Month: September 2023

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Happenings Await

“Even Americans who have no particular interest in freedom and independence in democracies worldwide, should be satisfied that we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment.”

– Sen. Richard Blumenthal

The Labor Day weekend looms like a gateway into an autumn hell-scape of political psychodrama, so enjoy those last clam rolls of the season before the zeitgeist darkens and events pound the shore like so many waves of  hurricane surf. Further inland, where the Swamp lies, unseen hands work overtime to falsify reality in a leaderless nation. Everybody feels the unbearable tension of things as yet unhappened.

“Joe Biden” has LARPed his way to the final act of his performance. The evidence of his high crimes, and the covering-up of those high crimes by our lawless law officialdom, is piled high enough to eject him into the swales of infamy. We know exactly how the Ukraine grift went down — the documentation is stark and florid — as is the rest of family’s bribery operations in other lands not necessarily friendly to our own land. So, add treason to bribery and there you have the complete kit of perfidious treachery against the nation.

“Joe Biden” will be removed most likely by his own party before an impeachment inquiry can be launched in Congress. Not even The New York Times and CNN would able to ignore the horrific spectacle and the party’s own minions might be shamed into learning how they were hosed for so many years. The unseen hands that jammed “JB” into the White House can then figure out what to do about the hapless Kamala Harris while Congress turns its attention to impeaching Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Xavier Bacerra. At least that’s how it might work if the USA was a sane polity.

Otherwise, the people of this land will have to choose between being rolled-over by a globalist coup or find other routes of resistance. One would be for the governors of several so-called Red states to end mail-in voting, get rid of computerized ballot-counting machines, bring back paper ballots, and declare that all voting and hand ballot-counting take place on one election day. Don’t believe those who say it can’t be done. If it’s not done, we’ll never see anything close to an un-rigged election in this country ever again.

In what might be one of his last official acts, “Joe Biden” announced last week that Americans would be “encouraged” to get a new-and-improved mRNA vaccine booster against the new Covid virus strain EG.5 “Eris” (named after the Greek goddess of strife and discord). The “president,” said he asked Congress for funding “for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works…. It will likely be recommended that everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not.”

Say, what…? Did the earlier vaccines not work, Joe? Most assuredly they did not. The shots injured, disabled, and killed a great many people, and it staggers the rational mind that the CDC is still pushing these shots. You might conclude that they’re pretending this didn’t happen to evade responsibility. After all, what would be the consequences if these officials admitted that all the previous Covid vaccines were ineffective and harmful? And what would be the reaction of the 81.3 percent of the population who got at least one dose of the previous vaccines and the 65.6 percent who are “fully vaccinated” with two or more shots? (Note, statistics from the CDC.)

I’ll tell you what would happen: the CDC officials and a great many other persons on the public payroll would be in court on criminal charges. And doctors and hospitals would be subject to so many lawsuits they would never again have time to actually practice medicine, while millions of people with damaged immune systems and wrecked organs take flight like so many black swans flapping into the setting sun of their own prematurely attenuated lives. If you care to be astounded, listen to this talk that Dr. Peter McCullough gave to an audience in New Hampshire a few days ago, calling out all the principals who devised the Covid-19 fiasco by name: Ralph Baric, Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszek, and Francis Collins, and then describing exactly how the dastardly act and the cover-up went down.

Speaking of happenings this autumn, expect the war in Ukraine to come to an end. The news media might omit to inform you about this, but it awaits. Russia will not trumpet its victory, so as to avoid inflaming America’s crazed neo-cons. Rather it will just quietly take charge of its successfully neutralized neighbor, make provision for some sort of administration over what remains of the rump state — in a way that affords Russia a sense of permanent security — at the same time that Russia commences new negotiations separately with several European nations to reestablish realistic relations.

The US will be delicately hung out to dry on this. Short of resorting to nuclear World War Three, there is nothing the US can do about it — except for the Democratic Party to blame the whole sorry thing on “Joe Biden” as he is forced to resign from office pending that aforesaid impeachment threat. No other explanation for the end of our Ukraine project will be required.

The party of chaos will flounder a while in the very chaos that it induced, trying laughably to switch out Kamala Harris for Gavin Newsom — or some other ploy to stay in business. But the party will be so badly damaged by then that it will have no other option except to let Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in to drive out the remaining demons and save the venerable old org from suicide.

If you think that these various momentous happenings won’t affect the financial markets and the banking system in the coming season, prepare to be amazed. This is how America truly gets to feel the pain, and this might be how the pitchforks finally come out for the people who wrecked our country.

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Quite a week… sticky (or rising) inflation, mostly bad picture of the labor market, and sentiment softens – not exactly the goldilocks/soft-landing that The Fed and most of the talking heads keep dreaming of and in fact more stagflationary signals evident.

‘Hard’ data disappointed this week and fell to 4 month lows while ‘soft’ survey data surged back near cycle highs on the heels of hope…

Source: Bloomberg

Overall on the week, STIRs pushed dovishly lower…

Source: Bloomberg

That dovish tilt supported stocks all week – even with today’s post-payrolls weakness – for big gains in Nasdaq and Small Caps (best week since March)…

The kneejerk reaction to payrolls was higher in stocks but as soon as the cash market opened, The Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq were hit by selling (higher rates, lower stocks) but the last hour saw a 0-DTE covering-driven bounce back into the green for all but Nasdaq…

And all on the back of the biggest weekly short-squeeze since January (‘most shorted’ stock up almost 7%)…

Source: Bloomberg

For the 3rd day in a row, NVDA was unable to break above its $500 Call-Wall level…

Staples and Utes ended lower on the week while Tech, Materials, and Energy led the gains…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields exploded higher today after the payrolls data to wreck the week’s trend and push the long-end higher on the week (30Y +1bps, 2Y -21bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

Which steepened the yield curve (2s30s) dramatically – up near recent highs. The 2s30s curve has risen for 5 straight sessions…

Source: Bloomberg

But, it is worth pointing out today’s huge jump in yields (despite the broad weakness in jobs data) after a kneejerk lower (that’s a 15bps spike in 10Y yields)…

Source: Bloomberg

Here are 10 possible reasons for the surge in yields (via Bloomberg)…

1. Hollywood strikes and Yellow Corp. bankruptcy cut 54,000 from August jobs. Without that, non-farm payrolls would have been closer to ~240,000

2. Debunking the decline in August average hourly earnings, noting it might be temporary. Companies still plan to hike wages. A special question in Monday’s Dallas Fed Manufacturing report showed companies expect to raise wages by 5% this year. That’s above the level of inflation and something that can keep the consumer spending — putting a floor under inflation

3. The slight rise in hours worked in August gives credence to Thursday’s Chicago PMI report whereby there were glimmers that business activity is getting back on track after a soft patch

4. US August ISM Manufacturing index saw rises in the overall index, production, backlogs, lead times, prices paid and employment

5. Money managers sold the long end and fast money did steepeners in swaps. Traders are short and letting those winning positions ride

6. Mortgage origination has picked up. It’s $800 million so far today, that’s up from its typical $500 million pace

7. Preparations for an onslaught of corporate supply

8. Breakout in crude oil as OPEC+ supply cuts tighten market. Option bets on $100 oil are also rising as supplies tighten

9. Saudi Arabia Aramco is considering selling $50 billion in shares. It would be advantageous for the Kingdom to keep oil supplies tighter thus prices higher through the offering

10. Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said inflation remains too high despite recent improvements, and the labor market is still strong

The dollar ended the week marginally higher after exploding back to Tuesday’s PCE highs and Friday’s Jackson Hole highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Crypto had an ugly week, legging lower again today as the dollar spiked, with Bitcoin back below $26,000. After three weeks hugging 26k, we spiked on the SEC losing but then three selling legs wiped all that lipstick off the pig…

Source: Bloomberg

Energy dominated in commodity-land this week (led by NatGas) while silver was flat and Spot Gold improved…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI soared to its biggest week since March, reaching akmosty $86, the highest since Nov 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold (spot) rallied for the second week in a row, topping $1950 back at one-month highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, while many continue to grasp the ‘soft-landing’ straw narrative, we note that despite the headline payrolls number surprising slightly to the upside, temporary help and weekly hours worked continue to point to a weakening jobs market, consistent with a drop in yields…

Source: Bloomberg

Employers typically cut hours worked and temporary staff before they lay off full-time employees. The data suggests that underlying pressures are building, and job losses should start to rise more rapidly in the coming months.

This is consistent with the message from other leading indicators, such as higher claims and tighter consumer credit conditions.

And at the same time, ‘core services’ inflation jumped to its second highest since 1985…

Source: Bloomberg

…and Manufacturing ISMs confirmed the stagflationary theme.

Philip Marey, Senior US Strategist at Rabobank

Yesterday’s data from both sides of the Atlantic showed that the battle against inflation is far from over, which means that the ECB and the Fed are not going to cut rates anytime soon. While it has come down considerably, inflation is not falling in a straight line. In fact, in some months, inflation is not falling at all, or it is actually increasing.

Eurozone inflation remained at 5.3% in August. Our ECB watcher Bas van Geffen noted that ECB expectations reversed course after the inflation report for August hit the wires. Markets are now priced for about a one in four chance that the central bank will raise rates in September, down from the 55% odds at Wednesday’s close. The headline inflation rate failed to continue its descent from 5.3%, but on the bright side it didn’t accelerate either – as had been expected following the release of several national estimates. Moreover, core inflation did decline somewhat, as did other measures of underlying price pressures. Our own estimate of super-core inflation dropped 0.3 percentage points, and, notably, services inflation decelerated marginally. Although the latter is admittedly difficult to gauge given the broad range of categories it spans, it is also a closely watched measure by the ECB considering that services prices generally have a closer relationship with wage developments.

Later in the day, the accounts of the July ECB meeting confirmed that inflation developing more or less in line with expectations may just be good enough for the Council to sit on their hands at the next meeting: “Members underlined that there had been no material surprise in the latest inflation outcomes compared with the June projections. This was seen as good news given the earlier streak of upward surprises.” On its own, that’s not the most convincing argument. Crucially, at the same time, the ECB is clearly becoming more concerned about the growth outlook: “signs of a possible downward surprise in economic activity compared with the June projections constituted important news.” 

Bas views these developments as supporting our view that the ECB will take a long pause from here on out, albeit with a hawkish message. The ECB is by no means considering its job done, and the Council is not blind to the upside risks from a resilient labour market, and the potential for wage growth to outstrip the ECB’s expectations. The possibility of rate hikes will be kept firmly on the table, even if the ECB holds rates this month. However, risks are no longer one-sided. The weakness in activity is partially caused by monetary developments and tightening credit conditions; and the effects of past policy tightening have yet to fully materialise. This concern was also raised in the Council’s previous deliberations: “with the current slowdown in activity, the ongoing transmission of past monetary policy actions could lead to a more pronounced deceleration in activity than was necessary to achieve price stability.” In other words, “overtightening would not help bring inflation sustainably to the 2% target if it later led to inflation undershooting.”

Turning to the US, the PCE deflator and its core for July came out exactly as expected by the Bloomberg consensus: 3.3% headline and 4.2% core. This rebound from 3.0% and 4.1% was caused by base effects, as July last year we actually saw a decline in the headline PCE price level month-on-month. For the remainder of the year, we are not likely to see a substantial decline in (core) PCE inflation year-on-year, unless core inflation starts to come down significantly in month-on-month terms. This is largely a services story, with services inflation at 5.2%, in contrast goods inflation is negative: -0.5%. In the same report, there was also an acceleration in real personal spending to 0.6% (month-on-month) in July from 0.4%. However, there was a slowdown in personal income to 0.2% from 0.3% and a decline in the personal saving rate to 3.5% from 4.3%. This is the lowest saving rate this year.

The initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell to 228K in the week ending on August 26, but on average they remained slightly higher in August than in July. Further signs of a loosening labor market were provided by the Challenger job cuts which rose by almost 277% (year-on-year) in August. This follows on weaker JOLTS data for July and the Conference Board consumer survey for August indicating deteriorating labor market opportunities, earlier this week.

After yesterday’s data, the Atlanta Fed revised its nowcast for Q3 GDP growth downward to 5.63% from 5.91% (August 24). This is still an impressive figure. The biggest contributor is personal consumption spending (2.94 ppt), followed by changes in inventories (1.25 ppt).

Yesterday, Atlanta Fed president Bostic gave a speech at a South African Reserve Bank research conference. Although he is currently not a voter in the FOMC, his views give us some insight into the thinking of the doves in the Committee. He said that policy is appropriately restrictive and that “we should be cautious and patient and let the restrictive policy continue to influence the economy, lest we risk tightening too much and inflicting unnecessary economic pain.” However, he did not rule out an additional rate hike: “Should conditions not play out the way I anticipate, and inflation or inflation expectations abruptly reverse course and start climbing, then I would certainly support doing what would be necessary to put the US economy back on a path toward price stability.” What’s more, Bostic said that patience “does not mean I am for easing policy any time soon. Inflation in the United States is still too high. The battle against inflation has seen significant progress. Inflation is well off the very elevated levels we saw in the last year, but it’s essential that it be brought all the way back to our target.”  So even a very dovish FOMC participant does not want an early pivot

By John Kingston of FreightWaves

Truck transportation jobs plummeted in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the likelihood that the demise of Yellow Corp. was largely responsible for sending the employment total down by 36,700 employees.

To put that drop in perspective, in the past 10 years the only month with a larger decline was April 2020, when the economy took the full blow from the start of the pandemic. Truck transportation jobs on a seasonal basis that month dropped 84,500 jobs from March. 

Since then, there have only been six months in which truck transportation jobs declined, four of them this year. And those job losses totaled just 16,900 jobs, less than half of those lost in August alone.

The only other month with higher job loss than August was due to a Teamsters strike in April 1994.

“Following Yellow’s bankruptcy on July 31, much of this loss is attributed to LTL trucking,” Breakthrough Fuel Chief Economist Matt Muenster said in an email to FreightWaves.

The 1,567,700 truck transportation seasonally adjusted jobs total is the lowest total since April 2022, when the BLS reported 1,571,700 jobs. Since the peak number in January, 1,611,400 jobs, the total number of truck transportation jobs reported by the BLS is down by 43,800 jobs.

The BLS breaks out data by truckload and LTL with a time lag of a month, so there is no way of knowing for certain that the decline in employment was heavily weighted toward LTL, as would be expected if the decline was driven by the shuttering of Yellow.

Ironically, even as truck transportation jobs were plummeting, warehouse jobs stabilized for the first time in months.

Warehouse jobs had declined for seven consecutive months and 10 of the past 11; in the one month in that stretch when jobs didn’t decline, job totals were flat.

The August increase of 600 jobs was the first rise in that number since June of last year. But with a downward revision of the total for June of this year, even the small gain in August could not push the warehouse jobs total above 1.9 million. Jobs in the warehouse sector had not been less than 1.9 million since January 2022, just before the annual revision of the BLS model produced a giant increase in the warehouse jobs estimate.

Another area that took a big hit was couriers. August jobs totaled 1,100,300, down 9,000 jobs from 1,109,300. And that was on top of a revision in the July number which sent that figure down by 8,100 jobs. Throw in a revision in the June numbers and courier jobs stood at 13,900 fewer in August than they were two months earlier.

As Muenster noted, even with the latest decline, total truck transportation employment is down just 2.1% year on year “and remains elevated from 2021 and pre-pandemic levels.”

In August 2019, jobs in truck transportation were 1,529,400.

Muenster, in reviewing the one-month lag figures that break out employment by sector, said the data on long distance truckload, both in number of jobs and hours worked, “stand out because they continue to show the sector is more resilient to the weak freight market than other trucking sectors.”

David Spencer, the vice president of market intelligence at Arrive Logistics, saw a bright spot. “As tough as it is to see, capacity leaving the market can be a good thing for those who can survive the current environment,” he said in an email to FreightWaves. “Ultimately, this trend is what will set up market vulnerability, enabling the next inflationary cycle. I’m still predicting this to occur in the later part of the first half of 2024,, by Q2.”

In other highlights from the report:

• Not seasonally adjusted jobs in truck transportation, which can often diverge from the seasonal numbers, did not stray far this time around. The job decline in that category was 35,700, just 1,000 jobs fewer than the seasonal report.

• Rail employment had held steady between 144,000 and 147,000 jobs for several years. Its increase to more than 150,000 jobs in the past year was seen as significant because as an industry, railroads had been been taking incoming pressure and criticism that they had let too many workers go. It now appears to  be at a new normal: Rail jobs in August totaled 150,200, identical to June, and July jobs in between came in at 150,400.

Blackstone has limited investor redemption requests from its $68 billion real estate trust for high-net wealth investors for ten consecutive months while storm clouds gather over commercial real estate markets. The silver lining is that redemption requests are on the decline. 

According to a shareholder letter, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) recorded investor outflows of nearly $3 billion in August — the lowest redemption requests since October. But the fund still gates redemptions, only returning $1.3 billion, or approximately 43% of what was requested. The trust limits redemptions to 2% of net asset value monthly and 5% quarterly to curb sudden runs.

“We were pleased to see August repurchase requests decline significantly from the January peak to the lowest level since October 2022,” a Blackstone spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement. They added, “A shareholder that has been submitting repurchase requests since November 30, when proration began, has received approximately 96% of their money back.”

BREIT has been working through redemption requests since last November. Recall: 

• Blackstone Urges Investment Advisors To ‘Keep Clients Calm’ As It Limits Redemptions Of Commercial REIT

Recently, BREIT has been on a property-selling spree, notably finalizing a deal to sell Simply Self Storage to rival Public Storage for $2.2 billion in July. Then, it sold a 22% stake in Bellagio on the Las Vegas Strip.

Last month, a report from the Financial Times said BREIT was gearing up to “invest billions in data centers to feed the artificial intelligence boom.” 

Before diving into the AI bubble, the trust should prioritize meeting redemption requests (in full) and quell the ongoing panic withdrawals. 

Investors are nervous about commercial real estate since the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates to two-decade highs. 

We’ve pointed out (“New “Big Short” Hits Record Low As Focus Turns To $400 Billion CRE Debt Maturity Wall“) that the regional banking crisis kick-started CRE turmoil. JPM, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have all joined the CRE gloom parade. 

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

Has World War III already begun?

That’s not a facetious question meant to grab attention. It’s a legitimate question.

It’s often the case that momentous events begin in small ways and expand out of control. In retrospect, it seems obvious that war was inevitable. But at the time, it’s not obvious at all. Events might seem disconnected and it’s far from obvious that war is inevitable.

Historical hindsight is 20/20.

World War I was not called that at the time. It was called the Great War. It was only when World War II arrived that the name World War I was applied.

And how should we think about the beginning of World War II? Most historians date it from the German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Still, many Americans date the war from Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declared war on Japan.

But the Chinese can be forgiven for saying both dates are wrong. The Chinese look to the invasion of Manchuria by Japan on Sept. 18, 1931 as the real start of World War II.

A Matter of Perspective

The point is that both the start and finish of world wars and other major conflicts are not quite as cut and dried as historians would have it. It’s often a question of culture and perspective.

This brings us to the current state of the world. Has anyone raised a banner or made a declaration that World War III has begun? No. Is it often the case that there are brushfire and proxy wars going on in several parts of the world that don’t pose any clear danger of coalescing into a global conflagration?

The answer is yes.

The wars going on today are not all small and some are quite large. More importantly, they directly or indirectly involve great powers such as the U.S., China and Russia and important secondary powers, including nuclear powers such as France and Pakistan.

Moreover, the stakes are high including the future of NATO, control of Eastern Europe, control of Middle East oil and the global supply of uranium. More urgent than the current status of these conflicts is the likelihood of escalation leading to nuclear war with no reverse gear.

Let’s review these critical conflicts briefly. In doing so, keep in mind that we may be in a period such as the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) that presaged World War I, or the Japan-China wars (1931-1937) that presaged World War II.

The genii may already be out of the bottle.

Ukraine

Ukraine is the obvious place to begin. Russia is winning the war decisively. The Ukrainian counteroffensive was annihilated on June 6 and re-annihilated after a reboot of the offensive again in late July. Ukraine is now using light infantry tactics since their armor has been blown up by Russian mines and artillery and left burning on the battlefield.

The “wonder weapons” including Patriot missile batteries, HIMARS artillery, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Leopard tanks, Challenger tanks and Storm Shadow cruise missiles have all been destroyed by some combination of Russian hypersonic missiles, anti-aircraft defenses and artillery or mines, or have been disabled by GPS signal jamming and other forms of electronic warfare.

Ukrainian combat dead are estimated at over 200,000 and all for nothing.

Ukraine has no chance of winning the war, but the war may escalate anyway. Biden’s team does not want to admit a humiliating defeat. They do want to keep the war going until after the 2024 election to help Biden’s reelection chances. After that, Biden (if he wins) will ditch the Ukrainians just as he ditched the Afghanistan people in August 2021.

Keeping the war going means more aggressive acts in the Black Sea (possibly involving Romanian vessels; Romania is a NATO member), providing 155 mm cluster munitions (that mainly kill children when they don’t detonate as intended) and massing Polish troops (another NATO member) on the border of Belarus, which is in a treaty alliance with Russia. Poland has its own designs on western Ukraine as a revival of the Polish-Lithuanian federation that lasted from 1569-1795.

If Russia is pressed to sink a Romanian warship or if Poland moves into western Ukraine, you have a pretext for triggering Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which would lead more or less directly to World War III, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Biden doesn’t care about any of this and U.S. warmongers like Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland are cheering it on.

Side-by-side with the kinetic war in Ukraine are the financial sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Russia. Biden has threatened to keep these sanctions in place “as long as it takes,” which could mean years the way the conflict is proceeding.

These sanctions have had no impact on Russian behavior or the Russian economy, but they have badly damaged the EU and the status of the U.S. dollar as a trusted store of value. These economic costs for the West will grow with the passage of time.

The Fight for Uranium

Another conflict with escalatory potential involves the state of Niger, located in the Sahara desert. A recent military coup d’état overthrew the elected government several weeks ago (although the coup leaders contend the election was fraudulent). Some surveys show that the military junta enjoys broad popular support.

Niger is France’s largest supplier of uranium, while France is one of the largest builders of nuclear power plants in the world. France desperately needs to restore order in Niger, including forcing the junta to step aside and reinstate the elected government.

France has special forces including the French Foreign Legion ready to intervene. However, France does not want to proceed unilaterally, and is trying to recruit African allies to join the invasion.

The most significant regional grouping is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which includes both Francophone states like Senegal and Côte D’Ivoire and important Anglophone states such as Nigeria. France is recruiting ECOWAS to participate in its invasion of Niger.

ECOWAS members are divided on the idea. In any case, ECOWAS action would require approval of the African Union and possibly the United Nations as well as weeks of mobilization. So no military action is likely for several months at the earliest.

There’s no evidence that Russia was involved in the Niger coup, but Russia certainly stands as a major beneficiary. Russia is the other large manufacturer of nuclear power plants in addition to France.

Russia gets its uranium from inside Russia, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian republics. (Russia also owns large amounts of U.S. uranium deposits obtained in a deal authorized by Hillary Clinton in exchange for huge donations to the Clinton Foundation).

If Russia can cut off France’s access to Nigérien uranium, it will tighten its hold on global uranium supplies and enhance its position as a provider of nuclear power plants.

There is some talk now (not confirmed) that Russia may offer support to the Nigérien coup, including possible deployment of the Wagner Group mercenary army. That would greatly complicate any plans for French or ECOWAS involvement.

Again, we would have the specter of Russia (via Wagner) and France (a NATO member) squaring off in a war for uranium in the Sahara desert. The escalatory potential is obvious.

By the way, the bloodthirsty Victoria Nuland visited Niger recently and was not warmly received. She departed the country empty-handed. No doubt she left some threats of U.S. support for the French behind.

A Presage To The Third World War?

There are many other hot zones around the world including Taiwan, the South China Sea, Syria, and North Korea. Pakistan is perhaps the most dangerous because there is a rising conflict between the elected Prime Minister Imran Khan (now in prison and removed from office) and his supporters on the one hand, and the military on the other.

Chaos in Pakistan is inherently threatening at a global level because it is a nuclear armed power in a continual standoff with the nuclear armed India.

Perhaps these conflicts will resolve themselves in the fullness of time. Perhaps not. For now, they are individually threatening (because of escalation) and bear an eerie resemblance to the confluence of conflicts that presaged the two greatest wars in history.

History may not repeat itself, but it sounds like it’s beginning to rhyme.