Submitted by Larry McDonald, author of The Bear Traps Report

This week, TSLA equity traded 61% below the 200-day moving average, the most in a decade — Tesla reports Q4 unit sales before trading starts Tuesday, January 3rd.

Tesla vs. CAT, the Mad Rush into Industrials

“Investors falling all over themselves to exit tech stocks and increase exposure to industrials. Hard asset plays have dramatically outperformed financial assets – and long-duration “growth” equities. The street is looking for $112B of sales in 2023 vs. a $384B equity market capitalization for TSLA stock.  She used to trade at 80x sales, just wow.”

A $1T Loss?

If TSLA touches $98, the market cap loss is near $1 trillion, stock traded at $105 pre-market this week. Close to $25B value of shares traded Tuesday, more than Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google combined. Nearly 700m shares in 3 days this week, that´s 25% of the float. This is an epic retail exit – tax loss selling. Daily RSI was near 17 this week, the lowest of all time for this capitulation measuring stick. Tesla was 5th largest in the S&P, now 18, now less than UNH, Lilly, and Chevron. If you sell TSLA equity in December – the investor can buy the stock in 31 days and still book the loss for tax purposes. In years with LARGE Q4 equity market losses – the “January Effect”* can be fairly impressive. Looking back over the last 50 years – when you have a down December, stocks are up 1.2% in January. Since 1991, with stocks off more than -2% in December, they have been up +3.7% on average in January, Bloomberg terminal data.

**The January Effect is a tendency for increases in stock prices during the beginning of the year, particularly in the month of January. The cause behind the January Effect is attributed to tax-loss harvesting, consumer sentiment, year-end bonuses, raising year-end report performances, and more. – CFI.

That said,  a recent analysis from Goldman found that the January effect has largely shifted to November since 1990.

“Historic forced margin calls for Tesla – it´s all retail Larry, ALL retail – rather than sentiment shift, see large scale TRF (Schwab, Ameritrade, etc) volume. The SIZE TSLA margin calls are forcing (triggering) ALOT of cross-selling through the entire long duration – speculative equity campgrounds.” — Equity Portfolio Manager on the West Coast, in our Bear Traps Portfolio

TSLA normally reports quarterly unit sales in the first weekend after the end of each quarter. Consensus is looking for a total of ~420K cars sold (down from 450K est. a few weeks ago). Given that New Year falls on the weekend, there is some uncertainty as to when exactly TSLA reports Q4 unit sales. Either Monday or Tuesday, January 3rd around the market open is most likely.

Previous January Report Date / Time

• Sunday 1/2/2022 11am Stock +13.5% the next day
• Friday 1/2/2021 9:55am Stock +3.4% the next Monday
• Friday 1/3/2020 8:17am Stock +3% that day
• Wednesday 1/2/2019 8:34am Stock -1.5% that day

Is Team Biden coming to Tesla’s Rescue?

At the start of the new year, buyers will once again enjoy a tax credit when they purchase a Tesla vehicle. The original 2010 EV tax credit had a quota of 400K units. For Tesla, the tax credits fully disappeared in early 2020 when Tesla reached that unit sales quota. But thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that Congress passed earlier this year and Biden signed yesterday, the tax credits are back in 2023. In the IRA there is a $7,500 tax credit for buyers of EVs, including TSLA and GM, who lost their previous tax credits. However, there are other strict limits on which brands would be eligible for the full credit, based on the selling price and where the cars and components are made. Unless the car is made in North America (NAFTA), the buyer is not eligible for the full tax credit. In addition, at least 50% of the battery parts will need to be made in North America. Lastly, a minimum of 40% of minerals used in the batteries must be sourced from the US or countries with free trade agreements with the US. So even buyers of GM and Tesla cars might only be eligible for half ($3,750) of the tax credit because their batteries and minerals come from a “foreign entity of concern” (China/Russia).

However, the Treasury Department recently said that the final decision on the critical minerals’ requirement won’t be available until March. As a result, all the requirements in the IRA governing EV cars, minerals, and parts will be waived. This means that, until Treasury issues its final set of rules, it will allow the full $7,500 tax incentive on all qualifying models.**

“We don’t expect them to reach 400K (unit sales) in Q4, data comes next week – early January. But, we also don’t think they always tell the truth. So, who knows? The IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) is about the only thing here between TSLA and a complete collapse in demand from what we can see. Also, many other countries have subsidies that are ending on December 31st. So, TSLA is benefiting from demand pull forward in those other countries. That will reverse in the March quarter, and may offset some of the benefits stated by the bulls.” – CIO, Large Fund.

So, prospective EV buyers in the US will be extremely motivated to buy their EV before the Treasury issues their final list of requirements in March, as it could potentially save them thousands. We could therefore see demand for Tesla cars and other EVs (2 out of every three EVs sold in the US are Tesla’s) being pulled forward into Q1.

Musk is keenly aware that all this might have led EV car buyers to postpone purchases until Q1 and he increased year-end rebates to $7,500 and 10K miles of free charging in early December. Whether this was enough to meet Tesla’s estimates for 420K unit sales for Q4 remains to be seen. We will know this before trading starts on January 3. But the IRA waiver could still cause a burst in US sales in early 2023.

This is not the only boon for Tesla starting next year. The EPA is proposing to increase the cellulosic ethanol component in the renewable fuel standard will climb to 2.13 billion gallons from 630 million. Refiners will be allowed and by necessity required to comply with these mandates by buying “eRINs” credits from EV manufacturers. Since Tesla has by far the most EV cars on the road, refiners will have to buy most eRINs from Tesla.

In years past Tesla always boosted gross margins from “Zero Emission Credits” that other car makers bought from Tesla to offset carbon emissions. Now the administration is giving Tesla another back door subsidy, although it is yet unclear when these rules go into effect.

** EV and plug-in models were manufactured in North America in the 2022 and 2023 model years that DOE says are eligible: Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, GMC, Jeep, Lincoln, Lucid, Nissan, Rivian, Tesla, Volvo, Cadillac, Mercedes and Volkswagen. Yet because of price limits or battery-size requirements, not all these vehicle models will qualify for credits. Note that IRS details issued on Dec 29 indicated that only 20% of Model Y would be eligible for full tax credit, unless Tesla lowers their price on certain versions of the Y.

Authored by Masooma Haq and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Inventor of mRNA vaccines Dr. Robert Malone, having worked with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for many years, warns that a war is being waged by the government for control of people’s minds, and that social media platforms are being weaponized in this war and are “actively employed” by the intelligence community to influence what people think and feel.

“This new battleground, in which your mind and your thoughts, your very emotions are the battleground. It is not about territory,” Malone said during a recent interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. “Twitter, it’s clear now, has become the premium platform for shaping emerging global consensus about the topics of the day.”

During his work with the DOD, Malone became aware of companies researching multilingual programs that assess the emotional content of the language used on social media, which those companies then use to “map relationship clouds,” including what topics people are discussing, who the influencers are, and who is at the fringe of that cloud, said Malone.

Phenomena like being deplatformed, shadowbanned, and a “tweet” going viral is a part of this weaponizing of social media.

“By using these tools of manipulating what information, what tweets you put out, what messages you put out to your influencer cloud, they can modulate how those people behave,” he said. “You can actually very actively control what individuals are thinking, the information that they’re gathering, what they’re being influenced to do.”

The people who control information warfare weapons can modulate the messaging within the influencer clouds that can be readily mapped, Malone said.

“Your current state of mind, based on the language that you’re using and the topics that you’re talking about, can be mapped very precisely, psychologically,” he said. “It can be tied into a web of influence relationships.”

High-Tech Surveillance

Members of a specific “influencer cloud” can be tracked using the military spy technology called the Gorgon Stare, said Malone. This spy technology is capable of detecting movements including what car you drive, who gets in your car, and where you go, he said.

The Gorgon Stare is a surveillance technology, originally created to target terrorist groups, that utilizes high-tech cameras mounted on drones to capture video images of large areas, such as entire cities. Then artificial intelligence is used to analyze the surveillance footage.

Arthur Holland Michel, author of the book, “Eyes in the Sky: The Secret Rise of Gorgon Stare and How It Will Watch Us All,” called this technology the “pinnacle of aerial surveillance” during a 2019 interview with the CATO Institute and said the things he learned while writing the book were so troubling, they kept him up at night.

Collusion During the Pandemic

Elon Musk has brought more transparency to Twitter, but the information he revealed only confirmed that the FBI and intelligence agencies had major influence over the platform, said Malone.

“Elon now is in a position where he has access to incredibly damaging information about the willingness of the U.S. government to collude with industry and compromise the First Amendment,” said Malone.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter is significant, but only time will tell what the final outcome of it will have for our democracy and the First Amendment, Malone added.

Since the start of the pandemic, Malone and his wife and fellow scientist, Jill Glasspool Malone, have become aware of the government’s breach of all guardrails, said Malone, in terms of ethics and the norms of drug development, bioethics, biodefense, and pharmaceutical development.

“We have all been subjected, over the last three years, to military-grade psychological operations that were using technology developed for offshore conflicts, and they had been deployed against the citizens of virtually the entire Western world.”

The same strategies that are used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to control the Chinese citizens have been used by elites in the United States, said Malone.

“We’re now seeing the documentation on a daily basis released to us by Twitter, of this intense collusion between the U.S. government, tech, and corporate media,” said Malone.

Citizens Are Manipulated

Millions of Americans accepted a new product (the mRNA vaccine) that skipped normal safety and efficacy protocols and is still only in use under emergency use authorization because “the government felt that it was acceptable to deploy these military-grade technologies against all of us to coerce, compel, and mandate that we accept an unlicensed product that turns out to not be safe, nor effective,” said Malone.

People were coerced into taking this experimental vaccine because they were manipulated on a scale that is hard to fathom, said Malone. This is how entities like the CCP are able to carry out human rights atrocities, like live organ harvesting, where prisoners of consciousness are murdered for their organs, he added.

China grew its organ “transplant” industry from 1999 to now, with a wait time in China for a major organ transplant being months rather than the years it can take in western countries.

This happens because people cannot conceive of “the possibility that these things might be happening in this way, whether it’s organ harvesting, or it’s the darkness of what appears to be the emergence of a pharmaceutical corporatist, global, centralized state,” said Malone.

Most people cannot fathom such evil exists because they are still good, said Malone.

“Not only have we been subjected to this barrage of coordinated propaganda, we’ve been subjected to a barrage of intentional manipulation of our very language to support this initiative and this agenda,” said Malone.

The New Book

Malone’s new book attempts to sort through the events of the last three years to understand what happened and why, which he said is important to start to chart a healthy path forward.

“Each of these chapters derives from a kind of a real-time assessment of events that were occurring,” he said, and the events were also cited in Malone’s substack writings.

Readers should discern the truth for themselves by finding credible sources of information, he said, adding that his goal is to provide factual information to the public so they can make informed decisions because society is in a time when people are being inundated with “totalitarian propaganda.”

In the final third of the book, Malone suggests some concrete actions that could help restore democracy and alleviate the corruption that has besieged the federal government by changing laws to allow for term limits for the federal bureaucracy.

“This has to do with things like the legal underpinning that enables the existence of this permanent cadre that we call the Senior Executive Service, these thousands of people that cannot be fired, that functionally run the government,” said Malone.

Former President Donald Trump’s attempt to reassign classification for upper-level federal employees in the state department, with his schedule F executive order, was a crucial step to restoring balance in the three branches of the government, said Malone.

However, after President Joe Biden took office, he nullified the Schedule F executive order, which Malone said was “an example of how powerful these entrenched administrative state interests are.”

Another crucial step to end government corruption is to separate the power of federal agencies to both regulate and promote the industry they are in charge of, said Malone.

“[Dr.] Peter McCullough likes to point out the FDA, under emergency use authorization, acts as both the sponsor and the regulator of these medical products,” said Malone. “And the corruption of the FDA and the CDC is at such a stage now that I think it is so self-evident that only the most hypnotized deny it.”

Envisioning a New Future

These actions alone will likely not end the deep-rooted corruption and collusion of the intelligence community within the agencies, said Malone, but it is a step forward.

People like Dr. Anthony Fauci are working in tandem with the intelligence agencies, and this can be seen by the development of the new National Institutes of Health (NIH) department, the Advance Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), said Malone.

The Epoch Times reached out to the NIH for comment.

This new department is led by a former officer with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and has a budget of about $1 billion. Malone said the purpose of the department “appears to be the advancement of transhumanism and a biometric identification and all of that agenda within NIH. It’s basically the intelligence community moving in within NIH.”

Malone asked how humans can “enable a decentralized future for all of us, as opposed to this very dark, Fourth Industrial Revolution, transhumanism central command economy.”

Read more here…

In 1739, Benjamin Franklin sought to tackle the issue of counterfeit money in America, using a printing press and leaves to create unique raised patterns on the colonial notes.

Almost 300 years later, Benjamin Franklin is the face of the U.S. $100 bill, and it is protected by a myriad of security features including secret images, special ink, hidden watermarks, and magnetic signatures, among others.

In this infographic below, Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop and Mark Belan have broken down the $100 bill to showcase the anatomy of American currency.

The Makeup of American Money

There are 6 key features that identify real bills and protect the falsification of American money.

① Serial Numbers & EURion Constellation

The most basic form of security on an $100 bill is the serial number. Every bill has a unique number to record data on its production and keep track of how many individual bills are in circulation.

The EURion constellation is star-like grouping of yellow rings near the serial number. It is only detectable by imaging software.

② Color Changing Ink

This ink changes color at different angles thanks to small metallic flakes within the ink itself. The $100 bill, like all other paper bills in the U.S., has its value denoted in color changing ink on the bottom right-hand corner; unlike other bills, it also features a liberty bell image using the ink.

③ Microprinting

Microprinting allows for verifiable images that cannot be scanned by photocopiers or seen by the naked eye. The $100 bill has phrases like “USA 100” written invisibly in multiple places.

④ Intaglio Printing

Rather than regular ink pressed onto the paper, intaglio printing uses magnetic ink and every different bill value has a unique magnetic signature.

⑤ Security Threads & 3D Ribbons

The security thread is a clear, embedded, vertical thread running through the bill. It can only be seen under UV light, contains microprinted text specifying the bill’s value, and on each different bill value it glows a unique color.

Additionally, 3D ribbons are placed in the center of $100 bills with a pattern that slightly changes as it moves.

⑥ Paper, Fibers, & Watermarks

Because American money is made of cotton and linen, blue and red cloth fibers are woven into the material as another identifying feature. Finally, watermarks are found on most bills and can only be detected by light passing through the bill.

The Relevance of Cash

Here’s a look at the total number of each paper bill that is physically in circulation in the U.S.:

Interestingly, a number of $500-$10,000 dollar bills are in someone’s pockets. And while they are not issued anymore, the Fed still recognizes the originals of these bills that were legally put into circulation in the past.

A $10,000 Federal Reserve Note (1934)

Additionally, there is fake money passing hands in the U.S. economy. Being the most widely-accepted currency in the world, it’s no wonder many try to falsely replicate American money. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, there are approximately $70 million in counterfeit bills currently circulating in the country.

Finally, a natural question arises: how many people still use cash anyways?

Well, a study from Pew Research Center found that it while it is a dwindling share of the population, around 58% of people still use cash for some to all of their weekly purchases, down from 70% in 2018 and 75% in 2015.

Doug Wilson, Portfolio Manager, One River Digital Asset Management LLC

Just Another Cycle

Commodities are the lifeline to the global economy. We eat energy. Periods of strong demand often reveal strains in supply chains that lead to rapid price appreciation. Capital investment follows, with return expectations extrapolated from high prices and record margins. A downdraft in demand exposes excess investment, prices decline, and the weakest links in the supply chain are culled. Long periods of low prices lead to complacency, strong demand strains supply chains, and a rhythmic cycle emerges: boom, bust, recovery.

Natural gas in the early 2000s is an interesting example. From 2002 to 2008, natural gas prices experienced a period of dramatic price appreciation from $2.00/MMBtu to $16.00/MMBtu as economic activity accelerated and existing supply sources strained to keep pace. The market was sending a clear price signal to energy producers: to discover and capitalize on new sources of supply. This price signal had a ripple effect, as it also impacted associated sectors like power production, chemicals, and coal mining.

Cash flows from flush production found their way into Research & Development budgets that discovered technologies like Hydraulic Fracturing and Horizontal Drilling. A few hundred feet at first, now well laterals are measured in miles. Natural Gas Turbine efficiency (Heat Rate) improved dramatically. This new capital equipment and production were financed with organic cash flows initially, but then quickly morphed into aggressive rounds of debt and equity financing. This debt-fueled capital expansion of commodity industries was justified by the fact that prices were high, margins were at record levels, and the new technology allowed producers to be more efficient – lowering the unit cost of production. Recovery of capital was projected to happen in record time. It also brought rounds of leverage buyouts and acquisitions, most notably the 2007 TXU Energy LBO.

As we all know, the influx of new capital underwritten based on peak commodity prices and peak operating margins resulted in an unprecedented amount of supply additions across the natural gas, power sectors, uranium, and coal. This influx of supply, combined with a global downturn, compressed BOTH prices and margins significantly. Debt service could not be sustained. As a result:

• TXU went bankrupt – along with many other Independent Power Producers (Mirant, Reliant, Calpine, etc.),

• Countless gas exploration & production (E&P) companies sought bankruptcy protection,

• Every single public coal company declared bankruptcy.

Ultimately, ownership was transferred from equity holders to lenders. The market participants that had eagerly embraced these assets quickly wrote them off as worthless – “Going to ZERO.” This presented a terrific entry point for longer-term, patient capital.

These ignored assets are now generating amongst the highest free cash flow yield across all industries. The catalyst for recovery was the rationing of new investment, enabled by the restructuring of capital.

Bitcoin Mining is following the same pattern now.

For context, the Bitcoin mining sector experienced an unprecedented BOOM in the autumn of 2021. This was driven by elevated commodity prices (Bitcoin at $67,734 on 11/9/2021) and record mining margins (Hash Spread1 of $550/MWh) brought about by the reduction in competition post China’s ban on Bitcoin Mining. This combination of high prices and record margins attracted new capital to the sector with the promise of rapid payback underwritten by continued projections of success.

​​Similar to past energy sector commodity BUSTS, the influx of new investments in Bitcoin mining resulted in a dramatic compression of Bitcoin mining margins from a peak of $550/MWh to $50/MWh.

Mining operations are currently profitable, but unable to service their financial obligations. So, they now must turn to bankruptcy. Since our webinar in July, our investment pipeline has expanded significantly as more Bitcoin mining lenders and borrowers find themselves in distress.

Similar to prior commodity cycles, our expectation is that ownership will pass from equity owners to lenders. We expect these new owners will run these businesses for cash flow as opposed to growth. Growth capital will avoid this sector for years, like prior commodity busts. 

Even with the depression of prices, there are real cash flows in Bitcoin mining. The Bitcoin network rewarded miners with $15.3 million of Bitcoin rewards per day thus far this month, which annualizes to $5.8 billion.

Bitcoin is going through yet another brutal adjustment. Each one is different. The unique feature in this cycle is that institutional miners were far more involved in this recent bull market, and the unwinding of that looks like a classic BOOM to BUST cycle in commodity markets. It will pass with discipline. Traders are hunting for the bottom in asset markets. Credit markets are providing the pristine opportunity to earn very strong yields in a low-price environment with considerable optionality to a recovery. The credit opportunity steers you away from calling the bottom of the cycle and focuses more on the necessary ingredients to get ready for the next upturn – disciplined capital.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sworn in as Brazil’s next president Sunday, and was greeted to cheers by hundreds of thousands of celebrating supporters packing the streets of the capital of Brasilia, after he defeated far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in what was the tightest presidential race in over three decades.

“Our message to Brazil is one of hope and reconstruction,” Lula said in an inaugural speech to Congress’ Lower House as his first act as president. “The great edifice of rights, sovereignty and development that this nation built has been systematically demolished in recent years. And to re-erect this edifice, we are going to direct all our efforts.”

Thus he’s vowing to heal a deeply divided nation, and at a moment many of Bolsonaro’s most die-hard supporters are still pushing for the Lula victory to get overturned. 

The Associated Press observed Sunday, “Many have gathered outside military barracks since, questioning results and pleading with the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.”

And further, the Left is labelling some Bolsonaro supporters who believe the election was fraudulent as ‘terrorists’:

His most die-hard backers resorted to what some authorities and incoming members of Lula’s administration labeled acts of “terrorism” – something the country had not seen since the early 1980s, and which has prompted security concerns about inauguration day events.

Security was especially beefed up in response to a mid-week incident wherein a man, now in custody, was believed plotting to assassinate the president-elect.

But on Sunday, another potential assassination plot was foiled, the military described, as a man was reportedly caught with a bomb trying to gain entry to inauguration day celebration events.

President-elect @LulaOficial makes his constitutional commitment in Congress and is sworn in as the 39th President of the Federative Republic of #Brazil. pic.twitter.com/Kx22r2WhbF

— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) January 1, 2023

As Sky News reports, “A man carrying an explosive device and a knife has been arrested while attempting to enter the inauguration of Brazil’s new president, according to military police.”

“The man was trying to enter Brasilia’s esplanade for the inauguration of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, according to a spokesperson from the city’s military police force,” the report details.

Journalists present in the capital on Sunday estimated some 300,000 were gathered along the esplanade to take part in the party in aftermath of Lula’s swearing-in ceremony.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

In the midst of all this incredible political and economic chaos, I was tasked with packing up my mother’s things to prepare for her move to assisted living. It’s a gravely emotional experience for anyone, as I’m sure you know.

I adore that woman. It’s hard to see her get old. Also, that house contained 100 years or more of family history. All this stuff takes up space. With everyone on the move, it’s hard to find a good home for things anymore. We had to make some hard choices.

Anyway, along the way, I opened a small safe and found a lockbox, and opened it. It was my father’s collection of coins. What was in there hadn’t been seen by anyone for perhaps 25 years (he died rather young).

It was startling and amazing to see. It was like finding buried treasure. There were coins from all over the world, gold, and silver. I’m not sure that I knew that he was a collector.

There were all the usual gold and silver bullion coins from all lands, all worth the price of their metal content. All are vastly up in value from when he bought them. There were also hundreds of silver dimes. And there were plenty of numismatics too and because I don’t know my way around this world, I’ll let the experts determine their value.

Good as Gold

I won’t tell you the total value for reasons of privacy but I will say that he made a very good investment. Stocks are fun and swing this way and that but these coins are stable, true, and always faithful. Dad knew that. He was right.

And thumbing through the collection always reminded me of his personal values. Yes, he was old-fashioned, you could say. He rallied around faith, family, honesty, hard work, productivity, great art, hard history, big books, deep learning, prayer, community service, and caring for others, all those things.

He was not only an astute investor. He was a compassionate and caring man. I recall walking with him on a hot windy day in the Texas mountains of the Southwest when a man of Mexican heritage passed us by and then stopped. “Dr. Tucker! You taught me to read! God bless you! God bless you!” My father smiled and shook his hand and we walked on.

I asked Dad what that was about. He said he once taught a class in English language for immigrant adults and that must have been a student. “Part of your job?” I asked. Dad said no, just as community service.

Okay, that was Dad. Talented. Dedicated. Humble too.

The Meaning of Coins

Back to the coins. They embody firmness of value. You can tell the history of the world through coins. There is an element of tragedy here, looking through coins from a time when money was sound, government was small, and Americans believed in liberty and independence.

The Constitution was taken seriously: gold and silver were minted as money.

The coinage suggested that too. The dimes were silver. The nickels were larger because they had less silver and more…nickel. Dollars were silver from the old Spanish world Thaler. The half dollar was…half a dollar. What does this suggest?

It suggests that government did not create money; it inherited it from the long history of commercial enterprise, dating even back to the late middle ages.

Then there is the gold. Dad must have loved the American Eagle coin because it suggested hope. Instead of banning gold ownership, the U.S. Treasury was now minting it for the people to own. He could not buy enough. But he also loved gold coins from all over the world. I found memos alongside some, in which he explained why he liked this one or that.

Truth in Coinage

These coins symbolize hope even today, a look back and a reminder that such times did exist. It is not in our imagination. Citizens used to carry truth and honesty in their pockets! Trade was calculated in something unchanging and valuable independent of government control.

A government that mints and distributes sound money trusts its people with their own lives. They also make inflation as we know it essentially impossible.

The Fed is a good printer. It is a terrible alchemist. So if you want to get rid of inflation once and for all, there is a way. Get rid of the Fed and make the dollar good as gold again. Make the dimes silver. Forget this embarrassing baloney-sandwich stuff we use today.

Let’s get back to truth. Not lies, like the Inflation Reduction Act or whatever they call it.

What are the chances? Almost none, sadly. The government is in too much debt and the people are too dependent on inflationary meddling. Leviathan would be impossible under a sound money regime. And tragically today so much of American life is about the perpetuation of Leviathan.

People everywhere are asking what they should do with their money because there seems to be few ways of making it without losing it. That’s how inflation works. You have to earn a high return above the inflation rate to feel good. It’s a rat race, even if it is a necessary one. But you know what’s not a rat race? Getting a safe, a cotton bag, and filling it with coins, a bit at a time.

Keep them for years, decades, and generations.

Preserving Value

It’s a truism in the investment world that you buy gold and silver not for its short-term return but for long-term security.

What does this mean?

Thousands of years of history have taught us the value of precious metals. No amount of crypto tokens, much less meta worlds of NFTs, are going to change that, as fun as they might be.

Gold keeps its value. But more than that, it symbolizes what it means to keep our values, as people, as societies, and as nations. They are physical objects but more than that, they embody a philosophy of living.

Think about this.

One day your children or grandchildren will be rifling through your stuff and they might come across your collection of gold and silver. Do you think their esteem for you will rise? Absolutely it will. It shows that you thought about the very long-term, not just the next investment cycle or election but lifetimes and generations.

And you know what I’m going to do with my Dad’s collection? So long as I don’t need to use them, I will keep them the same way he did. It’s my connection to him, his values, and also to a world that might seem long gone but did in fact exist. It’s an ideal. And we all need ideals. Ideals can be abstract but they can also be physical. That’s what these coins mean to me.

In a world of fleeting values and ceaseless and often pointless change, here we have something that we can both believe in and own. It’s real wealth, wealth for the ages, stuff we can carry in our pockets.

Now we carry “smartphones” that have become spying devices for government.

It was an emotional day. Mostly I will never forget the smile on my mother’s face when she saw all of this for the first time in decades. She remembered what a great man he was and how much she loved him.

After the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from transfer of power to the Taliban in Afghanistan, abandoned US military equipment which contain biometric data have been popping up on Ebay.

Over the past year, German security researcher Matthias Marx and a small group of researchers at Chaos Computer Lab, a European hacker association, have bought six SEEK II (Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit) on the popular auction website, according to the NY Times.

The device, built as part of the Pentagon’s vast biometric collection expansion following the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks, has a tiny screen, a little keyboard, and a mouse pad. It also contains a thumbprint reader under a hinged plastic lid, an iris scanner, and a camera. They contained biometric data at detainment facilities, on patrols, during screenings of local hires, and after the explosion of an IED. Officials at the time were concerned over a rash of shooting in which Afghan police and soldiers fired on American troops, and were hoping that biometric data could help identify any possible Taliban agents within their bases.

The shoebox-shaped device, designed to capture fingerprints and perform iris scans, was listed on eBay for $149.95. A German security researcher, Matthias Marx, successfully offered $68, and when it arrived at his home in Hamburg in August, the rugged, hand-held machine contained more than what was promised in the listing.

The device’s memory card held the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints and iris scans of 2,632 people.

Most people in the database, which was reviewed by The New York Times, were from Afghanistan and Iraq. Many were known terrorists and wanted individuals, but others appeared to be people who had worked with the U.S. government or simply been stopped at checkpoints. Metadata on the device, called a Secure Electronic Enrollment Kit, or SEEK II, revealed that it had last been used in the summer of 2012 near Kandahar, Afghanistan. -NY Times

In response to the story, Defense Department spox Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said: “Because we have not reviewed the information contained on the devices, the department is not able to confirm the authenticity of the alleged data or otherwise comment on it,” adding “The department requests that any devices thought to contain personally identifiable information be returned for further analysis.”

“It was disturbing that they didn’t even try to protect the data,” said Marx. “They didn’t care about the risk, or they ignored the risk.”

DC lawyer Stewart Baker, a former national security official, said that the biometric devices were useful tools in war zones, but that the data collected needed to be kept under control. He suggested that a data breach would “make a lot of people who helped the U.S. and are still in Afghanistan really uncomfortable.“

“This should not have happened,” Baker added. “It is a disaster for the people whose data is exposed. In the worst cases, the consequences could be fatal.”

Of the six devices the researchers bought on eBay — four SEEKs and two HIIDEs, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment — two of the SEEK II devices had sensitive data on them. The second SEEK II, with location metadata showing it was last used in Jordan in 2013, appeared to contain the fingerprints and iris scans of a small group of U.S. service members. -NY Times

In one case, an American’s biometric data was found in one of the databases. He was formerly a Marine intelligence specialist who still works in intelligence, and said that his data was most likely collected during a military training course. He asked that his biometric file be deleted.

According to the Defense Logistics Agency, which is tasked with equipment disposal, the SEEK II and HIIDE devices never should have made it to the open market. Gear such as this is supposed to be destroyed on-site when no longer needed by the military.

One of the Ebay sellers, surplus equipment reseller Rhino Trade, said they bought the SEEK II at a military auction of government equipment and did not realize it had sensitive data on it.

“I hope we didn’t do anything wrong,” said David Mendez, the company’s treasurer.

“The irresponsible handling of this high-risk technology is unbelievable,” said Marx. “It is incomprehensible to us that the manufacturer and former military users do not care that used devices with sensitive data are being hawked online.”

Chaos erupted in Times Square on New Year’s Eve when a machete-wielding man injured three New York Police Department (NYPD) officers. 

New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell told reporters early Sunday that a 19-year-old man attempted to strike the first officer in the head with a machete, unprovoked. Sewell said the man hit two other officers on the head with the machete. 

Sewell said one officer received a laceration to the head while the other received a skull fracture and a large laceration. Another officer discharged his firearm, striking the suspect in the shoulder. 

Watch as Police Commissioner Sewell & Mayor Adams provide an update on a police involved incident in Manhattan. https://t.co/ha11b02Fvq

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) January 1, 2023

The incident occurred around 9:30 p.m. ET at West 52nd Street and 8th Avenue. One police source told NYPost that an investigation had been opened to see whether the suspect is a radical Islamic extremist. 

“We are working with our federal partners for this investigation, and it is ongoing,” Commissioner Sewell said. 

NYPD Crime Stoppers released a picture of the machete. 

Mike Driscoll, assistant director in charge of the New York FBI Field Office, who is also investigating, told local news NBC New York that the knife attack appears to be the work of a “sole individual at this time, there’s nothing to suggest otherwise.” The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is also investigating.

Nearby onlookers were startled by the attack and gunfire — many revelers fled amid the chaos. 

They are shooting and stabbing in #TimesSquare! Two police stabbed. Condition unknown! #NYCACC pic.twitter.com/D119rFg5Qs

— @BeeNewsDailyB (@BeenewsdailyB) January 1, 2023

BREAKING NEWS: Two NYPD officers stabbed, One Officer was stabbed in the head during New Year’s Eve celebrations at Times Square. #Manhattan #nypd #stabbing #fdny #TimesSquare #NewYear #balldrop #HappyNewYear #NewYorkCity #nyc #newyork #BreakingNews #Police pic.twitter.com/EMzINArTLp

— NY Actions (@NY_ACTIONS) January 1, 2023

“No backpacks or umbrellas in Times Square. They forgot to mention machetes,” a police source told The Post. 

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

2023. Stagflation After Failed Stimulus.

After more than $20 trillion in stimulus plans since 2020, the economy is going into stagnation with elevated inflation. Global governments announced more than $12 trillion in stimulus measures in 2020 alone, and central banks bloated their balance sheet by $8 trillion.

The result was disappointing and with long-lasting negative effects. Weak recovery, record debt and elevated inflation. Of course, governments all over the world blamed the Ukraine invasion on the non-existent multiplier effect of the stimulus plans, but the excuse made no sense.

Commodity prices rose from February to June 2022 and have corrected since. Even considering the negative effect of rising commodity prices in developed economies, we must acknowledge that those are positives for emerging economies and, even with that boost, the disappointing recovery led to constant downgrades of estimates.

If Keynesian multipliers existed, most developed economies would be growing strongly even discounting the Ukraine invasion impact, considering the unprecedented amount of stimulus plans approved.

Now we face a 2023 with even more disappointing estimates. According to Bloomberg Economics, global growth will decline from a poor 3.2% in 2022 to a worrying 2.4% in 2023, significantly below the pre-covid-19 trend but with higher global debt. Total global debt rose by $3.3 trillion in Q1 2022 to a new record of over $305 trillion-mostly due to China and the U.S., according to the IIF.

However, consensus estimates show an even worse outlook. Global growth should stall at +1.8%, with the euro area at zero growth and the United States at just 0.3%, with inflation reaching 6% globally, 6.1% in the euro area, and 4.1% in the United States.

Only a handful of countries are expected to reduce debt in 2023, with most nations continuing to finance bloated government spending with elevated deficits and tax hikes. A world where governments are constantly eroding the purchasing power of currencies and slashing disposable income of taxpayers with rising taxes is likely to show weaker growth trends and worsening imbalances.

The narrative all over the world is to try and convince us that past-peak but elevated inflation is “falling prices” and that everything is good when debt increases, growth stalls and the purchasing power of salaries and savings is wiped out slowly.

There is no success in stagflation. It is a process of impoverishment that hurts the middle classes immensely while the excessive government spending is never curbed.

2022 was the year that killed MMT, the science-fiction fallacy of Modern Monetary Theory. Countries with monetary sovereignty like Japan or the UK found themselves in an unprecedented turmoil created by the illusion that rising deficit and debt would never cause significant problems. It only took a few rate hikes to dismantle the illusion of perennial money printing as the solution to everything.

2022 also showed that it is false that massive deficits are reserves that strengthen the economy. The United States suffered the most severe inflation blow in thirty years even being energy independent and benefitting from exporting natural gas and oil to the rest of the world. If the ludicrous MMT narrative was true, the United States should have not suffered any inflationary pressure.

2023 is expected to be the year of stagflation. Of course, most strategists are betting on inflation falling rapidly in the second part of the year, but that seems inconsistent with their estimates of deficit spending and growth.

The uncomfortable reality is that nations have created a long-lasting decline by pushing the limits on demand-side policies and government intervention.

Many celebrated the decision to use governments and central banks as the lenders of first resort instead of the last option, and what has been created is a problem with difficult solutions.

There seems to be no incentive to reduce the fiscal and monetary imbalances built through two decades, and therefore the result will be weaker growth and impoverishment.

No government wants to acknowledge the risk of central banks reducing their balance sheet. Even the most aggressive strategist fails to dare to estimate a three trillion US dollar quantitative tightening because they all know that the effects could be devastating. However, to truly normalize, central banks should reduce their balance sheet by at least five trillion US dollars. Governments and investment banks fear a gradual three trillion tightening because it can lead to a financial crisis. Those same market participants know that a five trillion tightening would undoubtedly lead to a financial crisis.

The reason why everyone expects a 2023 divided in two parts, a first half of poor data and a second where growth picks up and inflation plummets, is because market participants need to create a narrative that shows a quick fix to the above-mentioned disaster. However, there is no quick fix, there is no soft landing and there is not a chance of solving the problem by keeping elevated deficits, massive central bank balance sheets and real negative rates. If we want to look at the options, there are only two: Fixing the problem created in 2020, which means a global recession but probably not a financial crisis, or not fixing it, which means elevated inflation, weaker growth and another bad year for risky assets which can lead to a financial crisis.

Unfortunately, when governments all over the world decided to “spend now and deal with the consequences later” in 2020 they also created the seeds of a 2008-style problem.