Month: March 2024

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Sein-tral Banking

As a regular Global Daily reader recently commented to me, “In Canada, we have a new comedy show that has launched over the past few months: The Bank of Canada’s Policy Rate Announcement Press Conferences. Journalists basically ask, “When rate cuts?” in a myriad of creative ways, and the Governor, smirking and rolling his eyes along with his Senior Deputy for all to see, responds with equally creative iterations of the punchline “not telling ya!””

My response is that this comedy show seems to be widely franchised, like Seinfeld – and is like Seinfeld. It’s “about nothing” the more you listen. More importantly, it remains to be seen if it’s “no rate cuts for you!” or if we are “cuts worthy” and get “serenity now!” in a Festivus for the Rest of Us – which is being accompanied by global airing of grievances and feats of strength already.

On the latest data, US CPI was 0.3% m-o-m headline, 0.4% core, so 3.2% y-o-y headline, 3.8% core, and 3.9% core services, up from 3.6% the previous month…. and yet the punchline didn’t change: “stock traders bracing for worst brush off hot CPI“, as Bloomberg put it.

New Zealand inflation today were also not friendly across the board. Food prices were down, but fuel and rent both up; that’s with the economy likely in recession. Markets were again little moved. After all, rate cuts are still starting in June regardless say central banks (which is why it’s “about nothing”) – though note our Fed watcher Philip Marey says the risks are increasingly toward later, not sooner.

For now, central banks, like the Seinfeld cast, are competing to hold back from indulging their natural urges – in this case, to cut rates. They know services inflation is still too high, and that they can’t rely on permanent goods deflation. They know cutting too soon could cement inflation above 2%, meaning even more loss of reputation. So, like the king of no reputation, George Costanza, they are doing the exact opposite of what their inner voice tells them to do, and holding firm a bit longer.

But they also know that this risks tipping the economy into a deep downturn – and they must not double dip! Doing so risks them then crying, “You’re killing independent George!”

For now, they may think they can cut once or twice and then wait and see with no harm done. However, they don’t want an economy that thinks sustained high rates are as ridiculous as Jerry’s puffy shirt to fall over as a result. And they forget markets and rate cuts are like Kramer and Kenny Rogers chicken: once they start, they can’t stop; one or two promised cuts rapidly becomes seven priced in, easing policy far too much.

As such, central banks are having difficulty meaning what they appear to say and saying what they appear to mean. As with Jerry and the pen:

JERRY: What kind of pen is that?

JACK: This pen?

JERRY: Yeah.

JACK: This is an astronaut pen. It writes upside down. They use this in space.

JERRY: Wow! That’s the astronaut pen. I heard about that. Where did you get it?

JACK: Oh it was a gift.

JERRY: Cause sometimes I write in bed and I have to turn and lean on my elbow to make the pen works.

JACK: Take the pen.

JERRY: Oh no.

JACK: Go ahead.

JERRY: I couldn’t

JACK: Come on, take the pen!

JERRY: I can’t take it.

JACK: Do me a personal favor!

JERRY: No, I’m not…

JACK: Take the pen!

JERRY: I cannot take it!

JACK: Take the pen!

JERRY: Are you sure?

JACK: Positive! Take the pen!

JERRY: O.K. Thank you very much. Thank you. Gee, boy!

HELEN: Jack, what are you doing?

JACK: Stop it!

JERRY: Thanks again.

JACK: Come on! (Leaving)

HELEN: (as soon as the door’s closed) What did you take his pen for?

JERRY: What, he gave it to me!

HELEN: You didn’t have to take it.

MORTY: Oh my God! She’s gotta make a big deal out of everything.

JERRY: He offered it to me.

HELEN: Because you made such a big fuss about it.

JERRY: I liked it. Should I have said I didn’t like it?

HELEN: You shouldn’t have said anything. What did you expect him to do?

JERRY: He could have said: “Thank you, I like it too” and put it back in his pocket.

HELEN: He loves that pen.

MORTY: Oh come on!

HELEN: He talks about it all the time. Every time he takes it out he goes on and on about how it writes upside down, how the astronauts use it.

JERRY: If he likes it so much, he never should have offered it.

HELEN: He didn’t think you’d accept.

JERRY: Well, he was wrong.

That kind of conversation now happens after every rate decision and press conference. Did they say what they mean? Did they mean what they say? Should we accept what they are offering? Should we return it?

And meanwhile, the airing of grievances and feats of strength are upon us:

The annual US intelligence threat assessment talks of an “increasingly fragile world order”; yet the latest Pentagon budget includes real terms spending cuts, a sharp rise in civilian bureaucrats in the Navy, a drop in active sailors, and a cut in submarine production that undermines the AUKUS treaty supposed to anchor security for Australia.

McKinsey, who might lose US government contracts for helping China with its state-capitalism, just won a deal to help US Air Force strategy: because management consultants know all about defense. Will it involve selling off US planes and letting China or Mexico fly them instead?

Mercedes Benz’s CEO is lobbying against proposed EU tariffs on Chinese EVs produced by mercantilist state capitalism, because he favors “free trade” (and selling cars in China).

BRICS+ buddies India and China just saw the former send 10,000 more troops to their contested mountain border and dare Beijing to “bat an eyelid”.

And dissident Russian troops have invaded Russia. That’s twice it’s now invaded itself, if you include the Prigozhin episode.

After a solid 3Y auction and a sloppy 10Y, moments ago the Treasury closed out the week’s coupon issuance with the final bond sale of the week when it sold 30Y paper in what was a stellar auction.

The 29-Year, 11-Month reopening priced at a high yield of 4.331%, down from last month’s 4.360% and stopped through the 4.352% When Issued by 2.1bps, the biggest stop through since Jan 2023, and the 4th in a row as the market appears to have substantial appetite for duration.

The bid to cover was also stellar, jumping to 2.47 from 2.40, the highest since June.

The internals were also strong with Indirects awarded 69.3%, down from 70.7% in Feb but aside for that outlier, the highest since June and well above the six-auction average of 66.1%. And with Directs awarded 16.8%, above the recent average of 13.2%, Dealers were left holding 13.9%, the lowest since August 2023.

Overall, this was a stellar auction, and a fitting end to a week where yields have moved notably higher. Not surprisingly, yields dropped after news of the solid bond sale hit, but even so yields were still about 3bps higher on the day following concerns that Japanese bond yields are about to soar after the BOJ hikes rates next week.

Fired CNN propagandist Don Lemon says that Elon Musk “has canceled the partnership I had with X … he informed me of his decision hours after an interview I conducted with him on Friday.”

News from me…#TheDonLemonShow pic.twitter.com/PzlKuvkZtj

— Don Lemon (@donlemon) March 13, 2024

The interview with Musk is slated to be the debut episode of The Don Lemon Show. According to Lemon, the interview will now run as planned on YouTube, where future episodes will be released.

Both Musk and X responded to Lemon’s post

“X is a platform that champions free speech, and we’re proud to provide an open environment for diverse voices and perspectives,” the company’s @XBusiness account said, adding that Lemon is “welcome to publish its content on X, without censorship,” but that “like any enterprise, we reserve the right to make decisions about our business partnerships, and after careful consideration, X decided not to enter into a commercial partnership with the show.“

When asked to elaborate, Musk said that Lemon’s approach was “basically just “CNN, but on social media”, which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying.

“Instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was really just Jeff Zucker talking through Don, so lacked authenticity,” Musk added.

His approach was basically just “CNN, but on social media”, which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying.

And, instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was really just Jeff Zucker talking through Don, so lacked authenticity.

All this said, Lemon/Zucker are…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 13, 2024

Looks like this lemonparty has been officially pooped. 

Just ahead of Russia’s March 15 presidential elections, Vladimir Putin has reiterated Wednesday that his country stands ready to use nuclear weapons should the state’s existence be threatened, but so far “there has never been such a need.”

The new warning of Russia’s nuclear ‘readiness’ accompanied with acknowledgement that nuclear war is not imminent appeared further reaction to the West taking up the question of sending troops to Ukraine, after France’s Macron raised the issue last month. There have also been fresh attack from Ukraine on Russia’s energy infrastructure this week.

“Apart from (US President Joe) Biden, there are enough other experts in the sphere of Russian-American relations and strategic restraint. So I don’t think that everything is going to go head-on here, but we are ready for it,” Putin said in the fresh remarks given to Rossiya-1.

Putin said further of Washington that it too is developing its strategic forces but this doesn’t mean it’s ready to “launch a nuclear war tomorrow.”

“They are now setting tasks to increase this modernity, innovation, they have a corresponding plan. We know about it too. They are developing all their components. So are we,” Putin explained. “Weapons exist in order to use them. We have our own principles.”

Importantly, FT noted that “Putin also claimed that he had not considered using a tactical nuclear weapon at Russia’s lowest point in Ukraine in the autumn of 2022 when his forces made humiliating retreats in the eastern regions of Kharkiv and Kherson.”

While none of this marks any kind of change in Russia’s nuclear doctrine or posture, it demonstrates that President Putin is taking threats from NATO countries to escalate their involvement seriously. Among the more interesting excerpts from the interview is his comparison of US and Russian strategic arsenals and advancement:

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia’s nuclear triad — its three-pronged arsenal of weapons launched from land, sea and air — was “much more” advanced than that of the United States. 

“Our triad, the nuclear triad, it is more modern than any other triad. Only we and the Americans actually have such triads. And we have advanced much more here,” Putin said in an interview on state TV.

Ukraine has also been engaged in riskier cross-border attacks of late, possibly at the urging or direction of its Western backers. On Tuesday there was a ground assault by pro-Ukraine paramilitary groups in the Belgorod region which Russia’s military said it defeated. It even reportedly involved the paramilitaries using tanks.

There is a reason why Putin is threatening with nuclear weapons today. Russia was exposed to several attacks yesterday against oil refineries.

Also yesterday armed Russian freedom fighters carried out cross-border incursions. pic.twitter.com/5YGrohuEF2

— WORLD AT WAR (@World_At_War_6) March 13, 2024

On the question of sacrifices made by Russians, most especially fallen troops and their grieving families during the war, Putin commented in the interview as follows: “Look, every human life is priceless, every one. And the loss of a loved one for a family, for any family, is a huge grief… [but] if we abandon these people today, then tomorrow our losses may increase many times over, and our children will have no future.”

He continued, “…because we will feel insecure, we will be a third- or fourth-rate country, no one will take us into account, if we can’t protect ourselves. And the consequences could be catastrophic for Russian statehood.”

* * *

Below: Putin on the question of peace negotiations with Ukraine…

Putin: “It would be ridiculous for us to start negotiating with Ukraine just because it’s running out of ammunition.”
Republican leadership of the House cutting off military supplies to Ukraine has made Putin drop his pretense about desiring peace talks. He wants it all. pic.twitter.com/rlcmtaJz9U

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) March 13, 2024

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

I’d be remiss this morning if I didn’t put down some of my quick thoughts from watching Special Counsel Robert Hur’s testimony in front of Congress yesterday.

For those who missed it, Hur provided testimony yesterday on his inquiry into President Joe Biden’s improper handling of confidential documents. Serving as the special counsel, he addressed the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, he clearly stated that his investigation “did not exonerate” the president.

For the record, I’m mostly in the same camp as Representative Matt Gaetz, who said yesterday during the hearing that he wasn’t interested in seeing President Biden nor President Trump charged for mishandling classified documents.

The left’s justification for the August 8, 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago and the recovery of classified documents from President Trump’s estate hasn’t so much revolved around the idea that Trump committed a crime by taking them, but rather that he lied when he was asked about them and refused when he was given several opportunities to turn the documents over.

FBI Raid on Mar-A-Lago / Getty Images

Not unlike the numerous other court proceedings against Mr. Trump, which to be honest, seem mostly frivolous, the left has sworn up and down that Trump’s mishandling of these documents is part of a larger pattern of general incompetence and wrongdoing.

In fact, Congressman Adam Schiff, who now continues to perpetuate the Russian collusion hoax despite the fact that nearly all evidence to date proves that he’s the one peddling a conspiracy theory, even took to the airwaves this week to say that if Trump was elected president, he thinks that he shouldn’t have access to certain confidential information.

To be frank, I’m not here to argue whether or not Trump’s handling of these documents constituted incompetence. Rather, I’m writing about what was revealed to be an absolutely devastating double standard made clear by Special Counsel Robert Hur’s testimony with regard to President Biden’s handling of classified documents yesterday.

You can watch the full testimony for yourself here. But what you need to know is that the revelations put forth during the hearing all but confirmed that President Biden was guilty of far more egregious mishandling of classified documents than President Trump ever was. And the resulting lack of motivation to handle Biden’s case in the same way that Trump’s case was handled once again raises questions, to even those in the center-left of the aisle, if we are administering a two-tiered system of justice.

🔥 50% OFF SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR LIFE: If you are not yet a subscriber, you can take 50% off for life by using this link: GET 50% OFF

Yesterday’s hearing revealed that President Biden kept classified documents at at least six different locations (Penn Biden Center, Biden’s garage, Biden’s basement den, his main floor office, his third floor den, at the University of Delaware and at the Biden Institute) . The hearing also revealed that Biden lied, not only when he was asked about it by the special counsel, but also to the American public.

Additionally, Biden admitted on tape that the documents he had were classified, and it was made clear that his motive for retaining the documents was so that his ghostwriter could prepare a book that he was getting paid $8 million for.

And throughout the testimony, Democrats tried to do damage control but came up short.

Now, in any type of semi-objective world, how do these actions not at least rise to the seriousness of the actions of President Trump? For me, it seems like they are far more egregious than what President Trump was being accused of.

I also know that there’s going to be a constituency of people that try to make this a wash and write off the facts that came to light yesterday.

“They all do it, all politicians are corrupt,” people will say.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that statement, except for the fact that it would normally be a wash, but only one presidential candidate appears to be facing criminal charges while the other is being let out the back door for what could be argued to be far worse conduct.

As I said on my last podcast about the state of the union, the bolder the double standard becomes, the further towards the center go the votes that Democrats see eroded from their base. As I said on my podcast, the Democrats simply don’t have any finesse.

Political dirty tricks, October surprises and the like come with the territory in the world of politics in the United States. But there’s always been some element of finesse to them. If you’re going to try and paint one person to be far more evil than the other, you have to do it in a way that doesn’t overdo it and become obvious. You have to let people think they’re figuring it out for themselves.

There’s no finesse involved in throwing 100 different charges against the wall and then having corrupt prosecutors try to pursue them with their work-boyfriend. There’s no finesse involved in telling the public Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation when everybody could see the photos for themselves. There’s no finesse involved in faking the entire Russian collusion hoax, and finally, there’s no finesse involved when pursuing a candidate publicly for actions that arguably pale in comparison to those of the president ostensibly going after him.

This lack of finesse can also be called sloppiness. How many times in a movie have you seen somebody pulling off a scheme, then getting too confident and “sloppy” before blowing their cover? This is exactly what the Democrats are doing and it is costing them the crucial undecided votes that don’t simply pledge allegiance to one party or the other. Yesterday’s hearing was proof that they have become swollen with hubris and drunk on their own power — and in November, the American public might call them out on it.

“Sir, you can’t take those documents with you!”

“It’s OK! I’m a Democrat!”

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 shit wrong a lot. I mention it numerous times because it’s that important that you know.

RNC co-chair Lara Trump says that “protecting the vote” in the upcoming November election is the most critical task for the committee.

“We have three pillars that we need to focus on at the RNC to ensure victory on November 5, turn out the vote, protect the vote, and raise money,” she told Fox news‘ “Sunday Morning Futures” on March 10.

“But I would argue that maybe the most important of those three is protecting the vote, election integrity,” she added.

Lara Trump says the RNC will devote ‘massive resources’ to election integrity before soliciting the audience for volunteer lawyers pic.twitter.com/CE0b9GRs6n

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 13, 2024

Trump was asked by host Maria Bartiromo about her opinion of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s speech earlier this month in which he suggested that it’s racist not to allow the least secure methods of casting a vote in America. 

On March 3, Mr. Garland said the U.S. Department of Justice was “fighting back” against “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.” -Epoch Times

“We have to ensure that, when people go vote, they feel like their vote counts, that they are inspired to go vote. We can never allow what happened in 2020 and the questions surrounding that election to ever happen again,” said Trump.

Lara, the daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump, suggested that Democrats are against voter ID because they seek to expand their voter base with illegal immigrants.

“Democrats are bleeding and hemorrhaging voters. They understand that they cannot fool people in this country any longer so they have to import people,” she said. “The only reason you wouldn’t want voter ID is if you want people who cannot vote to vote in these elections. It is insane.”

Roughly 81% of Americans support voter ID, according to a February poll by Pew Research. Along party lines, however, 95% favor the concept, while 69% of Democrats – still a majority, support it.

According to Lara Trump, the RNC has established an “election integrity division” and devoted “vast resources dedicated solely to this cause,” which include a “nationwide network of volunteers,” such as poll workers and poll watchers.

To those who might cheat in the upcoming election, “We will go after you [and] you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Trump said.

Legal Ballot Harvesting

As the Epoch Times notes further, Trump also told Ms. Bartiromo that the RNC would use legal ballot harvesting in this election cycle. “It is already underway, and we will expand it again,” she said.

Last week, Ms. Trump and Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, were elected to lead the RNC to replace Ronna McDaniel. Both were endorsed by President Trump last month.

The leadership overhaul comes just days after President Trump dominated the Republican presidential primaries on Super Tuesday on March 5, solidifying his hold on the Republican nomination and the party itself.

“We need to have the biggest legal ballot harvesting operation this country has ever seen,” Ms. Trump said. “It feels, for a long time, like the Democrats have been playing chess, and we’ve been playing checkers,” she said. Her goal is for the Republican Party “to be the opposite, to be steps ahead of them, and on our toes, and ahead of the game, and facing forward the whole time.”

Ballot harvesting, legal in some states, allows people to deliver absentee or mail-in ballots to drop-off points on behalf of other voters. Republicans have been skeptical of the procedure, fearing it would lead to election fraud. Democrats have been much more willing to use the strategy.

“Whether or not [Democrats] do it legally, that’s up for discussion,” Ms. Trump said, adding that it’s time for Republicans to start “attacking the game differently.”

She also suggested that the RNC embrace early voting for the upcoming election. “The truth is, if we want to compete with the Democrats, we cannot wait until election day,” she said. “If we want to compete, we must embrace early voting.

Authored by Douglas French via The Mises Institute,

One would guess the folly of rent control regulations needn’t be explained any further.

If rents are held in place by government edict, landlords have no incentive to maintain apartment units to attract renters, the housing stock ultimately deteriorates, and homelessness increases.

But, as Bloomberg reports, “Tougher rent control, returning worldwide, destroys $75 billion in property value. Cash-strapped tenants cheer as they maintain a foothold in the city.”

That was the article’s subtitle. The title of the piece authored by Patrick Clark and Prashant Gopal screams that New York City apartment values have been cut in half. In 2019, alarmed about the decline in affordable housing, New York State lawmakers made rent control laws tougher. They sharply reduced how much landlords could raise rents after renovations, and worse yet, the units no longer leave the program when rents rise high enough.

The difference between rent-stabilized unit values and market rent unit values since the 2019 change is startling. Last year, the price of New York buildings with at least one rent-stabilized unit sold for prices that were 34 percent lower than in 2019. By contrast, the price of nonregulated apartments rose 23 percent during the same timeframe.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation unloaded $15 billion in loans backed primarily by New York rent-stabilized apartments in December at a 40 percent discount. And the charges New York Community Bank took for its exposure to rent-stabilized projects is well known.

“A lot of owners I’m speaking with want to walk away from buildings,” Lazer Sternhell, chief executive officer of Cignature Realty told Bloomberg. Douglas Peterson, who bought more than forty properties for $300 million over twenty years, is behind on his mortgage payments and fresh out of money for repairs.

“My career is over,” Peterson says.

“Now it’s just a question of: What’s my legacy going to be? Is it going to be that I abandoned the ship when it was sinking, or that I stayed and fought?”

“The politicians are defunding these buildings,” Lewis Barbanel told Bloomberg.

“They’re trying to create a situation where the owners fail.” Mr. Barbanel is taking his investment dollars to New Jersey.

Sounding like Wesley Mouch in Atlas Shrugged, Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator of Housing Justice for All, said defiantly, “We weren’t being very secret that we were trying to change the rules, nor were the lawmakers in Albany,” Weaver said. “I don’t know if it was hubris or not, but laws change, and that impacts markets.”

What’s happening in New York City hasn’t stayed in the Big Apple. Oregon and California have instituted rent stabilization statewide, and two dozen states last year considered rent caps, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council.

Canada, India, and Sweden all have rent control. Denmark’s government placed a two-year cap on rents last year, while Berlin froze rents for five years in 2020 until courts overturned the measure.

Chris Herbert, managing director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, says the rental market in large cities is a market failure, citing scarce land and zoning laws. He is forgetting or ignoring that one government intervention leads to others, as Ludwig von Mises explained.

New York has sixteen thousand units under rent control and a million units under rent stabilization. Before the 2019 changes, property owners could raise rents by 20 percent each time a tenant moved out. Past a certain threshold, they could set their own rents. Owners could also raise monthly rents by one dollar for every forty dollars in renovations. Landlords have taken their case against the 2019 rent laws to the US Supreme Court with no success.

Clark and Gopal write, “In one of the strange twists of rent regulation that worry economists, [Douglas] Peterson is among the landlords leaving apartments empty because it doesn’t make sense to repair and rent them out at current rates. Thousands of apartments are vacant, according to government and industry estimates.”

A strange twist?

It’s just simple economics.

The Pentagon has confirmed it is urgently deploying an elite counter-terror task force to bolster the American embassy in Haiti after armed gangs have taken over much of the capital of Port-au-Prince and the long-simmering situation is now boiling over, with violence spreading, also in the wake of embattled Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s resignation Tuesday. Further there’s a threat of a “mass migration” wave potentially inundating US coastal communities in places like Florida as a result.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced Wednesday that at the request of the State Department the elite Marine Fleet-Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST) has been deployed to the destabilized country to assist in embassy security.

Already for months there has been rising concern for US citizens still in the country, who have been urged by the embassy to immediately depart the Caribbean island-nation, as an utter state of lawlessness reins overseen by criminal warlords. The past years have witnessed a handful of kidnappings targeting Americans, including aid workers, and other foreign citizens.

“U.S. Southern Command is prepared with a wide range of contingency plans to ensure the safety and security of U.S. Citizens in Haiti,” SOUTHCOM said in its statement. Not only will the FAST team assist the Marine embassy guard already in place to better secure the embassy in a scenario where it could come under attack, but it will reportedly help in the evacuation of non-essential American personnel.

The US military statement continued, “This week, the Department of Defense doubled our funding for the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, and we are working with Haitian, Kenyan, and other partners to expedite its deployment to support the Haitian National Police and to restore security in Haiti.”

The Haitian government recently approved the deployment of Kenyan peacekeeping troops as part of a UN-sponsored mission, but there are reports the plan is still stalled. This has been a long time in coming after the US and other countries refused to spearhead such an operation, given this have not gone well for US-led peacekeeping missions in Haiti in the recent past.

The FAST team deployment is typically the next logical step when an embassy comes under potential threat due to destabilizing and chaotic factors within a country. Warlords and rival gangs are not only fighting the police, but often each other as well, resulting in dangerous city ‘no go zones’ for the civilian population.

🚨🇭🇹BREAKING: HAITI ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE

After thousands broke out of prison, the capital of Haiti has fallen into lawlessness.

The prime minister declared a state of emergency and imposed curfews, but this has not stemmed the rising chaos.

Source: The Independent, AP pic.twitter.com/V4syIjBPcB

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 9, 2024

Interestingly, the State Department urgent request for the elite group comes immediately on the heels of a tense Congressional hearing wherein Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida grilled SOUTHCOM chief Gen, Laura Richardson yesterday.

Gaetz had asked Richardson whether the US government should “activate the authorities, anticipating a mass migration.” She responded: “I think that we need to be postured appropriately for that. I have put in a request for increase capability to do exactly that. And we are ready if we need to deal with a mass migration.”

However, if mass migratory throngs are unleashed and all hell breaks loose even further, the US government is going to need much more than a small detachment of security Marines to do the job.

🚨🇺🇸U.S. WARNS: MASS HAITIAN MIGRATION COMING SOON

DoD officials reportedly are on high alert for a significant maritime movement of Haitians heading toward the U.S.

UN warns Haiti is on the brink, as violence and lack of essential services push the population to desperation.… pic.twitter.com/mjQCeHnEza

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 13, 2024

Conditions in Haiti have been becoming increasingly dire in recent months due to widespread gang violence and civil unrest. Armed gangs now reportedly control around 80% of Port-au-Prince, and likely this is now growing by the day.

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

I was looking at charts of uranium stocks and Bitcoin last night—both of which have performed extraordinarily over the last year—and was thinking to myself that I could easily remember a time in the not-so-distant past where both of these asset classes were completely unloved.

Which reminds me of another asset class that right now is in the midst of waves of hatred and disapproval from the market, but I think similarly could wind up outperforming in the coming years.

It isn’t going to surprise anybody that I’m talking about precious metal miners — gold miners specifically. (And you’ll have to bear with me, I wrote most of this over the weekend before gold and the GDX’s rip on Monday — but, long term, that shouldn’t make a difference).

Anyway, as has been harped on by people like Peter Schiff and Larry Lepard, gold miners have been taken out back and shot, especially when compared to the price of spot gold, which sits near all-time highs. The VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX), for example, is 23.8% off its 1 year high while gold is just 2.45% off its 1 year high.

This move lower in miners is despite the fact that the underlying spot price of gold is near all-time highs and—if you’re a believer in technical analysis, which I consider nonsense—looks as though it is getting ready to rip even higher.

Lepard and Schiff will tell you that the reason miners are trading at such a low multiple is because the models used to predict their future cash flows are still using a predictive gold price in the future of less than $2000 per ounce. I’ve heard Larry Lepard say some models, when you look on a Bloomberg terminal, are still predicting that the price of gold will be $1800 an ounce in a couple of years. You and I, and even the Bitcoin community, know that this isn’t going to be the case. At some point, these models will update—or the market will force them to—and it’ll become extraordinarily evident that gold miners represent some of the only value stocks left in the entire stock market, which, as a whole, is grossly overinflated and overvalued.

Miners are also getting a lot of hatred nowadays because of how well Bitcoin is doing. I hear Peter Schiff talk a lot about how people are pulling their money out of gold miners and putting it into Bitcoin. At first, it sounds like he’s just making excuses (or as the bitcoiners say ‘coping’), but I’m sure this is what’s happening. If you look on social media, or you watch financial media, the hype is around Bitcoin as a safe haven asset, not gold. It is reasonable to assume that money is coming out of precious metals and moving into Bitcoin, even by investors who are just rejiggering their allocations and not necessarily abandoning gold altogether.

At the same time, the arrogance and hubris coming from the Bitcoin community that I have railed against for years (as recently as a couple days ago), even though I am now a bull, casts off gold as a relic of the past that simply will no longer be used as a store of value.

🔥 50% OFF SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR LIFE: If you are not yet a subscriber, you can take 50% off for life by using this link: GET 50% OFF

To believe that the whole world is going to abandon 5000 years of financial standards and reliance on the precious metal that has done its job as a safe haven is extraordinarily foolish, I don’t give a shit how bullish you are on Bitcoin.

I don’t believe that for Bitcoin to be successful, gold has to fail. There are going to be markets for both of them, and as I have said in numerous interviews and articles I’ve written over the last two months, gold still remains the bedrock underneath the world of finance for me.

Sure, there are things Bitcoin can do that gold can’t. For example, you can’t transport $1 billion worth of gold anywhere in the world easily, and you can’t send $1 billion worth of gold across the world easily. I’ve conceded that these are all great points that work to the advantage of Bitcoin. But the idea that Bitcoin is going to replace gold, and that gold will simply revert to its value as an industrial metal and no longer as a safe haven, is outright wrong in my opinion.

There’s going to be plenty of excess inflation and liquidity to go around as the Fed continues down the path of pushing forward its flawed monetary policy three ring circus. There will be more than enough lunacy for both the gold and Bitcoin buckets to catch some of this liquidity as safe havens.

FOMC Meeting, oil on canvas, 2024

Ergo, as the freak show persists, I believe that gold prices have nowhere to go but up. We are on the precipice of the next big financial crisis, even if it is one where prices go up instead of down, and the market spikes instead of crashes. One way or another, something is going to have to give at the Federal Reserve because rates absolutely cannot stay this high in perpetuity. Once the Fed starts easing again, and perhaps after we have our first post-cut crash or volatility, the resulting quantitative easing is going to ensure that anything with a fixed supply—from Bitcoin to gold to real estate to donuts—is going to spike.

As this becomes clear to the knobheads who are making the future price of gold lower in their models, miners will start to catch a bid. If they don’t catch a bid by retail, major investors or other corporations will start scooping them up and buying them outright. At some point, the sector becomes simply too much of a value to ignore. In other words, spoiler alert: the GDX is not going to $0. Armed with this airtight logic, I continue to buy the GDX as it falls. I also have been buying Newmont Mining (NEM) as it makes 52-week lows at the very same time that gold prices are nearing all-time highs.

If Monday’s rally has you worried you’ve missed the start of the rally, take this as a vote of confidence: while bitcoin, gold, silver and miners all ripped, mid-day Monday there was nary a mention of any of them on the front page of CNBC.com.

That is what I mean by gold being unloved.

And so the divergence between spot and miners means that either the price of miners is going to have to rocket higher at some point or the price of gold is going to have to move lower. I’m betting on the former and with the market and even the sound money crowd feeling like they are at peak hatred for gold, and specifically miners, I continue to be a motivated buyer, and continue to believe that this price, and any move lower in the miners, if gold remains at or above where it is now, could be generational buying opportunities.

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 shit wrong a lot. I mention it numerous times because it’s that important that you know.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six charges out of the 40-count indictment in the election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants, including three of the counts against Trump.

The ruling, which is not linked to Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s (D) relationship with a special prosecutor she hired on the case – however McAfee is expected to rule on that later this week as well.

The tossed charges do not impact the RICO charge that serves as the foundation for this unprecedented prosecution.

Each of the tossed charges related to alleged efforts by Trump and some of his co-defendants, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, to solicit Georgia officials to violate their oaths of office.

The judge ruled that while the charges do contain the “essential” elements of each crime, they fail to provide enough detail for the defendants to mount their defenses. Under the current charges, McAfee said, the defendants could have violated the law in “dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.” -The Hill

“The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance,” McAfee wrote. “However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal.”

McAfee also emphasized that his ruling “does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed,” and preserved Fulton County’s ability to seek new indictments once they supplement the charges to his satisfaction.

He also gave the state a six-month extension to resubmit the charges to a grand jury, even if the statute of limitations expires, and that he would “likely grant” a request to appeal.