Month: March 2024

The Federal Aviation Administration should expedite its plan to curb United Airlines’ growth, including preventing the carrier from adding new routes, following a series of safety incidents in recent weeks and another incident on Thursday evening. 

Last night, United Flight 990, a Boeing 777-200 traveling from San Francisco to Paris, was diverted to Denver International Airport when the pilots reported engine issues. 

Flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows Flight 990 was heading north towards the Canadian border before it turned south towards Denver. United wrote in a statment that the plane landed safely with 273 passengers and 12 crew on board. 

This comes after a series of recent flight mishaps involving United jets, including a tire falling off a Boeing 777 taking off at San Francisco airport, landing gear issues with a Boeing 737 at Houston, and a panel flying off an aging United Boeing 737. 

A Bloomberg report said FAA authorities are considering “drastic measures” to curb the airline’s growth following a series of safety incidents. 

Last week, United CEO Scott Kirby promised customers that the carrier would review the incidents and its employee training. Perhaps what Kirby should be promising customers is to stop pushing “insane,” disastrous, and potentially deadly DEI mandates. 

The entire aviation industry is in disarray, from United to Boeing to the FAA. Why is this Pete Buttigieg? 

Authored by Peter St. Onge via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of U.S. banks.

Leaving taxpayers on the hook for trillions in losses.

The note, by senior editor James Crombie, walks us through the festering hellscape that is commercial real estate.

To set the mood, a new study predicts that nearly half of downtown Pittsburgh office space could be vacant in four years. Major cities such as San Francisco are already sporting zombie-apocalypse downtowns, with abandoned office buildings baking in the sun.

So what happened?

The Fed’s yo-yo interest rates first flooded real estate with low rates and cheap money. Which were overbuilt.

Then came the lockdowns, which forced millions to figure out new workday patterns. People liked foregoing the long commute (not to mention the free money). Despite every effort, downtown businesses have not been able to get all workers back.

These days, everyone talks about hybrid models of working, some in-person and some remote. But judging from observation, remote is winning. In any case, even a 30 percent reduction in the footprint of office space once the leases are renewed could topple the entire sector.

The restaurant and retail sectors of downtown feel the pinch, with more closures all the time. Adding to the pressure are absurd levels of inflation and ever-riskier streets on matters of personal security. Put it all together and there is ever less reason to slog to the office.

When the Fed panic-hiked interest rates in the 2021 inflation, that put trillions of commercial real estate underwater even without other factors. Add to that crime, inflation, plus remote work, and you have a dangerous mix that could topple cities as we know them.

This could mimic and elaborate upon last year’s bank crisis, where falling bond prices panicked depositors. That crisis only stopped when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell effectively bailed out every bank in America with sweetheart loans written on fictitious asset values along with unlimited taxpayer guarantees through the comically underfunded FDIC.

By the way, the FDIC is essentially guaranteeing more than $20 trillion in deposits on just more than $100 billion. So they’ve got a half-penny on the dollar.

Without those government pre-bailouts, one paper last year by researchers at Stanford and Columbia estimated that 1,619 U.S. banks—about a third of them—could be at risk of failure.

The problem is that nothing was actually fixed. In fact, it’s getting worse. For the simple reason that as the months roll by there’s more and more debt coming due.

And that brings us to Mr. Crombie, who noted that there’s $929 billion of commercial real estate debt coming due in the next 9 1/2 months.

That’s up 28 percent from last year, and it’s getting bigger every day as banks pretend that loans are still healthy by effectively adding missed payments.

We’re starting to see glitches in the matrix; New York Community Bank just went through a near-death experience over its garbage portfolio of commercial real estate loans, dropping almost 80 percent before it was bailed out by vulture investors while the megabanks hover like megavultures.

More will come. Potentially a lot more: A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that up to 385 American banks could fail over commercial real estate loans alone.

These would overwhelmingly be small regional banks, who typically hold a third of their assets in commercial real estate loans.

They hold so much because they know their local markets best, but the Fed poisoned that chalice by flooding easy money to developers.

For now, we’re only seeing the sickest banks dropping out of the herd. That could dramatically accelerate as that $1 trillion-plus in loans comes due.

Commercial real estate delinquency rates have already jumped to 6 1/2 percent—up 30 percent in a matter of months. Rates of distress in office loans just hit 11 percent.

When the smoke clears, we could lose dozens, even hundreds, of regional banks. Going by the last time with savings and loans, taxpayers ate 80 percent of the losses.

Meaning that you could be on the hook for trillions, while the megabanks gorge on the carcass.

Slashing interest rates could staunch the bleeding. But with inflation marching up every month—currently at 5 1/2 percent annualized—that’s not going to happen.

Originally published on the author’s Substack, reposted from the Brownstone Institute

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

On Friday Israel conducted its deadliest strikes on Syria in months, or perhaps even years, given the immense death toll is mounting into several dozens killed amid a large emergency response to the scene.

The airstrikes were conducted deep into Syria, in northern Syria’s Aleppo province, and left over 40 people dead. This reportedly included Syrian soldiers, Hezbollah militants, and civilians. Most international reports are saying 42 were killed, but the Syrian government did not initially give a precise casualty count.

The anti-Assad opposition and UK-based organization Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) described that the Aleppo attack left the highest number of dead among Syrian soldiers in a single such Israeli attack. While Israel doesn’t typically directly own up to or confirm such attacks on Syrian soil, its military has been conducting sporadic attacks on Syria going back years.

The attack happened in the pre-dawn, overnight hours – with state-run SANA emphasizing that many civilians were killed and wounded, but without giving a figure.

Syria’s defense ministry pointed to the airstrikes having some level of coordination from “terrorist organizations” on the ground which “in conjunction” to the air raid carried out drone attacks, presumably from Al-Qaeda (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) occupied Idlib. Some reports are saying that Israeli warplanes hit a “Hezbollah warehouse” – though there’s no ground confirmation of this.

This new major attack comes the day after Israeli airstrikes on a suburb of Damascus, which reportedly wounded two civilians. Israeli officials and media have long claimed to be waging a campaign against Iranian and IRGC operatives and assets in Syria.

Sky News has verified social media video showing massive explosions from the site of the overnight Aleppo attacks:

⚡️Sky News publishes scenes showing the bloody Israeli strikes on Aleppo pic.twitter.com/xgLxjrNJmP

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) March 29, 2024

After the Oct.7 Hamas terror attack, this ‘counter Iran’ campaign has also focused on Lebanon, where Tehran-backed Hezbollah has entered a hot conflict with Israeli forces along the border.

The Syrian government under President Bashar Al-Assad has frequently lodged formal complaints at the United Nations that the country’s sovereignty is constantly being violated by Israeli aggression, however, this is by and large fallen on deaf ears.

In the initial days and weeks after Oct.7, Syria had lobbed several rockets toward the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which left no casualties. Much of the Syrian populace has meanwhile become frustrated and expressed growing anger that the Russian military, has has long had a significant presence inside Syria (especially since 2015), has not done more to try and intercept inbound Israeli jets.

As far as Israeli attacks, Moscow has long been content to stay on the sidelines, so long as the ostensible targets are said to be ‘Iranian-linked’.

Authored by Betsy McCaughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

If you own a home and don’t want to lose it, keep reading.

Homeowners who go on vacation or a business trip, even for just a week, are returning to find their houses overtaken by trespassers who fraudulently claim a right to be there. It’s happening to tens of thousands of homeowners from New York City to Atlanta and Los Angeles.

When owners call the police, they’re told police can’t help. It’s a civil matter, and they have to file an eviction lawsuit, which can drag on for months or years because housing courts are backlogged.

Meanwhile, owners are out on the street while squatters are living free, destroying houses, and even selling off owners’ belongings.

If you found a stranger sitting in your car and called the police, they would immediately ask to see the registration and decide who owns it, according to Georgetown law professor Jonathan Turley. They wouldn’t let the thief drive off. But the law is stacked against homeowners.

You can thank leftist lawmakers who have degraded property rights and tilted the law to favor criminals. The result is an epidemic of brazen squatting.

In New York state, a homeowner faced with a trespasser can expect eviction to take two years. Meanwhile, the owner is barred from turning off utilities, removing belongings, or doing anything else to get the invaders out. It’s crazy.

New York state Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz of Long Island introduced legislation saying a squatter is not a tenant and is not entitled to the same protections. Will it pass in Albany? Don’t hold your breath.

But some states are acting quickly against this crime wave.

The Florida Legislature passed a bill to empower police to immediately remove anyone who can’t produce a notarized lease. Georgia’s statehouse passed the Squatter Reform Act, making squatting a crime—criminal trespass—to be handled by the police, not housing court. It’s likely to pass the Senate shortly.

In blue states such as California and New York, is there hope for homeowners to get protection against squatters? Not from Congress. Democrats in Congress are actually pushing a federal housing law that would bar landlords from learning whether potential tenants have criminal records, including past squatting offenses.

But there is a remedy: bringing a lawsuit in federal court against states such as New York and California that fail to protect property rights. The U.S. Constitution enshrines property rights as a fundamental guarantee. And recently, the justices have struck down state laws that allow trespassers to interfere with property rights. In 2021, the Pacific Legal Foundation brought a suit on behalf of a property owner, and the court ruled in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid that “government-authorized invasions of property” amount to a taking just as if the government had taken the property directly.

Favoring intruders over owners constitutes a “taking” that violates the Fifth Amendment, which says government cannot impinge on your right to your property.

There’s no time to waste in acting to protect homeowners.

Venezuelan TikTok influencer Leonel Moreno claims that invading vacant homes is the only option for illegal migrants flooding into the United States. His now-deleted TikTok video explaining how to identify a home that is empty and ready for the taking reached 4 million views.

Surprised? Don’t be. Criminals from south of the border are coming in droves to plunder the far wealthier United States. Some cross illegally and are recruited by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s MS-13. Others are coming in on tourist visas. Law enforcement is reporting a surge in South American burglary gangs operating in at least half the states in the United States.

Of course, many migrants are honest and hardworking. But there’s no denying that a movement northward to “take what you can get” poses new danger to homeowners, including the risk of squatters.

As Mr. Moreno says, “If a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”

Tell lawmakers to act now to protect homeowners. This is the United States. Here, property rights are not up for debate. They’re guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

You worked for it, you paid for it, it’s yours. Period.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Two high-speed military cargo ships are stuck in the Port of Baltimore following Tuesday morning’s collapse of the 1.6-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge. The major US East Coast port has been paralyzed for several days as the bridge collapse prevents inbound and outbound vessel traffic along the harbor’s channel. 

Using the automatic identification system, or AIS, data that tracks commercial vessels, three bulk carriers, two general cargo ships, one vehicle carrier, one tanker, and four Ready Reserve Force vessels (RRF), along with the container ship Dali that struck the bridge, are trapped in the harbor, according to the shipping blog gCaptain. 

The three bulk carriers include:

• The Liberian-flagged JY River, owned by JIADE INTERNATIONAL SHIP and managed by WAH KWONG SHIP MANAGEMENT HK of Hong Kong.

• The Thailand-flagged Phatra Naree, owned by PRECIOUS STONES SHIPPING LTD and managed by PRECIOUS SHIPPING PCL of Thailand.

• The Portuguese-flagged Klara Oldendorff, owned and managed OLDENDORFF CARRIERS GMBH & CO of Germany.

The vehicle carrier is:

• The Swedish-flagged Carmen, owned by WALL RO/RO AB and managed by WALLENIUS MARINE AB of Sweden.

The general cargo ships include:

• The French-flagged Saimaagracht, owned by REDERIJ SAIMAAGRACHT and managed by SPLIETHOFF’S BEVRACHTINGS BV of the Netherlands.

• The Panama-flagged Balsa 94, owned by EASTERN CAPITAL MARINE INC and managed by HIONG GUAN NAVEGACION CO LTD of Hong Kong.

The tanker is:

• The Marshall Islands-flagged Palanca Rio, owned by MINSHENG RUIYANG TIANJIN SHPG and managed by PUMA ENERGY SUPPLY & TRADING of Singapore.

The US Maritime Administration (MARAD) Ready Reserve Force vessels include:

• The Cape Washington, a Cape W Class roll-on/roll-off vessel.
• The Gary I. Gordon, a Gordon-class roll-on/roll-off vessel.
• The SS Antares (T-AKR-294), a Algol-class fast sealift vehicle cargo ship.
• The SS Denebola (T-AKR-294), another Algol-class fast sealift vehicle cargo ship.

According to the military blog The War Zone (TWZ), Algol class vessels are “some of the fastest cargo vessels of their general size anywhere in the world.” These ships are part of the RRF, a subset of vessels within MARAD’s National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) that provide surge sealift capability to the Pentagon for overseas conflicts.

TWZ said the activation process of RRF vessels takes about five to ten days. The vessels are operated with a skeleton crew until called upon. 

RRF are stationed at major marine ports around the US. 

TWZ noted the Algol class vessels have been called into action several times over the last three decades: 

Algol class have been called upon multiple times since they entered US service. Just five of these ships were responsible for transporting 20 percent of US cargo sent from the United States to Saudi Arabia during the first phase of Operation Desert Shield in the immediate run-up to the First Gulf War. The ships would go on to deliver 13 percent of all cargo that arrived in Saudi Arabia from the United States in the full course of that conflict. 

The US military subsequently used Algols to support operations in Somalia and the Balkans in the 1990s, as well as the opening phases of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s.

Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong reported on Thursday that “The Department of Transportation will not say how many National Defense Reserve Fleet Ships are Stuck” in the Baltimore harbor. 

Baltimore Bridge Mess: DOT Will Not Say How Many National Defense Reserve Fleet Ships Stuck https://t.co/Nz7FPPQ2QT via @BreitbartNews

— Kristina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) March 28, 2024

Wong quoted John Konrad, CEO of gCaptain, who warned the stuck RRF vessels are a “huge problem if a war starts [but] not much of a problem if the next few months are peaceful.”  

According to CEO of GCaptain and maritime journalist@johnkonrad, four Ready Reserve Force ships are stuck in the port — the SS Antares, MV Cape Washington, MV Gary I. Gordon, and the SS Denebola.

He said the four ships being stuck is a “huge problem if a war starts [but] not… https://t.co/4GOZHtuWPE

— Kristina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) March 28, 2024

The current readiness of the RRF fleet is unknown. And just like that, part of America’s RRF fleet was taken out not by a missile or suicide drone, but a container ship that allegedly suffered a catastrophic ‘electric issue’. America’s enemies are taking note. 

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

Every week, usually once or twice, I sit down to put onto paper my thoughts about the market. And every week, my disgust not only for the rigged system that encompasses our equity markets, but also for the sound of my own whining, grows exponentially.

When I sit down to perfunctorily prattle on about how nothing makes sense and how I constantly see things the polar opposite of 99% of everybody else in the world of finance every week, I usually wonder two things.

First, I wonder whether or not today will finally be the day that I capitulate, get bullish on the stock market, and start bowing religiously to a statue of Stephanie Kelton.

“I should know, I’ve followed a few!” – Arthur

After all, the incessant price moves higher in Bitcoin are part of what triggered me to eventually reassess my thought process on the cryptocurrency. And even though I got bullish for reasons other than price, why couldn’t the same happen with equities?

Second, I try to conceptualize exactly how fast the universe can, and will, make a total ass out of me by crashing markets 50% in 15 minutes in the days, hours, minutes, or probably even seconds after I’d have such a shift in sentiment.

Which is why, like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I will continue to forge forward, exasperated, regardless of the inconvenient fact that I have no arms or legs left. But don’t let anybody ever tell you that my spirit was easy to break.

“The Black Knight always triumphs!”

I had my most recent bout of vomiting in my own mouth just thinking about how wrong I’ve been on macro analysis late on Wednesday, when, as if part of some ant-burning-under-a-magnifying-glass-type-cosmic-conspiracy to torture my psyche, the Fed’s Chris Waller came out and assured the public that he was in no rush to cut interest rates. Here’s a look at some of the headlines that came out of Waller’s speech in New York:

• “There is no rush to cut the policy rate,” Waller said in a speech in New York.

• The recent data “tells me that it is prudent to hold this rate at its current restrictive stance perhaps for longer than previously thought to help keep inflation on a sustainable trajectory toward 2%.”

• Waller still expects to cut rates this year but isn’t ready to take that step without further evidence that inflation continues to drop.

• Waller said analyzing three- and six-month measures of the Consumer Price Index, excluding volatile food and energy prices, tells him that progress on inflation has slowed and may have stalled.

• “The risk of waiting a little longer to cut rates is significantly lower than acting too soon,” said Waller. “Cutting the policy rate too soon and risking a sustained rebound in inflation is something I want to avoid.”

• Waller said that he is considering reducing the overall number of rate cuts this year or pushing them further into the future in response to the recent data if things don’t improve. But he also said he isn’t rushing to take that step yet.

While I’m not sure how the market will receive this blindingly, exhaustively obvious negative news, my guess is by the time you read this at 4:45am EST on Thursday morning, futures will be raging higher and every index will be up in the pre-market session. After all, nothing says “bull case” like the Fed not being able to meet objectives in bringing down inflation and then a Fed governor telling the market not to expect the very same rate cut bonanza it has rallied more than 10% expecting this year alone, despite already being pornographically overvalued.

Not unlike how when Donald Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” I’m not sure there’s anything the Fed could do right now to stop the market’s pre-ordained ascent. As I said in last week’s totally non-award-winning analysis, I have no f*cking idea where the liquidity is coming from, no clue what the market is thinking, and pretty much don’t understand anything at all.

“Eat sh*t, Waller” — S&P 500 (probably) | Chart via Zero Hedge

I know what you’re thinking: “Why then, Chris, do you run a financial newsletter?”

That’s a great question. I wish I had a great answer for you other than it’s better than therapy for me and I get paid instead of having to pay someone else. But hey, 99% of “newsletter writers” don’t have any clue what they’re talking about — at least I admit it.

Look, it’s either me or lessons from Whitney Tilson’s fishing trip and ruminations about his colonoscopy. Choose wisely.

I’m breaking Whitney’s balls, of course. He’s a good dude and was one of the first people to be nice to me on Wall St. a decade ago.

Anyway, continuing the sick satire playing out on Wednesday, S&P came out after the bell on Wednesday and affirmed the United States’ credit rating and said things look stable, casually noting that debt to GDP and interest to revenue are out of f*cking control (my words, not S&P’s) before summing things up with a “stable” outlook despite the fact. Among other brain farts, including praising monetary policy execution, S&P concluded:

• A diversified and resilient economy with solid growth, extensive monetary policy flexibility, and benefits associated with the unique status as the issuer of the world’s leading reserve currency underpin the U.S. sovereign rating.

• A high debt burden, with net general government debt approaching 100% of GDP and interest to revenue over 10%, and difficulties garnering bipartisan cooperation to strengthen U.S. fiscal dynamics are credit weaknesses.

• We affirmed our ‘AA+/A-1+’ sovereign credit ratings on the U.S.

• The outlook remains stable, indicating our expectation of continued economic resiliency; proactive, effective monetary policy execution; and our view that government officials will continue to resolve near-term fiscal deadlines, such as addressing the debt ceiling, in a timely manner.

S&P said: “We could lower the rating over the next two to three years if unexpected negative political developments weigh on the strength of American institutions and the effectiveness of long-term policymaking, or jeopardize the dollar’s status as the world’s leading reserve currency.”

They continued: “The ratings could also come under pressure if already-high deficits were to rise, owing to political inability to contain rising spending or to manage revenue implications of future changes in the tax code.”

Is it me, or are both of these situations literally occurring already right now?

As if people in the world of economics pride themselves on analytical non sequiturs, S&P’s rating and reasoning for their rating stand at stark odds with reality.

But then again, who really knows what reality is anymore? Me? You? This certifiably insane old bird?

“I regret saying it was transitory.”

As many people know, Fitch downgraded the United States last year (my exceptional analysis here). They had it right. Whether we have the reserve currency or not, there are extraordinary, unprecedented risks facing the United States economy and the US dollar. Both S&P and Chris Waller came out and said today that the reserve currency status of the dollar gives the United States enormous flexibility.

But just because we have enormous flexibility doesn’t mean that we can bend and not eventually break. Does policy flexibility mean that we can literally do whatever we want and nothing matters at all? Have we replaced the natural laws of economics and rewritten the basics of mathematics and macroeconomics? We think we have, but we haven’t.

If you think of the basic immutable laws of macroeconomics and mathematics as a bathroom shower, every layer of bullsh*t, monetary policy, money printing, foreign war mongering slush fund, overspending, misuse, hubris, rewriting of the rules, and Stephanie Kelton book is like adding one of those Bath Fitter (TM) renovations to your shower. You’re not replacing the disgusting, mold-ridden, toxic equipment, you’re just covering it up with another layer of shiny-looking fiberglass.

Left: The “old school” laws of economics. Right: The trillion dollar coin idea.

The question then becomes: how many of these layers can we pile on top of one another before the room becomes so f*cking small that we can’t fit in the shower anymore?

And, then what? We just walk around stinking to high heaven?

I mean, for f*ck’s sake, we’ve got lifelong spend-ocrat Steve Liesman of all people breaking down on CNBC yesterday, openly worrying about how the United States is going to service its debt obligations and calling bullsh*t on the Inflation Reduction Act. Putting aside the insane irony that Steve Liesman has sat at Fed press conferences for the last decade and massaged the feet of whoever the Fed chair was at the time instead of asking them serious questions about accountability, when Liesman starts to worry, isn’t it time to take notice?

For the last decade, I have watched dozens of Fed press conferences (feels like trillions) where Liesman has done nothing but make excuses for central bankers and throw them softball questions, in between the time he takes to congratulate them on the great job they’re doing. Very few people on his network, with the exception of possibly Guy Adami and Rick Santelli (combined total airtime each day: 32 seconds), have raised any questions about the Fed’s trajectory. Most days on CNBC look like this:

Guests who are critical of the Federal Reserve, like Peter Schiff, have been blackballed from the network entirely. And now, all of a sudden, it’s time to panic? What’s next? Will Paul Krugman or Jeremy Siegel be taking to CNBC to all of a sudden “remember” the lessons of Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell?

Waller’s remarks Wednesday wrap up what will be the remainder of any Fed commentary on this short week. The entire market has placed an “all-in” wager on rate cuts this year, and Waller has reiterated his position as “we need to wait and see what happens.” And while he said circumstances would need to be extenuating for it to occur, he even brought up the idea of hikes. Considering the market is a forward-looking indicator and it has already pulled in probably six months to a year of expectations of rates being lower (and Trump tax cuts again, and AI growth, and more money printing, and colonizing Mars, and Tesla robotaxis that double as laundry folding humanoid droids), rates staying the same for longer – or a hike – would be devastating.

And so, we sit and wait for the next bullsh*t CPI print to try and determine whether or not the government has figured out a new way to disguise the fact that prices have consistently been up at least 10% almost every year at any point in the past, especially these last three years.

Both Waller and S&P Global are leaning, one way or another, on the US dollar’s reserve currency status as the foundation and basis for their “everything isn’t totally screwed and backwards” outlook.

These conclusions by Waller and S&P are the latest in a long line of trillions of analyses and judgments that have relied on the US dollar remaining reserve currency for the time period of “forever times infinity” to be correct.

I think of each one of these analyses, which arrived daily by the hundreds across Wall Street, as sheets of paper being placed on the back of a donkey that is trying to scale Mount Everest. A couple of sheets of paper, the donkey doesn’t notice. When you have enough for a ream of paper, the donkey starts to notice a little weight. Approaching a century into the US dollar’s dominance, the donkey is carrying on its back a stack of papers that would puncture the ozone layer at this point.

It may not be Wednesday’s two additional sheets that cripple the donkey on its continued journey up the hill, but at some point, the weight is going to become unbearable. And watching it all play out, for me, already has.

—

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QTR’s Disclaimer: I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. I didn’t double check any numbers or figures in this piece and am generally lazy with my research. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. Contributor posts and curated content are posted either with the author’s permission or under a Creative Commons license. This is not a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. Sometimes I just lose money by misplacing it. I’m generally irresponsible. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. Do your research elsewhere. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get sh*t wrong a lot. I mention it numerous times because it’s that important that you know.

With global capital market closed, crypto maybe the only price action to monitor to judge if Fed Chair Powell says anything new this morning.

Powell is due to participate in moderated discussion before the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Macroeconomics and Monetary Policy Conference.

The market is still pricing in a just better than 50-50 chance of The Fed’s first cut coming in June, and the question is whether – like Waller earlier in the week – Powell will signal a longer pause…

Watch live here (due to start at 1130ET):

President Biden is under fire for partying with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Lizzo, and other famous elitists at a $500,000 per ticket fundraiser held hours after former President Donald Trump attended the wake of a slain NYPD officer.

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden emerge from the basement together. pic.twitter.com/EudU63yOv0

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 29, 2024

Earlier in the day, Biden’s social media team tweeted an attack ad suggesting that Biden (who couldn’t possibly hold a rally) is hard at work, while Trump is lazy on the golf course.

I’ll tell you this: There’s a difference between the two candidates in this election. pic.twitter.com/yGi2LvPkUH

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 28, 2024

Meanwhile, Trump was honoring NYPD officer Jonathan Diller, who was murdered by a lifelong criminal during a routine traffic stop in Queens.

🚨 BREAKING: Donald Trump arrives at the wake of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller while Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are also in New York, but at a fundraiser with Lizzo pic.twitter.com/tcOaoMNIg1

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 28, 2024

President Trump: “We have to stop it. We have to get back to law and order…because this is not working. This is happening too often.” pic.twitter.com/k5MQutyEsw

— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) March 28, 2024

Of course this is all about optics – and one can criticize Trump for making Diller’s wake essentially a campaign stop, but the juxtaposition between the partying Dems (who raised $25 million for Biden) and Trump mourning did not go unnoticed (h/t Modernity.news).

Joe Biden went to New York today with Obama to raise money from rich liberal New Yorkers.

Donald Trump went to New York today to attend the funeral of a slain NYPD officer and contributed to the Tunnels to Towers fund that paid off his family’s mortgage.

You can’t draw a…

— Michael Seifert (@realmichaelseif) March 28, 2024

Both @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump are in NYC today. But while Clinton, Obama and Biden will be partying it up with celebrities, Trump will be attending the wake of slain officer Jonathan Diller. pic.twitter.com/GGM3mI1UNR

— Joel Fischer 🇺🇸 (@realJoelFischer) March 28, 2024

Trump, commenting on Biden’s fundraiser, noted that Biden can’t support the police because “his base won’t let him.”

““I think that politically he can’t support the police,” Trump said, adding “I think he is also making a mistake. But I think politically, his base won’t let him support the police. And I support the police. I would say at the highest level of any president by far.”

Trump: “Biden’s base won’t let him support the police.”
While Trump attended the wake of murdered NYPD officer Jonathan Diller Thursday, Biden was partying with celebrities. Report here: https://t.co/rkpXBrQAoZ pic.twitter.com/449JcT0ntv

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) March 29, 2024

Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov has issued a dire assessment of the current state of US-Russia relations in an interview with Russia’s Channel One.

He said that no one should expect relations with Washington to improve at all under President Joe Biden, and at one point even called the prospect “impossible”. 

“Improvement of Russian-US relations seems to be impossible in the near future. What the current administration is focused on is how to stay in the Oval Office of the White House,” he said in the interview. This strongly suggests Moscow is hoping for a new US administration after November.

“They will not review their Russian policy, because it will make it look like this policy had failed,” Antonov added. His words come at a moment American public opinion is increasingly swaying against Biden’s push to sink tens of billions of dollars more in defense aid into Ukraine, which has been a noticeable shift since at least early last year.

Moscow has briefly held out hope that given some of the momentary goodwill shown by the West in the wake of last Friday’s Crocus City Hall terrorist attack which left at least 140 dead, there might be an improvement of ties – at least in terms of restoring cooperation on common interests like counterterrorism efforts.

“The United States strongly condemns yesterday’s deadly terrorist attack in Moscow,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said in a Saturday statement. “We condemn terrorism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the people of Russia in grieving the loss of life from this horrific event.”

Ambassador Antonov explained that he had expected a senator or a congressman to at least pay a condolence visit to the Russian embassy given the enormity of last Friday’s terror attack, but “nothing like this happened”.

He then noted that “The State Department sent a minor official, who is not a foreign policy decision-maker.”

Antonov said in separate statements this week that since the Crocus Hall attack the Kremlin has only had “transitory” contacts with the US administration, but that next week there will be opportunity to discuss “bilateral relations, about how we can live on, and if there is any chance at all for Russian-American relations not to be completely destroyed.”

He previously described that “only crumbs” remain of US-Russian relations, and this includes mainly the deconfliction hotline in Syria, space exploration, and some contact groups that work on nuclear proliferation. Still, several end of Cold War era weapons treaties have collapsed, as Washington has ratcheted anti-Russian sanctions related to the Ukraine war.