had a responsibility that means that I was responsible ultimately for doing the right things and I mean, we didn’t. Like, we messed up big.”

He continued to concede FTX’s failings, stating “there absolutely were management failures” oversight failures, and transparency failures.

Toward the end of the interview, Sorkin directly asked Bankman-Fried whether he had been truthful with the audience and whether he agreed that there had been times that he had lied. 

Bankman-Fried said he wasn’t aware of any times that he lied, but explained that there were times when asking as a representative or “marketer” for FTX, that he would paint FTX “as compelling […] as possible.”

“I wasn’t talking about what are the risks involved with FTX […] I obviously wish that I spent more time dwelling on the downsides and less time thinking about the upsides.

Bankman Fried was asked what his lawyers are telling him at the moment, and whether it was a good idea for him to be speaking publicly. He answered, “very much not:”

“I mean, you know, the classic advice, don’t say anything […] recede into a hole.”

Bankman-Fried said he believes he has a duty to talk to people and explain what happened and to “try and do what’s right.”

“I don’t see what good is accomplished by me just sitting locked in a room pretending the outside world doesn’t exist,” he explained.

“Soft-balled it,” says community

While the interview appeared to cover a number of confronting issues for Bankman-Fried, some in the community still believe that the questions were not challenging enough, nor was there an adequate follow-up to some of the hard-hitting questions.

A Twitter poll launched by self-proclaimed crypto trader Cantering Clark found that more than half of the 1,119 respondents believed Sorkin “Soft-balled” the interview with Bankman-Fried.