Month: March 2024

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Attorney General Merrick Garland on March 3 declared that efforts by states to implement voter ID laws are “unnecessary” and “burdensome,” drawing the ire of Republicans.

While speaking at a church Selma, Alabama, the attorney general was commemorating the 59th anniversary of the targeting of demonstrators by Selma police during an early civil rights protest.

He said that the right to vote “is still under attack,” though he provided little evidence in his speech for how requiring identification would be an assault on voting rights.

“There are many things that are open to debate in America,” Mr. Garland stated. “One thing that must not be open for debate is the right of all eligible citizens to vote and to have their vote counted.”

The attorney general said the Department of Justice is “fighting back” against states that have passed bills requiring identification that would prove such eligibility to cast ballots.

“One of the first things I did when I came into office was to double the size of the voting section of the civil rights division,” Mr. Garland said. “That is why we are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.”

“Those measures include practices and procedures that make voting more difficult; redistricting maps that disadvantage minorities; and changes in voting administration that diminish the authority of locally elected or nonpartisan election administrators,” he said. “Such measures threaten the foundation of our system of government.”

The attorney general also accused courts of issuing rulings that, according to him, imperil U.S. voting rights.

“Court decisions in recent years have drastically weakened the protections of the Voting Rights Act that marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge bled for 59 years ago,“ he said. ”And since those decisions, there has been a dramatic increase in legislative measures that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice.”

Mr. Garland’s comments, however, appear to be at odds with viewpoints held by the vast majority of Americans. Polls have shown that a significant majority of Americans back photo identification laws to cast votes, including a Gallup poll from late 2022 that found that eight in 10 Americans support them.

Significant majorities of Democrat, black, Latino, and low-income voters also support such laws and proposals, according to a Heritage Foundation article.

“Voters across all demographics support voter ID laws in virtually every poll by almost 80 percent. This typically includes more than 60 percent of Democrats,” The Heritage Foundation wrote, adding that 64 percent of black voters, 77 percent of Hispanic voters, and 76 percent of low-income voters back voter ID laws.

Opponents of voter ID measures don’t object to the requirement that voters verify their identity when voting—which is already standard in every state—but rather the means used to verify them. They claim that a significant portion of U.S. voters don’t have a photo ID such as a driver’s license, state ID card, or passport.

New Voter ID Laws

Since 2020, at least 11 U.S. states have strengthened voter identification requirements.

Georgia requires any voter who lacks a driver’s license or state ID card to include in his or her absentee ballot application a photocopy of another government-issued ID. Previously, absentee voters’ identities were verified by signature matching, a policy that opponents have said is fraught with fraud.

Texas law permits voters to use a broader set of IDs when applying for and casting mail-in ballots. It automatically rejects them if the voter uses a different ID number from the one provided when registering to vote.

The National Conference of State Legislatures wrote that about 36 U.S. states require or request voters to provide some form of ID when they cast their ballots at the polls.

It added, “Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., do not require any documentation to vote at the polls.”

Those states are Maine, Vermont, New York, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Minnesota, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii, and Oregon, according to a map provided by the group.

States that have “strict” photo identification mandates, according to the group, are Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. States with “non-strict” photo identification rules are Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.

Meanwhile, some states have “strict” standards for voter identification but don’t mandate photo identification. Those are North Dakota, Wyoming, and Arizona, according to the conference. And states with what it called “non-strict” laws that don’t require a photo ID are Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington state, and West Virginia.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The big headlines for today were good (Gold bulls happy as the barbarous relic hit record highs), bad (bitcoin bulls happy then sad as the cryptocurrency broke to record highs and was then clubbed like  baby seal), and ugly (Nasdaq – and MAG7 stocks – suffered their worst day since October).

Investors also faced a slew of disappointing macro releases which may be weighing on the goldilocks growth sentiment at the margin, with ISM services printing weaker than expected and factory orders plunging…

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, Goldman’s Chris Hussey notes that the pullback in secular growers is driving a broader risk-off sentiment and likely even weighing on rates as 10-year US Treasury yields are down ~8bps (short-end down around 5bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

All the ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks are trading 2% lower (finding support at the up-trendline)…

Source: Bloomberg

As AAPL fell faster than a Vision-Pro off your forehead…

Source: Bloomberg

…now trading over 7.5% below its 200DMA…

Source: Bloomberg

…and even GLP1-exposed names are seeing some selling pressure on the day….

Source: Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs trader Bobby Molavi summed things up well for stocks:

“It feels very much like a fomo…yolo…and momo market.

Still like the quote…’long, staying long, but slightly uncomfortable’ as the best way to describe how many investors feel at the moment.”

He also added on ‘positioning’ (which is extremely long), that “Not a problem unless it becomes a problem.”

Today’s 2%-plus tumble in Nasdaq was the worst day for the meg-tech index since October 2023 and makes some wonder if ‘positioning is suddenly becoming a problem’. A small late-day bounce put a little lipstick on this pig

The sudden resurgence of fear prompted a decent spike in VIX, back above 15…

Source: Bloomberg

The early weakness in the S&P saw 0-DTE trader pile into long-straddles, but as SPX broke below the Hedge Wall, 0-DTE put-buying was extreme…

Source: SpotGamma

Bitcoin surged up to a new record high this morning…

Source: Bloomberg

…, but then the stops were run and the algos monkey-hammered the cryptocurrency $8500 from its highs before some buying returned…

Source: Bloomberg

BTC ETFs saw a record volume day with over $12BN traded today…

Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum followed a very similar trajectory, rallying up to $3825 at its highs before puking back down to $32,00 and catching a bid…

Source: Bloomberg

And then there’s gold…

The spot price of the precious metal rose for the 5th straight day, taking out the prior record spike high on Dec 4th…

Source: Bloomberg

Pushing the yellow metal to a new record high…

Source: Bloomberg

What is gold pricing in about future Fed action? Real rates dramatically negative? As Luke Gromen noted on X:

“When gold rises in your currency DESPITE positive real rates, the gold market is saying ‘Your government will have a debt spiral if real rates remain positive’.“

Source: Bloomberg

Silver closed lower on the day, after three big days topping $24…

Source: Bloomberg

With silver looking positively cheap here with gold trading at 90x…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices traded in a choppy range today but closed lower ahead of tonight’s API data…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, there’s Nvidia, which has stalled the last two days…

We hand the commentary back to Goldman’s Molavi for his take: “A company now worth more than AT&T, Boeing, Coca-cola, Disney, Fedex, Gen motors, IBM, MCdonalds, Nike, Starbucks, UPS and Wallmart…..COMBINED.

A company with 75% margins and 75% market share.

A company that in spite of its rally trades at 33.4x forward PE for the 4th lowest multiple of the Mag 7.

One word of caution, if you plot Nvidia on a chart 2020 to today vs Cisco 1996 to 2002…and then zoom in at the year 2000…you see eerily similar graphs…“

Source: Bloomberg

“Cisco then was the belle of the ball and internet was the new new thing. At the moment in time…the prevailing thinking was that the whole internet would run on Cisco routers at 50% gross margins. Until it didn’t. “

But, it’s different this time, durr!

A series of headlines from China and Germany sent Tesla shares in New York down 11% in March, evaporating about $76 billion in market capitalization. This downturn has resulted in the company’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, losing the title of the world’s richest person. 

From a slowdown in vehicle shipments at Gigafactory Shanghai to a production halt on Tuesday at the Gigafactory near Berlin due to a far-left ‘eco-terrorist’ attack on Germany’s power grid, shares in the automaker have stumbled, down 7.2% on Monday and another 5.6% on Tuesday. 

Since Musk derives much of his wealth from the auto company, Bloomberg data shows that the three-month decline in shares has wiped out $40.5 billion in the billionaire’s wealth. 

According to Bloomberg, the decline in shares recently dethroned Musk as the world’s richest person, losing that title to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has gained $23.4 billion in wealth year-to-date, for a total of about $200.3 billion. 

The question remains: What will Musk do to reclaim the title from the bald billionaire whose rocket program is subpar compared with SpaceX? 

Authored by Jeff Louderbeck via The Epoch Times,

A super PAC aligned with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not disclose $10 million in loans, according to a complaint that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed on March 4 with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

It marks the second time in the last month that the DNC has accused American Values 2024 of violating federal finance campaign law.

According to the March 4 action, the DNC accused the super PAC of not disclosing a $10 million loan and $9.65 million in loan repayments from Gavin de Becker, whose private security firm provides protection for the independent presidential candidate.

“This is yet another example of AV24 playing fast and loose with election law,” DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said following the FEC complaint. “It’s clear that they, along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his campaign, don’t believe that the rules apply to them.”

Timothy Mellon, who is President Donald Trump’s “largest financial supporter this cycle,” has given financial support to American Values 2024. Combined with Mr. de Becker’s loans, that amount represents 80 percent of the super PAC’s fundraising totals, according to the complaint.

“This unprecedented loan arrangement has allowed them to not only inflate their fundraising numbers, but also to conceal the extent to which AV24 is almost single-handedly funded by Tim Mellon, Donald Trump’s largest donor this cycle,” Ms. Cahill added.

On Feb. 9, the DNC also filed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over the contribution made by Mr. Mellon to American Values 2024.

Campaign finance records indicate that Mr. Mellon gave American Values 2024 $15 million in 2023. Mr. Mellon also contributed $10 million to pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., last year, according to FEC filings. In 2020, he donated $20 million to America First Action Inc., a group that supported President Trump’s reelection.

DNC legal counsel Bob Lenhard called the recent donation “unlawful.”

The Kennedy campaign is “in the process of accepting a $15 million unlawful in-kind contribution by coordinating their efforts to get him on the ballot,” Mr. Lenhard said in a Feb. 9 call detailing the FEC complaint.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign “is taking a shortcut outsourcing what is otherwise a core campaign function to a super PAC,” Mr. Lenhard said, referring to the expense of a third-party candidate getting on the ballot.

American Values 2024 said late last year that it plans to spend as much as $15 million to help get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in multiple states deemed important to winning the election.

The Feb. 9 complaint also alleges that American Values 2024 is ignoring federal law.

“The law does allow the super PAC to raise unlimited amounts of money from wealthy individuals, corporations, and unions for independent expenditures. But it remains illegal for a super PAC to provide goods and services directly to a campaign,” Mr. Lenhard said.

Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes a campaign announcement at a press conference in Philadelphia, Pa., on Oct. 9, 2023. (Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)

Attempts to Destabilize RFK Jr.

The FEC complaints illustrate the DNC’s attempts to destabilize Mr. Kennedy’s campaign as President Joe Biden faces a plummeting job approval rating and mounting questions about his mental fitness.

The DNC and President Biden supporters are accusing Mr. Kennedy of being propped up by the Trump movement; as well as highlighting similar Trump–Kennedy policy stances in the areas of border security, U.S. funding for Ukraine, and vaccine mandates.

On multiple occasions, DNC officials have called Mr. Kennedy “a stalking horse” for President Trump.

When asked during the Feb. 9 call if the DNC is concerned that Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy is a threat to President Biden’s reelection bid, DNC spokesperson Ramsey Reid called the alleged FEC violation a “scheme.”

Mr. Mellon gave American Values 2024 “the exact $15 million paycheck they said that they would need for ballot access,” Mr. Reid said.

Mr. Reid called the move “an effort to subvert our election laws” and “prop up” Mr. Kennedy.

“It’s pretty clear that Trump and his mega-donors are propping up RFK Jr. as a stalking horse,” Mr. Reid said.

Lis Smith, a former adviser to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, was hired by the DNC in January to combat third-party candidates running for president in 2024.

She made the same accusations. “It’s clear that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being propped up and funded by Donald Trump and his allies because they believe that he is a useful stalking horse who could throw the election Trump’s way. We need to sound that alarm every day between now and the election,” Ms. Smith said.

American Values 2024 and Mr. Kennedy’s campaign have yet to comment about the March 4 FEC complaint but they did issue statements about the Feb. 9 action.

Anthony Lyons, co-chair of American Values 2024, said in a statement that the super PAC “has been working independently from the campaign in accordance with FEC precedent to get Bobby Kennedy on the ballot in 12 states.”

“The Biden administration and the DNC clearly find democracy inconvenient, want to stifle any dissenting opinions, and don’t believe that their candidate can win a free, open, and fair election. I don’t know if all of this amounts to election fraud,” Mr. Lyons said.

“This FEC complaint is just another desperate DNC tactic to defame Kennedy, vilify him, and drain his campaign funds. The American people are too smart to be fooled by these political games.”

Mr. Kennedy responded to the FEC complaint in a post on X.

“The DNC is accusing my campaign of FEC violations in the form of secretive activity—activity that’s so secretive it’s on the Ballot Access HQ of my website,” Mr. Kennedy wrote on X.

“After the day they had yesterday, it’s understandable they’d want to put the focus on someone else. The DNC is in no position to assert morality over anyone—they refused to have a primary and have worked against the will of the people in the past few elections. It’s sad to see the party my family built crash and burn.”

Robert Hur’s Report

Mr. Kennedy’s comments referred to a 388-page report released by the Justice Department that detailed the findings of special counsel Robert Hur’s 13-month investigation, which concluded that President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”

Mr. Hur declined to pursue charges against the president, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to establish his guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” and how he would appear to a jury.

“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the special counsel wrote.

During his 2023 interview with the special counsel’s office, President Biden “did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended … and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began,” according to the report.

Mr. Kennedy had refrained from focusing on President Biden’s mental fitness until Mr. Hur’s report was released.

“I think we’ve reached a time where it’s no longer character assassination to ask legitimate questions about the president’s competency. There are so many decisions that require nuance, that require complex levels of thinking, and those kinds of issues are coming at you many times a day. The American people have a right to know whether their president is capable of making those decisions,” Mr. Kennedy said at a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, earlier last month.

“We have a right to know that our president is actually leading the country and somebody else is not. We need to have a president who is able to make judgments, and particularly the judgment about war,” Mr. Kennedy said.

While he was in Grand Rapids hosting a voter rally to collect signatures for ballot access in Michigan, Mr. Kennedy was greeted with billboards launched by the DNC claiming that he is “powered by MAGA/Trump.”

The billboards show a picture of Mr. Kennedy on the left side, and President Trump and President Biden on the right. In the middle, referring to Mr. Mellon, the text reads, “RFK Jr.” and “Let the best man win, Tim.”

The billboards debuted shortly after American Values 2024 aired a TV ad promoting Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy by incorporating elements of an ad from President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign.

DNC spokesperson Alex Floyd said in a statement after the ad aired, “It’s fitting that the first national ad promoting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy was bought and paid for by Donald Trump’s largest donor this cycle.”

Mr. Kennedy announced in April 2023 his intent to challenge President Biden for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He has generated wide-ranging support from conservatives, moderates, independents, and Libertarians throughout his campaign, although he hasn’t gained the same favor from many Democrats.

For months, Mr. Kennedy was confronted with roadblocks from the Democratic National Committee, which he accused of “rigging” the primary process to favor President Joe Biden.

During an interview with The Epoch Times in Columbia, South Carolina, in August 2023, Mr. Kennedy was asked if he would serve as former President Donald Trump’s running mate or run as an independent or a third-party candidate.

“I’m a Democrat. The Democrat party has lost its way, and I want to return it to its traditional ideals,” Mr. Kennedy said.

“I’m hoping to run in the Democratic Party. If it’s possible to have a fair election in the Democratic Party, I will run in the Democratic Party, and I haven’t made any kind of plans other than that.”

But, earlier this year, the organization voted to give President Biden its full support.

At the same time, the DNC voted to replace New Hampshire with South Carolina as the first-in-the-nation primary state. The organization warned New Hampshire that it would face potential penalties if its Democrat primary didn’t comply with new primary calendar plans. The DNC also discouraged any candidate other than President Biden from entering the New Hampshire primary.

Mr. Kennedy’s request to debate President Biden was denied.

“They’re trying to make sure that I can’t participate at all in the political process, and so I’m going to keep all my options open,” Mr. Kennedy said earlier in October 2023 at a town hall in South Carolina.

“It’s pretty clear that the DNC does not want a primary. Essentially, they are fixing the process so that it makes it almost impossible to have democracy function,” he added. “They’re effectively disenfranchising the Democratic voters from having any choice in who becomes president, the Democrat nominee.”

On Oct. 9, 2023, he declared his candidacy for president as an independent.

As the 2024 election approaches, the Biden administration has gone into overdrive to try and convince the general public that inflation isn’t his fault – and instead, a scourge of corporate greed washed over the country like a plague.

It certainly wasn’t Biden’s extended-innings of pandemic stimmies, sanctions on Russia, and rates being too low for too long.

Nope, corporate greed.

Except, these companies apparently really suck at being greedy, as margins have been dropping at the same time!

Of course their central premise fails to account for why corporations simply weren’t ‘greedy’ in the Trump-era.

During the superbowl, Biden hammered the concept of “shrinkflation” – essentially, less food in the same package from snack food corporations. There are “fewer chips” in your bag, while companies are “still charging you just as much,” Biden said.

According to Politico, recent polling circulated in the White House shows this ‘corporate greed’ narrative is working.

“It’s about framing this for the American people,” said an anonymous official, adding that Biden’s open frustration with shrinkflation “speaks to what they feel in a way that’s useful for us both in terms of messaging and making sure they understand that the president sees what’s going on.”

The White House in recent weeks has sought new ways to neutralize concerns over grocery costs, a major factor dragging down voters’ otherwise improving views of the economy. Officials are keen to push back on the GOP emphasis on high food prices, and Biden has personally taken issue with the practice of shrinkflation — though some officials still question how much attention the president should devote to food inflation, specifically. -Politico

And so, to further legitimize the corporate greed narrative, the Biden administration has thrown the full weight of the US government behind a new “FTC-DOJ task force” which has been ‘tasked’ with cracking down on “unfair and illegal pricing” by said greedy corporations.

The task force will be jointly led by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, two agencies at the forefront of the Biden administration’s aggressive regulatory agenda over the past three years. –CNBC

“We’re excited to be co-chairing the president’s new Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing, which builds on the FTC’s far-reaching work to promote competition and tackle unlawful business practices that are inflating costs for Americans,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a Monday call with reporters.

The ‘strike force’ (lol) will be co-chaired by Jonathan Kanter, assistant AG for the DOJ’s antitrust division.

“Here at the Justice Department, we are confronting some of the world’s most powerful corporations so that we can improve the lives of American families,” Kanter said on the call.

On Tuesday afternoon, Biden will convene the sixth formal meeting of the White House Competition Council – a group of top officials throughout the administration who will ‘root out anti-competitive practices across a wide range of industries.’

In short, definitely don’t blame the Biden administration for all the inflation.

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

Now that the Supreme Court has unanimously destroyed the dreams of Davos to use January 6th as a means to keep him off the ballot, Donald Trump has passed the easiest of the hurdles in front of his returning to the White House.

Some things, politically, in the US still function.

This ruling was a lay-up.

The SCOTUS had to rule decisively here.

Trump was never convicted of ‘insurrection.’ He was impeached and character-assassinated, sure, but none of that carries any weight of law. But, even if you somehow believe he was guilty of the crimes the Democrats accused him of, the facts of January 6th are so murky from that perspective, there was no way the SCOTUS could concoct a justification for his ballot disqualification.

At stake itself was the SCOTUS’ own validity as an institution. And if there is one thing I believe about organizations it is they always move to defend themselves if their leadership is honest.

Like it or not, the SCOTUS does not exist to enforce anyone’s opinion on reality. They exist to conclude whether an action is or is not constitutional.

Did Trump ever lead an armed insurrection against the government? No.

Did he question a questionable election? Yes.

Is that unconstitutional? No.

Case closed.

But this case was an important first step to shut off the Nikki Haley insurgent strategy of handing delegates to her by default:

Take Trump off the ballot.

She’s now the only “Repuglican” left to vote for.

She gets to go to the convention with a bunch of unearned delegates to steal the election before November.

Oops. Now she gets further embarrassed on Super Tuesday.

Now the strategy backfires completely and he’s now Obi-Don Kenobi.

Unless somehow Jack Smith or the Fulton County Gang that Can’t Lie Straight put him in jail Trump is the GOP nominee.

So, now, how does Trump take this political resurrection and change the game completely?

With Biden’s disapproval rating reaching historic lows of 59% (6 out of 10 US votes HATE JOAH! Biii-Den!), the path to the White House for Trump goes through Vice-President Kamala Harris.

While conversations abound about subbing in Big Mike and/or Gavin Gruesome, the more likely threat from the DNC is Hillary, who is clearly angling back into the conversation as Biden falters.

But whoever Trump winds up running against, there is one person who Trump can leverage to drive even more people who hate him bat-shit crazy than he does.

And he knows who that is. So, as Primary Trump morphs, just like in 2016, into Candidate Trump, he will look to shore up his weaknesses.

Candidate Trump became a guy who preached bringing the US back from a dark place.

He ran on a populist platform that incorporated the Bernie Bros (remember them) as well as the tradesmen.

He broke the Democrats’ Trinity of Victimhood – Unions, Minorities, young people — that was their base and squeaked to victory over The Hildabeast.

If you think it’s Trump’s team or even US ‘white hats’ pushing out this stuff about Biden, you may be missing the obvious player, Hillary.

If there is one thing I know for certain about Trump it is that he’s a master of media. He knows exactly how and when to push everyone’s buttons.

For that reason (and many others) Trump’s only real choice for running mate is Tulsi Gabbard.

At a minimum, right now, Trump is using Gabbard, bringing her into the VP conversation. She’s okay with this. She’s allowing herself to be used by him. It’s mutually beneficial.

I’m well on the record as being a Gabbard fan (some would say simp… whatever). It doesn’t matter whether you trust her or not. It’s not about you. It’s about perception. And, for better or worse, Gabbard has a now long track record of service to the country that is honest.

She was someone targeted from the beginning as someone the DNC could groom into shape. Young, attractive, woman of color, veteran. Boxes are ticking off left and right. And those are all attributes that she still has which Trump doesn’t.

When Hillary stole the 2016 primary from Bernie Sanders she resigned from the DNC.

This is a woman who crossed Hillary Clinton and, so far, has lived to tell the tale. No mean feat in the 21st century.

Long story short, Gabbard has stones. Some would call them principles, but that’s a stretch to ascribe those to any politician. She told Davos to go scratch. She told Hillary to slag-off.

And in 2024, she’s an ex-Democrat ,on Fox News, headlining at CPAC etc. Is she a stalking horse for the establishment? I don’t think so. Is she a grifter who just wants to trade up from the collection of dead-enders that are the current Democrats? Maybe.

Again, I don’t care about these things, because here’s the real story.

Trump needs to run as a real Unity candidate. He’s destroyed the GOPe’s (GOP establishment) gaggle of neocons. Now, he needs to seal the deal with the emerging Radical Center I discussed in a recent article.

That {being for something better rather than against what is} becomes a decision point for a lot of people. It’s the moment when the established idea, brand, etc. wakes up to the threat and fights back. This is what the 16% chasm represents, that gulf between opposition and affirmation.

This is also what Davos and their ilk are truly exceptional at managing. They keep the Overton Window framed over irrelevant side issues to ensure that a new majority doesn’t “cross the 16% chasm,” by uniting over that better solution that doesn’t include them.

I’m calling this group they are afraid of, “The Radical Center.”

And every time I bring Gabbard up in the VP conversation I hear a whole lot of side issues discussed without actually addressing the core goals of how to save the country from collapsing into conflict.

So, allow me to make one of my lists of reasons why Trump has only one real choice for VP:

• Former Democrat Congresswoman, veteran, former Trump critic.

• Loudly rejected the Democrats for becoming something unrecognizable

• Stood up to Hillary Clinton

• She destroyed Kamala Harris in a DNC debate

• Is fundamentally populist in most of her positions

• Is NOT dogmatic about key issues, having shifted off previous positions on guns, abortion, etc.

• Is not a warhawk, but rather supports Trump’s views on foreign policy

• She’s a negotiator and a moderate.

• She’s a patriot with a strong sense of honor and duty.

• Ran a pure grassroots campaign for President in 2020, no outside donor support.

If you look at the totality of Gabbard’s record you see someone who is the opposite of Trump, but who winds up in the same place he did.

Politically, she is someone who neuters all of the Democrats’ screeching about Trump hating women, being a Nahtsi, and dog whistling for the alt-Right.

If he picks Gabbard as his running mate he neuters all of those narratives with normies, softens Trump’s bombast, while leaving the media and Davos with nothing but “he’s pandering” as their fall back position.

That will backfire on them hard and they will take the bait, hook, line, and sinker.

And, like her or not, Gabbard is no Sarah Palin for them to pick apart. She’s seasoned at this level of the game.

Lastly, she is Globalist/Neocon Insurance as Trump is more compromised on this front than she is. And when you run through the Senate right now, who can you point to that doesn’t have huge stalking-horse-for-globalist vibes? Rubio? Scott? Rick or Tim?

Go through the Senate of possible people to succeed Trump and give me a good name you can trust to survive even the transition period between November and January.

If you could then some of them would have already tried for the job during the primaries. None of them wanted the Ron DeSantis treatment.

Of all the options for Trump only Gabbard is the person who can reach out to voters that matter, the ones in swing states/counties who are looking for our politics to focus on country first and ideology second.

The fundamental problem with all of this is that Trump is not a hard-ass. He’s a deal-maker. Gabbard is a consensus-builder. We need a hard-ass. You go to war with the Generals you have and the army you’ve built, not the ones you want.

Trump isn’t the General for this war I want, he’s the one I’ve got. And if my alternative is Harris, Gruesome, or Hitlary, then I want Trump to have the best possible VP for the job. I don’t want Mike Pence 2.0, which is how I see any of the mannequins in the Senate.

Will Trump do this? I have no idea. Should he do it? I honestly don’t think he has a real choice.

*  *  *

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Ukraine is claiming another major successful operation in the Black Sea, with its military intelligence agency announcing that the large Russian patrol ship Sergey Kotov was sunk overnight after it was hit by high-tech sea drones.

While Russia has not confirmed the claim, Ukraine’s military said “a special operations unit destroyed the large patrol ship Sergey Kotov overnight with Magura V5 uncrewed vessels that are designed and built in Ukraine and laden with explosives.” 

The attack allegedly happened near the Kerch Strait, and would be a significant operational ‘win’ given the Sergey Kotov can carry cruise missiles and some 60 crew members.

Ukraine subsequently published video appearing to show the nighttime attack which left the ship severely damaged. The ship may have also had a helicopter on board at the time. “Right now this ship is on the seabed,” Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said.

The BBC has concluded that the video looks authentic:

Ukraine said the cost of the sunken Sergei Kotov ship was $65m (£51.2m), adding that it was hit near the Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from Russia.

A video posted on social media appears to show the moment when the ship was hit. BBC Verify has looked at the video, released by Ukraine, said to be of the attack.

The vessel has similar structural features to a patrol ship of the same class as the Sergei Kotov. However, no number is visible on its side, so the footage does not make clear if it is the same ship.

The private security firm Ambrey has also said the attack happened at the port of Feodosia in Crimea. Typically the Kremlin doesn’t confirm such covert attacks or sinkings of its ships, but Russian military bloggers have acknowledged the incident.

Despite Ukraine forces being currently in retreat outside of Avdiivka, and suffering serious manpower and artillery shortages, they had some recent successes in attacks on Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet. Drone attacks on Crimea have also ramped up in the past days.

Last night, near Kerch, Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukrainian forces conducted a USV attack on the Russian Project 22160 patrol ship Sergey Kotov, scoring multiple hits, causing catastrophic damage.

Russian channels and the Ukrainian GUR report the vessel sank. pic.twitter.com/rLTQMxKKPB

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 5, 2024

Moscow believes these attacks utilizing both aerial and sea drones are assisted by Western intelligence, and the weapons themselves could be sourced to external backers as well, hence the Ukraine military’s emphasis that these drones were domestically produced (an attempt to preempt and deny suspicions that Western weaponry was used).

“At least 13 Russian naval ships have been destroyed or damaged since the start of the conflict, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank,” BBC has noted.

Just last month Ukraine said it sunk the Russian amphibious ship Caesar Kunikov utilizing drones, in an area just south of the city of Yalta. Ukraine’s drone operations have grown increasingly sophisticated and long distance, again raising the suspicions of Moscow that it could be NATO operators behind them.

By Michael Every of Rabobank

The End/Beginning of a Golden Age

The Fed’s Bostic, an FOMC voter, just said rate cuts “could” reignite inflation, and one Q3 cut is possible, followed by a pause and another in Q4. The pushback, and push out, continues.

However, a broader set of voters should be on market minds today given it’s US Super Tuesday, which will bring the 2024 election into even sharper focus. That’s after the Supreme Court gave a 9-0 thrashing to Colorado’s idea of taking Trump off their state ballot: only Congress can do that, regardless of the ‘expert’ legal punditry which had claimed otherwise.

I repeat I was once told by an economist, “We don’t do politics.” But they all do without realizing it via their assumptions. Yet this is one of the rare occasions when it’s going to be impossible to deny that you do.

Our US strategist, Philip Marey, just took the logical step of basing his forecasts on the polls, which, for now, say a Trump win. This may displease some, and polls can be wrong. However, it’s a transparent basis from which to proceed, and assuming otherwise is also political. As Philip notes, a Trump win then implies a 10% tariff on all goods going into the US, and 60%+ on China. At which point things get even more political.

If the US forcibly narrows its trade deficit, it has huge implications for itself and those running trade surpluses with it. Yet modelling these outcomes via economic tools won’t work as they are static, not dynamic, and have an inherent bias that presumes we always return to equilibrium rather a different state. In reality, if the US abandons its dual role as global goods importer and exporter of the global reserve currency, ‘equilibrium’ is not a word to be using. Bifurcation might be.

Economists who “don’t do politics” should note if your conceptual foundations are wrong, your predictions will be too. Yet they deliberately edit out what Smith and Ricardo warn on how neoliberal systems break down: @BrankoMilan shows Smith was left-wing; Arrighi underlines he argued a strong state is needed to enforce competition to push prices lower; Ricardo said comparative advantage-based free trade won’t work without capital controls. So, how much should we really be shocked about “sellers’ inflation” and rising global protectionism? Even Austrian Schumpeter recanted his belief in free markets towards the end of his life when he admitted that freedom of action needs the invisible hand of morality as its logical underpinning.

There are, however, other ways of seeing. The implications of new, huge US tariffs can also be examined via lenses such as the Godley framework, as here by Michael Pettis, with its intersecting balance sheets and stock/flow approach. 20 years ago, I used it to logically deduce that US households were borrowing heavily to invest in housing, with the rest of the world’s capital neck deep too, with a ticking time of mortgage rate resets looming that would bring down the entire structure. This sounds painfully obvious today, but back then everyone ignored me to sell RMBS and say all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Such optimism is understandably not as prevalent today, even as risk-on trades and AI echo what we saw pre-GFC. Most of us get lots of things are wrong, just not how it plays out. On that front, Trump tariffs vs. market myopia deserves its own “An Un-Godley Mess” report. For now, however, the implication is there will be higher US inflation. Moreover, there are other political forces at play that suggest the same.

China’s National People’s Congress dropped the traditional press conference by the Premier for the first time since 1993, while announcing a 5% GDP target for 2024 – which I can report they already met.

Russian Minister Glazyev continues to talk about a BRICS commodity-based digital FX alongside settlement in national currencies: that’s bifurcation in a nutshell, if so.

Argentina is appealing to the US to overturn a $16bn court ruling against it that undoes its attempts to balance the budget and achieve macro stability: these geopolitics echo far and wide.   

The New Zealand Treasury just modelled an oil-price shock, the large-scale adoption of synthetic milk, and a trade shock where an unnamed Asian country, that isn’t Japan or South Korea, places 25% tariffs on Kiwi goods, which are “not realistic predictions of future events.” (All hurt a lot, but the oil shock is actually the largest.)

The EU is today to announce they will “shift to a war economy mode” to supply what Ukraine needs, as well as for their own security, according to an EU Commissioner. How will this be organised? Unclear. How much will this cost? A vast amount, if it is to mean anything. How will this be paid for? That’s the question to markets and economists who are ignoring this ‘politics’ despite funding and fighting war being the largest common thread through all of global economic, financial, and central-banking history.

The UK Budget tomorrow comes after a by-election win for a new left-wing Workers Party, which to show its class has no apostrophe and, yes, Leninist language. Its 10-point policy platform opposes NATO and imperialism, and proposes massive public spending. Is it going to win the next UK election? No. But it shows the British left is as split as the right; an appetite for real populism; and that a much-needed Western military build-up must surely be matched with social spending. In short, the fiscal bill ahead is huge. Which Godley frameworks have something to say about.  

Lastly on politics, and related to the UK byelection, The Atlantic claims ‘The Golden Age of the Jews in America is Ending’, as “Anti-Semitism on the right and the left threatens to bring to a close an unprecedented period of safety and prosperity for Jewish Americans – and demolish the liberal order they helped establish.” Of course, The Atlantic is home to many ‘expert’ pundits, and could be wrong. Yet the implications of a demolished liberal order may matter in time to markets; and the correlation between societies turning antisemitic, and then failing economically, is another of the largest common threads through global economic and financial history. Sadly, this headline is also not a shock if you removed false assumptions from your predictions: in 2019, I was warning of an illiberal ‘Age of Rage’ from both the left and right that would sweep institutions and norms before it, concluding, “Markets need to prepare for a far higher risk of truly paradigmatic shifts ahead.” They still do.

Indeed, as one golden age may be ending, the linked political and geopolitical breakdowns are seeing more talk about the revival of a monetary golden age, or a digital one. Make of that what you will.

In a viral video posted to social media, a visibly upset New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scolded and dropped an f-bomb on a small contingent of pro-Palestinian activists who confronted her as she departed a Brooklyn movie theater on Monday afternoon. In addition to profanely reacting to the type of protest she’s encouraged against her opponents, AOC also seemingly lied to her tormenters.  

The activists called out the leftist “Squad” member for failing to use the term “genocide” to refer to Israel’s devastating, five-month-old invasion of Gaza. Launched in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of southern Israel that led to the deaths of 1,139 Israelis and foreign nationals, “Operation Swords of Iron” has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians — including more than 20,000 women and children — according to the Gaza health ministry. 

Famine and disease are spreading, and emaciated children with sunken eyes are becoming an increasingly common and grisly sight. Over half of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents have been forced from their homes. In December, the government of South Africa filed an 84-page genocide complaint against Israel with the International Court of Justice. In a January interim ruling, the court stopped short of declaring Israel’s campaign a genocide — yet — but directed Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide.  

“You refuse to call it a genocide,” said one of the activists. Wheeling around, AOC scolds one of them, a man, saying, “I need you to understand, this is not ok.”   

When he replies, “It’s not ok that you’re not actively against it,” AOC accuses him of “lying.” 

“You haven’t been calling it a genocide,” chimes in a female activist as AOC and her fiancé, Riley Roberts, work their way down an escalator. “Don’t tell me I’m lying. Just say it. Over 30,000 people are dead, AOC, can’t you just say it for once?”    

As the activists continue confronting her as she walks down the sidewalk, AOC erupts, shouting, “You’re gonna cut this and you’re going to clip this so that it’s completely out of context! I already said that it was! And y’all are just going to pretend that it wasn’t, over and over again. It’s fucked up, man! And you’re not helping these people! You’re not helping them!” 

When Roberts accuses the activists of “bullying,” the female activist replies, “We’re not bullying, we’re talking to an elected public official.” It’s pretty rich that AOC would tell non-violent activists that their tactics are “fucked up.” Here’s AOC in the Year of George Floyd: 

The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable.

Activists take that discomfort w/ the status quo & advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small & grows.

To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable… that’s the point.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 2, 2020

Her jarringly hypocritical, melodramatic scolding wasn’t her worst sin — AOC seems to have lied when she told the activists that she had already called Israel’s campaign in Gaza a “genocide.” 

ZeroHedge couldn’t find any instance in which AOC had done so. In January, when pointedly asked by NBC‘s Kristen Welker if the use of “genocide” by fellow Squad member Rashida Tlaib goes “too far,” AOC sidestepped the question, saying “I think what we are seeing right now throughout the country is that young people are appalled at the violence and the indiscriminate loss of life.”

When Welker pressed the question, AOC dodged it again, saying the International Court of Justice was “still determining [if it’s genocide]. But in the interim ruling, the fact that they said there’s a responsibility to prevent it, the fact that this word is even in play, the fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think, demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing.” 

The names of the activists in the video haven’t been publicized. Taking a page from the establishment media playbook that marginalizes conservative dissent by labelling it “far right,” the Times of Israel, without knowing who is in the video, disparaged the activists as being “far left.” (Granted, the fact that the male activist is wearing some kind of next-level face mask more than four years into the pandemic pretty much guarantees he’s some kind of lefty — rather than, say, an antiwar libertarian.) 

Anyway, sit back and watch AOC do a terrible job enduring the type of activism she encourages against her political foes: 

🚨#BREAKING: A Handful of Protesters Chase United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of a Movie Theater ⁰⁰📌#Brooklyn | #NewYork⁰⁰Watch as a handful of protesters chase United States Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a movie theater in… pic.twitter.com/L3t2AaXzQE

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) March 5, 2024

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Wall Street’s Trillion Dollar Mistake(s)

Sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than from what we got right. Lately a series of events, headlines, and price action has made me wonder “if we got these things so wrong, what else could we be missing?”

NVDA has added almost $1 trillion of equity market cap since the start of the year (at 2pm or so yesterday, when the idea for this report struck, it was over $1 trillion).

How did Wall Street get this performance so wrong? There have been a lot of bulls on this stock, rightfully so. But I can’t remember many (any) predicting a greater than 70% return in barely two months! This is already a large company, so it should be well followed and well known. I don’t track single stocks closely, so maybe I missed people foaming at the mouth screaming to buy this stock for this type of return at the start of the year, but I thought even the bulls were more moderate. I keep thinking “what in the news flow did I miss?” AI has been the story of the year (it is AI and AI “deputization” driving markets this year, not the MAG 7 – see It’s Friday, I’m in Love and Time to Retire the Magnificent 7 Moniker). But the news flow on the AI and even chip front didn’t seem that extraordinary to me. We’ve all seen company after company announce plans to incorporate AI. Sure, the AI story and data have been better than expected, but has it really surprised by that much?

One thing I can say is that if you told me on January 1 that NVDA would rise this much, I’d have predicted a much higher year-to-date return for the Nasdaq 100. The Nasdaq 100 is still up around 7% this year, a great return by most metrics, but with one of the biggest components of the index doing so incredibly well, that strikes me as light.

I have no good answer as to why this was missed by so many (not by everyone, but many or even most). While not having a good answer seems unhelpful, it just means that we have more to think about. One thing that I think we have been seeing of late is that anecdotally it looks like relatively small net flows are having a larger than normal price impact on the markets. I’m not sure what caused the Nasdaq 100 to spike from 2:30pm until 2:45pm yesterday, only to see two heavy selling “pencils” (a line that goes straight down on the chart) into the close. Across the board I wonder if the “faux liquidity” we have created with so much electronic and algorithmic trading is obscuring an unnervingly low level of true liquidity – in both directions.

While I suspect that “this time is different,” I can’t help but drag out When Price Becomes “Just” a Number. My experience is that there are times when price “becomes just a number.” And whatever that number is supposed to mean gets lost in the shuffle of short squeezes, chart watchers, gamma squeezes, and the like. I’m not sure we are seeing that in this market, but it is in the back of my mind and certainly seems relevant to the next “trillion dollar” mistake!

Bitcoin. As Bitcoin trades above $67,000 and seems poised to break all-time highs, we are left wondering how much impact the launch of the Bitcoin ETFs has had on the market. Bitcoin had a market cap of about $530 billion back in October and is above $1.3 trillion now. So not quite a “trillion dollar mistake” but close enough. I am sure that there are many reasons for the rise. Chinese citizens who are nervous about their economy may well be a big driver. The success of FTX claims (which went from a low in the 20s to the 90s gives some comfort, though my understanding is that some investments into AI companies drove a lot of that recovery). But clearly the story of the ETFs has been a big part of the move. We saw Bitcoin ramp higher into the approval. While it fell for a bit post the launch, it has gone “parabolic” since then. Every company is heavily advertising bitcoin ETFs, which should generate exposure. Every RIA may consider adding Bitcoin to their allocation mix. The halving (when the mining rate slows) is apparently another catalyst. Scarcity, scarcity, scarcity, so the argument goes.

Well, if I’m the Fed, I’m watching this move quite nervously. What does it say about liquidity? Financial conditions? What does it say about faith in currencies and central banks? I cannot think of anything good this move is saying, but back to ETFs.

I’ve been using this page to track Bitcoin ETF fund flows. At the end of day 1, there was about $29 billion of AUM in the Bitcoin ETFs (GBTC converted from a trust structure into an ETF, giving a running start to the Bitcoin ETFs). There is currently about $52 billion in the ETFs. A seemingly impressive fund flow. But in early January, the price of Bitcoin was just above $46k, turning that initial $29 billion into about $38 billion. While it gets a bit tricky given daily flows and price action, it looks like in almost 2 months since the Bitcoin ETFs were launched, they’ve taken in net inflows of less than $14 billion ($52b-$38b). All the other stories aside, I cannot think of how it is possible for $14 billion of net inflows to drive $800 billion of market cap gains. That appreciation ignores the rally that we’ve seen in things like Ethereum (which I find most intriguing) to Dogecoin (which I thought was a joke), but it has doubled in just over a week and is up over 200% since October.

I would not want to step in front of this freight train, but even scarcity can get ahead of itself.

Finally, we come to Made by China. As far as I can tell we are still one of the few places pushing the theory that China will attempt to resurrect its economy by trying to sell their own brands, rather than just by making “our” brands. What is difficult to tell from the data that I’ve seen is how much of the slowing sales into China has to do with its consumers struggling versus traction gained by China’s brands in China. For the moment, I suspect that the bulk of any China sales issues is related to the weakness of their consumer. But, if some of it has to do with a more aggressive effort to sell its own brands (domestically and internationally), we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg of a “new form” of competition with China.

Missing China’s strategy shift, if they are truly doing it, may make $1 trillion seem like small potatoes.

Mistakes happen, but mistakes of this magnitude shouldn’t. Yet they did, and we might see more of them.

I remain in bear mode on domestic equities.