Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

In the past I have often tried to take a big picture approach to the issues facing the American public and how there is almost always a deeper connection between a variety of political and economic events. And, what has become increasingly clear to me is that in order to understand government actions and geopolitics, you must always ask yourself “Who benefits?”

The bottom line is this – At the heart of nearly every conflict and every crisis the same group of power mongers usually benefits, and they have taken a keen interest in the climate change narrative in particular. But like I said, this is the big picture. Right now I’d like to take a look at a relatively small issue and how the little dominoes lead up to a bigger con game and a bigger disaster. Let’s talk about gas stoves…

Frankly, I don’t care about what my stove uses to cook with as long as it works. That said, around 38% of US households use natural gas for cooking and heating. That’s a significant percentage of people that rely on gas based energy for their daily needs. Here’s the problem, though – Natural gas is not politically correct these days. Nearly all carbon emitting energy sources have been marked by climate activists and western governments as a threat that needs to be erased between 2030 to 2050.

Globalist institutions and climate change grifters have put natural gas on the naughty list, but there are a couple of realities that must be addressed. First, as noted, a vast portion of the western world including the US and Europe rely on natural gas for numerous energy applications. Ban natural gas and civilization faces an immediate plunge in economic activity, as well as much higher prices on all remaining energy sources due to increasing demand. There is NO green energy solution that can fill the same roll as gas.

All you have to do is look at Europe and the UK today and see how they are struggling with vastly higher costs due to sanctions on Russian gas exports. It’s a mess, and they are lucky that the winter has so far been rather mild, because the moment things freeze, they are in trouble. There are not enough alternative energy resources available to fulfill Europe’s shortages if the temperatures plummet.

But what does this have to do with banning gas stoves in the US? Isn’t that a health issue rather than an environmental issue? No, it’s not a health issue, it’s a climate agenda issue being rebranded as a health issue.

There has been a coordinated government and media blitz on the gas stove narrative this week, with an avalanche of claims that natural gas causes everything from asthma in children to a slowdown in cognitive development. What is the evidence for these claims? The Biden Administration and the agency weighing a potential ban, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), have not given specific sources yet.

The assertions are most likely rooted in a single study published in December by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in December. The group is privately funded and this particular study on gas stoves was led by RMI, a non-profit research entity that advocates for aggressive green policies and works to “transform global energy systems across the real economy.” The two lead authors, Talor Gruenwald and Brady Seals, are RMI researchers who have contributed to the group’s “carbon-free buildings” initiative.

In other words, the study is written by people with a built in bias, and since science these days is now being linked to activism, no single study funded by a private ideological group can be trusted. RMI is not only part of the climate cult, they also promote “equity” theory and general woke politics. These concepts and real science cannot coexist.

The American Gas Association made this exact point in a responding statement, noting that the study’s testing did not include real life appliance usage, and:

“Ignored [previous] literature, including one study of data collected from more than 500,000 children in 47 countries that ‘detected no evidence’ of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis.”

The push for a gas stove ban is not about health, it’s about control. It is an attempt to falsely link carbon emissions and energy products to negative health concerns as a way to trick the public into supporting decarbonization out of fear. But why revert to such a strategy? Is the climate cult really that desperate?

Yes, yes they are.

You see, the truth about climate change is beginning to spread to the masses, and the debunking of anti-carbon propaganda is picking up momentum. Here are the facts:

The average global temperature is not climbing to dangerous levels. The Earth’s temps have increased according to the NOAA by less than 1°C in the past century.

There is no evidence that this kind of temperature increase represents a threat to the environment or human health. In fact, the Earth’s temps have been much higher than they are today multiple times in the Earth’s history long before man-made carbon emissions were a thing. The official temperature record used by climate scientists only goes back to the 1880s – That is a TINY sliver of time in comparison to the epic lifespan of the Earth’s atmosphere.

And what about all those arguments that there are more dangerous weather patterns emerging due to global warming? That’s a lie. There is no significant difference between storm patterns today compared to 100 years ago.

And let’s not forget that global warming propaganda has been going on a long time now. Back when I was a kid in the 1980s, they used to tell us in school that large parts of continents would be under water by the year 2000. This obviously never happened and likely never will. Many of us who grew up in that era are still waiting around for the icecaps to melt.

The climate change agenda is about giving governments and globalist institutions the power to bottleneck energy usage, tax carbon emissions and thus control almost every aspect of our daily lives. Without the free flow of carbon based energy almost all industry will collapse. Green energy is inefficient and cannot fill the void left behind by gas, petroleum and coal. All that would be left is a minimal manufacturing base, minimal food production and a shrinking human population. Those that survive would be slaves to carbon restrictions; it would be a living nightmare.

There are very rich and powerful people out there that greatly benefit from such a scenario.

The globalists have been scheming to use environmentalism as an excuse for centralization since at least 1972, when the Club Of Rome, a think-tank attached to the UN, published a treatise titled ‘The Limits To Growth’. Twenty years later they would publish a book titled ‘The First Global Revolution.’ In that document they specifically recommend using global warming as a vehicle:

“In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.”

The statement comes from Chapter 5 – The Vacuum, which covers their desire for global government. The quote is relatively clear; a common enemy must be conjured in order to trick humanity into uniting under a single banner – The globalist banner. And the elites see environmental catastrophe, caused by mankind itself, as the best possible motivator.

How does this agenda start? It starts with gas stoves. It starts with something we might see as small, and then it grows from there. Pretty soon, they will be banning natural gas for heating. They will ban wood stoves. They will artificially induce gas price inflation. Then they will implement carbon taxation on manufacturers which will in turn cause prices to rise for consumers. Then there will be carbon taxes for the average individual. They will use whatever means at their disposal to make it impossible to use “fossil fuels.”

Again, it’s not about health, it’s about control. It’s always about control. The gas stove issue is a fraud; one domino in a long chain that leads to carbon totalitarianism.

*  *  *

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A Thursday tweet from the NY Post‘s Miranda Devine containing a background check for Hunter Biden has people asking questions.

“The now-52-year-old began listing the Wilmington home as his address following his 2017 divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle — even falsely claiming he owned the property on a July 2018 background check form as part of a rental application,” the Post reported.

Of note, this is the same house where classified documents were found.

Yet, upon closer inspection, Hunter lists the “Monthly Rent” as $49,910 – or roughly $550,000 for the 11 months he indicated he lived there?

In 2018 Hunter Biden claimed he owned the house where Joe Biden kept classified documents alongside his Corvette in the garage Via @jj_talking pic.twitter.com/L7c80MRRiS

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) January 12, 2023

A Zillow search reveals that the most expensive home currently for rent in Wilmington, Delaware is going for $6,000 per month.

According to Town & Country magazine, Biden’s home is worth around $2 million.

Could Hunter, a crackhead, have accidentally listed the annual rent payment to his father for the house which contained classified documents? Sure. But why was his wealthy ex-VP dad charging him rent in the first place, when Hunter was allegedly broke?

Trending Politics asks the quiet part out loud; was this Hunter’s way of funneling money to his father?

After Hunter’s divorce was finalized in May of 2017, he was included in an email from his business partner James Gilliar about a venture with Chinese state-funded energy company CEFC China Energy. The email stated that Hunter and his partners would receive 20% of the shares in the new business, with 10% going to Hunter’s uncle James Biden and the other 10% being “held by H for the big guy.”

Tony Bobulinski, another one of Hunter’s former business partners, claims that he had a meeting with Joe Biden regarding the CEFC venture on May 2, 2017, and that the president was the individual referred to as the “big guy” in Gilliar’s email. Additionally, Gilliar himself confirmed that Joe Biden was the “big guy” mentioned in a message found on the laptop.

And as the NY Post reports, “The following year, federal investigators began looking into whether Hunter and his business associates violated tax and money laundering laws during their dealings in China and other countries. Emails and other records related to the deals were found on the laptop, which Hunter dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in 2019 and never reclaimed.“

“I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years,” Hunter told his daughter Naomi in January, 2019. “It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

Of course, Hunter paid his daddy $50k a month in rent.

Here’s a text message Hunter sent his daughter in 2019 saying he gives JOE BIDEN “half” his salary.

This was found on Hunter’s laptop.https://t.co/Ys1TzTlq3l pic.twitter.com/gsO8hP8r3b

— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) January 14, 2023

As the Post continues:

The laptop doesn’t contain any direct evidence of such money transfers but shows Hunter was routinely on the hook for household expenses — including repairs to the Wilmington home.

In December 2020, weeks after his father was elected president, Hunter Biden announced that his “tax affairs” were being investigated by federal authorities in Delaware, and said he was “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”

Recent reports have indicated investigators believe they have enough evidence to charge the first son with tax crimes — as well as with lying about his drug abuse on a federal form so he could buy a gun in 2018.

So, was the $49,910 ‘monthly’ rent a simple crackhead mistake when that was in fact the annual payment amount, or did Hunter create “Exhibit A” for any honest prosecutors to pursue? We aren’t holding our breath on the latter.

By Peter Tchir, chief strategist at Academy Securities

Since it is the start of the year, it seems like as good of a time as any to put a few things on record before diving into the meat of this T-Report. There are things that I want to refer back to over the course of the year because they relate to the business of strategy.

For the Record #1

Everyone hates strategists who claim to have called every move correctly. I can guarantee you that if someone called every move right in the markets, they wouldn’t be sitting in front of a computer typing missives because they’d be bazillionaires!

A close second for the most annoying behavior by strategists is touting their good calls and completely ignoring their bad calls (Bitcoin is back to $21,000 this weekend).

Some of this is human nature. We all “want” to be right and all tend to emphasize the “good” rather than the “bad”.

For the Record #2

Many of our readers have P&Ls. That is a discipline like no other and while I try to think of our strategies in terms of P&L generation, risk management, etc., it isn’t the same as having an actual P&L.

Having said that, we have people who live and die by daily/weekly/monthly P&Ls (which is ideal for Bloomberg IB as a form of communication). We also have people with weekly/monthly/quarterly timeframes (the T-Report is geared for these people). Finally, we have some who even think in years (which seems important for corporate strategy, but it is difficult to manage a portfolio around).

For the Record #3

One thing that strategists dislike is when people discuss their “idea” with them but don’t realize that it was the strategist’s “idea”! That is largely a failing on the strategist’s part. Either the work isn’t getting distributed well enough (a good time to check mailing lists, ensure things aren’t going to junk, etc.), the work/titles are too confusing (though I’m not sure I could live without writing I Like Big Banks and I Can Not Lie), or I just need to write more clearly.

Last weekend’s A Simple View is part of the process of addressing this issue going forward. 8 Seconds served the function of letting people know that our positioning had changed, but maybe the title was confusing (though the image of trying to ride a wild bull felt “informative” to me).

Finally, while the Fed is apolitical, I couldn’t help but send out the Shifting Politics of Inflation on Friday, because that has the potential to shift the national narrative and could either influence the Fed or (at least in the case of the WSJ) might be the conduit the Fed is using to signal a change.

On the Record

We will “subtly” shift from “for the record” to “on the record”.

Rachel Washburn hosted a fun and interesting webinar on Friday that started with World War III possibilities but ended in a better place. Generals (ret.) Walsh and Marks were spot on, and I was able to add a few points on how their geopolitical input is impacting our macro market and economic outlooks (replay will be available shortly).

Academy was one of three firms that participated in Friday’s half-hour Real Yield show on Bloomberg TV. You know a show covers a lot of fixed income ground when CLO ETFs get mentioned and it seemed to be a fluid part of the conversation (rather than forced). Some really interesting views and ideas from the other guests made this a great show to watch if you have about 20 minutes or so this long weekend.

On the Road

My favorite part of my job has kicked off in earnest! From D.C. and Princeton last week, to San Francisco, Palo Alto, Newport Beach, and San Diego this week, seeing clients is back in vogue. There is nothing more fun than sitting with people in a variety of jobs/industries and sharing ideas. I’m even excited for Minneapolis in early Feb (it will be cold, but should be fun) and look forward to another opportunity to speak to a group of municipal issuers in Alabama!

Travel and seeing such a diverse group of people allows me to learn about so many aspects of the economy and it makes my job so much easier!

Consensus is Neutral

Back to the meat of the report. If I’ve done a good job explaining myself this year, you should know that I’m basically neutral on stocks, bonds, and credit here. That view seems to be rather consensus.

The CNN Fear & Greed Index has bumped up to 63 (which is technically in greed territory, but just above neutral).

The AAII Sentiment Survey is in neutral territory (though very close to being too pessimistic). What was most interesting is that the number of bears has dropped from 52.3% to 39.9% since December 21st, but almost all of those people piled into the “neutral” camp as the number of bulls remained quite low.

I’m not big on technical charts, but this chart sticks out so much that I couldn’t help but use it to illustrate my “neutral” point (I’m not opposed to charts, but they just aren’t my first choice of things to highlight).

The S&P has snuggled right up against the 200 day moving average. From my limited understanding of charts, this is a crucial level. The S&P has failed to breach the 200 DMA since the sell-off took hold in late March. It could easily be rejected again. On the other hand, if it breaks through, we could see buyers emerge. Not only from all of those positioned as “neutral”, but from bears and particularly CTAs which have a reputation for being formulaic/algorithmic and tied to big levels (like the 200 DMA).

So maybe I should refine my view from simply “neutral” to “neutral, waiting to pounce on the next move – if only I knew what that next move would be”.

Even though at the start of today’s report we wrote about providing more “clarity” on views, I’d lean towards owning some tail risk in either direction! If we fail around here, many could press shorts and get out of recently acquired risk. If we break above, the opposite happens.

Yes, at some level this happens all the time, but the “neutral” positioning coupled with a major, very visible level (which happens to coincide with the big round number of 4,000) makes the next few days particularly interesting for me!

What’s Next for Inflation?

I think that inflation will continue to fall and we will see more monthly CPI prints that are negative and even Core CPI will have a negative print this quarter.

Many disagree, but I think that with Q4 coming in at 0.8% (3.2% simply annualized) we’ve “beaten” inflation.

What Will the Fed Do?

I’d be shocked if they did more than 25 bps at their next meeting.

Yes, they will talk about “financial conditions” (aka the S&P 500), but they are starting to get the political and media aircover to back down from 50 bps and some of their higher terminal rate calls.

There are still over 2 weeks until their meeting and we will get more data. I’m betting that if anything, that data steers them to “25 bps and done” messaging (probably too late for them to do zero, which is what I think that they should do).

The Fed will NOT be quick to cut. They should stop hiking, but even I’m not advocating for cuts (it would have been easier if they started on the glide path to stopping rate hikes a few meetings ago).

They will continue to do QT. This, to me, acts as an anchor on markets as every month we need to absorb more bonds from the system than if QE had not started in the first place. Why QT gets so little attention still baffles me.

The Bank of Japan is expected to let the 10-year yield rise to as much as 1%. I view this as “on par” with QT. It is another drag on asset prices in the U.S. as Japanese investors can allow some of their FX hedged/dollar denominated bonds to roll-off when the hedges come due and just buy domestic bonds. It isn’t alarming and won’t be all at once, but it adds to the pressures of finding dollar denominated asset buyers. With the 10-year bund at 2.16% this is already happening in Europe, but it also tells me that 1% is probably getting to the low end of the range that the JGB 10-year would naturally trade at given their domestic savings rate and still low levels of inflation.

What Will the Economy Do?

Yes, jobs still seem good, but that isn’t as important as it should be. What I’m seeing is a couple industries acting as the epicenter of the problems for the economy!

Big tech, fueled by everyone (from private equity, to vehicle manufacturers) took 5 steps forward in the past few years! Will we see one or two steps back as companies become more cost conscious and not every tech investment will be cheered by equity holders. Have manufacturers changed what chips they rely on as they’ve battled supply chains? Without a doubt, in 5 years technology will play an even bigger role in society and the economy, but it doesn’t mean that we haven’t already priced too much in.

I see a potential problem in this market that it is radiating out. The local economies are incredibly interconnected.

The homebuilder ETF (XHB) is up almost 20% in the past 3 months! This is a contrarian play that I probably should have gotten on board with, but this is an industry still in the early stages of digesting the spike in mortgage rates and overall loss of wealth in this country. I’m keeping an eye on this.

We will get some clarity and resolution on the inventory side of the equation in the coming weeks as we get the regular data and we also have companies discussing it in detail. I’m not optimistic, but maybe this will be a pleasant surprise.

Services could be the key. Was the print that we highlighted last weekend an anomaly or a harbinger of more bad news? Even as a bear on the economy, that data seemed surprisingly weak, so I expect something not quite so bad, but “less good” than most bulls are building into their forecast.

What About Earnings?

I will start by quoting my friend Peter Boockvar. He “guarantees” every quarter that about 70-75% of companies will beat earnings. His point, as I take it, is that expectations get pushed down to the point that most companies beat them, so there is little to be gleaned from the parade of “beats” that we will get.

We will all be listening to how CEOs portray their vision for the rest of the year. Their views will mean a lot, but they usually do.

My gut is that they will be more cautious than expectations, in part because some of the “wiggle” room that they had late last year has already been used. Also, they are in jobs where they want to outperform expectations, and even if your company is doing well, you might be cautious because you see companies around you going through tougher times.

The one thing I “know” for certain is that we will get a lot of chatter about stock repurchases post earnings announcements and unless something changes, that will help support equities.

It’s a Moving Picture, not a Snapshot

The biggest mistake people may be making is looking at the data as though it is static.

If we take a snapshot of recent data, it is easy to craft a “soft” landing narrative.

But we don’t live in a static world. Decisions made months ago (on the policy side, on the household side, on the corporate side, etc.) take time to play out. It would be fun if economists could drive the economy like a jet ski, but it is a huge tanker, and once underway it is difficult to turn or even change speed.

So, I 100% agree that the current data has a “soft” landing feel, but I don’t believe there is a chance that the weakening of economic data (alongside lower inflation) will stop here!

We had to be setting up to “catch” the fall here, and if anything, we are still pushing on this well past the point we should be.

Maybe I’m wrong here, but simple Newtonian physics tells us that an object, once set in motion, will stay in motion and that is what the Fed has done and we are going to blow right through the “soft” landing station and enter into some unsafe territory.

Bottom Line

Stocks

• Neutral.
• Own options that cost very little, but generate profits if the S&P 500 breaks 4,100 or 3,900 by the end of next week (yes, resolution will be rapid and I hope that I don’t miss it between now and when futures open, let alone in the actual market).
• “Gun to head” I’d bet that the rally continues and we test 4,200 on the S&P 500 which means I’ve got to get back on that bucking bronco (or I got off too early).
• We will break 2022’s lows, but that isn’t my gut for the next move.

Rates

• The 10-year at 3.5% isn’t particularly appealing. We should see corporate issuance spike after earnings announcements. 3.5% is quite inverted versus the front end with a Fed that will hike at least 25 bps more. The BOJ won’t help things. Positioning has become a bit bullish on bonds (at least from the chatter I hear). So, even in my deflationary view, I would not be long 10s here.
• I like 5-years better than other points. It is “only” 3.6%, so not much of a pick-up, but I like the risk/reward better in 5s. Maybe, the 2-year is more obvious, but it has so little duration and if I’m right and the Fed won’t hike (but also won’t cut), then there isn’t a lot of room.
• For now, I’d be short Treasuries/sovereign debt. Yes, I think that deflation will be the discussion point of this quarter, but for now, I just don’t see much value in sovereign debt.

Credit

• A “weird” barbell. I’m most concerned about leveraged loans (more so than high yield, because of the type of issuer that tapped that market, versus the bond market), but I like “senior” tranches of CLOs (anything IG rated and even BB). It is difficult to go lower in the cap structure of CLOs given the fact that the building blocks are my least favorite part of the credit market. Prices of various CLO tranches have bounced nicely in the past couple of months and new deals could accumulate some good collateral at really interesting levels.
• I’m “meh” on high yield and even investment grade.
  • High yield is so hated but while it is interesting, the combination of rate risk and credit risk isn’t a screaming buy to me (though certainly more of a buy than leveraged loans).
  • Investment grade is ok, but I think if Treasury yields rise, spreads will contract by 25% or so of the move in Treasuries, so I expect higher overall yields and lower dollar prices. If sovereign yields drop, spreads will widen on at least a 50% basis (if not closer to 100%). So, in a falling yield environment, IG yields won’t change much and dollar prices won’t do a lot (kind of a difficult risk/reward to pitch).
• So, I am equal weight IG and underweight sovereign debt. I am underweight leveraged loans and would use those funds to buy CLO tranches or some high yield bonds instead.

That’s what I’ve got for now. Will be an interesting week or two and it is difficult being so bearish on the economy, but neutral (and maybe “gun to the head” bullish) on risk in the very short-term.

You know it’s bad when…

No lessor liar than Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.), the now former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, admitted this morning that it’s possible national security was jeopardized after President Joe Biden’s lawyers confirmed classified documents were found in various locations.

“I don’t think we can exclude the possibility without knowing more of the facts,” the California Democrat said of the Biden documents when pressed by “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl about any national security risks.

“We have asked for an assessment in the intelligence community of the Mar-a-Lago documents,” Schiff said.

“I think we ought to get that same assessment of the documents found in the think tank as well as the home of President Biden. I’d like to know what these documents were. I’d like to know what the [intelligence community’s] assessment is, whether there was any risk of exposure and what the harm would be and whether any mitigation needs to be done.”

Of course, Schiff was quick to get back on track with the narrative, as echoing the media and most other Democrats, the Russia collusion hoaxer asserted that Biden’s and Trump’s cases are different because Biden, he said, is cooperating.

“The Biden approach was very different in the sense that it looks that it was inadvertent that these documents were at these locations,” Schiff said.

“There was no effort to hold onto them, no effort to conceal them, no effort to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation.”

Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff says he’s “going to reserve judgment” on the Biden classified document scandal because it was probably “inadvertent” that Biden left classified documents lying around his office, garage, and home.#Democrat #Schiff #ClassifiedDocuments

via @RNCresearch pic.twitter.com/kq8k0f0pVU

— TRUTH PUKE (@TruthPuke) January 15, 2023

It’s worth noting, however, that the National Archives had confirmed last year that Trump’s lawyers were cooperating with the agency before the FBI raided his Florida residence in August.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Department of Defense may provide back pay to former service members who were removed for not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, coming after the Pentagon repealed the mandate, a spokesperson confirmed Friday.

A Pentagon spokesperson told The Epoch Times, in response to reports from Politico and others, that regarding back pay, the “Department is still exploring this and will provide its views on legislation of this nature at the appropriate time and through the appropriate process.”

Dietz did not provide a timetable for when back pay might be considered.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memo (pdf) formally rescinding the vaccine mandate after lawmakers passed a defense spending bill into law in December that required the change. The Pentagon had already stopped discharging service members who didn’t get the vaccine.

“The Department will continue to promote and encourage COVID-19 vaccination for all service members,” Austin wrote, coming about a year and a half after it was implemented.

“Vaccination enhances operational readiness and protects the force.”

Commanders can decide on whether to deploy troops who are not vaccinated, the memo said. That includes when COVID-19 vaccination is mandated “for travel to, or entry into, a foreign nation,” it added.

“Certainly commanders do have a responsibility to ensure that if they’re sending forces to a place that requires a vaccine that that’s a situation that will be addressed, you know, on a case-by-case basis,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters on Thursday.

“But you know, we have a responsibility for the health and welfare of our forces. And so, you know, again, depending on the situation and the circumstances, it is incumbent on commanders to ensure that they’re doing what they need to do to make sure those forces are ready.”

The contentious mandate forced more than 8,400 troops out of the military as top officials said they were refusing to obey an order for declining to take the vaccine. Thousands of people sought medical and religious exemptions, although a federal judge last month wrote (pdf) that the number of service members who successfully obtained religious exemption is far smaller than those who got medical exemptions.

Austin said more than 2 million service members, or 96 percent of the active duty and reserve forces, are fully vaccinated.

In August 2021 and after the Pfizer vaccine was granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, Austin instituted the mandate and said that it was necessary to protect the health of the military force.

He and other defense leaders argued that for decades troops, particularly those deployed overseas, had been required to get as many as 17 different vaccines, including shots for anthrax. No other vaccine mandates were affected by the new rules.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in December that the Biden administration believes removing the mandate was a “mistake,” repeating claims from Austin that the shot makes “sure our troops are prepared and ready for service.” President Joe Biden ultimately signed the bill when it passed both chambers of Congress.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington on Nov. 3, 2022. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo)

Despite those arguments, Congress agreed to rescind the mandate, with opponents reluctantly saying that perhaps it had already succeeded in getting the bulk of the force vaccinated. Some lawmakers have expressed concerns that the mandate and other policy directives have driven down enlistment in recent years.

Those members of Congress argued that ending the mandate would help with recruiting. Defense officials have pushed back by saying that while it may help a bit, a department survey during the first nine months of last year found that a large majority said the mandate did not change the likelihood they would consider enlisting.

Those who were discharged for refusing to obey a lawful order to take the vaccine received either an honorable discharge or a general discharge under honorable conditions.

Austin’s memo says that anyone who was discharged can petition their military service to request a change in the “characterization of their discharge” in their personnel records. It does not, however, say what possible corrections could be awarded.

The Ukrainian government has recently issued a call for its Western backers to provide heavy tanks so in can beat back Russian forces, after countries like Poland and other Eastern European governments have already provided an estimated 300 modernized Soviet tanks since last February.

But Kiev is urging for hundreds more Western-manufactured tanks to be sent, especially the US M1 Abrams. But so far Washington has only pledged light infantry carriers – the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

As we detailed previously, it’s now the UK and Poland leading the charge among allies to send tanks, given London lately announced it will send the the Challenger 2, widely considered a highly capable main battle tank. But a new warning from Moscow has said the decision will only intensify the conflict, saying that instead of bringing any significant Ukrainian edge on the battlefield, more civilians will be harmed in the fighting.

“Bringing tanks to the conflict zone, far from drawing the hostilities to a close, will only serve to intensify combat operations, generating more casualties, including among the civilian population,” a weekend statement by the Russian embassy in London said.

Undeterred by Russia’s warnings, Ukrainian President Zelensky thanked the UK for the takes, suggesting that Britain has made it easier for other allies to send heavy tanks. He said this “will not only strengthen us on the battle field, but also send the right signal to other partners“.

Zelensky and his top officials have also repeatedly requested air power in order to “close the skies” given clearly Russia has a significant aerial tactical advantage, though the US is now training Ukrainian personnel on how to operate Patriot anti-air defense missiles. 

“To win this war, we need more military equipment, heavy equipment,” a statement from Zelensky’s office also urged. Poland days ago pledged German-made Leopard tanks.

As for air power, UK tabloid papers have reported that Britain will also supply a handful of Apache attack helicopters, but this prompted an immediate denial of the claims by the British government. 

The tanks package is expected to be delivered to the Ukrainians “in the coming weeks” according to a UK statement, and it will be a squadron, or 14 ‘Challenger 2’ tanks, including over two dozen AS-90 artillery guns.

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said that “swift congressional oversight” is coming, after the White House revealed on Jan. 14 that additional pages of classified documents had been found at President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

“We first learned about the Penn Biden Center classified documents months after they were found in an unsecure closet,” Comer wrote according to a statement.

“Then it took the White House weeks to inform the public about the documents found in President Biden’s Wilmington garage.

“And now days later, we are learning that there are more documents at the Wilmington residence. Are there more classified documents to be found?” Comer asked.

Classified Documents

It has been a tumultuous week for the Biden administration, since White House lawyer Richard Sauber on Jan. 9 revealed that documents with classified markings were found at the president’s former office space at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington.

The timing of the revelation has raised some questions, given that the public didn’t become aware of the documents immediately after they were found. According to Sauber, the documents were found on Nov. 2, 2022—just days before the midterm elections—and were turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) the next day.

On Saturday, Sauber announced that five additional pages with classification markings were found in Biden’s Wilmington residence two days earlier, in addition to one classified document found there on Wednesday.

The six pages were found in a room next to the garage at his Wilmington residence, according to Sauber.

The potential mishandling of classified documents and other government records from the Obama administration is under investigation by a former federal prosecutor, Robert Hur, who was named as a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Jan. 12.

“President Biden’s three strikes against transparency will be met with swift congressional oversight,” Comer wrote.

“The White House, the National Archives, and the Justice Department failed to promptly inform Congress and the American people about mishandled classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president.”

On Friday, Comer announced that his committee had already launched an investigation into Biden’s documents, in a letter to  White House counsel Stuart Delery. The Kentucky Republican requested the White House to turn over a range of documents and other materials by Jan. 27.

“The Biden White House’s secrecy in this matter is alarming,” Comer added.

“Equally alarming is the fact that Biden aides were combing through documents knowing there would be a Special Counsel appointed.

“Many questions need to be answered but one thing is certain: oversight is coming.”

‘Double Standard’

Following the discovery of another batch of classified documents at Biden’s home, some Republican lawmakers took aim at the Department of Justice, wondering why FBI agents have not searched Biden’s home.

“More classified documents found in President Biden’s home, yet still no FBI raid—the double standard is apparent,” Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) wrote on Twitter.

“Americans deserve to know why President Biden had these documents & who had access to them.”

Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) posted on Twitter, “WHERE IS THE FBI? TWO SYSTEMS OF JUSTICE!”

Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) wrote on Twitter saying that Biden’s home “is a crime scene.”

“Why is the @FBI not raiding his home the same way they did President Trumps?” Harshbarger wrote.

“The @FBI owes the American people answers.”

FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in August 2022, seizing over 11,000 documents and photographs without classified markings and around 100 documents marked classified or top secret. However, Trump has said he declassified the materials when he left office.

In November, Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel overseeing DOJ probes related to Trump.

“Full FBI raid happens when?” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote on Twitter.

Investigation

The House Judiciary Committee is conducting its own investigation into the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s home and former office.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the committee, and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote a letter to Garland on Friday announcing the investigation.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) speaks during an on-camera interview near the House Chambers during a series of votes in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Jan. 09, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C. private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware residence,” the two lawmakers wrote.

“It is unclear when the Department first came to learn about the existence of these documents, and whether it actively concealed this information from the public on the eve of the 2022 election,” they continued.

“It is also unclear what interactions, if any, the Department had with President Biden or his representatives about his mishandling of classified material.”

The committee requested a range of documents and communications by Jan. 27, including those among the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Executive Office of the President.

“We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry,” they added.

Former Alabama Broncos star running back Ahmaad Galloway died suddenly this week at age 42.  Galloway was an eighth-grade English teacher at Compton-Drew Middle School in St. Louis, Missouri. When Galloway did not show up for work, the school contacted authorities. Police conducted a welfare check and found the former football star dead in his apartment.  The cause of death has not yet been made public. 

Compton-Drew Middle School Principal Susan Reid said she knew something wasn’t right.

“Ahmaad was always on time, very responsible, so we knew something might be wrong,” Reid told WVTM 13. “There wasn’t anything disrupted at Ahmaad’s apartment, so we are thinking that it could have been a medical issue.”

His passing is just one among a flurry of sudden fatalities in the past year among athletes and former athletes in particular, occurring at relatively young ages.  In the majority of deaths, heart failure or circulatory failure is found to be the culprit.

Jordan Brister, 18, died Sunday, Jan. 8, after suffering a cardiac arrest on Jan. 3 during the school day at Amplus Academy in Las Vegas, according to a statement by the school shared by NBC affiliate KSNV. He was found unresponsive in the school bathroom after attending gym class, his family told KSNV.

According to local reports from Campbell County, 17-year-old Max Sorenson died of a “medical event” at his home Monday, December 26. Campbell County Coroner Paul Wallem said that following the medical incident at his home, the high school basketball player was rushed to the Campbell County Memorial Hospital in Gillette, Wyoming.

However, despite efforts from the doctors, he was pronounced deceased.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter Victoria ‘The Prodigy’ Lee has tragically died last week at just 18 years old, of a medical condition which has not yet been revealed to the public.

A 16-year-old girl in Las Vegas has died after “suffering a medical episode during an athletic event according to a message sent to families,” reported KSNV, the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas. The student has been identified as 16-year-old Ashari Hughes. The medical emergency occurred Jan. 5 during a flag football game, according to The Las Vegas Review-Journal. The newspaper also reported that Hughes collapsed during her team’s home game against Valley High School. She was taken to the hospital and died later that night.

The list goes on and on.

Excess deaths have jumped dramatically in the US (excess deaths being fatalities beyond the yearly average).  The majority of excess deaths in the past two years involving people under the age of 65 were not caused by Covid infection.  At least 32,000 excess deaths in 2021 have been directly attributed to heart failure and circulation related failures.  Circulatory deaths were a major contributor to additional deaths among ages 18 to 44.

The UK has released information indicating a similar spike in excess deaths last year – The highest in 50 years, in fact.  UK officials of course deny any connection to vaccine side effects (an often cited concern by the public), and instead claim that heart failure may be the after-effect of covid infection.  However, multiple reports and studies show that the covid virus causes no significant damage to the heart and is not a contributor to heart failure, despite rumors spread within the mainstream media. 

For example, In March 2021, a group of sports cardiologists reported on nearly 800 professional athletes who had tested positive for Covid-19. Less than 1% of these athletes had abnormal findings on cardiac magnetic resonance scans or stress echocardiography. None of these athletes had cardiovascular trouble when they returned to play. 

This means that there is some other cause besides covid which just happens to have started in 2021.  Studies do show a direct link between covid vaccination and Myocarditis.  This would help to explain the jump in non-covid excess deaths related to heart failure since 2021, but since most studies investigating vaccination side effects do not use unvaccinated people as a control group, there is no hard data on vaccinated versus unvaccinated negative events.

There will certainly be deaths among younger people for a myriad of reasons that are natural, and the cause of death of Ahmaad Galloway and others may be any number of culprits as many medical reports remain unreleased.  That said, it is important to note the ongoing and highly suspicious trend of heart damage to people well below the age of commonality and track it carefully.

At least 68 passengers have been killed after a Nepal airliner crashed Sunday in the county’s worst aviation disaster in more than 30 years.

The Yeti Airlines ATR 72 plane, which is a twin-engine turboprop meant for short-haul regional flights, went down near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal, carrying a total of 72 people including four crew members.

Nepal’s civil aviation authority has indicated that 37 were men, 25 were women, as well as three children and three were infants.

Hundreds of rescue workers descended on a large hillside where the airliner went down. Subsequent circulating footage showed huge flames engulfing the area in the immediate aftermath of the crash. The plane appears to be at the bottom of a river gorge.

One local resident identified as Bishnu Tiwari, who assisted in rescue efforts, described of the massive flames: 

“The flames were so hot that we couldn’t go near the wreckage. I heard a man crying for help, but because of the flames and smoke we couldn’t help him.”

The plane had reportedly been preparing to land when the crash happened. The New York Times details of the difficult rescue efforts:

The Nepal Army said it had retrieved 66 bodies from the site as of Sunday evening. Rescuers had taken 29 bodies to a hospital for identification and at least 33 were still at the site, according to Brig. Gen. Krishna Prasad Bhandari, a spokesman for the Nepal Army.

Tek Bahadur KC, the chief administrator of the district of Kaski, where the crash took place said rescuers had to struggle to reach the site, at first because of all the smoke, and because the plane had gone down into a gorge.

Widely circulating but unconfirmed footage showed the plane roll hard just before going down.

A video showing moments before a deadly plane crash in Nepal that saw 72 people killed earlier today. The Yeti Airlines jet crashed near Pokhara International Airport in Nepal and was carrying a total of 68 passengers and four crew members. pic.twitter.com/4DbGY7nUi7

— Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@alihashem_tv) January 15, 2023

The report further indicates there were a number of international passengers on the flight: “Out of the 68 passengers on board Sunday’s flight, 53 were from Nepal, five from India, four from Russia, two from South Korea, and one each from Australia, Argentina, France and Ireland, according to Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority.”

In total there were 15 international passengers on board, and all four crewmembers were Nepalese.

The country of Nepal relies heavily on tourism, and these types of turbo engine planes are often used to fly passengers to remote cities and towns across the country, and are typically brief flights.

#Nepal
72 passengers were on board. Plane crash at Pokhra International Airport. pic.twitter.com/igBoObcCDm

— Aishwarya Paliwal (@AishPaliwal) January 15, 2023

Aviation monitors are now saying Sunday’s incident marks the third-deadliest crash in Himalayan nation’s history, with two 1992 crashes, one involving Thai Airways in July of that year which left 113 dead, and another involving Pakistan International airlines later in September which killed 167 people – among the deadliest.

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

Know your tails. In a year facing an unusually wide set of outcomes, knowing what the tail risks are and how to hedge them is of paramount importance.

The top three tail risks I see facing the global economy – and three havens offering a refuge – are:

1. Stubborn or resurgent inflation —> commodities and other real assets

2. US recession —> shorter-dated Treasuries or bills (or even cash)

3. Global funding crisis —> US dollar

A non-negligible risk facing markets this year and beyond is inflation that fails to fall back to pre-Covid levels and remains stickier and more entrenched. In this case, a greater exposure to commodities and other real assets is essential.

Commodities were the only main asset class to deliver a positive real return in the 1970s. Stocks, corporate bonds and US Treasuries all posted negative real returns in that decade. Moreover, commodities, despite their post-Covid rise, continue to be generationally cheap versus stocks and bonds.

Simply put, the investment community is still woefully underweight commodities, an asset that stands to be one of the few beneficiaries of persistent inflation. Using US ETFs as a proxy, commodities are only 2% of the total invested in stocks, bonds and commodities. Even a small redirection of flows from financial assets to commodities would lead to outsized gains in the latter.

Commodities are also a hedge against rising geopolitical risk, as countries seek to fortify their accessibility to raw materials essential for energy, infrastructure and renewable technologies.

How best to find safety from a US recession, the most likely of the three risks highlighted? Several reliable leading indicators are consistent with a recession beginning as early as the summer. Given the weight of data in favor of a slump, it would be remiss not posit that one is likely.

Treasuries are the haven of choice in a recession. Aside from their liquidity and the support they get from rate cuts, they benefit from raw fear: if you know in a panic people reach for US Treasury debt, then it’s rational to panic first.

Bonds have generally gone up for most of the past 40 years, so any historical analysis will have that bias. Still, it is clear from the chart below that Treasuries on average see an acceleration in their rally after the recession begins.

The caveat this time around is we are in an inflationary world, and bonds may not rally as much in an inflationary recession.

A way to mitigate this risk would be buying shorter-dated USTs or bills, avoiding some of the larger real capital losses that would come with longer-maturity debt.

Moreover, despite the recent rally, USTs are still deeply oversold and speculators remain very net short, meaning any rally has the potential to be turbocharged in a flight to safety.

The third major tail risk facing markets this year is a funding crisis, for which the dollar is a place of refuge. It remains the dominant currency in the international monetary system, despite initiatives to reduce the dollarization of the global economy, such as closer trade cooperation between China and Russia, and a mooted expansion of the BRICs. It eclipses the euro, yen, sterling and the yuan in FX reserves, debt outstanding and trade settlement.

Source: Atlantic Council

The Fed thus remains not only the domestic lender of last resort, but the international lender of last resort. Yet the US central bank is contracting its balance sheet, with the pace set to rise this year. The stickiness of the overnight reverse repo facility will ultimately ensure bank reserves bear the brunt of QT, heightening risks that dollar funding becomes scarce and expensive.

Disruptions to dollar funding often become self-fueling, due to the structural dollar short inherent in the global monetary system. In the chart below, we can see that rises in the dollar lead to falls in global crossborder lending in USD, as borrowers scramble to source dollars that are rising in cost, leading to default and deleveraging.

The dollar is likely to remain in a downtrend as long as the real yield curve keeps flattening, but it continues to be one of the best hedges if dollar-funding pressures arise this year, especially against EM currencies of countries with large external-debt positions and sizable current-account deficits, such as Turkey, Chile and Hungary.

Markets also face mounting exogenous risks this year, for instance a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Although not discussed here, such risks would likely precipitate at least one of the outcomes already highlighted.

In any crisis, it’s not about seeking what assets return the most, but finding what loses the least.

The options highlighted can’t be guaranteed to offer a positive return, especially in real terms, but they stand in a good position to outperform other assets in the scenarios explored.

A haven is defined as a “safe or peaceful place”. Unfortunately, 2023 is unlikely to offer any truly tranquil escapes, but real assets, USTs and the dollar promise to act as sturdy life rafts when a storm hits.