Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The mainstream assumption is the status quo will continue on much as before. This isn’t just unlikely, it’s impossible if total energy produced and consumed declines.

Correspondent C.A. submitted this insightful interview with economic strategist and historian Russell Napier: “We Will See the Return of Capital Investment on a Massive Scale”.

In Napier’s telling, the 40-year period from 1980 to 2020 was dominated by central banks (monetary policy) and markets (enterprises seeking to maximize profits).

These forces fueled the rise of globalization (maximize profits by arbitraging lower labor and production costs overseas via offshoring production) and financialization (vastly expand debt and leverage but keep debt service low by steadily reducing interest rates).

The second-order effect of the resulting hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization was hyper-dependency on geopolitical rivals and on monetary intervention and credit/asset bubbles to support consumption.

Neither was sustainable. Near-total dependence on geopolitical rivals in service of private-sector profits created existential national security vulnerabilities which must now be addressed by reshoring / homeshoring / friendshoring critical production.

The market, ruled solely by incentives to maximize profits by any means available, created this vulnerability. It is incapable of resolving it.

I covered all these dynamics in depth in my book A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States which predated the Ukraine War by four months.

Napier sees governments replacing central banks as the primary force in creating credit and guiding policies / incentives.

He explains that governments don’t have to rely on central banks to create money or credit, or on issuing Treasury bonds that are purchased by investors. Governments are guaranteeing commercial bank loans issued by private-sector banks, in effect expanding credit without creating more government debt.

These guarantees backstop commercial bank loans made in accordance with government directives and goals.

If a borrower defaults, the government will cover the losses so the lender is made whole. It’s riskless lending for banks and keeps the expanding credit off the government balance sheet.

Napier calls this “the politicization of credit.”

Napier explains why inflation will be maintained in a range of 4% to 6% for years to come: inflation is the only way to reduce the debt burden which has reached $300 trillion globally, and about 250% of GDP of many nations. (This is the total of both government and private-sector debt.)

Napier refers to this as “financial repression” because inflation that’s higher than bond yields robs savers and benefits debtors, whose earnings rise with inflation while their debt service remained fixed. (This assumes fixed-rate loans, of course.)

This will also restore the purchasing power of younger workers as wages rise, at the expense of older (and wealthier) generations.

The net result of governments taking control of investment and credit creation “will mean a huge homeshoring or friendshoring boom, capital investment on a massive scale into the reindustrialization of our own economies.”

Governments will have to create enough credit to fund both this massive capital investment (known as CapEx, capital expenditures) and maintain consumption.

Napier points to the 1946-1979 period as an example of governments guiding the economy more than central banks guiding the economy.

All this makes excellent sense, but Napier overlooks three consequential dynamics:

1. The energy cliff, as hydrocarbon production declines faster than new sources can be brought on line to replace them.

2. The demographic cliff as workforces decline and the cohort of retirees to be supported balloons.

3. The impossibility of funding massive new CapEx and infrastructure spending, supporting the ballooning cohort of retirees and consumer spending to keep the “waste is growth / Landfill Economy” humming while keeping inflation tamed to 5%.

In other words, there will be tradeoffs. If you want moderate inflation (politically necessary, as high inflation loses elections) and massive increases in CapEx, consumer spending has to take a hit.

Furthermore, inflation will be driven by two forces: scarcities of essentials like food and energy, which are basically the same thing in industrialized fertilizer-dependent agriculture, and the expansion of credit in excess of increases in productivity.

If $1 invested in CapEx generates more value in terms of goods and services, that means productivity is increasing. If CapEx doesn’t generate more goods and services, productivity is stagnant.

As I’ve explained, this is what happened in the 1970s: massive CapEx was invested in retooling the U.S. industrial base to reduce pollution and improve efficiency.

The reduction in pollution greatly improved well-being but didn’t increase GDP or productivity. We only manage what we measure, and since we don’t measure well-being, the real gains of this CapEx were not even measured.

Like well-being, we don’t measure National Security economically, so improvements in the security of our production of essentials will not even be recognized.

The real gains of homeshoring won’t even be recognized or understood unless we throw out the current methodology of economic measurements and replace it with a modernized set of measurements that aren’t limited to production and consumption (i.e. “growth”.).

As for energy, what most people miss is Jevon’s Paradox: adding sustainable energy (however you define that) doesn’t replace our consumption of hydrocarbons, it simply increases our total consumption of energy.

Another factor most people miss is the scale of the hydrocarbon complex everyone is hoping to replace, and the timeline of that replacement.

Despite decades of investment, alternative energy supplies only 5% or so of global energy. Those pounding the table for nuclear energy rarely mention the timeline for constructing enough plants at scale to make a difference: decades, not years.

Since the cheap-to-get oil has been extracted, what’s left costs more. Yes, technology improves, but physics wins in the end; more energy must be expended to get the hard-to-get oil out of the ground.

These realities dictate an Energy Cliff in which oil production declines faster than new sources can be brought online. And rather than consume more energy as new sources are brought online, we’ll consume less and it will cost more, for all the reasons I explained in my book.

The demographic cliff is equally baked in. The workforce of the next decade can’t be expanded, it’s already here, along with the soaring cohort of retirees.

If sacrifices must be made in consumption due to higher costs of essentials and the need for massive CapEx, the consumer economy will shrink.

Since the system is optimized for expansion, that contraction will upend the entire global economy as it is currently configured.

On top of these three factors, there’s the soaring healthcare costs generated by lifestyle diseases (diabesity, etc.), high levels of pollution in developing nations and the aging populace.

Profiteering doesn’t generate health, and profiteering has been the name of the game so long few can imagine any other way of living.

The mainstream assumption is the status quo will continue on much as before. This isn’t just unlikely, it’s impossible if total energy produced and consumed declines.

As energy analyst Vaclav Smil put it: “I’m not an optimist or a pessimist. I’m a scientist.” Rather than waste time arguing about optimism and pessimism, let’s focus on physics, costs and timelines, i.e. realistic assessments, and on the trade-offs needed to reach our goal of a sustainable, open-to-all, fair economy.

*  *  *

This essay was first published as a weekly Musings Report sent exclusively to subscribers and patrons at the $5/month ($50/year) and higher level. Thank you, patrons and subscribers, for supporting my work and free website.

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Caroline Ellison, erstwhile girlfriend of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and former CEO of Alameda Research, has spilled her guts in order to avoid a 110 year prison sentence.

According to court documents released Friday, Ellison admits she and SBF signed off on “materially misleading financial statements” for Alameda lenders – knowing it was illegal.

“I am truly sorry for what I did,” she said, according to the transcript of the hearing, adding “I knew that it was wrong.”

OK – on #FTX / Alameda, here now the unsealed guilty plea transcript of Caroline Ellison – it was held in secret, and not docketed until today, once Bankman-Fried was freed on $250 mln bond. Thread then stories on https://t.co/3AcCBJNU41 and pic.twitter.com/Ptd0L1u9oL

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) December 23, 2022

Specifically, she told a judge earlier this week she and Bankman-Fried conspired to steal billions of dollars from FTX customers, as she appeared in federal court to plead guilty to seven criminal counts, according to a court transcript reported by Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

“I understood that FTX executives had implemented special settings on Alameda’s FTX.com account that permitted Alameda to maintain negative balances in various fiat currencies and crypto currencies,” said Ellison.

“In practical terms, this arrangement permitted Alameda access to an unlimited line of credit without being required to post collateral, without having to pay interest on negative balances and without being subject to margin calls or FTX.com’s liquidation protocols.

She added:

“If Alameda’s FTX accounts had significant negative balances in a particular currency, it meant that Alameda was borrowing funds that FTX’s customers had deposited onto the exchange.”

Ellison’s statement included allegations that Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives had borrowed funds from Alameda, and used FTX funds to repay “loans worth several billion dollars.”

Ellison’s plea deal, released on Dec. 21, largely spared the former Alameda CEO of many of the charges Bankman-Fried currently faces including wire fraud and securities fraud. She may still be prosecuted for criminal tax violations, but the agreement set bail at $250,000 on the condition she surrendered all travel documents.

FTX’s co-founder and former CTO Gary Wang confirmed the existence of these privileges and that Alameda was an exclusive beneficiary of them.

Of course, this crushes Bankman-Fried’s ‘Simple Jack’ defense…

As Decrypt reports, the code’s existence, previously called a sort of bookkeeping “backdoor,” was first reported by Reuters, citing anonymous sources. Bankman-Fried said later that “that is definitely not true,” adding that he didn’t “know exactly what they’re [Reuters] referring to.” 

It now appears that this code indeed existed and offered Alameda some serious benefits.

…but even more notably, a judge agreed to a request by prosecutors to keep it secret that two of Bankman-Fried’s executive associates had turned against him so that the cryptocurrency entrepreneur would agree not to fight extradition from the Bahamas to the US, according to the transcripts.

And now he’s on his way, via Business Class, to his mom-and-dad’s fancy Palo Alto pad…

SBF en route to his parents’ house. Beanie is an excellent disguise, ser.🫡 pic.twitter.com/NHZ8uZg24a

— Tiffany Fong (@TiffanyFong_) December 23, 2022

…for some me-time.

After three months of divergence, hard data started to lag this week, catching down to the more sentiment-driven ‘soft’ survey data, and dashing hopes of a soft landing happening in the US economy…

Source: Bloomberg

The market has shifted hawkishly this week, with expectations for the terminal Fed rate rising and expectations of subsequent rate-cuts falling (both back up near pre-CPI levels)…

Source: Bloomberg

And that reality check weighed on the equity market broadly with Nasdaq hammered hardest (Nasdaq down three weeks in a row). The Dow managed to make gains on the week (best week since Thanksgiving)…

As they careen towards putting in the second worst December performance ever with Nasdaq -9% so far (Dow down 4.2%)…

Energy stocks outperformed on the week while Tech and Consumer Discretionary lagged…

Source: Bloomberg

TSLA is down 6 straight days (and 9 of the last 10 days) and 10 of the last 14 weeks.

Bonds (which closed early today) were also dumped this week, led by the long-end with the 10Y yield up 26bps – the biggest weekly yield surge since April…

Source: Bloomberg

The 10Y Yield is back up at one-month highs (erasing all the price gains since Powell’s dovish address in late November)…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar slipped lower on the week, back to post-CPI lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos continued their low-vol range-bound trading with Bitcoin holding just below $17,000 for the week…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold ended the week unchanged (basically the 3rd week in a row where – despite intra-week volatility – the precious metal has ended flat around $1800)

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices rallied for the 2nd straight week with WTI topping $80 on its best week since early October

Finally, while December looks set to be the second worst month for stocks ever, The Dow is set for its best year since 1933 relative to the S&P 500…

Source: Bloomberg

As Bloomberg notes, The Dow’s reliance on blue-chip companies has made it a place of relative safety as rising interest rates pushed investors away from technology stocks. Some bears are betting the outperformance won’t last: short interest in the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust is hovering at 3% of shares outstanding, the highest level since August 2020, IHS Markit data show.

Authored by Micah Meadowcroft via TheAmericanConservative.com,

Twitter was staffed by craven functionaries eager to please contacts and former colleagues in the national security state…

Readers will, I hope, forgive me for visiting a topic two weeks in a row. But perhaps they’ll agree that the so-called Twitter Files remain the most important news story out there. Not, as already mentioned, because we’ve learned something new from them, but rather because they confirm what you and I—dissidents, whether you wanted to be or not—already knew. We have been, so to speak, repeatedly asked, “Who are you going to trust, us bureaucrats, or your own lying eyes?” And it is not only nice, but fundamental to rational self-rule that we know it was them, the bureaucrats, and not our eyes that were lying. 

The latest two installments of the files, from Michael Shellenberger and Lee Fang, might be the most shocking so far, but let us differentiate between shock and surprise. It is indeed shocking, in a democratic republic, to have confirmed for us that our national secret police were working closely with a corporate entity to manipulate our de facto town square and affect the outcomes of an election; the FBI prompted Yoel Roth to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. It is indeed shocking, in a country committed to civilian rule, that our military would run influence campaigns on the de facto American soil of an American social media platform; the Pentagon ran psychological-warfare operations on Twitter with Twitter’s help. But it should not be a surprise, even as we are so proud of our representative federal system, to have any of this confirmed. On the one hand, the FBI has a well established track record of shady political interference, too long to detail here—the left used to talk about this, along with the paleoconservative and libertarian right. On the other hand, Twitter represents the intersection of technology and journalism, and there are few parts of American society more bound up with the national security state than those.

The media are, as the Fourth Estate, central players in the information sphere, which is the area of concern to our and others’ security services. Mass participatory politics is built on consensus formation of various kinds, and the First Amendment represents an attempt to create and protect a shared sphere for that meaning-making apart from the state itself. At this point in our moment of acceleration it is almost passé to interrogate the concept of a neutral public square, and I simply assert it has never existed. But we should realize that the mythology of the neutral public square, and in particular the mythology of a free and independent press that Americans remain acculturated in, is an artifact of the Cold War and the triumph of the American security state. 

This mythology was constructed, manufactured by an American establishment that at the time really was effective and in certain ways elite. The efforts of total war and the growth of technology, especially in communications, had centralized tools of command and control and consensus-manufacturing more than ever before. Mass mobilization and a war economy in the Second World War, Allied propaganda efforts and the new secular articulation of liberal Western values at Nuremberg, plus the sustained Cold War effort, all contributed to the formation of a genuine mass society with a strong cultural establishment. And, to put it really baldly, National Review and other respectable conservative publications of the time acted as controlled opposition within a shared liberal consensus, protecting its rightward edge. 

The internet was widely supposed to herald a new age of decentralization that would make the mythic neutral public square real. Indeed, some people still think this might happen. Digital communication is supposed to remove, to some degree, the points of centralization, the editors and publishers and thus the editorial lines. Of course, we have seen some of that, as everything from email chain letters to blogs to news sites have given what had been semi-successfully suppressed as fringe views a larger reach and much more prominent place in public discourse. But both in public and supposedly private spheres, the internet ecosystem is also centralized, necessarily. This is true structurally, if we think about servers and cables and increasingly monopolistic platforms. It is also true historically, considering the origins of the internet as we know it in the national security state, both in its initial development as a DARPA command-and-control technology that could survive a nuclear war, and in later major investments in Silicon Valley. 

All of this is to say that as shocking as they might be, the Twitter Files should not surprise us. Our media ecosystem is as much a product of America’s national security history as anything else in this country, and probably more so. The popular unreflective view of political media is that it is about politics; a reporter reports on what is happening in some special other public sphere called “politics” that sits apart from the public square we all occupy. But in a mass democratic society, no such independent political sphere exists, and at least since Watergate, if not the World Wars, the path to prestige in the media has been not to report on political conflict but to participate in it, wittingly or unwittingly. In being staffed by craven functionaries eager to please contacts and former colleagues in the national security state, Twitter before Elon Musk, it turns out, was not so different from the Washington Post, the New York Times, or CNN. 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

A powerful winter storm of historic proportions that the National Weather Service (NWS) warned could bring life-threatening conditions has prompted multiple states to announce emergency measures, with over 240 million people under some kind of weather warnings or advisories.

The latest bulletin from the NWS’ Weather Prediction Center, issued at around 3 a.m. on Dec. 23, warned of a “historic winter storm” that was poised to produce widespread disruption to big portions of the country.

Over 240 million people within the United States, or around 73 percent of the population, are now under some kind of winter weather advisory or warning, according to the bulletin.

The Weather Prediction Center said this includes 181 million people under wind chill warnings or advisories, over 11 million for blizzard warning, 58 million for winter storm warnings, and over 500,000 for ice storm warnings.

The powerful Arctic front is predicted to continue to sweep across the eastern third of the country on Friday, with what the NWS described as an “immense” winter storm expected to have increasingly widespread impacts on travel and the potential for power outages.

The bitter cold snap has led temperatures to plummet by as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit in a short period of time for a large part of the country. Besides very cold temperatures, high winds coming in the wake of the powerful front will lead to “dangerous” wind chill readings in nearly all of the central to eastern United States, the Weather Prediction Center said.

The NWS forecast is valid through Christmas Day.

Here are the states where governors have announced some form of emergency measures in response to the brutal cold snap.

Colorado

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has authorized the activation of the Colorado National Guard to assist with operations in response to the extreme weather.

“Colorado is about to face extreme weather and cold temperatures and the Guard is ready to assist local communities to help keep people safe during this extreme-cold weather snap,” he said in a press release.

The temperature at the Denver International Airport (DIA) fell by 37.1 degrees F in an hour on Wednesday night, setting a record for the biggest one-hour temperature drop at that location in recorded history.

Early Thursday, the temperature briefly dropped to minus 24 degrees F at DIA, just shy of the monthly record set in 1990, according to NWS Boulder.

“The combination of wind and low temperatures in winter can be deadly,” Polis said in a post on Twitter.

“Be aware of warning signs of hypothermia and frostbite,” he added, noting factors like confusion, shivering, difficulty speaking, sleepiness, and stiff muscles.

Connecticut

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, on Thursday put the state’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on an enhanced footing in preparation for the storm.

The enhanced monitoring status was to be in effect starting Friday at 7 a.m. and remaining in force through next Monday at noon.

“The latest forecast anticipates that Connecticut will receive a significant rain and wind storm beginning Thursday night and lasting through Saturday morning that has the potential to cause coastal flooding and a significant number of outages due to downed power lines,” Lamont said in a press release.

Staff from multiple agencies will assist the EOC with communications, while crews from the Connecticut Department of Transportation are on standby for removal of snow and debris from roads and sidewalks.

“Considering that temperatures will sharply drop on Friday night, I strongly urge everyone to make preparations in case you lose power as a result of the storm,” Lamont said, adding that shelters are open across the state and encouraging anyone who needs access to call 2-1-1 for assistance finding the nearest location.

Georgia

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, which will run through midnight on Monday.

“We want to urge all Georgians to be ready and certainly that goes for our teams,” Kemp said during a press conference on Wednesday.

The state of emergency declaration will enable essential supplies to be delivered for both commercial and residential needs.

A high wind warning is in effect for northeast Georgia through 10 p.m. Friday and a wind advisory has been issued for central and north Georgia, according to NWS Atlanta.

Drivers in Georgia were warned to be on alert for patchy black ice overnight Thursday and into Friday morning.

“Black ice is most likely on local roads, bridges, and overpasses. Please use extra caution if you have to travel,” NWS Atlanta warned.

Kansas

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, signed an executive order on Wednesday to enable assistance to get to parts of the state impacted by the winter storm more easily.

The order lifts certain motor carrier restrictions, including driving time limitations, in order “to allow needed fuels, relief supplies, and other items to move through Kansas as quickly as possible,” Kelly’s office said in a press release.

“I urge all Kansans to exercise caution over the coming days, to reconsider travel if possible, and to please stay safe and warm,” Kelly said in the release.

Kentucky

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency (pdf) on Wednesday, warning of severe winter storm conditions that will “endanger public health and safety and/or public and private property.”

The declaration authorizes the mobilization of the National Guard and provides additional resources, including personnel and funding, to assist with response and recovery efforts associated with the severe weather.

Beshear said in a weather update on Thursday that wind chills in Kentucky are expected to drop below zero degrees F and go as low as minus 30 degrees F into Friday, with below-freezing temperatures expected to linger until Tuesday.

“Plan on slippery road conditions, especially tonight and moving into tomorrow. If you can stay off the roads, please do,” he said in the update.

In a post on Twitter on Friday, Beshear urged people to avoid travel, saying that conditions “are worsening quickly, with roadways becoming hazardous.”

“We’re hearing of multiple accidents across the commonwealth. If you are an essential worker, make sure to have a vehicle kit in place. Stay safe, Kentucky,” he said.

Maryland

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, activating emergency response operations and urging caution for holiday travel.

“Marylanders should be prepared for significant impacts to holiday travel, and adjust plans as necessary,” he said in a press release.

“As always, it is especially important to give room to crews and plows. We are coordinating our response with local jurisdictions, and will continue to keep Marylanders informed throughout the storm.”

Maryland drivers were urged to be vigilant on roadways as wet conditions turn to ice.

In an update Thursday, Hogan warned of a cold front on Friday that will bring high winds and rapidly dropping temperatures.

“Crews will treat roads within 1–2 hours of the expected temperature drop. Take precautions & plan accordingly,” he said.

Missouri

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, signed an executive order on Tuesday in preparation for the pending winter storm and extreme cold weather conditions.

The order activates the Missouri State Emergency Operations Plan and the Missouri National Guard for state and local response efforts.

“Extreme cold and hazardous weather conditions are expected to bring varying amounts of snow accumulation, but even more concerning is the bitter cold that is forecasted to impact the entire state,” he said in a press release.

“Missourians should be proactive in their preparations and so should state government, especially during this holiday travel season,” he said.

Parson’s office warned of temperatures dropping rapidly and wind chills as cold as minus 40 degrees F in parts of the state.

North Carolina

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, warning of “extremely low temperatures” expected to hit the state on Friday, as well as “very windy” conditions statewide.

The cold temperatures are expected to last through Christmas weekend, with Cooper’s office warning of strong wind gusts that could down trees and lead to power outages, as well as wind chill below zero degrees F in parts of the state.

Cooper’s order will “activate the state’s emergency operations plan, waive transportation regulations to help the transport of fuel and critical supplies, help first responders and protect consumers from price gouging.”

The emergency declaration will help companies keep up with demand for propane and other heating fuels, he said.

New York

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency on Thursday, with her office warning of flooding, flash freezing, power outages, and “extremely low wind chills.”

The emergency declaration, which is expected to last until next Monday, includes opening the state’s Emergency Operations Center on Friday morning.

It also involves banning all commercial vehicles on New York State Thruway (I-90) from exit 46 (Rochester I-390) to the Pennsylvania border, and the Niagara Thruway from I-90 to exit 22 (Route 62).

“With Mother Nature throwing everything she has at us this weekend, I encourage New Yorkers who are considering traveling for the holidays to do so before Friday or after Sunday to stay safe,” Hochul said in a statement.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, declared a state of emergency across the state on Wednesday, which will remain in effect for seven days.

Stitt’s order temporarily suspends “requirements for size and weights permits of oversized vehicles transporting materials and supplies used for emergency relief and power restoration,” according to his office.

The governor’s office warned of bad weather conditions that could lead to power outages, hazardous road conditions, and increased demand for heating fuels.

“Please do your part, stay inside, check on your neighbors and stay safe, Oklahoma!” Stitt said in a post on Twitter.

West Virginia

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, declared a statewide state of emergency on Thursday, warning of heavy snow, freezing rain, and dangerous wind chills.

The governor also issued a proclamation declaring Friday, Dec. 23, 2022, as a full-day state holiday for public employees. 

“All West Virginians need to absolutely be ready for the potential impact this winter storm may bring to our state,” Justice said in a press release, urging people to be prepared for possible power outages.

“West Virginians take care of one another, so on this holiday weekend, make sure you check on your neighbors and loved ones,” he said in the release.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, signed an executive order on Thursday, warning of limited deliveries of liquid fuels for heating homes.

The order, which provides a 10-day waiver for certain federal and state requirements for those providing energy emergency response supplies, allows for “the swift and efficient delivery of fuel products, as well as streamlined restoration efforts in the event of significant power outages throughout the state,” according to the governor’s office.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, on Thursday met with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the NWS, while warning travelers to “leave now” or face canceled flights or other travel disruptions due to the cold snap.

As a historic cold front blankets the continental US – because global warming of course – locking down hundreds of millions, and paralyzing the economy and infrastructure…

Me going outside to get a package delivery. pic.twitter.com/fwauQMZupJ

— Michael Antonelli (@BullandBaird) December 23, 2022

… the only thing that is more frozen is US housing, where according to the latest housing report from RedFin, home sales in November fell 35.1% Y/Y — the largest decline in Redfin’s records that date back to 2012.

Home-price growth also lost momentum, although home prices have remained surprisingly high amid the broader housing carnage.  One can attribute that to the lack of liquidations so far; if however the housing malaise persists look for prices to go into freefall next. For now, the median U.S. home-sale price rose just 2.6% from a year earlier, the smallest gain since May 2020, when the onset of the coronavirus pandemic brought the housing market to a near halt.

To be sure, if and when sellers are forced to start hitting bids – as their liquidity buffers evaporate – we will see a historic buying frenzy driven by Wall Street money. Not surprisingly, a few days ago Redfin also reported that with most mortgage-funded buyers sidelined indefinitely and unable to access the market, roughly one-third (31.9%) of U.S. home purchases were paid for with all cash in October, up from 29.9% a year earlier and the highest share since 2014!

The housing market paralysis in November intensified as elevated housing costs kept buyers and sellers on the sidelines, while the record surge in mortgage rates in early November caused sales and prices to slow. New listings slumped 28.4% year over year, the biggest drop on record aside from April 2020. Despite the decrease in listings, overall supply rose 4.6% from a year earlier—a sign that homes lingered on the market as demand ebbed: the typical for-sale home took 37 days to go under contract, up from 23 days a year earlier.

The silver lining is that amid growing fears of an imminent Fed-induced recession which has sent rates sharply lower in the past month, there are early signs that demand may be starting to creep back as mortgage rates fall (which ironically is precisely what the Fed wants to avoid as it would further ease financial conditions). There was a slight downtick in the portion of home-purchase agreements that were canceled in November, and mortgage applications and Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index have both been on the rise. Still, these early indicators haven’t translated into more home sales.

As a reminder, in late November, mortgage rates reversed course dropping below 6.5% after soaring to the highest level in roughly two decades (7.08%) earlier in the month; that said they’re still twice as high as they were a year ago. The Fed has since signaled that it has more work to do to quell inflation and isn’t yet finished raising rates.

“The worst of inflation is likely in the rearview mirror,” said Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao. “We do anticipate that mortgage rates will decline slightly further in 2023 as the Fed’s actions continue to bring inflation down, which should ultimately bring more homebuyers back to the market. Still, we have a ways to go until we reach recovery mode, and we may see sales continue to ebb in the short term.”

Zhao continued: “Prospective buyers in places like San Francisco and Austin, where prices have already fallen from a year ago, should pay close attention to a potential turnaround; it could be the time to take action as demand and competitive offers could pick up in the coming months.”

Authored by ‘NAMCIOS’ via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Russia’s Congressional finance committee chairman, Anatoly Aksakov, said the country is moving to greenlight international trade in cryptocurrency within the next month, according to a report by national news agency TASS.

“In January, we want to legalize cryptocurrencies to ensure foreign trade activities,” Aksakov said, per a translated version of the report.

The chairman highlighted that although Russia is taking steps to allow bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments for imports, there are no plans to encourage similar usage of the burgeoning assets within the boundaries of the nation’s territory.

“The circulation of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment on the territory of Russia will be prohibited, and liability will be prescribed in this regard,” he reportedly stated.

“But to pay for foreign trade transactions, we still assume the possibility of using cryptocurrencies, for example, for parallel imports.”

Russian officials have teased at this possibility for almost a year, following an intense package of Western sanctions deployed in the wake of the nation’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia laid out a roadmap for bitcoin regulation in January 2022, and the Ministry of Finance submitted a proposal in the following month. Around the same time, U.S. President Biden announced the first tranche of Russian sanctions, blocking five of the biggest Russian banks and freezing all the assets they held in America. One month later, Russia said it was open to selling natural gas for bitcoin.

“There can be a variety of currencies, and that’s a standard practice. If they want bitcoin, we will trade in bitcoin,” the chairman of the country’s Congressional energy committee, Pavel Zavalny, said in a press conference at the time.

Soon, the idea gained steam and different areas of Russia’s government began endorsing it. In April, the country’s tax authority proposed a change to the local cryptocurrency bill to let entities accept cryptocurrency as payment in foreign trade. By May, the matter was being “actively discussed” in Russia.

The Bank of Russia, which was hardest government body to be convinced given its previous calls for a complete ban on bitcoin and cryptocurrency, first nodded to the possibility of allowing bitcoin payments for international settlement in June. In September, Russia’s central bank agreed with the Ministry of Finance that it would be “impossible to do without cross-border settlements in cryptocurrency.”

Now, as the year draws to a close, the legal basis to allow such payments is about to become a reality, per the TASS report.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was directly involved in the Capitol security plan – in which officials said they had been “denied again and again” when asking for resources  necessary to protect the building complex during the the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.

Did Pelosi’s office set Capitol Police up to fail?

According to a trove of text and email messages made public Wednesday by House Republicans, the Capitol was left vulnerable on Jan. 6 as a result of failures by Democratic leadership in the House as well as law enforcement officials in the Capitol Police, who let concerns over the “optics” of armed officers and National Guardsmen take precedent over an appropriate level of staffing given the obvious protests which were about to occur.

The report, compiled by GOP Reps. Rodney Davis, Jim Banks, Troy Nehls, Jim Jordan and Kelly Armstrong, covers the results of months of investigation surrounding the events of Jan. 6, which the Democrat-led J6 Committee failed to conduct, Just the News reports.

“Leadership and law enforcement failures within the U.S. Capitol left the complex vulnerable on January 6, 2021. The Democrat-led investigation in the House of Representatives, however, has disregarded those institutional failings that exposed the Capitol to violence that day,” concludes the GOP report, which also highlighted that Capitol Police began receiving specific warnings in December over potentially significant violence planned against the Capitol and lawmakers by angry protesters who planned to contest the certification of the 2020 election results.

“Prior to that day, the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) had obtained sufficient information from an array of channels to anticipate and prepare for the violence that occurred,” reads the report. “On January 6, 2021, criminal rioters assaulted police officers, broke into the U.S. Capitol, damaged property, and temporarily interfered with the certification of states’ presidential and vice presidential electors at the Joint Session of Congress—a typically pro forma event.”

But its most explosive revelations involved text and email messages showing that two key staffers in Pelosi’s office attended regular meetings to discuss the security plan for Jan. 6 dating back to early December 2020 and that Pelosi’s top aide even edited some of the plans. Most of those discussions and meetings excluded Republican lawmakers in the House, the report noted.

“Then-House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving—who served on the Capitol Police Board by virtue of his position—succumbed to political pressures from the Office of Speaker Pelosi and House Democrat leadership leading up to January 6, 2021,” the report said. “He coordinated closely with the Speaker and her staff and left Republicans out of important discussions related to security.” -Just the News

“Our report exposes the partisanship, incompetence and indifference that led to the disaster on January 6 and the leading role Speaker Pelosi and her office played in the security failure at the Capitol,” said Rep. Jim Banks. “Unlike  the sham January 6th Committee, House Republicans produced a useful report that will keep Capitol and USCP officers safe with no subpoena power and no budget.”

Following the events of Jan. 6, Pelosi forced House Sergeant at Arms Irving to resign, after which a staffer in Irving’s old office sent a blistering email suggesting that Democratic leadership had thrown Irving and Capitol Police Chief Steve Sund under the bus to cover up their own failures to provide adequate security.

“For the Speaker’s knee-jerk reaction to yesterday’s unprecedented event (and God knows how Congress lives for its knee-jerk reactions and to hell with future consequences . . . ). to immediately call for your resignation . . . after you have been denied again and again by Appropriations for proper security outfitting of the Capitol (and I WROTE several of those testimonies, dangit) . . . and to blame you personally because our department was doing the best they could with what they had and our comparatively small department size and limited officer resources . . . and because other agencies stepped in to assist just a fraction too late . . . again, for Congress to demand your resignation is spectacularly unjust, unfair, and unwarranted,” wrote the staffer.

“This is not your fault. Or Sund’s fault. If anything, Appropriations should be hung out to dry.”

Read the rest here…

This morning’s mixed data highlight the divergence between still-climbing costs for services, like housing (although it now appears that the Fed is now realizing that the CPI index is 1 year delayed), and falling goods – both durable and non-durable – prices.

As BBG’s Felize Maranz observes this morning, cheaper gasoline has clearly been cheering consumer sentiment, but the overall direction of inflation remains troubling (at least as long as the Fed is guided by the 12-month lagging CPI/OER data). That complicates the Fed’s dilemma as it seeks to cool, but not crush, the economy — and poses risk for assets like equities.

A look at PCE month-over-month drivers shows drops for autos and energy along with higher recreation and food:

As Maranz notes, these trends are reflected in recent company earnings, like CarMax’s miss and Nike’s bid to offload bloated inventories, as well (our warning from this May about collapsing goods prices due to the reverse Bullwhip effect turned out to be spot on). Durable goods orders also surprised to the downside and capex is losing steam.

Lower demand ahead – as per Micron’s warning – will lead to slower growth, which will help tame inflation. But that’s a careful-what-you-wish-for situation as well, and looks set to hurt equities in the short term, especially as the narrative turns from inflation to lack of growth and recession while the Fed looks on and does nothing.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Adults buying toys for themselves are now responsible for a whopping one quarter of toy sales in the United States, emphasizing how permanent adolescence is becoming increasingly common.

Yes, really.

Countless adults, mostly men, who are collecting things like Lego sets, Star Wars action dolls and Funko Pops, are almost single-handedly keeping the toy industry afloat as actual children become more fixated on video games.

Toy companies are now creating “product lines just for these consumers” to meet growing demand because ‘kidults’ (mostly men in their late 20’s, 30’s and even 40’s) want to be constantly reminded of their childhood.

“These kids at heart are responsible for one-fourth of all toy sales annually, around $9 billion worth, and are the biggest driver of growth throughout the industry,” reports CNBC.

“The definition of adulthood has definitely evolved,” said Jeremy Padawer, chief brand officer at toy company Jazwares. “What it used to mean, to be an adult, was to be a very upstanding, serious member of society. And to do that you had to demonstrate it intellectually, emotionally, in every other single way.”

“Now we feel a lot more free to express our fandom as a part of our adulthood,” he added.

pic.twitter.com/6D39InsxRF

— Consoomer Moments (@ConsoomerLs) December 22, 2022

In other words, ‘kidults’ can seemingly no longer handle the pressure of behaving like adults and have chosen instead to regress to a juvenile state of consumerist nostalgia.

A society that trains men to pursue hook-up culture, refuse to settle down and get married is undoubtedly one of the reasons why man-babies are becoming increasingly prevalent.

The chemical bombardment from our environment, primarily through plastics and other pollutants impacting testosterone, is also feminizing men and keeping them trapped in a mentally pre-pubescent, emasculated mindset.

Meanwhile, as Michael Snyder highlights, figures show that around half of young adults aged 18-29 are still living at home with at least one parent.

This number represents a 6 per cent increase since 2014 and a 12 per cent increase since 2000.

While crippling student debt loans and unaffordable housing are the two primary factors driving the phenomenon, the fact that more and more adults appear to not want to grow up is also playing a major role.

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