It may seem crazy, but here’s some advice for heavily indebted Gen-Zers:

• Put down the smartphone.
• Stop spending on DoorDash and Uber Eats.
• Perhaps cancel a few streaming services.

Also, the spending party is over despite calls from the White House to cancel student debt. 

The rising debt load Gen-Zers are carrying is alarming. The average credit-card balance for 22- to 24-year-olds was $2,834 in 1Q23, compared with an average inflation-adjusted balance of $2,248 in the same period in 2013, according to Wall Street Journal, citing new data from credit-reporting agency TransUnion. 

The youngest generation is coming to age during a time when Bidenomics has been a complete failure, and these kids are spending themselves in financial ruin. 

“This is a generation that is feeling financial stress in a more acute way than millennials did a decade ago,” said Charlie Wise, head of global research at TransUnion.

On Tuesday, Billionaire investor and Duquesne Family Office Chairman & CEO Stan Druckenmiller slammed Bidenomics and warned the Federal Reserve and federal government “misdiagnosed Covid and thought it was — we were going into a depression.”

Druckenmiller has been troubled by the federal government’s massive fiscal spending, which we outlined last year as a “stealth stimulus” propelling Bidenomics. Meanwhile, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has enabled the Bidenomics disaster by spending $1 trillion every 100 days. With stagflationary threats emerging, the US economic situation is quickly deteriorating. 

Besides the vast majority of the working poor slammed by Bidenomics, as noted by McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Tyson Foods executives in earnings calls in recent weeks, Gen-Zers have been very vocal about a shit economy they were given after taking out $100,000 in college loans. Many complained on X: 

Woman defends Gen-Z not wanting to work a 9-5 for the rest of their lives

“I don’t want to work my tail end off, wasting all of my life working, just to barely be able to pay my bills” pic.twitter.com/BxaTXjaxcd

— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) January 8, 2024

A lot of people seem to think this mindset is unique to Gen Z. It’s not.

Every generation goes through this. Watch Reality Bites, where a group of 20-somethings in the early 90s deal with the exact same struggles and emotions as described in this video.

pic.twitter.com/7h1gAN3c7R

— Matthew Kobach 🍕 (@mkobach) October 20, 2023

Democrats and the Biden team have a serious problem as the latest polling data from Gallup shows the president’s polling data is quickly deteriorating amongst the 18-29-year-old vote. 

WSJ provided readers with several sad stories about struggling Gen-Zers fresh out of college. 

The first: 

Lindsay Quackenbush was recently working for a publishing company that paid her $60,000 a year. The money was just enough for the 26-year-old to cover her portion of the rent for the New York City basement apartment where she and her boyfriend live. Then she was laid off.

She is carrying a balance of about $1,700 across three credit cards and is for the first time not able to pay off her credit cards in full. She is making the minimum payment for now while she hunts for a new job.

As for thinking about milestones such as marriage and children, she and her friends have discussed putting anything like that off until they are in a more financially stable position. “Who knows when that will be?” she said.

The second: 

When Adriana Cubillo, 26, moved into her one-bedroom apartment in Salt Lake City a little over a year ago, the rent was $1,000. Since then, it has gone up by $200. That puts a bigger dent in the nearly $30,000 annual salary she makes as a customer-service representative for an insurance company.

She pays for groceries, gas and dog food with her three credit cards and currently holds a balance of $1,500. She pays about $50 a month toward the cards to satisfy the minimum payments.

“When I was younger, I was so ready to be an adult and grow up and live on my own but the economy has made it difficult,” Cubillo said.

What’s problematic for the youth is real wages have not kept up with inflation. In 2020, the median annual wage for college grads was around $59,000, now only up $2,000 to $60,000. Hence, why the kids are racking up credit card debt to survive. 

Also, the mania in opening credit cards has mostly faded among youngsters in this high-rate environment. 

Credit Karma data shows that credit scores have taken a hit. The drop is more severe for millennials with credit scores between 660 and 719, whose scores fell by 26 points. As for Gen-Zers, their credit scores fell 14 points to 720. 

With stagflationary risks emerging in recent weeks, US macro data shows a slowing economy with elevated inflation. New consumer credit data from the Federal Reserve shows households finally hit a brick wall. 

Even Walmart understands these kids are very screwed. The mega-retailer created a private label brand for them with many items under $5. 

Maybe – just maybe – the kids are coming out of college indoctrination camps and spending like there’s no tomorrow because Marxist teachings have led them to believe Joe Biden and the Democrats will bail them out.

Maybe they’re the most gullible generation ever.

Authored by Brent Hamacheck via American Greatness,

In my recently published book, Dissidently Speaking: Change the Words. Change the War: I use both logic and empiricism to prove (I do mean prove) that there is absolutely no such thing as “right wing-left wing” as we use the terms in this country.  They are nothing more than non-defined terms used to characterize and label people with whom we don’t agree.  I will go so far as to say that the terms are a socially acceptable form of hate speech.

When we say that “the left hates Donald Trump,” it isn’t just mistaken; it’s fallacious. 

Since there is no such thing as “left-right,” as we use the terms, there is no possible way for the “left” to hate Trump.

But he is hated by many, and there are three reasons why.

If you are a Trump supporter, there is some good news to be found in this article.  It will give you a way to potentially break through and change the minds of people in two of the three groups, and it will also help you to focus whatever hostile energy you need to dispense upon the third group, one that you cannot change and one that poses a threat to what some ignorantly label as our democracy but is more correctly understood as our republic.

Since people like acronyms, catchy abbreviations, and words that can be turned into hashtags, I will frame my breakdown of the three reasons people hate Donald Trump as the Triple S’s: Silly, Subconscious, and Sinister.

Let’s take them in order.

First are the “sillies.”  These are people who hate Trump purely because of his demeanor.  They don’t like the way he throws insults around, the way he has been caught on tape talking about women, or any of a number of other reasons that relate to personal attributes as opposed to matters of policy or his ability to govern.  I say this is silliness because we are not voting for a person; we are voting for the president. Many of the people in this group, when you ask them about Trump’s policies, agree with much or most of what he tried to do or wants to do as president.  The idea that they are putting personality above policy or principle is simply silly.

They are not asking Trump to do magic tricks and entertain the children at their five-year-old daughter’s birthday party.  If they like, they can ask Barack Obama to do that.  He seems congenial enough.  The real question is, would you rather have Obama’s smile and his socialist approach to governance, or would you rather have a somewhat caustic and abrasive person (Winston Churchill comes to mind) who tries to do what you think is better for the nation?

A quick note to say that I am making no attempt to endorse or criticize Donald Trump.  I am simply identifying why people hate him.  I am going to spend a moment on the term “hate” shortly.

The second group of folks with what gets called “Trump derangement syndrome” are those who hate the candidate-in-chief for reasons that are subconscious or subliminal. 

There are three main drivers of this subconscious hatred.  They are guilt, shame, and altruism.

Donald Trump is unapologetic in his love of country and his claims that America is exceptional and that the needs of our nation and its citizens must be placed first in any and all considerations involving domestic policy or foreign diplomacy.  This message resonates with at least half the nation, and the fire and brimstone with which he delivers it explains the energy and enthusiasm found at his rallies.  Every Trump appearance feels like the Beatles landing in America in 1964.

For a large number of people, however, while they are experiencing the rich bounty that is daily life in the United States, they know that not everyone within our borders enjoys it to the same extent they do, and even fewer do so outside of our borders.  They carry with them a feeling of guilt that they are doing so well, that their lives are so comfortable, and that they simply can’t support a person who runs around saying that America is great and Americans come first. To see Donald Trump aggressively touting such a message makes them feel ashamed.  Nobody likes feeling ashamed.

Guilt and shame then feed into one of, if not the most, destructive of all human thought patterns, which is that of altruism.  This is the notion that self-sacrifice is the highest form of virtue.  This abhorrent concept (often associated with Christianity, which is interesting insofar as the term and the concept were created 1800 years after Christ’s death and by an atheist at that) tears at the mind of many who find it difficult to spend their daily lives struggling with the notion that in order to be good they need to be willing to harm, or even destroy, themselves in the process.

Take a person who is already in inner conflict, feeling guilty, ashamed, and needing to sacrifice, and give them Donald Trump, who effectively screams “No! Don’t do that!” into their ears, and you can get an almost involuntary, subconscious, visceral internal revolt.  While voices inside their heads are screaming to be ashamed of America, Donald Trump is screaming to be proud of America from the outside.  They hate him for the conflict he brings into their lives.

These first two groups of Trump haters can be reached through constructive engagement, genuine questioning and listening, and the patient and persistent application of both. 

There is a third group of Trump haters who cannot be reached and with whom all must reckon. 

Those are the sinister ones—the ones who are not conflicted by Trump’s “America first” message but who are instead vehemently opposed to it.

These are the people who are rightly labeled as globalists—people who want America to recede into the middle of a heterogenous, global community, setting its strong nation-state aside and becoming no more significant in world affairs than are the nations of Chad, Azerbaijan, or Guyana.  “Lead from behind” is just one of the more coffee mug-ready ideas that they hold, all of which seek to have us become part of Orwell’s Oceania.

These people don’t want to confront China; they want to make money with it.  These people do not want to protect our borders; they want to open them so that we can water down our national identity.  These people don’t want us to be energy independent; they want to tilt at energy windmills by installing actual windmills and curry favor with the United Nations and the World Economic Forum (two decidedly anti-American and anti-Trump organizations).

This sinister group, hateful of the very thought of American supremacy, simply detests Donald Trump and knows that he has created an awakening among his followers as to their designs to rebuild an unleavened America.  They truly hate the man, and they consciously and irrationally want him off the stage.  How far will they go to give him the hook?  I will let you conjecture in the same manner as we are left to conjecture the veracity of results in the 2020 election or the assassination of JFK.

You cannot convert this third group, but you can’t ignore them either.  These folks who want world membership instead of leadership are not going away, and they are not going to recede into the shadows.  If you are a Trump supporter and if you like the whole concept of America first, then your best bet is to work with members of the first two groups of Trump-haters and strive for conversions.  Only with numbers can you control the threat from the “sinisters.”

I want to address why I am using the term “hate” (one my mother told me never to use).  I chose it not to defend it in any metaphysical sense but simply to pick a term that generally conveys intensity.  For the most part, the typical person opposed to Trump is not one with a pair of reading glasses on their nose, an opera playbill in their hand, and an affected English accent, claiming they have some subtle points of contention with the man’s positions.  The strength and intensity of his delivery create the same kind of equal and opposite reaction within those for whom it does not resonate.  It is Newtonian.

Perhaps, a bit twisted and imperfect in its logic, we can say that Donald Trump’s love of country generates feelings of hatred, love’s literary opposite, in response?

I have long been on record as predicting that Joe Biden will not be the man on the actual ballot come November.  It made perfect sense for the Democrats to run him for reelection so as to not turn his presidency into one of lame duck status two years into his first term.  That said, the current president clearly suffers from cognitive decline and cannot serve another four years.  I also believe he cannot actually beat Donald Trump in November, save for the intervention of some Herculean election tampering efforts.

If I am wrong and Biden is on the ballot in November, then Trump supporters have much less to fear from the Trump haters.  If, however, my prediction that he is replaced at the convention (my long-held fear is that Michelle Obama steps in; I see her as unbeatable) after stepping aside for “personal reasons” comes true, then reaching out to the first two categories of Trump haters becomes far more important.  You will need to flip some of them.  You will not be able to do it by going to Trump rallies and posting on your social media, where other Trump followers follow you.  You will need to meet them on their turf, on their platforms, and in their living rooms.  This will not be a home game for you.  You are going to have to go on the road and put on your away jersey.

I wish you strength, courage, and success.  While my own personal feelings about the former president are mixed, my strong opposition to the third group of his haters is clear and unwavering.  It needs to be a sort of political “Great Commission” to go out and make believers not out of all three nations of Trump haters, just the first two.

*  *  *

Brent Hamachek is the author of the recent Amazon top new release, Dissidently Speaking: Change the Words. Change the War.  The book is a commentary on the divisions all too common in today’s America. All proceeds from its sale go to support a not-for-profit dedicated to promoting constructive engagement between young people.

On one hand, the Atlanta Fed triumphantly blasted earlier today that Bidenomics is the greatest thing since sliced bread, helping push its Q2 GDP Nowcast to a whopping 4.2%, up from its latest estimate of 3.3%.

On the other hand, Biden’s own DOE – in its latest attempt to slam oil, gas and diesel prices because nothing will crush Biden’s re-election chances faster than an oil price spike in the summer – reported that demand for gasoline and diesel in the United States has plunged to its lowest seasonally since the onset of the COVID pandemic, “sparking concern that economic activity is now becoming stagnant as refining margins hit news lows not seen in months“, Reuters reported.

As shown in the chart below, monthly averages for the week ended May 3 show gasoline demand at 8.63 million barrels per day–a figure not seen since May 2020, at the start of the pandemic, based on EIA data.

Data also showed demand for distillates – the most accurate proxy for overall economic activity – plunged to 3.6 million bpd, which was also a seasonal low not hit since the pandemic. Additionally, for the first time in approximately three months, the 3-2-1 crack spread which serves as a barometer for refining markets, was trading under $26.50 per barrel on Wednesday, Reuters reports, for the lowest crack spread in three years.

Needless to say, this means someone is lying: either the US economy is shrinking, which bad for Biden,  or gasoline demand is far higher than reported, which is also bad for Biden. But since under the current fascist regime truth is a casualty to getting re-elected, we are being served a fake Potemkin village, one where growth is exploding as energy prices are tumbling, day after day and somehow people still believe this bullshit.

“The gasoline situation was going to be looked at by everybody and it definitely disappointed,” Mizuho analyst Robert Yawger told Reuters, adding that “If that’s indicative of the performance of the economy, that’s bad all around.”

The EIA inventory report showed U.S. distillates adding 600,000 barrels to inventory for the week ended May 3, with average production at 4.8 million barrels per day. Gasoline inventory also increased by 900,000 barrels for the week ended May 3, with production averaging 9.5 million barrels per day.

Crude oil prices lost more ground on Wednesday following the EIA’s weekly inventory report, which showed a draw of 1.4 million barrels for the week to May 3, but following a significant 7-million-barrel build from the previous week that put downward pressure on prices.

Back in March, when eyeing the tremendous rebound in the crypto space, we joked that creditors in Sam Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt exchange, FTX, would recover 200% of their claims.

FTX bankruptcy will be the first Chapter 11 where creditors recover 200% of their claims

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 2, 2024

Well, as so often happens in the “new abnormal”, it turns out that we were not joking, because according to the latest reorg plan filed by the bankrupt FTX on Tuesday, most – or roughly 98% of its creditors – would get back 118% of what they had on the FTX platform the day the company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Amazingly, some creditors will recover as much as 142% of what they are owed. Claims will be repaid in cash within 60 days of court approval, although payouts are likely several months away, as FTX winds its way through the final stages of the bankruptcy case.

Under the plan, other non-governmental creditors would get back 100% of their claims plus up to 9% interest to compensate them “for the time value of their investments.” The arrangement is still subject to approval by the Delaware bankruptcy court overseeing the bankruptcy case.

As Coindesk reports, the proposed payouts are higher than earlier estimates from the FTX estate, which said in October it expected to pay back only 90% of customer funds which still was a hefty haul for a bankruptcy where most said recoveries would be virtually nil. In January, current FTX CEO John Jay Ray III revised that estimate, telling the court he expected to be able to pay customers back in full.

So how did FTX creditors – who typically receive just pennies on the dollar for their holdings – luck out so tremendously, and most of them will actually make money following the bankruptcy? Simple: as we hinted in March, FTX has benefited from a historic rally in cryptocurrencies including Solana, a token heavily backed by convicted fraudster and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (in fact, some have wondered if the tremendous ascent of Solana – a B-grade token which traditionally crashes every few months, and is generally the laughing stock within the crytpo community – wasn’t another market manipulation meant to generated 100%+ recoveries). 

Other sources of value, including investments made by FTX and Alameda Research – such as its 8% stake in AI startup Anthropic, which was sold piecemeal to institutional investors for $884 million in March – have been liquidated to generate cash to pay back the claims.

“In any bankruptcy, this is just an unbelievable result,” said FTX Chief Executive Officer, John Ray, who took over the firm when it collapsed.

In a Tuesday press release, the FTX estate said it expects to have between $14.5 and $16.3 billion in cash available for distribution by the time a plan is approved by a Delaware bankruptcy court – the result of a year-and-a-half of scraping together the company’s scattered assets around the world and liquidating them.

“As previously disclosed, FTX.com had a massive shortfall at the time of the Chapter 11 filing in November 2022 – holding only 0.1% of the Bitcon and only 1.2% of the Ethereum customers believed it held,” the press release stated. “Accordingly, Debtors have not been able to benefit from the appreciation of these missing tokens during these Chapter 11 cases.”

FTX’s new reorganization plan would also settle a host of claims from regulators and government agencies, including the IRS and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The IRS agreed to resolve its $24 billion in claims in return for a $200 million cash payment and a $685 million subordinated claim that will only be paid out after all creditors and other governmental entities.

The CFTC and other unnamed governmental claimants agreed to subordinate their claims as long as FTX users and investors were paid in full with interest. There are also plans for a special fund created to make “supplemental restitution” to certain customers and creditors, though the details of this agreement have not been finalized, according to the press release.

A hearing to discuss the proposed plan is scheduled for June.

Former FTX CEO and convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried previously attempted to use the estate’s ability to pay back customers in full as evidence that the collapse of his exchange had “zero” harm to its customers. Before his sentencing in March, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued that their client should receive a light sentence, in part because customers would get all their money back.

Ironically, if it hadn’t been for the Terra-Luna “stablecoin” implosion exactly two years ago which triggered a liquidation cascade across the crypto universe including a 50% plunge in bitcoin in one month in May and June 2022, not only would FTX still be viable, but SBF would be a free man and also one of the world’s richest people.

Ray, along with dozens of FTX creditors, wrote to the court arguing that the estate’s ability to claw together enough to money pay back his victims – the result of “tens of thousands of hours … spent digging through the rubble of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sprawling criminal enterprise to unearth every possible dollar, token or other asset” – doesn’t mean his conduct wasn’t criminal.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He plans to appeal his sentence and conviction. In retrospect, considering that those who had money in his bankrupt exchange got as much as a 42% return, he may well end up with a reduced sentence.

By Russell Clark, author of the Capital Flows and Asset Market substack

Japan and Treasuries

My interest in Japan dates from 1991 when I was fresh faced high school exchange student in Kobe. There are no prizes for finding me in the above photo. I was the only “foreigner” in the school, and would go days without seeing anyone else that looked like me or even speaking English. I managed to combine my knowledge and experience in Japan with my other love, economics. I don’t think its too much of an exaggeration to say I owe my career and wealth through studying the Japan experience carefully and then applying those lessons to the rest of the world.

One of the most fascinating things about Japanese, economically speaking, is that almost its entire foreign reserves are made up of US treasuries, with almost no gold. As the right hand side column below shows, the share of gold as foreign exchange reserves is highest for the “old world”, while new powers such as China, Japan, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia have relatively low shares.

In absolute terms, China and Japan are by far the largest holders of foreign exchange reserves.

While China has larger foreign reserves than Japan now, Japan basically “invented” the idea of sovereign bonds as foreign exchange reserves. During the gold standard days, if a country like the US wanted to consume more than it produced, it would need to transfer gold overseas. With limited gold supply, this limited consumption. Moving to a treasury based financial system essentially removed this constraint. The only issue is whether other governments would accept treasuries or not.

Why did Japan buy treasuries? Well when the bubble economy burst in the early 1990s, the BOJ cut rates to near zero, but the Yen did not collapse as expected.

In fact in the first stages of BOJ interest rates cuts, the Yen actually rallied. The failure of monetary policy to work as it should led the Ministry of Finance to intervene to try and help weaken the Yen, and official buying of US dollar assets took off.

In pro-labor terms, when a government is pro-capital it wants to devalue to reduce the wages of its workers. This creates a trade surplus, which should cause the currency to appreciate, but if the government wants to keep the exchange rate competitive (i.e. keep real wages low), then it needs to buy more and more treasuries. A pro-labor government is happy to see its currency appreciate, and hence does not build foreign currency reserves. What is odd recently is that even as the BOJ remains extremely tardy in its monetary policy response, the Ministry of Finance in Japan has started using foreign reserves to “strengthen” the Yen. As the Economist points out, Japan is currently intervening in the currency market to try and strengthen the Yen.

We don’t know the cost of the foreign exchange intervention at the moment [ZH: we do, it was $59BN], but as can be seen above, Japanese foreign exchange reserves have not been rebuilt since the last intervention in 2022. Japan also does not run the structural trade surplus that it did from 1980 to 2010.

With falling foreign exchange reserves, trade deficit, and the likely increase in defence spending that the Russian-Ukrainian war implies, BOJ policy looks increasingly wrong. Markets seem to agree, with 10 year JGB yields at 13 year highs.

With either a Biden or Trump presidency in 2025, the chances of an austerity driven fiscal policy or a change in trade policy looks unlikely to me. The Japanese may well be caught in a doom loop, where they need to sell more foreign reserves to prop up the currency, which cause US yields to rise, which causes the Yen to weaken further and so on.

Until and unless the BOJ becomes more aggressive, Treasuries look like to have a systematic buyer turn into a systematic seller. China is likely a seller of treasuries and buyer of gold for political and strategic reasons, and Japan is a seller of treasuries for economic reasons. I am still baffled to why retail investors prefer treasuries to gold.

Japan was the key to understanding why treasuries did so well form 1980 to 2020. I think it is now the key to understanding why treasuries are going to do poorly from 2020 onwards.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has revealed that classified documents from the State Department “credibly suggest” that COVID-19 originated from a “lab-related accident in Wuhan, China,” and that the CCP “attempted to cover up the lab leak.”

In a Tuesday letter to Secretary of Stater Antony Blinken, Committee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) asks that the State Department declassify the records to “share the truth” about the origins of COVID-19 with the American people.

Wenstrup noted that the documents were previously unclassified and released in a ‘highly redacted’ form to satisfy a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but the unredacted version which remains classified suggests:

1. COVID-19 originated from a lab-related accident in Wuhan, China;
2. The CCP acted to prevent, and in fact obstructed, a fulsome investigation into these matters; and
3. A seamless relationship between the WIV and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Wenstrup has requested a ‘staff level briefing’ by May 14, and notes that the briefing was previously requested on April 24 of this year, “with the goal of it occurring prior to the Select Subcommittee’s hearing with the President of EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. – and known WIV collaborator–Dr. Peter Daszak,” but that “the Department responded that it could not support a briefing on that timeline.

The highly redacted version of the letter can be seen below:

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has contributed $5,000 of his own money to a reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for vandalizing a World War I memorial.

The 107th United States Infantry monument, situated in Central Park on the Upper East Side, was vandalized during a protest on Monday. Social media footage shows anti-Israel protesters spray-painting the word “Gaza” on the base of the statue and burning an American flag.

#NOW 107th infantry War Soldier Memorial draped in Palestinian flag while American flag burns on the ground on 5th Ave in NYC during ‘DAY OF RAGE’ protest. pic.twitter.com/GAOyQoD130

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 7, 2024

Mr. Adams said on Tuesday that the state will offer a $15,000 reward, with $5,000 contributed by the mayor himself and another $10,000 by the New York Police Department (NYPD), for information leading to the arrest of the “cowards” who vandalized the memorial.

“We cannot remain silent when our symbols of freedom are desecrated by individuals who clearly hate our country and hate our way of life,” the mayor said during a press conference.

“We should not remain silent, because our silence gives the belief that everything is okay and it is not okay. Not only was this statue desecrated, but down the block, another statue was desecrated,” he added.

Mr. Adams, whose uncle died while serving in Vietnam at the age of 19, called the memorial vandalism a “painful” act and vowed to “treat this crime with the seriousness that it deserves.”

“I want to assure New Yorkers that our city will not tolerate chaos and disorder, even if those who are creating it claim to be doing so in the name of peace. We want [you] to bring your anger and passion to the protests, but don’t bring your hate, don’t bring your violence and don’t bring your disorder,” Mr. Adams said.

“We’re going to be swift with our response. We’re going to be swift with our actions, and we’re going to be swift to ensure those who attempt to bring disorder to the city would not accomplish their task,” he added.

Protestors also vandalized the monument honoring Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan. The mayor’s office stated that NYC Parks is working with the Central Park Conservancy to finish cleaning the memorials.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the nation’s largest war veterans organization, affirmed in a May 1 statement that it supports “the rule of law in our country and those working to uphold it.”

“While those staging protests on college campuses across the country have the right to free speech and to peaceful assembly, they do not have the right to violently act out against others,” VFW National Commander Duane Sarmiento stated.

Hundreds of protesters marched from Hunter College on Monday and made their way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where the Met Gala was taking place.

Crowd control police with anti-riot gear sent out warnings that protesters would be arrested if they kept blocking the middle of the street and didn’t move to the sidewalks.

By 8 p.m. there were still about 800 protesters present. They dispersed into smaller groups, the biggest group having about 200 people, and at about 9 p.m. the protest faded.

Police block entrances to the Met Gala in New York on May 6, 2024. (Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times)

Protesters said they were upset with Israel’s bombing of Gaza and civilian casualties there.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry told The Epoch Times that at least 25 individuals were arrested following the protest, including one person “who was throwing eggs out the window at the officers.”

The deputy commissioner said the pro-Palestinian group tried to force its way into the Met Gala but police had fortified the area and did not let anyone in who did not have permission.

Despite the Biden administration repeatedly warning Israeli leadership in public against a full-scale Rafah invasion, President Biden actually greenlighted the IDF’s takeover of the Rafah border crossing, Axios has revealed. The report comes amid questions over whether Netanyahu has crossed Biden’s “red line” on Rafah.

The report insists that Israel hasn’t crossed that line, so long as the scope of the operation remains limited and does not result in mass civilian displacement and humanitarian catastrophe. Speaking of the Biden-Netanyahu phone call on Monday, a senor Israeli official told Axios, “Biden didn’t pull the hand break on the capture of the Rafah crossing during the call.” So far the IDF has focused on airstrikes and limited ground incursions in the city’s east, after dropping thousands of leaflets telling civilians to exit the area.

However, the US administration has taken the unprecedented step of withholding ammo and bomb shipments to Israel in order to send a ‘message’. 

An Israeli Haaretz report issued Tuesday has further revealed that there was actually some level of cooperation and coordination with Washington on an IDF tank unit’s takeover of Rafah crossing. This was reportedly to ensure no weapons for Hamas can pass into the Strip via the large crossing.

The US, Israel, and Egypt have agreed that a private American security firm will take control of Rafah Crossing and oversee it. As of Wednesday, the IDF has announced it reopened the crossing, and it is retaining full control for now.

“The parties agreed that a private American security company will assume management of the crossing after the IDF concludes its operation. Israel has also pledged not to damage the crossing’s facilities to ensure its continuous operation,” wrote Haaretz. However, “State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that he is not aware of Israel agreeing to transfer control of the crossing.”

This is also to exert leverage in negotiations. “Israel believes that Hamas’ loss of control over the Rafah crossing would be a significant setback for the group,” Haaretz noted. “It will not be able to collect taxes imposed on trucks and goods and will no longer be able to bring in weapons and other items banned from entering Gaza.”

Haaretz revealed limited details on the US defense firm in question and has not named it. It employs elite former US military personnel such as ex-special forces operators: 

As part of Israel’s efforts to win agreement for a Rafah operation, negotiations have been underway with a private company in the U.S. that specializes in assisting armies and governments around the world engaged in military conflicts. The company has operated in several African and Middle Eastern countries, guarding strategic sites like oil fields, airports, army bases and sensitive border crossings. It employs veterans of elite U.S. Army units.

Under the understandings between the three countries, when Israel has completed its limited operation in the border crossing area, the U.S. company will take responsibility for operating the facility. That includes monitoring goods arriving in the Gaza Strip from Egypt and preventing Hamas from re-establishing control of the crossing. According to the agreement, Israel and the U.S. will assist the company as necessary.

It the report is accurate, it would mean American military contractors would be put in harm’s way, and that US elite veterans could eventually enter a firefight with Palestinian militants.

You know what this conflict was missing? Private U.S. military contractors with no legal oversight.https://t.co/WmH5bLwC2A

— Jenn Williams (@jenn_ruth) May 7, 2024

US contractors on the ground would certainly also be seen as a key target for Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups (such as PIJ). Hamas has long warned that any foreign troops or military entity that enters the Gaza Strip will find itself under attack.

But there has yet to be any official government confirmation of the US contractor plan for Rafah crossing from either Washington or Tel Aviv, and time will tell if such a controversial plan comes to fruition. If it happens, this means American military contractors would be active in two major hot conflicts: Ukraine and Gaza (not to mention in eastern Syria and Iraq as well).

Authored by Ven Ram, Bloomberg cross-asset strategist,

Treasury yields at the back end of the curve may stay higher for longer if Neel Kashkari is right about the short-run neutral rate.

Core PCE has averaged 2.9% so far this year, above the 2.6% the Fed estimated in its March dot plot, which itself marked an upward revision. While the April jobs data was softer than forecast, the average jobless rate this year is just 3.8% – well below levels that the Fed reckons will be needed to bring the labor market back into balance.

The policy committee “has more work to do” if inflation is going to settle around 3%, Kashkari commented in his latest essay posted on the Fed Minneapolis website. 

For good measure, he has also penciled in a higher short-run neutral rate.

The neutral rate, where an economy is at full employment and inflation steady, is still elevated at 1.12%, based on the latest update of the Laubach-Williams model:

That compares with the Fed’s implicit assumption of a 60-basis point real neutral rate, based on its March summary of economic projections.

If core PCE were to bob around 3%, as Kashkari fears, and assuming the Laubach-Williams model provides a more realistic reading of the real neutral rate, the implied nominal policy rate would be north of 4% – making the current rate less restrictive.

This is why Kashkari remarked that there is the prospect of interest rates having to go higher, although he added that it isn’t the most likely scenario (note also that he doesn’t vote on monetary policy this year).

However marginal that prospect may look now, market pricing must reflect the possibility of such a scenario.

And at around 4.47%, Treasury 10-year yields are doing just that.

With so many factors sapping sentiment, longer-dated Treasuries will find it hard to rally just yet.

The severe manpower crisis of Ukraine’s armed forces continues to be on display, particularly after the recent decision of the government to deny embassy and consular services for Ukrainian men of fighting age who live abroad but refuse to come back home.

Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday just once again upped the controversy and advanced a dramatic change in law and national policy. It passed a bill enabling select prisoners to be released in order to fight in the armed forces.

“The parliament has voted ‘yes,'” MP Olena Shuliak, head of Zelensky’s party, announced in a social media post. “The draft law opens the possibility for certain categories of prisoners who expressed a desire to defend their country to join the Defense Forces,” she said.

Ironically Moscow has previously come under international condemnation and mockery for just such a policy.

AFP and other international outlets acknowledged this as follows: “Long-opposed to the measure and having criticized Moscow’s mobilization of prisoners to fill its ranks, Kyiv has recently U-turned amid fresh Russian advances on the battlefield,” a report said.

The legislation still has to be signed by parliament’s chairperson and President Zelensky in order to come into force as an active policy. The bill includes the following reported stipulations and parameters:

• Prisoners must volunteer
• Only those with three or more years left on their sentence can apply
• Those convicted of violent sexual crimes are not eligible
• Former high-ranking officials and those guilty of “serious corruption” are not eligible
• Prisoners who killed two or people are not eligible

One glaring aspect is that it appears literal murderers can possibly still go free if they join the army, so long as they killed no more than one person, based on the AFP’s reporting

The following unexpected and bizarre line is in the AFP report detailing the new Ukrainian bill:

Among those not eligible to serve include those found guilty of sexual violence, killing two or more people, serious corruption and former high-ranking officials, Shuliak said.

However, some conflicting information has emerged. The below is via a Ukrainian news source:

Shuliak told Ukrainska Pravda that the following will not be eligible to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine: those who have committed premeditated murder, rapists and paedophiles, corrupt officials, those who have committed crimes against the foundations of Ukraine’s national security, and those who have held a particularly responsible position, including MPs and ministers.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians living abroad are said to be outraged at the government’s efforts to lure them back to Ukraine by the denial of consular services. One 19-year old man living abroad told Al Jazeera the following:

“I support individual battalions in Ukraine with donations every month – this is my duty,” said Anton, who works as a waiter.

“But I don’t want to fight, as I don’t trust our government. They don’t care about people. And they don’t care if there’s a war going on, they’re corrupt and keep stealing the money that we pay for the army. Why go to war for a state who only wants to steal?” he said bitterly.

Another 35-year old man currently in Poland (where many Ukrainian families fled once the war began) told Al Jazeera as follows: “If the army could guarantee that my work would be aligned with my skills and knowledge, I would go back. I could help with drones and other technology. But getting a rifle and shooting would not be the most efficient way of utilizing my skills.”

Ukraine forces continue losing ground along front line positions in the east. Not only are they outgunned, but the more experienced fighters who have been in it from nearly the beginning are exhausted, with commanders having few options in terms of rotating in fresh battalions from the back.