Month: November 2024

Authored by Kevin Finn via AmericanThinker.com,

Earlier on, I argued why I think it’s useful to debate Leftists online, knowing that it’s unlikely they” change their minds on anything.

It’s good practice as it forces us to learn their arguments and how to counter them, and there are usually others silently following along who can be convinced.

But another Leftist tactic is psychological projection, which is ascribing to another person one’s own feelings, thoughts, or attitudes.

Projection is used to relieve a sense of guilt or other unpleasant feeling. Blaming your own problems on someone else seems to be de rigueur in our society of late.

It’s worth noting that there is a great deal of overlap between lying and projection.

In some cases the circles on the Venn diagram would exactly coincide.

Accusations of hypocrisy are also common and it’s worth pointing out the difference between it and projection.

In brief, hypocrisy reflects on one’s own behavior while projection concerns oneself and one’s behavior towards others.

It would be hypocritical for person (A) who frequently rolls past stop signs to say that person (B) should always observe stop signs. It would be projection for person (A) to silently assume person (B) rolls past stop signs. It would be both hypocritical and projection for person (A) to falsely accuse person (B) of rolling past stop signs.

In today’s heated socio-political climate I contend that we’re seeing both hypocrisy and projection being utilized on a daily basis. How many times have we heard a Leftist claim that Donald Trump is “a threat to our democracy”?

The better question to ask is, “Who on the Left has not made that claim?”

The people attesting to this have been noticeably silent on the case of the FBI lying to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in their quest for surveillance warrants on Carter Page.

How much of a threat to democracy was it to conduct what amounts to a coup to remove a sitting president in the final months of his campaign and replace him with someone who never earned a single primary vote? Has that ever happened before in America?

Practically every outlet in the Democrat Media Industrial Complex (DMIC) has accused Trump of being an authoritarian, a tyrant and a dictator. They cite examples such as President Trump is “tearing up trade deals and stepping back from global institutions.” The Paris climate greement placed unfair restrictions on Americans, even while “U.S. emissions of criteria air pollutants that impact human health and the environment declined by 74% between 1970 and 2018.”

President Trump cancelled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran which enriched the regime while doing little to nothing to curb their nuclear ambitions.

The people who decried these decisions either cheered or were silent when President Biden transferred student loan obligations to the taxpayers despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional to do so.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris supported the impeachment of President Trump for his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with “no one is above the law.”

When the transcript of that phone call was released, it was found that President Trump did not, in fact threaten to withhold military aid in exchange for an investigation into Burisma Holdings. At the time, Burisma was paying Hunter Biden $85k/month for … what, his expertise in the extraction, processing, sale and distribution of petroleum products? Joe Biden is on video bragging about withholding U.S. aid to Ukraine unless they fired the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma Holdings.

Response from the Left? Crickets.

The same Leftists who pilloried President Trump for an innocent phone call to President Zelensky gave a pass to then Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton when she illegally used private electronic devices to send and receive classified information, and then destroyed both the messages and the devices after they were subpoenaed by Congress.

The reason for the pass? They claimed she didn’t intend to do anything wrong and “Because the government is awash in secrets, they are regularly mishandled unintentionally.” In other words, “She didn’t mean any harm and besides, everybody else is doing it!”

I wonder how often Secretary of State Clinton emailed President Obama on one of those illegal devices. All emails to the POTUS must be cleared through the White House Communications Agency (WHCA). Ms. Clinton was not using a .gov email address, which means that WHCA and President Obama knew that she was using unauthorized devices. I suspect that when James Comey said that: “No reasonable prosecutor would indict Secretary Clinton” that he was protecting Obama, and not Ms. Clinton.

Those are just a few of the more egregious examples of Leftists employing projection against their opponents in order to distract from their own nefarious actions. The fact that Leftists were engaging in the same, or worse actions that they were falsely accusing Donald Trump and others of committing reveals an entrée of Projection with a side order of Hypocrisy. There are many, many more examples.

For example, Democrats have claimed that:

• – Republicans suppress voters while Democrats founded the KKK, enacted Jim Crow Laws and, more recently committed so many suspicious actions during the 2020 and 2022 elections that Americans have lost faith in our elections.

• – Republicans carried out an insurrection while Leftists rioted nation-wide in 2020.

• – Republicans are Nazis while Democrats imprison grandmothers who pray in front of abortion clinics.

• – President Trump is Putin’s stooge while the Biden family takes cash from Russia, China and Ukraine.

In all of these examples the accusations against Republicans are false (lies) while Democrats have engaged in those or similar behaviors themselves.

So where do we go from here? Speaking for myself, whenever I come across a claim against conservatives or Republicans from Leftists or Democrats I immediately assume that not only is the opposite true, but that their accusation is probably more accurately applied to the Left. This means that to determine the truth I need to investigate the story and find out what isn’t being told. I spend a great deal of time every day sifting through news stories on various news sites. I no longer get my news from the television or print media. This is what I think we all need to do in order to be properly informed.

“An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” –author unknown

Just when it seemed that Nvidia’s recent record rally was in danger of fizzling, a Deus Ex Machina arrived late on Friday when the determinations committee of S&P Dow Jones Indices, the owner of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, announced that Nvidia would replace Intel on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (which has clearly become anything but), a shakeup to the blue-chip index that replaces a flagging semiconductor company with the primary vendor of GPUs for AI. Separately, Sherwin Williams will unironically replace one-time chemical giant (and Dow Jones eponym), Dow, Inc, in the average as well. The switch will take place on Nov. 8.

Intel shares were down 1% in extended trading on Friday. Nvidia shares rose 1%.

Nvidia shares have climbed over 180% so far in 2024 as investors bet the company has emerged as the primary beneficiary of the AI boom. The fast rise of Nvidia on the back of its data center AI processors has led it to be one of only a handful of companies with a market cap over $3 trillion, alongside Microsoft and Apple, both of which are already included in the DJIA.

Over the last five years, NVDA and The Dow look a little different but we are sure it will fit right in…

On the other hand, Intel shares have tumbled more than 50% so far this year as the company struggles with manufacturing challenges, new competition for its central processors, and the sad reality that this once glorious chipmaker has missed out on the AI trend.

The Dow contains 30 components and is weighted by the share price of the individual stocks instead of the companies total market value. Nvidia put itself in better position in May, when the company announced a 10-for-1 stock split. While doing nothing to its market cap, the move slashed the price of each share by 90%, allowing it to become a part of the Dow without having too heavy a weighting.

The switch is the first change to the index since February, when Amazon replaced Walgreens Boots Alliance. Over the years, the industrial-heavy Dow has been playing catch up and gaining exposure to the largest technology companies. With the addition of Nvidia, four of the six trillion-dollar tech companies are now in the index. The two not in the index are Alphabet and Meta.

The 30 companies that make up the DJIA currently are shown below:

• 3M
• American Express
• Amgen
• Amazon
• Apple
• Boeing
• Caterpillar
• Chevron
• Cisco
• Coca-Cola
• Disney
• Dow
• Goldman Sachs
• Home Depot
• Honeywell
• IBM
• Intel
• Johnson & Johnson
• JPMorgan Chase
• McDonald’s
• Merck
• Microsoft
• Nike
• Procter & Gamble
• Salesforce
• Travelers
• UnitedHealth Group
• Verizon
• Visa
• Walmart

Some will point out that such Dow Jones moves tend to be a bottom or top tick opportunity, and point to the August 2020 switch in the Dow Jones when Salesforce replaced Exxon. Since then XOM has more than doubled, while CRM is unchanged.

Will the Dow Jones also top-tick Nvidia this time, while unleashing a new golden age for Intel?

 

Authored by Monica O’Shea via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Prominent U.S. conservative commentator Candace Owens has disputed allegations that she would incite discord in Australia after the Albanese government rejected her visa application.

Owens expressed concern about Palestine deaths and said the claims against her were “untrue” during a podcast to millions of online viewers.

This comes after Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Oct. 27 that “Australia’s national interest is served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”

“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” he told reporters.

In response, Owens expressed shock on her show, The Candace podcast, explaining that she found out about her visa cancellation at the “same time as the press.”

“This is supposed to be a private application process, so unless I spoke about this, no one should have known about this, but they chose to leak this, which I think is absolutely stunning,” she said.

“I am just very interested in what goes on in this country, which is supposed to be a free country, but I guess the immigration minister can unilaterally make this sort of decision.”

She explained she had travelled all over the world, from China to Tokyo, Hungary, Croatia, Italy, and France, and had never been in any trouble.

“And yet the reason that he gave to the public was because I had the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction … of course that’s not true,” she added.

“I have no idea how you are alleging I am both anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic. Again all of this is just to try to present me as some sort of very scary person akin to Adolph Hitler.”

Concerns About Palestine Deaths

Owens, who has 5.8 million followers on X and 5.4 million followers on Instagram, said that people do not want her to get in front of an audience, adding that the “audience understands what the reason is.”

She goes on to explain her concern about the ongoing violence in Gaza.

“I am not comfortable with the amount of death that is taking place in Palestine. And that’s where I am at. I have made my bed, I have chosen to lie in it,” she said.

“To me, I am not going to remove my humanity for money. It doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t work for me as a Christian.”

Owens, 35, parted with the Daily Wire in March, and converted from Protestantism to Catholicism in April 2024. Her husband, George Farmer, is a devout Catholic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Owens criticised Australia’s lockdown policies, calling the country’s response “totalitarian” and suggesting troops should be deployed to Australia.

She also played a major role in opposing Black Lives Matter and co-founding Blexit, a movement that stands for “Black Exit” from victimhood mentality.

Tickets Still Available Amid Potential Legal Action

Tickets for the Candace Owens Live 2024 tour in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide are still available from $95 online for general admission. In Adelaide, a VIP Meet and Greet session at $295 per person is sold out.

Multiple Australian ticket pages for the event confirm Owens is planning to file an appeal and will process a refund if this fails.

“The Event Organiser and Candace Owens have confirmed they will be filing an appeal, and the case will be reviewed by a federal judge in the coming days,” the notice states.

“While they are optimistic about a favourable outcome, should the appeal be denied and cancellation become necessary, we will promptly notify all ticket holders and begin processing refunds automatically on the organiser’s behalf. Thank you for your understanding.”

On her X page, Owens shared a post by Australian political and economic commentator John Adams stating that an appeal would be filed against the decision of Minister Burke.

“I wonder whether the Federal Court of Australia is brave enough to allow Australians to listen to a black Catholic woman and make up their own minds,” the post states.

John Ruddick, NSW Libertarian Member of the Legislative Council, said Candace Owens should not be banned from Australia, explaining what anyone thinks of Candace Owens’ views should be immaterial.

He said Australia should let everyone in to speak and then the Australian people can “weigh it up.”

“In the age of the internet, it is absurd to try and prevent anyone’s views being heard,” Ruddick said.

“It is counter-productive state-sponsored vindictiveness against certain views. As Martin Luther King taught us, let freedom reign … especially the freedom to share ideas that some politicians and bureaucrats think are dangerous.”

Podcaster Joe Rogan said in an Oct. 30 episode of his show that he gave Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign an “open invitation” to sit down for an interview at any time.

“I said anytime. I said if she’s done at 10, we’ll come back here at 10. I’ll do it at 9 in the morning, I’ll do it at 10 p.m. I’ll do it at midnight if she’s up, if she wants to, you know, drink a Red Bull,” he said, recalling what he told the campaign.

Rogan’s show features around 14 million subscribers on Spotify, making it the top show on the platform, but it also generates significant traffic and engagement on YouTube.

His interview with former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, released late last week, has garnered more than 41 million views on YouTube so far.

While speaking to comedians Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster during episode 2220 of The Joe Rogan Experience…

…Rogan said that Harris “actually reached out when she found out that [Trump] was coming on.”

“So their camp reached out to me,” he said.

“So I said, ‘Great, I would love to talk to her.’ But it was very difficult to tie it down. They wanted [me] to travel, and see, the thing is, if I go somewhere, then there’s going to be other people in the room. And they want to control a lot of things, I’m sure.”

As The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported, Harris was in Houston last week and held a rally there featuring an endorsement and speech from pop singer Beyoncé.

In a social media post earlier this week, Rogan said that the Harris campaign had conditions for the Democratic presidential nominee to do the interview.

The Epoch Times previously reached out to the campaign, which has not responded to Rogan’s remarks, for comment.

“For the record, the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast,” Rogan wrote in a social media post on Tuesday.

“They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her, and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin. My sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being. I really hope we can make it happen.”

During the episode with Kisin and Foster, Rogan also addressed speculation that he might be a covert Trump supporter.

“Just because of my appearance, there’s always been this assumption that I’m some right-wing MAGA guy,” he said, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

“I’m a politically homeless person for sure. You know, I always considered myself a left-wing person. I never thought I would ever vote right-wing, but then the tides of culture shifted in a very bizarre way. And it just made me, over time, much more aware of what this stuff is really all about.”

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), will also air on Rogan’s show after being interviewed at Rogan’s Austin studio on Wednesday.

Both Trump and Harris have engaged in a flurry of campaigning as the race draws to a close. Both candidates have taken part in several podcasts ahead of the 2024 General Election as they attempt to reach new audiences.

More than 60 million people have cast early ballots so far ahead of the Nov. 5 contest, according to data released by the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

The Epoch Times contacted the Harris campaign for comment about Rogan’s claims but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modenrity.news,

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said Wednesday that there are clear signs that president Trump is on his way to winning the election.

Enten noted that voter dissatisfaction with the course the country is on, combined with Joe Biden’s ongoing unpopularity, as well as high Republican registration numbers are all pointing to a Trump victory.

“Just 28% of Americans, voters think the country is going in the right direction, is on the right track. And I want to put that into a historical perspective for you,” Enten began.

He continued, “Okay, what’s the average percentage of the public that thinks that the country is on the right track when the incumbent party loses? It’s 25%.”

“That 25% looks an awful bit like that 28% up there. It doesn’t look anything, anything like this 42% [average when the incumbent party won] doesn’t look anything like this 28%,” the analyst added.

“So the bottom line is very few Americans think the country is on the right track at this particular point. It tracks much more with when the incumbent party loses than with [when] it wins,” Enten further highlighted.

“In fact, I went back through history, there isn’t a single time in which 28% of the American public thinks the country is going on the right track in which the incumbent party actually won,” he further urged. 

“They always lose when just 28% of the country believes that the country is on the right track,” Enten declared.

If Trump wins, the signs were there all along.

No incumbent party has won another term with so few voters saying the country is on the right track (28%) or when the president’s net approval rating is so low (Biden’s at -15 pts).

Also, big GOP registration gains in key states. pic.twitter.com/knDQ2HOFtJ

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) October 30, 2024

He also pointed out that Republicans appear to be doing better than Democrats for registrations in key states.

“Republicans are putting more Republicans in the electorate, the Democratic number versus the Republican number has shrunk,” he said.

Enten concluded that “the bottom line is if Republicans win, come next week, Donald Trump wins comes next week, the signs all along will have been obvious… You can’t say you weren’t warned.”

Meanwhile, a Harris campaign advisor was adamant in comments to CNN that Biden’s garbage remarks won’t make any difference, claiming “We won’t lose a single voter because of it.”

That may be so, however some who were on the fence before might not appreciate being called “garbage” and stump for Trump.

Indeed, as we highlighted, Trump has hit an all time high against Kamala Harris on the political betting platform Polymarket.

Pollster Frank Luntz also adamantly told CNN that the “garbage” comment was a turning point which will have a “huge” effect on moving voters away from supporting Harris.

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

There’s been more fallout in the wake of Thursday’s North Korean test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), widely described as registering the country’s longest ever flight time for a ballistic missile.

First, South Korea has slapped new sanctions on over a dozen North Korean individuals and entities. Seoul has roundly condemned the launch. The US is also likely to ramp up its sanctions even further. 

But to be expected, Kim Jong Un has hit back. He was cited in state KCNA as saying: “The new-type ICBM proved before the world that the hegemonic position we have secured in the development and manufacture of nuclear delivery means of the same kind is absolutely irreversible.”

Pyongyang officials have since identified the massive rocket, which they dub “the world’s strongest strategic missile,” as a new Hwasong-19 ICBM. Given that nuclear warhead-capable ICBMs can reach several thousands of miles away, such a missile would have the capability of hitting the continental United States. And the timing has not been lost on anyone, as it was a mere days before the US presidential election.

“It can be stored and moved anywhere, allowing for excellent mobility, stealth and survivability,” said Kim of the rocket. State media has subsequently released carefully edited, high quality footage of the ‘perfected’ missile launch, which has been widely circulating on Friday:

VIDEO: North Korean state media published footage of the launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) model called the “Hwasong-19” on Thursday.

Read more here: https://t.co/kA8m36NARX pic.twitter.com/CXXlBJX7O5

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) November 1, 2024

“The increased length likely means a greater fuel capacity, which directly affects thrust and potentially increases range,” Kim added.

And new statements from North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui suggest tensions with the West are higher than ever. She said from Moscow, where she is meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that her country is coming under nuclear threat by the US and South Korea.

She “accused the United States and South Korea of plotting a nuclear strike against her country,” Reuters reports Friday. “She did not provide evidence to back her assertion, but spoke of regular consultations between Washington and Seoul at which she alleged such plotting took place.”

The top diplomat also pledged that North Korea will not stop helping Russia until it achieves ‘victory’ on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Pyongyang and Moscow have over the past year been deepening their defense ties, having inked a new pact this past summer, and the Kremlin has cited this as the legal basis for North Korean troops being hosted in Russia.

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

It’s hard to believe, but the presidential election is just days away. It’ll all come down to the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

It’s a tight race, although it appears to be breaking for Trump.

The Democratic strategy is essentially to call Trump Hitler and a would-be dictator who would jail his political opponents (sound familiar?) and destroy democracy.

Though they focus much more on Trump the man than his actual policies, it’s important to understand Trump’s position on tariffs, for example, because it would impact millions of Americans.

Donald Trump recently did an interview with John Micklethwait, Bloomberg’s top editor and a former editor of The Economist.

Micklethwait made the tired point that Trump’s tariffs would raise prices and be bad for Americans.

The Argument for Free Trade

Most of us have been taught that free trade is good and that tariffs are bad.

And on the surface it certainly seems true. The theory of free trade based on comparative advantage was advocated by British economist David Ricardo in the early 19th century.

Ricardo’s theory said that trading nations are endowed with attributes that give them a relative advantage in producing certain goods versus others.

These attributes could consist of natural resources, climate, population, river systems, education, ports, financial capacity or any other factor of production. Nations should produce those goods as to which they have a natural advantage and trade with other nations for goods where the advantage was not so great.

Countries should specialize in what they do best, and let others also specialize in what they do best. Then countries could simply trade the goods they make for the goods made by others.

All sides would be better off because prices would be lower as a result of specialization in those goods where you have a natural advantage.

It’s a nice theory often summed up in the idea that Tom Brady shouldn’t mow his own lawn because it makes more sense to pay a landscaper while he practices football.

For example, if the U.K. had an advantage in textile production and Portugal had an advantage in wine production, then the U.K. and Portugal should trade wool for wine.

Is Free Trade Everything It’s Cracked up to Be?

But if the theory of comparative advantage were true, Japan would still be exporting tuna fish instead of cars, computers, TVs, steel and much more.

The same can be said of the globalists’ view that capital should flow freely across borders. That might be advantageous in theory but market manipulation by central banks and rogue actors like Goldman Sachs and big hedge funds make it a treacherous proposition.

The problem with this theory of comparative advantage is that the factors of production are not permanent and they are not immobile.

If labor moves from the countryside to the city in China, then suddenly China has a comparative advantage in cheap labor. If finance capital moves from New York banks to direct foreign investment in Chinese factories, then China has the comparative advantage in capital also.

Trump understands this, Micklethwait doesn’t. Trump didn’t just make polite conversation in the interview. He called out Micklethwait by saying, “It must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you’re totally wrong.” Ouch!

Tariffs Are as American as Apple Pie

Micklethwait certainly isn’t alone. Listening to hysterical commentary from the mainstream media about Trump’s tariffs, one would think his policies were in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Nothing could be further from the truth. By advocating tariffs, Trump actually wants to return to what made America great in the first place.

In fact, tariffs are as American as apple pie.

From 1790–1962, the United States pursued high tariff policies under a program known as the American System.

It was created by George Washington’s secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who drafted a report to Congress called the Report on Manufactures presented in 1791. Hamilton proposed that in order to have a strong country, America needed a strong manufacturing base with jobs that taught skills and offered income security.

To achieve this, Hamilton proposed subsidies to U.S. businesses so they could compete successfully against more established U.K. and European businesses.

These subsidies might include grants of government land or rights of way, purchase orders from the government itself or outright payments. This was a mercantilist system that encouraged a trade surplus and the accumulation of gold reserves.

175 Years of Prosperity

Hamilton’s plan was later proposed on a broader scale by Kentucky Sen. Henry Clay. This new plan began with the Tariff of 1816. Later on, Abraham Lincoln adopted the American System as his platform in the election of 1860, and it became a bedrock principle of the new Republican Party.

It was affirmed by William McKinley at the end of the 19th century and by Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. The 19th and early 20th centuries were a heyday of the American System. This period was characterized by enormous economic growth and population expansion by the U.S.

The American System was also accompanied mostly by low inflation or even deflation (which increases the purchasing power of everyday citizens) despite occasional financial panics and some inflation during the Civil War.

The key takeaway is that America grew rich and powerful from 1787–1962, a period of 175 years, using tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to trade to nurture domestic industry and protect high-paying manufacturing jobs.

The Triumph of Free Trade Doctrine

But under the neo-liberal, globalist international order that prevailed in the decades after World War II, free trade doctrine supplanted the American System.

Globalism requires free trade, open borders and free capital flows or as close as you can come. In theory, this allows for price discovery, lower costs and higher returns to capital.

In reality, it causes lost jobs, lost competitiveness and lower wages, especially for Americans. U.S. industry was stripped bare and U.S. jobs were lost by the millions, with China being the main beneficiary.

Globalists embrace what they call “encasement.” The idea is that national governments don’t matter. What does matter is that all global powers — democratic, communist, socialist, kleptocratic — play by the same supranational rules that encase the system of sovereigns.

Free trade is part of that system (in reality, it’s not free trade but managed trade).

Trump is rejecting the globalist playbook. He’s pursuing the same basic policies that predominated in the U.S. from George Washington through Dwight Eisenhower.

He simply wants to return to the American System that once made America great.

Money market funds saw yet another week of inflows (+$40BN), taking the total AUM to a new record high of $6.508 TN…

Source: Bloomberg

The inflow into MM comes as bank deposits (on a seasonally adjusted basis) dropped a modest $13BN to the week-ending 10/23…

Source: Bloomberg

But, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, total deposits plunged $133BN (the biggest weekly decline since April)…

Source: Bloomberg

Excluding foreign deposits, it’s even uglier. On an NSA basis, US deposits plunged $131BN – the biggest weekly drop since April (Large banks -$97BN, Small banks -$34BN). But, by the magic of The Fed’s PhDs, the ‘seasonal adjusted’ domestic deposits fell just $3BN (Large banks +$8BN, Small banks -$11BN)…

Source: Bloomberg

This is the biggest Large bank deposit drop since May…

Source: Bloomberg

This should only be worrying if we see liquidity problems in the banking system starting to occur.

Wait, what?

Finally, something remains afoot in the financial plumbing world. SOFR-Swap Spreads are blowing out (signaling some credit/liquidity stress)…

Source: Bloomberg

…and reverse repo usage is collapsing (liquidity needs?)

Source: Bloomberg

Is that why USA sovereign risk is blowing out?

Source: Bloomberg

Are they holding back a banking crisis for Trump’s victory?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“The Blue Team is protected by the sheer audacity of their betrayal of Americans. For most, their approach is literally beyond belief.”

– Bret Weinstein

Along about now, you’re probably wondering what sort of mayhem the Party of Chaos is set to unleash on our democracy after their mighty ballot fraud operation fails to overcome the yet more powerful instinct of the voters to expel them from the seats of power they seized by fraud in 2020 and 2022. You can be sure they’ve gamed-out a playbook aimed at paralyzing the nation one way or another if the effort to install Kamala Harris in the White House face-plants, as it appears to be doing in these final days before the reckoning.

Rioting, arson, and looting in the cities? Not so much. Probably some, but only because it’s an excuse for 100-percent-off sale “shopping,” plus the need for hordes of dopamine-deprived youth to seek a little dangerous excitement — in a society that gives them nothing meaningful or purposeful to do. It’d surely reflect poorly on the regime clinging to power in the months before January 20. Anyway, “Joe Biden,” Kamala, and company would be blamed for letting the cities get wrecked again, and then double-blamed by their own partisans if they try to stop it with the national guard. It’s a no-win deal for them.

More likely, the Party will hijack the nation’s legal machinery to cancel the election ex post facto. They’ve done a swell job in advance setting up conditions that make it difficult if not impossible to sort out legal ballots cast from the frauds. So, expect the Party’s chief lawfare ninja Marc Elias, and his zillion-dollar-funded cadre of pettifoggers, to contest the swing-state precincts where their ballot-harvest somehow fell short a few bushels. They’ll file enough lawsuits to gum up the courts until the sun becomes a red dwarf.

If the actual numbers add up to a Trump victory, the Democrats will re-brand that as the new “Big Lie” and commence a strenuous campaign in the old media to gaslight the public into believing the vote-count isn’t what it looks like. After all, numbers are math and math is racist. That will provide the rationale, and furnish the game-space, to stop Trump by other means.

Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has already advertised his scheme to knock Mr. Trump off the game-board by using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to declare him an “insurrectionist,” disqualified from holding office. Of course, Mr. Trump has not been charged, indicted, or convicted for insurrection, nor was anyone involved in the J-6 protest and riot.

Insurrection was supposed to be established as fact by the House J-6 Committee, but it died of illegitimacy after destroying all its accumulated records last year, including documents in evidence and the videos of all the witnesses it deposed. Whoops. The Jack Smith prosecution in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s DC Federal District court was a backup plan for that, but the July SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity has, so far, gummed up that ploy. Mr. Raskin would need a Democratic House majority to pass such a resolution, in any case, and it looks unlikely that he will have that.

A rather desperate gambit to oust Mr. Trump with a military coup, first advanced by former Pentagon official Rosa Brooks in a February, 2017, op-ed in the high-toned journal Foreign Policy, and reiterated by Nancy Pelosi in January, 2021, has been resurrected now that Mr. Trump is firmly branded as Hitler by the Party of Chaos — meaning he can be eliminated by any means necessary. “Joe Biden’s” woked-up generals might be game for a coup, but they’d have to overcome a lot of counter-coup-minded, not-so-woked-up colonels to get there.

Anyway you cut it, the hysteria in the body politic is running at a pitch — as Mr. Trump himself might say — that has never been seen before, at least not since Fort Sumter. The Democrats complain that a Trump victory means the Department of Justice will be weaponized against them. Is that rich, or what? It actually tells the whole story since you know the Party always accuses its opponents of exactly what it is already doing.

Speaking of which, we must look forward to Judge Juan Merchan’s November 26th sentencing of Mr. Trump in DA Alvin Bragg’s “Stormy Daniels hush money” case. It’s out there, looming, and it ain’t going away. Judge Merchan is going to have to do. . . something! The jury has pronounced Mr. Trump guilty of those 34 “felonies” (based on 34 book-keeping entries, originally misdemeanors, and beyond the applicable statute of limitations).

I’d like to see the Judge stash the president-elect in the Rikers Island lockup for a few hours. It’ll be a better stunt than Mr. Trump’s shift serving fries at McDonald’s, or riding the garbage truck after “Joe Biden” called more than half the country that supports him “garbage.” Because a few hours after Mr. Trump settles into his Rikers cell and enjoys his first boloney sandwich, the SCOTUS is going to turn a flame thrower on Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg and vacate the absurd case and every half-assed procedure that was used to arrive at it, and refer Merchan and Bragg for disbarment for professional misconduct, malicious prosecution, and failure to uphold the law.

Which means, if Juan Merchan has an ounce of sense, on or before November 26th he will find an excuse to dismiss his own case (yes, he can) on the grounds of procedural irregularities, or insufficient evidence. . . or some other Mickey Mouse grounds. . . and suck up the humiliation. . . and get on with his life. . . hoping (and maybe even praying) that sometime after January 20th, 2025, he does not find himself under indictment, along with several other Biden-era lawfare ninjas, for conspiracy to deprive the once and future president of his civil rights.

The days just ahead will be filled with tension and angst, I know. Make sure you vote. After Tuesday, our country will be politically fogged-in for a while. Hunker down, keep your heads screwed on, and have faith in each other.

The cause is a righteous one.

MASA: Make America Sane Again.

JHK and Dave Collum on the Coffee and a Mike Podcast with Mike Farris. Recorded on Wednesday.

Hot on the heels of AMZN, AAPL, and INTC malarkey, this morning’s jobs data was shitshow… and the manufacturing PMIs just rubbed more salt in that wound.

Of course, it was all shrugged off as ‘hurricane and strike’-related because Bidenomics is freaking awesome, yo!

Source: Bloomberg

However, the machines and their human friends went to town on it, sparking utter chaos across all asset classes.

The initial reaction was a huge kneejerk lower in Treasury yields, the dollar, and VIX; and a spike higher in stocks, crypto, and gold as rate-cut expectations soared.

The odds of a 25bps cut next week spiked significantly…

Source: Bloomberg

But then, everything started to unwind as traders realized that the jobs number was not bad enough (net of hurricanes) to prompt a ‘growth scare’, but was bad enough to give Powell enough cover to cut rates next week and push inflation even higher.

First things first, expectations for rate-cuts in 2024, and even more so 2025, started to tumble – back to unchanged (108bps cuts expected to end 2025)…

Source: Bloomberg

Futures trod water overnight with the big tech earnings chopping them around but once the algos got a look at payrolls everything went vertical. However, as the day wore on and yields spiked, stocks saw derisking…

The surge in stocks today managed to get The Dow and Small Caps into the green for the week (but then the selling pressure hit). S&P and Nasdaq were the biggest losers on the week…

Under the hood in equity-land, INTC, AAPL, and AMZN were the big movers from earnings last night.

INTC is up bigly on modestly better guidance (despite admitting the AI project is failing on its goals)…

AMZN bounced back from weakness after earnings (AWS growth slowing) to put in a big day…

AAPL did not bounce back from its post-earnings plunge…

‘Most Shorted’ Stocks were instantly squeezed higher at the open, but spent the rest of the day giving it all back…

Source: Bloomberg

Some modest profit-taking in the ‘Trump Trade’ today…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX ended higher on the day and significantly higher on the week as the vol term structures gets jiggy around next week’s mega risk catalysts…

Source: Bloomberg

Stocks were not quite as whipsawed as bonds. the 2Y yield crashed 15bpas on the payrolls print… only to rip all back higher to close up 3bps on the day…

Source: Bloomberg

A chaotic week in bond-land for sure. By the end of the week, all yields were higher with the belly lagging and the long-end the least gly horse in the glue factory…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar puked lower on the ‘dovish’ bad data then spent the rest of the day ripping higher to end the week higher…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold’s price action this week was also wild – hitting a new record high before getting monkeyhammered yesterday and today to end the week red. That was gold’s worst week since June…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin followed a similar trajectory to gold this week – driving higher to new record highs before getting clubbed like a baby seal the last two days…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil ended the week lower despite recovering most of the Sunday night futures collapse (Israel-Iran optics)…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, something remains afoot in the financial plumbing world. SOFR-Swap Spreads are blowing out (signaling some credit/liquidity stress)…

Source: Bloomberg

…and reverse repo usage is collapsing (liquidity needs?)

Source: Bloomberg

Is that why USA sovereign risk is blowing out?

Source: Bloomberg

On that cheery note, have a great weekend.