Month: July 2023

By Charlie Zhu and Helen Sun, Bloomberg Markets Live reporters and strategists

Three things we learned last week:

1. It looks like China’s markets may be on an inflection point, finally. The mainland stock benchmark CSI 300 Index gained 4.5% last week, marking its best performance since November. A gauge of tech shares in Hong Kong entered a bull market.

Chinese shares surged Tuesday after senior leaders vowed again to shore up economic growth, before paring the gains in the following two sessions due to skepticism about a dearth of detailed measures. The rally resumed Friday as signs emerged that policymakers aren’t just paying lip service to their support pledges.

“The recognition of a new supply-demand paradigm in real estate helped to open policy space,” Citigroup strategists led by Gaurav Garg wrote in a note, adding the reference to a holistic resolution to local debt issues also helped contain fears of a blowout.

2. With signs of stress plaguing some developers once considered safe, investors may need to brace for more volatility in credit markets. A local risk assessor put bonds issued by Country Garden’s onshore unit on its watch list, and the major builder’s dollar notes slumped as JPMorgan downgraded the firm’s stock rating to underweight.

Meantime, state-backed Sino-Ocean Group is seeking investor approval to extend three dollar-note coupons by two months
“Constraints on the actions that China can undertake may not be well appreciated,” Chang Wei Liang, a strategist at DBS Bank, wrote in a note. “A nuanced view to Chinese credit is still warranted.”

3. There are growing indications that authorities are taking concrete action to address some of the biggest market concerns. Among the catalysts for Friday’s stock gains was news that signaled regulators’ intention to support tech investments. A separate report on the possibility of a cut in stamp duties helped too.

The housing minister urged regulators and lenders to strengthen efforts to revive the ailing property sector, calling for homebuyers who had paid off previous mortgages to be considered first-time purchasers.

President Putin in a Saturday statement given to the press significantly ramped up his rhetoric regarding a potential clash with the United States over Syria.

TASS media quoted him as saying that “Russia is ready for any scenario” if it comes to that, but still “does not want a direct military clash with the US.” 

This summer has seen a series of near-miss incidents between Russian fighter jets and American MQ-9 Reaper drones. In two incidents this month, the US drones were actually damaged from the encounters, which has reportedly involved the Russian warplanes shooting flares or else possibly dumping fuel. 

The US drones can be damaged by these flares, which according to the Pentagon has happened. When asked about this, Putin stressed in the new comments that “we are always ready for any scenario, but no one wants this.”

“On an American initiative, we once created a special mechanism to prevent these conflicts; we have department heads that communicate directly with each other, and consult on any crisis situation,” he said of a military-to-military contact hotline intended to avoid inadvertent clash. “This shows that no one wants clashes.”

Both sides have blamed the other for ‘unsafe’ and ‘irresponsible’ aerial operations over Syria. Russia’s RT has tallied the following, from Moscow’s perspective:

The Russian military has reported a total of 23 dangerous incidents involving its aircraft and those of the US-led coalition since early 2023, said Admiral Oleg Gurinov, the head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria. Most incidents took place in July, he added. 

In 11 cases, Russian pilots recorded being targeted by Western weapon systems. Such provocations by the US-led coalition led to the automatic engagement of onboard defense systems which released decoy flares, the admiral told journalists.

Just last week, a US Reaper drone was said to be “severely damaged” after a high-risk intercept by a Russian Su-35 fighter. 

These near-misses over Syrian skies also come amid the backdrop of the Ukraine war, where the nuclear-armed superpower rivals keep inching toward potential direct conflict. Russian media has framed Putin’s new comments as also a warning directed against NATO broadly, in the contexts of both Syria and Ukraine.

Previously, we’ve pointed out that In Syria, successive US administrations going back to Obama have justified any and all US military actions as based on “countering ISIS” – even though at this point the Islamic State has long been driven underground and was defeated. Russia and Syria have charged that the US really just wants to steal Syria’s oil and gas resources, as part of the continued economic war against Damascus.

Days ago, The Wall Street Journal appeared to agree with this assessment, in a rare and surprise admission…

WSJ on the US occupation of Syria:

US claims to be “combating the remnants” of ISIS. Yet US troops “are operating in the east, far from the northwest enclave where suspected ISIS and al Qaeda leaders have been operating.”

So what’s in the east? Syria’s oil and wheat. pic.twitter.com/OK9uiEOE5C

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) July 28, 2023

Where are the terrorists vs. where is the American troop occupation located? WSJ belatedly concedes the following…

“The U.S. still has about 900 troops in Syria that are assisting a local partner, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in combating the remnants of Islamic State,” the report acknowledges. “But those U.S. troops are operating in the east, far from the northwest enclave where suspected Islamic State and al Qaeda leaders have been operating.” 

This mainstream media admission concerning jihadist-infested Idlib province in Syria’s northwest, while good, comes many years late, as is typical of belatedly acknowledged inconvenient truths.

Authored by Zachary Stieber and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

A medical expert was terminated by one of her employers after raising concerns about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines during an event held by a U.S. senator, according to newly disclosed documents.

Dr. Renata Moon, a pediatrician, poses for a picture in Washington on July 28, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

After Dr. Renata Moon (who will appear on “American Thought Leaders” premiering Mon. Aug. 30, 7:30pm ET) testified during the December 2022 event on Capitol Hill, Washington State University officials told her that they were alerting a state medical commission because she allegedly promoted misinformation, one of the documents shows.

The Washington Medical Commission (WMC) has said that doctors who offer misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and preventative measures “erode the public trust in the medical profession and endanger patients,” that people should lodge complaints against doctors who allegedly provide misinformation, and that it may revoke the licenses of doctors who are found to have spread misinformation.

Drs. Jeff Haney and James Record, Washington State University officials, referenced the commission in a letter to Dr. Moon dated March 3, 2023.

“The WMC has asked the public and practitioners to report possible spread of misinformation. There are components of your presentation that could be interpreted as a possible spread,” they wrote. “As such, we are ethically obligated to make a report to the WMC to investigate possible breach of this expectation.”

The university informed Dr. Moon in June 2023 that it was effectively firing her by not renewing her appointment as a clinical associate professor of medicine, according to other documents reviewed by The Epoch Times.

“At this time, the needs of the college are moving in a different direction and your participation is no longer required,” Drs. Haney and Record wrote.

More detailed reasoning was not provided.

“This is not about my personal situation with the school. This is about freedom of speech for all Americans,” Dr. Moon told The Epoch Times in an email.

“We must create an ethical healthcare system that is concerned only with the well being of individual patients and not the financial interests of massive corporations. We are dealing with conflicts of interest that are larger than any of us ever imagined.”

Testimony

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) convened Dr. Moon and other experts, including Drs. Peter McCullough and Robert Malone, to talk about COVID-19 vaccines. The event was titled, “COVID-19 Vaccines: What They Are, How They Work, and Possible Causes of Injuries.”

Dr. Moon testified that she had only seen two or three cases of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, while practicing for more than 20 years. But after the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, she said, she has been seeing more cases, and heard about others from fellow doctors.

“There’s clearly been a massive increase,” Dr. Moon said.

Dr. Moon also pulled out the package insert for the vaccines, or a piece of paper that typically outlines warnings, ingredients, and other information for a vaccine. The insert for the COVID-19 vaccines has no information and says, “intentionally blank,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged.

“How am I to give informed consent to parents when this is what I have?” Dr. Moon said.

Regulators say people can access the information that is usually on the paper on the administration’s website. One of the vaccine manufacturers has said that the COVID-19 vaccine inserts were left blank because the information was being updated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I have a government telling me that I have to say ‘safe and effective’ and if I don’t, my license is at threat. We’re seeing an uptick in myocarditis. We’re seeing an uptick in adverse reactions. We have trusted these regulatory agencies—I have—for my entire career up until now,” Dr. Moon testified.

“Something is extremely wrong, and that is the anecdotal story that I have.”

Myocarditis is caused by the COVID-19 vaccines, U.S. officials have confirmed. The heart inflammation primarily affects younger males and can cause death.

“It’s my obligation to speak out. It’s the obligation of any physician who thinks that there is a problem with a product to speak about that product, whether, honestly, whether they’re right or wrong,” Dr. Moon said on EpochTV’s “ATL: Now.”

“And in this case, everything I said was completely factual.”

Other Concerns

Drs. Haney and Record claimed Dr. Moon failed to request and report an absence in order to travel to Washington and testify on the panel, which would violate faculty rules.

They also said that Dr. Moon did not make clear she was not speaking on behalf of Washington State University, another possible rule violation, and that other parts of the roundtable were “inconsistent with expectations of the evidence-based medical education expected in developing a future generation of physicians.”

They added, “The expressed views will require us to review your teaching assignments in the frame of the education of our students.”

Emails reviewed by The Epoch Times show Dr. Moon did not list the university in a bio she provided Mr. Johnson’s office. The bio stated that her views were her own and that she was not speaking on behalf of any institutions with which she has or is affiliated.

Mr. Johnson, in introducing Dr. Moon, did not mention any institution but also did not mention the latter part of the bio.

Dr. Moon’s placard did not list an institution. One of the video streams of the panel listed Washington State University. A university investigator noted that in one email.

“I was unaware of this happening and did everything in my power to prevent it by sending the press release and making sure not to mention the name of any employer either with my words or on the cardboard placard in front of me,” Dr. Moon told The Epoch Times.

According to other emails, Dr. Moon requested substitutes for Dec. 6, 2021, and Dec. 8, 2021, the days before and after the panel. She was not scheduled to teach on the day of the panel. University employees responded to the messages by saying they were looking for or had found substitutes, and the university investigator confirmed that substitutes were ultimately found for both days.

“I did it the way we’ve always done it. My senior physicians approved it; we had substitutes for my classes,” Dr. Moon told The Epoch Times.

A university spokesman declined to comment on the situation.

“As a matter of policy WSU does not comment on personnel matters,” the spokesman told The Epoch Times via email.

It’s unclear if the university ultimately referred Dr. Moon to the medical commission. Dr. Moon is part of a lawsuit against the commission for enforcing its misinformation statement without proper adoption. She says the threat of having her license revoked caused her to not renew her license and has impacted her constitutional right to free speech.

Trend?

Dr. Moon said she’s concerned about medical schools no longer serving as venues for discussion and critical thinking.

She recalled being called into the office of a superior over student complaints. She learned that the students complained about Dr. Moon noting correctly that some information about the COVID-19 vaccines was unknown, such as where in the body the ingredients were distributed and whether they would cause certain health problems.

“I just engaged in some critical thinking with my students. I thought it was something that we’re supposed to do in discussion groups, and they had asked me, right?” Dr. Moon said.

“They said that I had caused them trauma and harm by telling them that the vaccines might not be 100 percent safe. Again, these are medical students. This is a medical school. Nothing is 100 percent safe, not even aspirin is 100 percent safe. Everything has the potential for a reaction. So to have that be a complaint against me really surprised me and it really concerned me.”

Another complaint related to how Dr. Moon, after students asked how her week in the clinic had gone, relayed how she had seen anxious and depressed children.

Dr. Moon attributed the problems to the harsh lockdowns imposed in Washington state, like much of the country, and questioned why those policies were put into place when children face little risk from COVID-19.

“I just said to my students, I think we need to rethink this masking that we’re doing and the social distancing and isolating, I wonder if CDC has considered that we need to think about isolating our more vulnerable in our communities and keeping them more safe and keeping them at home but letting our kids go out there,” Dr. Moon said, referring to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“My students again stated that they were traumatized and harmed by that discussion, in a discussion group in a graduate-level medical school,” Dr. Moon said. “This is happening nationwide. Our students have lost that ability, I think, to tolerate critical thinking, and to hear perspectives that are different than the main narrative or the main party line that is being pushed.”

Fifty years ago, the government finance heads from the UK, West Germany, France, and the U.S. met informally in the White House’s ground-floor library to discuss the international monetary situation at the time. This is the origin story of the G7.

This initial group quickly expanded, adding Japan, Italy, and Canada, to solidify a bloc of the biggest non-communist economies at the time. As industrialized countries that were reaping the benefits of the post-war productivity boom, they were economic juggernauts, with G7 economic output historically contributing around 40% of global GDP.

However, as Visual Capiutalist’s Pallavi Rao details below, the more recent emergence of another international group, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), has been carving out its own section of the global economic order.

This animation from James Eagle uses data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and charts the percentage contribution of the G7 and BRICS members to the world economy.

Specifically it uses GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) using international dollars.

Charting the Rise of BRICS vs. G7

The acronym “BRIC”, developed by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in 2001, was used to identify four fast-growing economies in similar stages of development. It wasn’t until 2009 that their leaders met and formalized their relationship, later inviting South Africa to join in 2010.

ℹ️ Russia was at the time also a member of the G7, then the G8. It was invited to join in 1997 but was expelled in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea.

While initially banded together for investment opportunities, in the last decade, BRICS has become an economic rival to G7. Several of their initiatives include building an alternate global bank, with dialogue underway for a payment system and new reserve currency.

Below is a quick look at both groups’ contribution to the world economy in PPP-adjusted terms.

A major contributing factor to BRICS’ rise is Chinese and Indian economic growth.

After a period of rapid industrialization in the 1980s and 1990s, China’s exports got a significant boost after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. This helped China become the world’s second largest economy by 2010.

India’s economic rise has not been quite as swift as China’s, but by 2022, the country ranked third with a gross domestic product (PPP) of $12 trillion. Together the two countries make up nearly one-fourth of the PPP-adjusted $164 trillion world economy.

The consequence of using the PPP metric—which better reflects the strengths of local currencies and local prices—is that it has an outsized multiplier effect on the GDPs of developing countries, where the prices of domestic goods and services tend to be cheaper.

Below, we can see both the nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country in 2023. Nominal GDP is measured in USD with market-rate currency conversion, while the adjusted GDP uses international dollars (using the U.S. as a base country for calculations) which better account for cost of living and inflation.

By the IMF’s projections, BRICS countries will constitute more of the world economy in 2023 ($56 trillion) than the G7 ($52 trillion) using PPP-adjusted GDPs.

How Will BRICS and G7 Compare in the Future?

China and India are in a stage of economic development marked by increasing productivity, wages and consumption, which most countries in the G7 had previously enjoyed in the three decades after World War II.

By 2028, the IMF projects BRICS countries to make up one-third of the global economy (PPP):

BRICS vs. the World?

The economic rise of BRICS carries geopolitical implications as well.

Alongside different political ideals, BRICS’ increasing power gives its member countries financial muscle to back them up. This was put into sharp perspective after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when both China and India abstained from condemning the war at the United Nations and continued to buy Russian oil.

While this is likely concerning for G7 countries, the group of developed countries still wields unparalleled influence on the global stage. Nominally the G7 still commands a larger share of the global economy ($46 trillion) than BRICS ($27.7 trillion). And from the coordination of sanctions on Russia to sending military aid to Ukraine, the G7 still wields significant influence financially and politically.

In the next few decades, especially as China and India are earmarked to lead global growth while simultaneously grappling with their own internal demographic issues, the world order is only set to become more complex and nuanced as these international blocs vie for power.

Authored by Daniel Yeng via The Epoch Times,

Energy providers could have the option to switch off home EV charging stations remotely to reduce pressure on Queensland’s electricity grid.

The proposal is part of the Australian state’s Queensland Electricity Connection Manual (QECM), which provides a framework for the grid’s operation.

Section 8 of the QECM proposes that EV charging equipment may be limited or switched off by operators Ergon Energy and Energex (distributed network service providers or DNSPs) if it has an output of more than 20 amps—a standard domestic single-phase EV charger uses 32 amps.

The use of such “demand management” schemes is largely unique to Queensland and is also used on residential pool cleaning machines, hot water systems, and air conditioning units under the Peaksmart program.

Peaksmart gives households a cash rebate; in return, the operator can turn off air conditioners remotely during peak operating times (summer) to reduce pressure on the energy grid.

The large-scale roll-out of such programs has been earmarked as a potential catalyst to close down coal-fired power stations faster—amid the net zero push—and to, instead, adopt more intermittent renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and battery.

Confidence Towards Net Zero’s Viability is Low: MP

Federal Nationals MP Keith Pitt, himself an electrical engineer, says a proposal to use demand management on EV charging reveals that operators have little confidence the grid can handle the uptake of electric cars expected in the push towards net zero.

“EV take-up could increase peak demand by as much as 60 percent right across the National Electricity Market,” Mr. Pitt told The Epoch Times.

“That would mean you need a 60 percent increase in generating electricity capacity, transmission, and distribution. So that’s every substation, every cable, every supply point, every house—it will cost an absolute fortune.”

The federal Labor government has set a lofty goal of having 3.8 million EVs on the road by 2030—there are currently 83,000 in use.

Further, the government is also pushing to expand the charging network, aiming for 100,000 for businesses, 3.8 million chargers in households, and 1,800 publicly available fast chargers.

The initiative comes as part of a wider push towards net zero by 2050 and to reduce emissions by 43 percent by 2030. Further, the Labor government hopes to have 82 percent of the National Electricity Market powered by renewables.

Advocacy Groups Push Back Against Proposal

Advocacy groups have argued against a demand management system saying it will dampen enthusiasm for EVs.

“We know from surveys that average consumers aren’t particularly keen on mandated orchestration of their appliances,” says the Electric Vehicle Council in its submission on the QECM (pdf).

“The Peaksmart program enlists between 10,000 and 15,000 air conditioning units for orchestration each year … out of a total of about 300,000 that get installed. About 95 percent of consumers prefer retaining control of their air conditioning, overtaking the financial incentives on offer.”

Meanwhile, Melissa McAuliffe, acting director of energy services at Energy Consumers Australia, says it would erode consumer trust that the “energy system is working for them.”

“Our 2023 Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey finds that only 35 percent of households are confident that the energy industry and regulators are working in their long-term interests now,” she wrote in a submission (pdf).

“Further, such measures are unlikely to be completely effective for consumers or the system, as consumers may look to workarounds that circumvent giving DNSPs control. For example, through disincentivising the use of EV chargers, consumers may just use regular power points.”

On Sunday, the day following a major drone attack on Moscow’s financial district, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that he is ready to “return” war to Russia’s own territory, emphasizing that this is “inevitable”.

“Today is the 522nd day of the so-called ‘Special Military Operation’, which the Russian leadership thought would last a couple of weeks,” he said in a new video message. “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.” 

He described these increasing attacks Russian territory as an “inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process” of the war between the two nations.

It seemed a rare moment of Ukraine’s leadership owning up to a brazen cross-border attack deep in Russian territory. Throughout most of the war, Kiev officials have tended to stay silent on claiming responsibility specific attacks like this.

BBC noted of Zelensky’s words that “It may be far from a confession, but President Zelensky clearly feels confident enough to pile on the pressure, and not just on the Kremlin.”

Ukraine’s most powerful military backer, the United States, early in the conflict urged restraint when it comes to the prospect of attacking Russian territory—and has even long been resistant to providing Kiev with long-range missiles.

And yet, there’s mounting testimony and evidence that strongly suggests US support for certain major attacks on Russian territory, especially in the Crimean peninsula. Arguably the biggest and most devastating attacks were the two bombings of the Crimean Bridge (which Russia alleges Ukrainian forces had US or NATO assistance with in both cases).

It seems Zelensky now has greater willingness to be “open” in his intent to keep hitting Russian territory, which in turn raises to pressure on President Putin to respond with military escalation.

Indeed Putin is now signaling he’s ready to do just that. While addressing the following remarks specifically in reference to the potential for a US-Russia clash over the skies of Syria, the issues at play certainly intersect with the Ukraine crisis as well:

Russia is “always ready for any scenario,” President Vladimir Putin told journalists on Saturday, commenting on a potential direct confrontation between the Russian and NATO militaries. The president was responding to a question about recent near-collisions involving Russian and American aircraft in Syria. 

“No one wants that,” the president added, pointing to the existing conflict-prevention lines that allow Russian and US officers to talk directly about “any crisis situation.” That fact that these lines still work shows that no side is interested in a conflict, he added. “If someone wants it – and that’s not us – then we’re ready,” Putin added.

In Ukraine, there have been reports that intelligence and military command centers are being hit with Russian missiles at greater regularity.

A new Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow. Kiev is in a desperate situation. Desperate people do desperate things. From the beginning of this war the desperate act of a nuclear war was always attributed to Russia, despite its gains in the battlefield. Why is no one paying attention…

— Sophia (@les_politiques) July 30, 2023

Some analysts have speculated that should the Ukrainian counteroffensive keep sliding toward failure and eventual defeat, Kiev will grow more desperate. Ukraine’s government might also be desperate enough to orchestrate an intentionally escalatory situation which would “ensure” the West gets more directly dragged into the war. This also at a moment Kiev officials continue to be frustrated at lack of air superiority, given the lag over the timeframe of receiving F-16 jets.

Meanwhile…

America, you loved Build Back Better!

Now you’re loving Bidenomics!

And this fall he’s delivering a very special treat:
Bidenuclear armageddon! pic.twitter.com/Ybm68wop4G

— Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy) July 30, 2023

Authored by Catharine Yang via The Epoch Times,

Republican members of Congress have sent a letter asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to release the conflict-of-interest review of special counsel Jack Smith.

“Mr. Smith has a history of questionable political prosecutions,” wrote Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) in the Wednesday letter signed by eight other representatives.

Mr. Smith was appointed special counsel last November to investigate former President Donald Trump, and is heading both the Mar-a-Lago case in which Mr. Trump has been indicted, and the probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach and surrounding events.

Mr. Trump last week announced he’d received a letter informing him he was a target of this Jan. 6 investigation that has already resulted in more than 1,000 charged, and just today wrote on social media that his lawyers have met with Department of Justice (DOJ) investigators and that, contrary to many news reports, he was not told to expect an indictment. The grand jury reportedly convened this morning.

Prior to Mr. Smith’s appointment, it would have been standard procedure to do a background check and review of the special counsel’s “ethics and conflicts of interest,” the letter states, citing a statute.

“We request that you provide us with unredacted copies of all documents related to the conflicts of interest review that was conducted prior to Smith’s appointment, including any reports that were prepared as a part of the review by Friday, August 4, 2023,” reads the letter, which was first obtained by The Daily Caller.

Special counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump, in Washington on June 9, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The letter goes on to call into question Mr. Smith’s prosecution former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, “which was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court.”

Mr. McDonnell had been sentenced to two years in prison for accepting bribes in 2015. In 2016 the Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that the prosecutors used a “boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.”

“A more limited interpretation of the term ‘official act’ leaves ample room for prosecuting corruption, while comporting with the text of the statute and the precedent of this Court,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Setting up a meeting, calling another public official, or hosting an event does not, standing alone, qualify as an ‘official act.’”

“Conscientious public officials arrange meetings for constituents, contact other officials on their behalf, and include them in events all the time. The basic compact underlying representative government assumes that public officials will hear from their constituents and act appropriately on their concerns—whether it is the union official worried about a plant closing or the homeowners who wonder why it took five days to restore power to their neighborhood after a storm,” Roberts wrote.

The letter also points out that Mr. Smith’s wife, Katy Chevigny, “produced a documentary about former First Lady Michelle Obama and donated to President [Joe] Biden’s 2020 campaign, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest for Mr. Smith.” Ms. Chevigny had donated $1,000 twice to Mr. Biden’s campaign in 2020.

“We hope that you, in compliance with DOJ regulations, conducted the required review of potential conflicts of interest prior to Mr. Smith’s appointment. In order for the American people to have confidence in Mr. Smith’s investigation, it is vital that you release the information associated with the investigation of Mr. Smith’s potential conflicts of interest,” the letter reads.

Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Bill Posey (R-Fla.), Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.), Matthew Rosendale Sr. (R-Mont.), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Alex Mooney (R-W. Va.), and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) joined Mr. Burlison in signing the letter.

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts (2L) administers the oath of office to U.S. President Donald Trump as his wife Melania Trump holds the Bible and son Barron Trump looks on, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Third Indictment?

Reports of the Jan. 6 grand jury meeting emerged Thursday morning as jurors were seen entering a courthouse, and news reports of Mr. Trump’s lawyers being informed of an indictment that could come as soon as that day followed. The lawyers were seen leaving before noon, and by around 1 p.m. Mr. Trump had taken to social media to dispell the rumors.

“My attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country. No indication of notice was given during the meeting—Do not trust the Fake News on anything!” he wrote.

Mr. Trump has claimed the latest investigation is “election interference” on the part of the Biden administration, which has stayed quiet on the topic. When he announced the letter stating he was a target of this latest investigation, he wrote that a grand jury “almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.” He has already pleaded not guilty in one case related to falsifying business records, and another related to classified documents.

“We’ll have fun on the stand with all of these people that say the Presidential Election wasn’t Rigged and Stollen. THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY!!!” Mr. Trump wrote.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is on track to recommend annual COVID-19 shots for Americans, according to the agency’s new director, Dr. Mandy Cohen.

“We’re just on the precipice of that, so I don’t want to get ahead of where our scientists are here and doing that evaluation work, but yes we anticipate that COVID will become similar to flu shots, where it is going to be you get your annual flu shot and you get your annual COVID shot,” Cohen told Spectrum News, adding “We’re not quite there yet, but stay tuned. I think within the next couple of weeks, month we’re going to hear more from our experts on COVID shot.”

The proposal, which would make COVID-19 shots akin to the flu vaccine, is expected to be finalized and announced in September despite concerns raised by critics regarding the lack of clinical trial data supporting the vaccines and the efficacy of the boosters.

In April the CDC scaled back recommendations for people of all ages to receive a primary vaccine series and at least one booster – while countries such as England have stopped recommending or allowing certain people to get boosters, period. According to critics, the CDC should further scale back recommendations – particularly for those who are young and/or healthy until more data is available from trials and studies.

“When you look at tracking data for the young, the rates of either infection or vaccination—in other words, the rate at which people have some level of circulating immunity—is quite high. And so the idea that that group needs to have a vaccination series now, without current research in that particular population, I don’t think is scientifically valid,” said Dr. David McCune, an oncologist, in a statement to the Epoch Times.

The CDC’s plan ignores the fact that the vaccines have ‘faced challenges’ against the newer COVID-19 variants, while clinical data for newer, reformulated shots has yet to be made public. The updated shots which are supposed to target the XBB.1.5 variant are expected to be rolled out around September, and will exclude components of the original shot designed for the Wuhan variant.

“Immunity from both vaccines and infection wanes over time. The only way to stay ahead of the virus is to continue to update the composition of our vaccines and administer them in a regular cadence. Although this strategy is critical, with our current generation of vaccines, it also requires immense resources for mounting frequent vaccination campaigns—at a time when antivaccination sentiment continues to grow and the public’s appetite for regular vaccinations has waned,” Health Secretary Xavier Becerra and former White House official Dr. Ashish Jha wrote in an editorial.

“Next-generation vaccines and treatments are needed if we are to break the cycle of responding to new variants as they appear: we need tools that can improve our bodies’ ability to stop infections, reduce transmission, build longer-lasting immunity, and target parts of the virus that are less likely to evolve. Ideally, such vaccines and treatments would provide better protection, enabling us to avoid disruptions of our lives and continue to enjoy the activities we value.”

Pharmaceutical companies are also developing combination vaccines to handle both COVID-19 and influenza.

“The companies need a new market for the COVID product and they can get that by combining it with the influenza vaccine and making sure the CDC recommends that everyone get a COVID booster annually,” said Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, in an email to the Epoch Times.

“If CDC officials recommend that everyone get an annual COVID booster shot,” she added, “it will only further increase public distrust in vaccines and call into question the scientific and moral integrity of public health policy.”

Submitted by Sebastian Bea of One River Asset Management

60 years. That’s the median age of FOMC members. It puts their prime college learning years from 1983 to 1988, a period of exciting change in economics. Policy was attentive to taming inflation and shrinking the role of the government. Academicians calibrated how to keep future policy from cheating once price stability was achieved. And the world settled on inflation targeting, with New Zealand the first responder.

“It was a bit of a shock to everyone, I think,” offered Roger Douglas, New Zealand’s finance minister in the late 1980s. “I just announced it was gonna be 2%, and it sort of stuck.” Global monetary policy can credit its current north star to “Rogernomics” – 2% became the global norm, agreeing with the direction of the wind. It was low enough to make inflation irrelevant and high enough to give policy a margin of error, greasing the wheels of an economy.

But inflation targeting failed to achieve its objective. And for predictable reasons.

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure,” Charles Goodhart quipped in 1975 at a time when statistical techniques were on the rise. Models that looked useful when fitted to the past would become useless once policy used them, as everyone would anticipate their effects. And despite the vintage of policymakers learned in this era of thought, the lessons were brushed aside. The consequences cannot be. The amplitudes of financial asset prices have never been greater than in the era of “price stability.”

And so, the pattern continues. Today, the global goods sector is in a deep recession. Industrial powerhouses of Europe’s north have become the weakest links in the global economy. Downward pressure on inflation from these sources is welcomed in overheated economies, like the US where nominal GDP is 14% above its 2010-2020 trend. One-year US inflation swaps have collapsed to 2%, a Pavlovian green light to be long growth equities. Only, that’s not really the story.

Last year was a deflationary board, not an inflationary one. Yes, global CPI inflation rocketed to 9%, the highest in nearly two decades. But from any other vantage point, 2022 was deflationary. The US dollar rose. Equities evaporated. Bonds busted. Crypto cratered. Commodities collapsed. These are not outcomes of a world seeking inflation protection. There was a strongly held belief that inflation would be contained by rate hikes. And we got a lot of them. Cash was king.

Now, the board is inflationary in the face of declining consumer price growth. Weak growth and low inflation in China open the door for aggressive easing, executing targeted stimulus to boost the consumer. Inflationary. Global equity gains are multiple expansion, discounting higher nominal GDP. Also, inflationary. Financial markets are internalizing the other lesson of the 1970s – monetary policy can’t do it alone in taming inflation, a fiscal anchor is needed. It isn’t there.

Growth assets are leading performers this year with all eyes on scalable virtual worlds. Artificial intelligence. The Metaverse. Virtual currencies. Investors are enamored by scale. And like macro models, the past 20 years of scaling solutions are not the right guide to the future. Scaling the new generation of technologies will require enormous resources at a time when they are in sparse supply. A commodity supercycle will focus investors back to the need for physical investment.

Signs are already there. Despite higher-for-longer policy rates, inflation commodities are firming. Gold is approaching cycle highs. Its correlation to bitcoin has averaged 65% this year (Bloomberg, CBAM calculations). The levels look nothing alike – bitcoin is still 57% from all-time highs. But there are two distinct patterns in the relationship between gold and bitcoin. One where bitcoin follows gold in a low-beta manner, and the other where digital gold surges in the phase of speculative excess (Figure 1).

We have yet to see the unabashed speculative excess that derailed past cycles – crypto-asset markets are avoiding past mistakes. It’s a disciplined rally. Digital Financial Conditions are tight. Capital is available, but only for those with strong projects anchored to conservative planning. Even where momentum and speculation show signs of building, it is localized. Figure 2 makes the point with a scatter of one-month price changes against the year-to-date.

The upward-sloping line is indicative of momentum. Those winning for the month are now winning for the year. Narrow momentum is the story of July, a bet on previously lagging assets racing ahead, like Stellar, Ripple, and Solana. This cycle’s early movers, dominated by Bitcoin and Ethereum, delivered mostly nothing in July despite an inflationary board in traditional markets. The gift of nothing is welcomed. Durable trends are built on discipline. It’s the prevailing theme in crypto-asset markets.