Month: March 2024

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Joe Biden claimed that COVID vaccines are now helping cancer patients during his State of the Union address on March 7, but it was a response on Truth Social from former President Donald Trump that drew the ire of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

During the address, President Biden said: “The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer, turning setback into comeback. That’s what America does.”

President Trump wrote: “The Pandemic no longer controls our lives. The VACCINES that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer—turning setback into comeback. YOU’RE WELCOME JOE. NINE-MONTH APPROVAL TIME VS. 12 YEARS THAT IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU.”

An outspoken critic of President Trump’s COVID response, and the Operation Warp Speed program that escalated the availability of COVID vaccines, Mr. Kennedy said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “Donald Trump clearly hasn’t learned from his COVID-era mistakes.”

“He fails to recognize how ineffective his warp speed vaccine is as the ninth shot is being recommended to seniors. Even more troubling is the documented harm being caused by the shot to so many innocent children and adults who are suffering myocarditis, pericarditis, and brain inflammation,” Mr. Kennedy remarked.

“This has been confirmed by a CDC-funded study of 99 million people. Instead of bragging about its speedy approval, we should be honestly and transparently debating the abundant evidence that this vaccine may have caused more harm than good.

“I look forward to debating both Trump and Biden on Sept. 16 in San Marcos, Texas.”

Mr. Kennedy announced in April 2023 that he would challenge President Biden for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nomination before declaring his run as an independent last October, claiming that the Democrat National Committee was “rigging the primary.”

Since the early stages of his campaign, Mr. Kennedy has generated more support than pundits expected from conservatives, moderates, and independents resulting in speculation that he could take votes away from President Trump.

Many Republicans continue to seek a reckoning over the government-imposed pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

President Trump’s defense of Operation Warp Speed, the program he rolled out in May 2020 to spur the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines amid the pandemic, remains a sticking point for some of his supporters.

Operation Warp Speed featured a partnership between the government, the military, and the private sector, with the government paying for millions of vaccine doses to be produced.

President Trump released a statement in March 2021 saying: “I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!”

President Trump said about the COVID-19 vaccine in an interview on Fox News in March 2021: “It works incredibly well. Ninety-five percent, maybe even more than that. I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.

“But again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also. But it’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine, and it’s something that works.”

On many occasions, President Trump has said that he is not in favor of vaccine mandates.

An environmental attorney, Mr. Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that aims to end childhood health epidemics by promoting vaccine safeguards, among other initiatives.

Last year, Mr. Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan that ivermectin was suppressed by the FDA so that the COVID-19 vaccines could be granted emergency use authorization.

He has criticized Big Pharma, vaccine safety, and government mandates for years.

Since launching his presidential campaign, Mr. Kennedy has made his stances on the COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccines in general, a frequent talking point.

“I would argue that the science is very clear right now that they [vaccines] caused a lot more problems than they averted,” Mr. Kennedy said on Piers Morgan Uncensored last April.

“And if you look at the countries that did not vaccinate, they had the lowest death rates, they had the lowest COVID and infection rates.”

Additional data show a “direct correlation” between excess deaths and high vaccination rates in developed countries, he said.

President Trump and Mr. Kennedy have similar views on topics like protecting the U.S.-Mexico border and ending the Russia-Ukraine war.

COVID-19 is the topic where Mr. Kennedy and President Trump seem to differ the most.

Former President Donald Trump intended to “drain the swamp” when he took office in 2017, but he was “intimidated by bureaucrats” at federal agencies and did not accomplish that objective, Mr. Kennedy said on Feb. 5.

Speaking at a voter rally in Tucson, where he collected signatures to get on the Arizona ballot, the independent presidential candidate said President Trump was “earnest” when he vowed to “drain the swamp,” but it was “business as usual” during his term.

John Bolton, who President Trump appointed as a national security adviser, is “the template for a swamp creature,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Scott Gottlieb, who President Trump named to run the FDA, “was Pfizer’s business partner” and eventually returned to Pfizer, Mr. Kennedy said.

Mr. Kennedy said that President Trump had more lobbyists running federal agencies than any president in U.S. history.

“You can’t reform them when you’ve got the swamp creatures running them, and I’m not going to do that. I’m going to do something different,” Mr. Kennedy said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump “did not ask the questions that he should have,” he believes.

President Trump “knew that lockdowns were wrong” and then “agreed to lockdowns,” Mr. Kennedy said.

He also “knew that hydroxychloroquine worked, he said it,” Mr. Kennedy explained, adding that he was eventually “rolled over” by Dr. Anthony Fauci and his advisers.

MaryJo Perry, a longtime advocate for vaccine choice and a Trump supporter, thinks votes will be at a premium come Election Day, particularly because the independent and third-party field is becoming more competitive.

Ms. Perry, president of Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights, believes advocates for medical freedom could determine who is ultimately president.

She believes that Mr. Kennedy is “pulling votes from Trump” because of the former president’s stance on the vaccines.

“People care about medical freedom. It’s an important issue here in Mississippi, and across the country,” Ms. Perry told The Epoch Times.

“Trump should admit he was wrong about Operation Warp Speed and that COVID vaccines have been dangerous. That would make a difference among people he has offended.”

President Trump won’t lose enough votes to Mr. Kennedy about Operation Warp Speed and COVID vaccines to have a significant impact on the election, Ohio Republican strategist Wes Farno told The Epoch Times.

President Trump won in Ohio by eight percentage points in both 2016 and 2020. The Ohio Republican Party endorsed President Trump for the nomination in 2024.

“The positives of a Trump presidency far outweigh the negatives,” Mr. Farno said. “People are more concerned about their wallet and the economy.

“They are asking themselves if they were better off during President Trump’s term compared to since President Biden took office. The answer to that question is obvious because many Americans are struggling to afford groceries, gas, mortgages, and rent payments.

“America needs President Trump.”

Multiple national polls back Mr. Farno’s view.

As of March 6, the RealClearPolitics average of polls indicates that President Trump has 41.8 percent support in a five-way race that includes President Biden (38.4 percent), Mr. Kennedy (12.7 percent), independent Cornel West (2.6 percent), and Green Party nominee Jill Stein (1.7 percent).

A Pew Research Center study conducted among 10,133 U.S. adults from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents (42 percent) are more likely than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents (15 percent) to say they have received an updated COVID vaccine.

The poll also reported that just 28 percent of adults say they have received the updated COVID inoculation.

The peer-reviewed multinational study of more than 99 million vaccinated people that Mr. Kennedy referenced in his X post on March 7 was published in the Vaccine journal on Feb. 12.

It aimed to evaluate the risk of 13 adverse events of special interest (AESI) following COVID-19 vaccination. The AESIs spanned three categories—neurological, hematologic (blood), and cardiovascular.

The study reviewed data collected from more than 99 million vaccinated people from eight nations—Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, New Zealand, and Scotland—looking at risks up to 42 days after getting the shots.

Three vaccines—Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines as well as AstraZeneca’s viral vector jab—were examined in the study.

Researchers found higher-than-expected cases that they deemed met the threshold to be potential safety signals for multiple AESIs, including for Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), myocarditis, and pericarditis.

A safety signal refers to information that could suggest a potential risk or harm that may be associated with a medical product.

The study identified higher incidences of neurological, cardiovascular, and blood disorder complications than what the researchers expected.

President Trump’s role in Operation Warp Speed, and his continued praise of the COVID vaccine, remains a concern for some voters, including those who still support him.

Krista Cobb is a 40-year-old mother in western Ohio. She voted for President Trump in 2020 and said she would cast her vote for him this November, but she was stunned when she saw his response to President Biden about the COVID-19 vaccine during the State of the Union address.

“I love President Trump and support his policies, but at this point, he has to know they [advisers and health officials] lied about the shot,” Ms. Cobb told The Epoch Times.

“If he continues to promote it, especially after all of the hearings they’ve had about it in Congress, the side effects, and cover-ups on Capitol Hill, at what point does he become the same as the people who have lied?” Ms. Cobb added.

“I think he should distance himself from talk about Operation Warp Speed and even admit that he was wrong—that the vaccines have not had the impact he was told they would have. If he did that, people would respect him even more.”

Another one bites the dust.

Following the endless list of mall-retailer bankruptcies that have occurred since Covid further made in-person shopping more irrelevant than it was in years prior, one more name is joining the list: The Body Shop. 

Since its inception in 1976 by Anita Roddick in the United Kingdom, The Body Shop has navigated through various ownerships, and recently, it has been embroiled in a highly publicized struggle for survival, The Street reported last week. 

This struggle was initially signaled by the closure of half its UK stores, subsequently leading to a restructuring process in Canada and a sudden shutdown of its operations in the U.S. on March 4.

“The Canadian subsidiary of the global beauty and cosmetics brand announced it has started restructuring proceedings by filing a Notice of Intention (NOI) to Make a Proposal pursuant to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada). In the same release, the company said that, as of March 1, 2024, The Body Shop US Limited has ceased operations,” a report from Chain Store Age said days ago. 

A vague message on the U.S. website of the company hinted at temporary maintenance; however, the persistence of this message, coupled with a new filing, indicates a permanent closure rather than a temporary outage

According to The Street, the company’s website reads: “We’re currently undergoing planned maintenance, but don’t worry we’re due to be back online soon.”

The Guardian followed on by reporting: “The US arm of the ethical cosmetics group has ceased trading at its 50 outlets. On Saturday (March 9), it filed for Chapter 7 insolvency, under which assets are sold off to clear debts, putting about 400 jobs at risk including those in a distribution center that still holds millions of dollars worth of stock.”

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

Joe Biden has claimed that his opponents are assaulting democracy on the basis of the January 6, 2020, buffoonish riot.

Aside from the fact that storming the Capitol Rotunda sometimes is apparently deemed permissible – as in the recent pro-Hamas takeover of it – or aside from the fact that disrupting a federal government proceeding is deemed exempt – as in the recent pro-Hamas throng that blocked the route of the presidential motorcade and thus delayed the State of the Union address to the nation by 26 minutes – who really is attacking democracy?

Take the Supreme Court. After the Court went to a 6-3 conservative majority, liberal law professors, progressive activist groups, and many ends-justify-the-means Democrats in Congress began advocating “packing the court” to gain additional new billets for left-wing judges.

In other words, the left had little confidence that it would hold the White House and the Senate when a judicial opening came up, so it sought to force the issue while it had the power in both.

Formerly, any such notion would have been written off as lunatic and dangerous, given that the nine-justice Supreme Court has been canonized for 155 years since 1869. Second, during the last time Democrats attacked the nine-justice Supreme Court over its supposedly too conservative rulings – Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 notorious court-packing scheme – even fellow liberals opposed the toxic gambit. They knew that it would only lead to a tit-for-tat fluid court every time a new administration took power.

Then there was the public demonization of the court, which saw efforts to scare it into “correct” rulings. The effort was multifaceted.

Sometimes the left-wing method was direct intimidation. So in 2020, then Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led a throng of pro-abortion protestors to the court’s very doors, threatening Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh by name. He was not subtle in his warnings: 

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you.” 

Hit you? Pay the price?

Later, when left-wing mobs thronged at the private homes of some conservative judges with the intention of intimidating them and leveraging their decisions—in violation of a 1950 federal law—the Biden administration did nothing. No wonder a potential assassin soon showed up near the home of Justice Kavanaugh, and, fortunately, did not go through with his planned attack.

Nor was the 2022 leaker ever found who illegally disclosed confidential memos on the court’s future rulings on abortion. In the recent State of the Union address, Joe Biden spoke directly to the seated justices and seemed to level yet another threat: “With all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral or political power…You’re about to realize just how much.” In some sense, Biden was following the precedent of Barack Obama, who in his 2010 State of the Union address made a direct attack on the justices of the Supreme Court, many of whom were in attendance.

In sum, during the years of liberal majorities, the left once defended the sacrosanct nature of the third branch of government. Now, when rulings do not always go their way, they seek to discredit and impugn it. And they employ direct intimidation, willful blindness to threats to the justices’ private homes, and plans to alter the makeup of the court to fit their ideological agendas.

Democracy is also endangered by radical efforts to alter decades of voting protocols to achieve short-term political advantage. Never has a political party organized its state attorney generals and kindred courts to ban their likely opposing presidential candidate from state ballots.

Yet Colorado, Illinois, and Maine did just that in an effort to erase Trump’s name from their state ballots, on grounds that he was an “insurrectionist,” despite never being charged with, much less convicted, of “insurrection.” The anti-democratic effort was designed to deprive millions of voters of their right to vote for the candidate of their choice and to diminish the chances of down-ballot state and local Republican candidates.

In 2020, under the guise of the COVID lockdowns, anti-democratic liberal activists sued or sought out sympathetic bureaucrats in numerous states to overturn state voting laws, a right traditionally given to the state legislatures by the Constitution. They proved so successful that, in a historical first, 68% of Americans in 2020 did not vote on Election Day. By design, the vast majority of them were Biden voters—even as the rejection rate of less verifiable mail-in and early voting ballots radically declined.

At various times since the 2017 Trump inauguration, Democratic activists have sought to neuter the 235-year-old Electoral College by circumventing it through the so-called “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.” The effort would force electors to reflect the national rather than their own states’ votes. Earlier, following the 2016 election, the Left organized a concentrated effort—saturating the media with ads featuring Hollywood celebrities— to convince electors to reject the popular vote counts in their states that Trump had won, and instead to become “faithless electors” and swing the election to Hillary Clinton.

The anti-democratic left has railed about ending the 187-year-old filibuster—but only when Democrats are a minority in the Senate. And many in the Democratic Congress have lobbied to admit Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, as states in order to gain four new left-wing senators, thus ending the 65-year-old 50-state union.

Never before had impeachment been envisioned as a normal political ploy to weaken a first-term president once he lost his House majority. Yet the Democratic House majority, for the first time in history, impeached a first-term president twice. And also, for the first time, Democrats tried him as a private citizen in the Senate and rushed to judgment without a special counsel investigation or report.

There are two themes in the left-wing assault on American democracy’s rules, protocols, and long-held traditions.

One, the left advocates changing or ending an institution only when it has lost control of it.

And two, it would charge as “insurrectionary” any similar Republican effort to do the same.

The January 6, 2020, riot was a stupid and dangerous gambit. But the buffoonish act was certainly not an “insurrection” that justified militarizing the capital for weeks, stocking a congressional investigating committee with partisans, or using the day to permanently delegitimize the Trump candidacy.

No one arrested was armed. Many of the rioters were let into the Capitol by law enforcement. And we now know that Trump actually did request 10,000 guardsmen to keep the peace, a fact covered up by the January 6 committee.

Insurrectionists do not advise their partisans to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol. Of the five who died on January 6, four likely died from natural causes. The left spread a gargantuan lie that Capitol Officer Sicknick was killed by “insurrectionists.” But in fact, he died the following day from natural causes.

The left also suppressed news of the circumstances surrounding the one violent death of Trump protestor Ashli Babbitt – the unarmed military veteran who was lethally shot while entering a broken window. The name of the shooter, an officer of the Capitol police, in a first, was deliberately suppressed by the media for months.

A prize-winning New York Times reporter claimed that the FBI informants were numerous among the crowd. The number, nature, and purpose of such informants were never disclosed by the FBI.

Of course, not all riots that threaten federal property and functions are deemed the same. In summer 2020, Antifa and BLM fueled 120 days of street violence. The result was $2 billion in property damage, 35 deaths, 1,500 officers injured, and 14,000 arrests.

The violent looters, arsonists, and demonstrators likewise focused on government facilities. But rather than swarming the Capitol, they torched a federal courthouse, a police precinct, and a historic Washington, DC, church. They tried to swarm the very White House grounds and harm the president, who was whisked by the Secret Service to a secure bunker—a fact mocked by the New York Times.

There are two other symptoms of the Democratic assault on democracy.

One is the use of the courts to nullify the candidacy of the left’s presidential opponent in the 2024 election. Many things can be said of the lawfare waged against Donald Trump, but two themes are uncontestable: one, if he had not run for reelection in 2024, he would not have been targeted; and two, were he a man of the left, he now would have no legal worries. Trump’s fate, by design, will be in the hands of big blue-city, left-wing prosecutors, judges, and jury pools.

There are commonalities in such lawfare: Laws are being used in novel fashion solely to “get Trump.” Statutes of limitation are suddenly waived to go after Trump. Federal laws are being bootstrapped by state prosecutors. Some of the prosecutors are themselves compromised and have likely either violated judicial canons or may be subject to prosecution.

Judges are not shy about expressing their dislike for Trump from the bench. Some prosecutors have coordinated with the White House. And the application of justice is blatantly asymmetrical, given that Trump is being tried for some crimes that Biden himself has committed but has been exempted from.

So our institutions have been corrupted in an anti-democratic and purely partisan fashion. The FBI, along with the Clinton campaign and its paywalls, hired a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to smear a presidential candidate in conjunction with the 2016 campaign. The agency also contracted social media censors to suppress news deemed unhelpful to the 2020 Biden campaign.

FBI directors have lied under oath or pled amnesia before Congress when questioned about the agency’s efforts to interfere in the election process. The Department of Justice has also been weaponized. It has sought to exempt the Biden family, violent pro-abortion protestors, and various radical groups from prosecution, even as it goes after pro-life activists and parents at school board meetings. It has segregated January 6 protestors in solitary confinement without charges being filed for months.

On campuses, it is the anti-democratic left, not the right, that has de facto suspended the First Amendment and denied free speech and expression. The left has repeatedly violated both the spirit of the Civil Rights Act and the letter of the law in its use of racial discrimination (the “good” “anti-racism”) to hire, promote, and admit on the basis of race and gender.

It has neutered the right to due process in its frequent kangaroo courts as it tries students for anti-woke thought crimes. And universities have violated freely and brazenly various civil rights statutes that prohibit racial segregation in housing and public spaces, as they institutionalized racially separate graduations, safe spaces, and dorms.

Most disturbing has been the weaponization of the U.S. military. It was on record, in promising to scour the ranks for so-called white supremacists. Yet by December 2023, the Pentagon admitted it discovered no such cabals. But it did drum out some 8,400 veteran soldiers for not being vaccinated, despite most having developed natural immunity from prior infections.

It instituted race- and gender-based protocols for recruitment and promotion and inaugurated an entire woke DEI apparat. Yet now it faces a shortfall of some 40,000 recruits. Mostly the dearth of manpower is due to the fiasco in Afghanistan, coupled with the loud accusations from the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on down that whites as a collective are somehow under automatic suspicion—supposedly dangerously embittered by the new Diversity/Equity/Inclusion woke Pentagon protocols.

The country has become wary of its own officers. During 2020, retired generals and admirals brazenly violated the uniform code of military justice by openly and publicly smearing and slandering their own Commander in Chief.

Some, along with a former Pentagon lawyer, called for a military intervention, a veritable coup, to remove the president, well apart from scheduled elections. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs freelanced by contacting his communist Chinese counterpart to apprise him that should his own president call a state of emergency possibly involving nuclear weapons, Gen. Mark Milley would first forewarn the Chinese about the actual nature of the threat and intent of the American president.

The Left talks grandly of “democracy dies in darkness” as Joe Biden beats the dead horse of January 6 to warn that democracy is in its greatest peril. But all such rhetoric is projection.

The verbiage masks the most comprehensive effort in modern American history to radically change, destroy, or warp American laws, customs, and traditions for the short-term aim of gaining and retaining political power.

The rationale is that the left is of such superior morality and wisdom that it has the right to violate the Constitution or the hallowed traditions of the country to achieve the higher end of ensuring a progressive agenda.

In sum, the defense of those destroying democracy is that they are doing it to prevent others from doing what they would do, should they have been on the receiving end of exactly what they are now doing.

With all eyes, ears, fingers, and toes tingling ahead of tomorrow’s “most important data item in the whole wide world ever” CPI print (and PPI and Retail Sales later in the week), stocks stumbled on muted volume, bond yields rose, the dollar and gold flatlined, but crypto kept going to the moon…

Bitcoin face-ripped once again up to almost $73,000 – well above the prior record nominal high…

Source: Bloomberg

…and getting very close to its inflation-adjusted high…

Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum also surged today, testing up towards $4100 for the first time since Dec 2021…

Source: Bloomberg

It appears crypto (Ethereum in this case) is following the resurgence in inflation expectations priced into the market…

Source: Bloomberg

US Equity markets were less enthused on the day, with Nasdaq and S&P red (but Small Caps worst). The Dow desperately tried to cling to green…

NVDA is down almost 8% (close to close) over the past two days – its biggest two-day decline since October – and down almost 14% from its highs to today’s lows…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX has been bid into this event-risk-prone week…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were sold today with the short-end underperforming…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve (2s30s) bear-flattened, erasing Friday’s payrolls steepening…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended the day down (very very) marginally – for its 7th straight down day…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold mirrored the dollar, ending (very very) marginally higher…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices ended higher, with WTI finding support at $77, bouncing back above its 200DMA ($77.97)

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, back to crypto. Bitcoin is now ‘larger’ than Silver and Ethereum has overtaken WalMart in terms of Market Cap…

Source: 8MarketCap

Overall, the total crypto ecosystem’s value, according to CoinMarketCap, is now closing in on the previous record high around $2.8 trillion.

Authored by Ana Paula Pereira via CoinTelegraph.com,

Grayscale and Coinbase met with the SEC on March 6 to address concerns about the conversion of Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust into a spot ETF…

Crypto firms Grayscale and Coinbase recently met with United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials to discuss a rule change for the launch of spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs). 

Grayscale is seeking to convert its Ethereum Trust – which tracks the market price of Ether – into an ETF, similar to the conversion of its Bitcoin Trust to an ETF in January. The meeting, held on March 6, followed the end of the commenting period for the proposal and addressed concerns about possible market manipulation should the fund be approved.

According to a presentation shared by the SEC, Coinbase argued that the same reasoning that led to the approval of Bitcoin ETFs should be applied to Ether since the token has “mechanisms that significantly limit ETH’s susceptibility to fraud and manipulation.”

Presentation by Coinbase on March 6. Source: SEC

Another presentation point relates to Coinbase’s surveillance-sharing agreement with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The mechanism was implemented for Bitcoin ETFs at the request of the SEC to improve trading monitoring.

Coinbase also emphasized the correlation between Ether futures and spot markets, similar to the Bitcoin market, noted Nate Geraci of ETF Store on X.

“Add-in that SEC approved CME-traded Ether futures ETFs and I’m not sure what grounds for disapproval of spot Ether ETFs would be.”

Grayscale is also proposing a second ETF for Ether futures trading. The main difference between spot and futures markets is that spot market assets are traded immediately, whereas, in the futures market, contracts are made to buy or sell assets at a future date for a specific price.

Some analysts have suggested that Grayscale may be using its futures ETF application as a “trojan horse” to corner the SEC into approving its spot Ether ETF.

Several asset managers, including Invesco, Galaxy Digital, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton and BlackRock, are seeking the green light for a spot Ether ETF. Final deadlines for an SEC decision are expected in May.

Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas believes asset managers are still in the dark about regulators’ views on the crypto investment vehicle. “Normally I’d say this was [a] good sign but as far as I know the Staff has not given any comments yet to the issuers, which is not a good sign as we past when they gave comments on BTC ETFs,” Balchunas said.

In what may be an early signal that the cadence of “unexplained” oil supply-linked terrorism incidents is about to see a significant increase (wink wink), on Sunday, Saudi oil giant Aramco raised its total 2023 dividend payment by 30% to nearly $98 billion, assuring that Saudi Arabia continues to receive record income from its golden, or rather oil black, goose….even as the world’s largest oil firm by both production and market capitalization reported a 25% drop in earnings for 2023 due to lower oil prices, OilPrice reported.

The Kingdom has been restricting output by around 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) for the better part of last year—500,000 bpd from cuts by several OPEC+ members that began in May 2023, and another 1 million bpd in extra voluntary production restrictions the Saudis started implementing in July 2023.

As a result of the Saudi production cuts and the lower oil prices in 2023 compared to 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent crude to above $100 per barrel, Aramco reported a 25% decline in its net income—to $121.3 billion for 2023, down from a record-high of $161.1 billion for 2022.

Reduced refining and chemicals margins also contributed to the lower income, the Saudi oil giant said.

The slump in profits—which nevertheless were the second-highest ever—didn’t deter Aramco from significantly boosting its dividend payouts to shareholders, the biggest beneficiary of which is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as it owns about 98% in the oil giant via direct ownership and the sovereign wealth fund.

Last year, Aramco paid as much as $97.8 billion in total dividends, a 30% jump compared to the 2022 dividend payout. The company’s board declared a 4% annual increase in Q4 2023 dividend to $20.3 billion and a 9% increase in the performance-linked dividend to $10.8 billion, compared to two payments of $9.9 billion in the second half of 2023.

In August last year, the oil giant said it would calculate the first performance-linked dividends based on the combined full-year results of 2022 and 2023, to be distributed over six quarters starting from the third quarter of 2023.  

Total full-year performance-linked dividend to be paid in 2024 is expected to be $43.1 billion, including the $10.8 billion in Q1, based on the previously announced mechanism and subject to Board approval, Aramco said.

Last year’s capital investments rose by 28% to $49.7 billion, while 2024 capital investments are expected to be between $48 billion and $58 billion.

Overall capital investment between now and 2028 is set to shrink by about $40 billion due to the Kingdom’s directive to Aramco in January to stop work on expanding its maximum sustainable capacity to 13 million barrels per day, instead keeping it at 12 million bpd. 

Capital expenditures will thus be lower than previously planned, “mainly from deferral of projects not yet commissioned and reductions in infill drilling,” the Saudi firm said.

“The recent directive from the government to maintain our Maximum Sustainable Capacity at 12 million barrels per day provides increased flexibility, as well as an opportunity to focus on increasing gas production and growing our liquids-to-chemicals business,” said Aramco president and chief executive Amin Nasser.

“At the same time, we continue to make progress on several strategic crude oil increments which will contribute to our reliability, operational flexibility and ability to seize market opportunities.”

Progress continues on the Marjan, Berri, Dammam, and Zuluf crude increment projects, Aramco said.

As the world’s largest oil firm bets on continued demand for oil and gas, Saudi Aramco is also rewarding its main shareholder – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – with billions of U.S. dollars in dividends, adding to the massive revenues from oil that the state receives.

The state and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund, are getting the lion’s share of dividends, as they jointly control 98% of Aramco.

The dividend hike last year is not only a boon to Saudi state finances. It could also be a move to attract potential new shareholders in a future new share sale, which Aramco is said to be considering. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

WPXI Channel 11 out of Pittsburgh reports that police will no longer be responding to calls that are not deemed to be “in-progress emergencies,” meaning theft, harassment, criminal mischief, and burglary alarms will essentially be ignored.

Pittsburgh in about 5 hours pic.twitter.com/FrgeS1K0cF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 11, 2024

Such calls will Instead be redirected to an answer machine, according to the report which also notes that from 3 am to 7 am, the city’s six police stations will operate without desk officers present.

Only around 20 officers will be available for overnight shifts to cover the entire city, the report further notes, stating that the decision has been taken due to “understaffing.”

Fallout from a ‘defund the police’ mentality – Pittsburgh cops will no longer respond to calls that are not deemed to be “in-progress emergencies,” meaning theft, harassment, criminal mischief, and burglary alarms will essentially be ignored. Report here https://t.co/iK4lgQGN9Q pic.twitter.com/lPRdAuWjYK

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) March 11, 2024

Responding to the development, Councilman Anthony Coghill told Channel 11 “When it comes to harassment and things of this nature, you better have a police officer there. That’s what the public expects. That’s what I expect out of our city.”

Police Chief Larry Scirotto has said that he wants to cut the call volume from approximately 200,000 calls per year down to about 50,000 and that the changes are neccessary.

Pittsburgh has essentially been a victim of a defund the police mentality, with the municipal city council having last year approved the a budget that called for a reduction in police staffing.

Police enforcement is at an all-time low, according to city reports, with arrests in the city having dropped from over 18,000 in 2013 to 6,710 in 2022. Traffic stops also dropped from close to 29,000 in 2013 to a record-low 6,883 in 2022. Meanwhile, violent crime has risen since 2019.

Pittsburgh City Councilman Ricky Burgess sponsored a bill that banned the city’s police officers from making “traffic stops for minor offenses.” According to reports “the controversial legislation was created to make traffic stops more ‘equitable and fair.’”

In 2020, the council also passed five reform bills that effectively hampered police from doing their jobs.

How is defunding the police working out for Pittsburgh?
Remember the bill they passed I believe in 2020?!
Great job! 22 officers for over 300k people. That’s going to work out great!
Elections have consequences.

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh City Council passed five bills aimed… https://t.co/6ksaWRyL0G

— PitunisWorld 🌎 (@ScMesab) February 27, 2024

Data has shown that the ‘Defund the Police’ movement fueled more crime, particularly in mid-sized cities.

*  *  *

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In his Sunday night address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Pope Francis’ calls for Kiev to enter peace negotiations with Russia to end the war. Days ago the Pope told a Swiss broadcaster that Ukraine must have the “the courage of the white flag” and that negotiations must happen “before things get worse.”

Zelensky didn’t mention Francis by name, but he clearly took shots at the leader of the world’s Catholics. “They support us with prayer, with their discussion and with deeds,” the Ukraine president said. “This is indeed what a church with the people is.”

“Not 2,500km away, somewhere, virtual mediation between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you,” he continued with the dig. European media described Zelensky’s comments as a sharp rejection of the call for negotiations.

Ukraine officials have taken particular offense at Pope Francis essentially declaring that Ukraine’s military has been defeated by Russia. “When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate. Negotiations are never a surrender,” Francis had said in the interview published Friday.

While Ukraine is a majority Orthodox Christian country, it still has a sizeable minority of Catholics, concentrated in the West, such as in the city of Lviv. The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, weighed in and rebuked the Pope’s words. He said during a weekend visit to New York City, “Ukraine is wounded, but unconquered! Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will endure. Believe me, it never crosses anyone’s mind to surrender.”

Additionally, Ukraine’s top diplomat, Dmytro Kuleba, hit back at the Vatican by saying, “Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.”

But it was Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, Andrii Yurash, who had the fiercest condemnation. He said there will be no “peace talking with Hitler“. He continued: “If we want to finish [the] war, we have to do everything to kill [the] dragon.”

Anton Gerashchenko, who was previously an influential adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, also lashed out at the Pope, saying “It does seem strange that the pope doesn’t urge to defend Ukraine, doesn’t condemn Russia as an aggressor who killed tens of thousands of people, doesn’t urge Putin to stop, but calls on Ukraine to raise the white flag instead.”

As for the Kremlin, it reacted by saying Russia remains open to peace talks to end the war, but then emphasized that it is the Zelensky government which remains closed to the possibility of dialogue. According to Russian media:

“The idea that [the Pope] spoke about is quite understandable,” Peskov said. “You know that [Russian President Vladimir Putin] has repeatedly spoken about our readiness and openness to solve our problems through negotiations and this is the preferred way.” 

The spokesman noted, however, that the Pope’s calls, as well as those from other countries, including Russia, “have recently been met with an absolutely harsh rejection by the Kiev regime.”

Zelensky gave a stern answer to the Pope, who suggested that Ukraine raise a “white flag” and begin negotiations with Russia.

Judging by the tone of the response, the Ukrainian president was angry at the idea.

“I thank every Ukrainian chaplain who is with the army, in the… pic.twitter.com/bSZFUK5Um9

— Olga Bazova (@OlgaBazova) March 10, 2024

Pope Francis has been no stranger to controversy throughout the over two-year long war. After the opening few months of the war, in May 2022 he suggested that NATO expansion was a prime catalyst for the tragic conflict, describing that NATO had long been “barking at Russia’s door” with its eastward expansion.

That too elicited angry reaction from Ukraine officials and some of the Western allies. But NATO itself seemed to later acknowledge that this is accurate. Francis has also repeatedly gone after Western arms makers for having an incentive to fuel conflict in Eastern Europe.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

One of the most dangerous things that a government can do is present a glossy picture of the economy at a time when families and small businesses are suffering. Governments are always optimistic, but sending euphoric messages tends to backfire, especially when the situation for the middle class is complicated.

In the United States, the Biden administration’s message of “the strongest economy in decades” is not just an exaggeration; it may anger voters who suffer the burden of negative real wage growth, accumulated inflation, and higher taxes.

According to a study by the Tax Policy Center, 20 to 30 percent of middle-income households saw a tax hike in 2022 and according to the Tax Foundation, workers bear an estimated 70 percent of the corporate income tax hikes. Indirect taxation is only one source of purchasing power loss for families. Rising taxation on productive capacity reduces the availability of manufacturing jobs, limits real wage growth, and creates higher costs for consumers.

One way of measuring the situation of families in the United States is the Misery II Index, calculated as the current unemployment rate added to the accumulated consumer price index measure of inflation over the past four years. Historically, the Misery II Index, according to Bloomberg Economics, has been 17.65% in years when the current president wins an election. However, the reality of the United States economy today is much worse.

The Misery II Index for the United States stands at 23% for the whole nation, and Bloomberg Economics estimates that it will reach a staggering 24% by the time of the elections.

This means that the average US citizen has lost an enormous amount of wealth and purchasing power in salaries due to accumulated inflation, and low unemployment may not create voter support as the reality of real wage growth also shows that the average U.S. worker is struggling.

As Ryan McMaken points out, the recent minuscule increase in real wages is hardly good news when it comes after 25 months in a row of year-over-year declines in real wages from mid-2021 to mid-2023. This means that the average hourly wage has increased by just 0.76% over the past four years, when in the previous four years real wages rose three times more, or 2.8 percent.

This Misery II Index is not just bad for the whole United States. According to Bloomberg, swing-state economies have fared relatively poorly during the Biden presidency, especially since mid-2022,” with the Misery II Index for swing states almost two percentage points higher than other states.

We do not know if this will make a strong difference in voters’ decisions, but the weakening of workers’ and businesses conditions are signs of why the average American sees a much weaker economy than headlines suggest.

There is a lesson here that no government will learn. Inflationist policies never work and may make the administration lose an election. Wrongly named stimulus plans only leave a massive trail of debt and impoverishment for citizens.

The government tries to blame inflation on anything and everything except the insane fiscal and monetary policy of the past years. There is no such thing as commodity inflation, corporate greedflation, cost-push inflation, or shrinkflation. The only thing that can make aggregate prices rise in unison, consolidate the increase, and continue rising even if it is at a slower pace is the destruction of the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar through the monetary mismanagement caused by monetizing an unsustainable and ever-increasing public deficit. If any of the aforementioned factors had contributed to inflation, we would currently be experiencing deflation rather than persistent inflation, which only refers to a slower rate of price increases. Inflation is always the destruction of the purchasing power of the currency and that is what Americans received when they were promised free things: lower real wages and a diminishing purchasing power of deposit savings.

The so-called Bidemomics has brought debt to an all-time high and no real wage growth with low official unemployment that disguises labor participation and employment to population ratios below the 2019 level.

Yes, the government is to blame for inflation, and a strong economy does not show an average 0.7% real wage growth in four years, a two trillion dollar annual government deficit with $34 trillion debt, and a 17.6% accumulated official CPI inflation that is 33.7% if we consider food, 18.7% in shelter and 32.8% in energy, an estimated 30% in all non-replaceable goods, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2021-2023.

Governments are to blame for inflation, and this may be a key factor in the elections.

Bitcoin soared above $72,000 for the first time in history this morning, far surpassing its historical (inflation-adjusted highs)…

Source: Bloomberg

“This rally comes following a weak Asian trading session in which shorts tested the conviction of longs — it appears the longs have given a rather convincing positive answer,” said Richard Galvin, founder of Australia-based crypto-focused investment firm DACM.

The largest cryptocurrency’s latest move has been attributed to two notable shifts in the UK.

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) announced that it will start accepting applications for Bitcoin and Ether crypto exchange-traded notes (ETNs) in the second quarter of 2024.

On March 11, the exchange confirmed that it would accept applications following the guidelines specified in its Crypto ETN Admission Factsheet. However, the exchange did not provide the exact date that it will start accepting applications.

Additionally, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority decision to allow exchanges to offer similar products – exchange-traded notes backed by cryptocurrencies – to institutional investors.

This most recent surge has lifted Bitcoin’s total market cap above that of Silver, becoming the 8th most valuable asset in the world…

CoinDesk reports that newsletter service LondonCryptoClub attributed gains to a “confluence of factors.”

“Asia is buying in an illiquid market coupled with continued positive news, with the London Stock Exchange just announcing it will take applications for BTC and ETH ETNs. The powerful demand-supply dynamic from the BTC ETFs continues unabated,” they said.

“Meanwhile, the macro, which had been a headwind, has now become a tailwind as U.S. rates and the dollar appear to have topped out and are turning lower. Additionally, as we approach key resistance levels, short-term speculative traders trying to call a top, short into these key levels and then get liquidated, causing a pseudo negative gamma effect which propels us higher.”

Additionally, as CoinTelegraph reports, amid the inbound price discovery, seasoned Bitcoin hodlers are keeping their hard-earned coins firmly in their wallets.

Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode shows long-term holders (LTHs) not yet matching transfer volumes seen during 2021, the year when BTC/USD first hit $69,000.

“Bitcoin’s most convicted holders are still holding at unrealized profit levels that usually occur well before the cycle peak,” it told X followers on March 11.

Even President Trump has come around the the idea of Bitcoin…

If you’re a single issue voter regarding crypto – and most of you are not, but if you are! – there is simply no comparison between Trump and Biden this fall.

One will usher in common sense regulation, and the other will all but destroy the industry in the U.S. https://t.co/6ADCdJB77Z

— Ryan Selkis (d/acc) 🇺🇸 (@twobitidiot) March 11, 2024

And it’s not just Bitcoin that is seeing investor interest as Ethereum tops $4000 for the first time since Dec 2021…

Source: Bloomberg

Ether’s price performance appears to be boosted by Ethereum’s upcoming Dencun update and the possible approval of a spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) by the SEC.

CoinTelegraph reports that the Dencun upgrade, the most significant improvement to the Ethereum network since the Merge, aims to implement a number of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), including EIP-4844, which introduces “proto-danksharding.”

Proto-danksharding is a feature that allows the blockchain to use blobs, thereby simplifying the transaction process by storing some data off the blockchain, speeding up transactions and cutting costs for layer-2 chains and rollups that depend on Ethereum.

Ethereum developers have set the Dencun mainnet to go live on March 13.

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart believes the SEC will not take as long to process Ether ETF applications as it did with Bitcoin ETFs. In a Feb. 7 post on X, Seyffart that May 23 is the “only date that matters” when it comes to Ether ETFs.

Finally, it appears more people are realizing ‘why’ alternative currencies (like crypto and precious metals) have seen such demand recently.

As CoinTelegraph reports, in an X post on March 11, entrepreneur and angel investor Balaji Srinivasan argued that Bitcoin is the only realistic solution to escape the inevitability of unsustainable government spending and potential asset confiscation.

“We’re in the looting-the-treasury phase of imperial collapse,” the former Coinbase chief technology officer told his 994,000 followers.

Srinivasan argued that government debt and wasteful spending continue to grow rapidly at unsustainable levels. U.S. national debt is currently at a record high of $34.5 trillion, increasing 25% since 2020.

U.S. national debt since 2000. Source: Bloomberg

Srinivasan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), said there are four approaches to the problem: Deny it is happening, fix it through political processes, give up, and “simply feed yourself at the trough,” or:

“Starve the beast with Bitcoin, which is money they can’t easily seize or print.”

“The last is radical but actually realistic,” he said, adding that government deficits are now at $10 billion per day and growing.

Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki also advised “being prepared” and investing in store-of-value assets such as Bitcoin in a March 11 post.

“Debt increasing by $1 trillion every 90 days. America is sick. Prepare now. Buy more gold, silver, Bitcoin. Please take care.”

Meanwhile, Srinivasan also warned that as financial reckoning approaches, the “ravenous state” may consider confiscating private assets.

Srinivasan offered a handful of examples, such as the seizing of assets from protesting Canadian truckers, freezing Russian assets and the “weaponization of Delaware against Elon [Musk] and New York against [Donald] Trump.”

“Private property will not be protected by the state in a bankrupt Blue America,” he said before adding:

“Fortunately, we have Bitcoin, which isn’t dependent on the state and can’t easily be seized.”

Finaly, one headline that raised an eyebrow was that BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF has overtaken MicroStrategy’s holdings of the cryptocurrency.

According to data compiled by BitMEX Research, BlackRock’s IBIT holds 197,943 BTC, worth over $13.5 billion as of March 8, nearly 40 trading sessions after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission approved nine new funds on Jan. 10.

While not an ETF issuer, technology firm MicroStrategy has built a portfolio of 193,000 BTC as part of its corporate treasury strategy. 

MicroStrategy’s CEO, Michael Saylor, has no plans to sell its Bitcoin reserves.

“I’m going to be buying the top forever. Bitcoin is the exit strategy,” Saylor said, speaking to Bloomberg on Feb. 20.