Via SchiffGold.com,

Can America hope to climb past its mountain of $34 trillion of federal debt? With the staggering weight of unfunded liabilities in vital entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare reaching a staggering $212 trillion, any strategy for repayment is met with formidable obstacles. Our guest contributor examines these challenges and arrives at a sobering verdict: the magnitude of the debt renders the prospect of repayment virtually impossible. 

While clearing the debt may be beyond reach, the US can still take decisive action to rein in spending and prevent further exacerbation of its dire financial predicament.

The following article was originally published by the Mises Institute. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Peter Schiff or SchiffGold.

US fiscal realities are well known. Total federal debt outstanding has now reached $34 trillion, up from $98 billion in 1981, $5.67 trillion in 2000, $13.56 trillion in 2010, and $26.95 trillion in 2020. And at 120 percent of the US economy’s productive capacity (gross domestic product), the federal debt matches that at the end of World War II.

That $34 trillion, when spelled out, is the number thirty-four followed by twelve (count ’em) zeros separated by four commas. So it looks like this, a lot of digits and commas for the human brain to comprehend: $34,000,000,000,000.

These official debt figures do not even include the large unfunded liabilities inherent in the largest federal entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, and several others that comprise about two-thirds of federal spending. We can, however, accurately forecast those liabilities over the next seventy-five years—the time horizon used by the trustees of the two funds that finance the programs—because the future beneficiaries have already been born and will expect their benefits when they become eligible. Unfunded liabilities are currently estimated at $212 trillion.

The two programs, Social Security and Medicare, are structured so that future workers will be paying sufficient payroll taxes to pay future benefits as the population ages. But the trustees of the two programs project that the trust funds do not currently contain sufficient resources to fully cover these future benefits past the middle of the next decade without congressional changes.

Outstanding Debt versus Federal Budget Deficits

Where did all this debt come from? In the simplest sense, it came from too much spending. There tends to be confusion between annual federal budget deficits and the total outstanding federal debt. We’re referring here to the debt, not simply to the annual budget deficits that continue to increase the debt every time the federal government spends more than it receives in tax revenue.

This deficit spending results every year that the legislative and executive branches of our federal government can’t seem to control their spending habits, which has been the case every year since the late 1990s when the federal government last ran a small surplus. Annual federal budget deficits currently run at the $1.7 trillion level, compared to the $34 trillion debt.

Motivation to Pay Off the Federal Debt

Is there any motivation to attempt a debt payoff? Many Americans appear to have been lulled into accepting some variant of modern monetary theory, which has infected the populace like a virus, and which a small fringe group of economists believe allows a sovereign nation with its own sovereign currency to spend without limit, being able simply to issue more of its own currency to pay off any debt with impunity. Though these believers do not outright state that there is no limit to the amount of debt that sovereign countries can take on with no concern about ever repaying, reading between the lines and watching their behavior certainly indicates this conclusion.

What Debt Payoff Might Look Like

If there is any motivation to pay off the federal debt, what would this payoff actually entail? In the simplest terms, dividing the current outstanding $34 trillion debt by the current US population of 334,233,854 (as of January 1, 2023) yields a one-time per capita payoff figure of $101,725.18 for every man, woman, and child in the US.

While this undoubtedly exceeds the average savings account owned by most Americans, it doesn’t look like an outrageously high figure. But, of course, we’re assuming no more annual federal budget deficits that increase the debt, which would be a difficult promise for Congress and any president to keep. But if such a payoff were possible, it would obviate the need to continue paying interest on the debt, an outlay that now runs about $1 trillion annually.

Another approach to pay off the federal debt over time might be to structure the debt payoff similarly to an amortized mortgage. As a hypothetical thought exercise, picture that you’ve taken on a $34 trillion mortgage to buy your ultimate dream house.

The interest rate on this hypothetical mortgage is the current average rate being paid to lenders who own the Treasury bonds that comprise the debt. After all, these lenders, which include both Americans and those in foreign countries such as China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and others, would expect to receive their interest payments during the next thirty years that you will be paying your hypothetical mortgage.

The average annual interest rate on the US debt, as of December 2023, is 3.11 percent, which is expected to increase over time. But if you can lock in this interest rate on your hypothetical thirty-year $34 trillion mortgage, 3.11 percent sounds like a pretty good deal, below current conventional mortgage rates.

Using an Excel spreadsheet for the calculations, the formula for the monthly mortgage payment is PMT (1,2,3), where three arguments are as follows:

1. Monthly interest rate expressed as a decimal (0.0311), divided by 12.

2. The number of mortgage payments, 360 in this example (thirty years times 12).

3. The mortgage loan amount ($34,000,000,000,000 here).

For readers who may want to try this at home, inserting these three arguments into the Excel PMT calculation, the monthly payment for 360 payments over thirty years at a monthly mortgage interest rate of 0.00259 (i.e., 0.259 percent, about one-quarter of 1 percent) would be $145,370,309,731.07 total, or $434.94 per capita.

That’s $145 billion and change every month for thirty years, or $434.94 per every American man, woman, and child. This is most likely more than every American could ever afford to contribute every month for thirty years to repay the federal debt. And again, this assumes no more continuing federal budget deficits that would increase the existing debt. Remember, we’re only trying to pay off the current outstanding debt of $34 trillion.

Yet these figures are worth contemplating for their astounding magnitude, just as the total outstanding federal debt is worth contemplating for its astounding magnitude. These figures are very difficult for the human brain to grasp.

Anyone reading this far must conclude that this is a fatuous exercise, that there is no achievable way to pay off the current federal debt within the lifetimes of Americans currently alive, and that the only possible remedy is to begin curtailing federal spending to avoid taking on additional debt. That’s why we occasionally hear a few politicians speaking of (or paying lip service to) “deficit reduction,” which in the current political environment is the only humanly possible pursuit. And accomplishing that is easier said than done, for political as much as for financial reasons.

And on a final note, when contemplating the US fiscal predicament, keep in mind that there are only four means by which government can capture resources for its own use:

1. Outright confiscation of property for public use, which is prevented by the US Constitution’s “taking clause” without just compensation of the property owner.

2. Taxation.

3. Debt issuance.

4. Inflation that erodes the nominal amount of the debt over time, harming lenders.

Some observers would argue that this fourth strategy is perhaps what we are beginning to observe in the US and some other countries around the world, but that is a topic for another day.

One of the world’s largest producers of artillery and tank shells secured a joint venture with a Ukrainian partner to produce 155mm caliber bullets. 

On Saturday, German defense company Rheinmetall announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with an unnamed Ukrainian company at the Munich Security Conference.

The Mou was signed by Rheinmetall executives and Alexander Kamyshin, the Ukrainian Minister for Strategic Industries. 

Rheinmetall will have a 51% stake in the new artillery ammunition factory, while the Ukranian partner will hold 49%. The factory will begin producing a “six-digit number of 155mm caliber bullets per year” in 2025, according to the defense firm. 

“Demand for ammunition in many countries is enormous – first and foremost in Ukraine, of course. Our intention of establishing another joint venture underscores our support for Ukraine. This joint venture will make a vital contribution to the country’s ability to defend itself – and thus to the security of all Europe”, Armin Papperger, chairman of the executive board of Rheinmetall, wrote in a statement. 

Papperger continued: “We want to be an effective partner of Ukraine, to help rebuild the country’s once powerful defence industry, and to assure Ukrainian autonomy in ammunition production. Already today, we are Kyiv’s most important defence industry partner. We are currently processing several billion euros worth of projects on behalf of Ukraine, with more almost daily.”

Shares of Rheinmetall in Europe rose 3% to a new record high. Shares are up nearly 40% on the year as war is big business. 

Last week, the International Institute for Strategic Studies wrote in its annual report titled “Military Balance” that the “current military-security situation heralds what is likely to be a more dangerous decade, characterized by the brazen application by some of the military power to pursue claims.” 

Of course, MSCI’s global defense index stands to benefit: 

The problem with the West is that Ukraine is running out of willing and able military-age men to fight while Western militaries face a severe ammunition shortage. Meanwhile, Russia secured a major victory in the war over the weekend. 

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

Speculators long the euro versus the dollar look out of step with real-rate differentials. However, the short positioning in the euro versus sterling looks more in tune with the interest rate outlook.

Overall, speculators are flat the dollar, based on the Commitment of Traders report. But this masks a long in EM FX versus the dollar, and a short in DM FX. That’s pretty much been the theme for the last year, although the conviction on the DM short has been much more hesitant, with the net dollar long versus DM currencies more muted than the short dollar versus EM FX.

Most of this makes sense through the prism of real-rate differentials. All of the major countries with higher vol-adjusted real rate differentials than the US are EM, such as Mexico, Brazil and India. All DM FX have lower real-rate differentials; the only major EM currencies also with lower differentials than the US are the Taiwanese and Singapore dollars, the Korean won and, unsurprisingly given the country’s stratospheric inflation rate, the Turkish lira.

So far so good – positioning is largely aligned with real-rate differentials. But within the aggregate positions there are a couple of anomalies. Most notable is the euro. The overall net short in DM currencies masks the long positioning in sterling and the euro.

Both the UK and Europe have lower real-rate differentials than the US, but the expected rate path for the Fed sees fewer cuts than at the BOE in 2024. Europe’s real policy rate, however is expected to be lower than the US’s at the end of this year. Thus the long positioning in the euro looks more out of step with real-rate differentials.

This is also inconsistent with positioning in EURGBP, which does look in line with differentials. As the chart above shows, speculators are quite short the euro against sterling, relative to the last two years. Real rates are lower in Europe compared to the UK, and if we use CPI fixing swaps, the real rate in Europe is expected to fall ~65 bps in 2024, versus rising ~25 bps in the UK.

Shorts in the euro versus the pound look to be reflecting the rate trajectory, while longs in the euro versus the dollar may find the wind against them this year.

US futures inched higher on Monday, after the S&P 500’s first weekly drop since early-January ended a streak of 15 weekly gains in 16 weeks, as markets braced for the most important earnings report of the quarter from AI bellwether Nvidia, while Goldman again raised its year-end price target for the S&P to 5,200 from 5,100. With US cash equity markets closed on Monday for Presidents’ Day, futures were open for trading and contracts on the Nasdaq 100 gained 0.2% by 8:15a.m. in New York, while S&P 500 futures advanced 0.1%. Cash bond markets are closed while the Bloomberg dollar index ticked marginally lower. Bitcoin jumped back over $52,000 while ether surged to a fresh two year high above $2,900.

Last week’s stocks pause came after 2024 YTD gains hit almost 5% on the S&P 500 after 5 straight weeks of gains, fueled by expectations of a dovish policy shift by the Fed and continued frenzy around artificial intelligence.

With the economic calendar slowing down, and earnings season approaching its tail end, Nvidia’s results Wednesday are now everyone’s focus: “No one really wants to make a move before that given the tension on the stock and its huge rally since last year,” David Kruk, head of trading at La Financiere de L’Echiquier in Paris, noting the stock is already up about 47% this year, following its 230% surge in 2023. Minutes from the Fed’s January meeting are also due Wednesday, and Kruk said those would be closely watched, given “recent robust robust inflation data and the fact rate cut expectations have been melting down recently.”

Goldman strategists still expect the S&P 500 index to break new records and rise to 5,200 points by the end of the year. The new target implies a 3.9% jump from Friday’s close. They also upped their earnings-per-share forecasts to reflect expectations for “stronger economic growth and higher profits,” especially in the tech sector.

Meanwhile, the recent rebound in inflation has put a damper on rate cut expectations.

Swaps now see less than 90 basis points of rate cuts in 2024, from around 150 basis points in early February. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said Friday that for now he favors two cuts this year, starting summer, while Larry Summers and others are wondering if the Fed’s next move won’t be another hike.

Meanwhile, in the latest conundrum facing markets, US and global stocks have yet to respond to the sharp selloff in Treasuries this month, after a string of better-than-expected economic data and hawkish comments by policy makers. Investors also have to contend with mixed earnings, while the Middle East and Red Sea shipping chaos pose major risks to the outlook for profits.

“Our base case remains that equities will end the year higher than current levels, but we do not expect it to be a straight path,” said Mohit Kumar, the chief economist for Europe at Jefferies INternational Ltd. “We are looking for a bit of a pull-back in the near term, which would provide better levels to reset long positions.”

European stocks were little changed following the previous week’s 1.4% surge that took the gauge to within four points of its January 2021 record high. The Stoxx 600 was down 0.2%, with basic resources leading declines after iron ore tumbled, while chemicals and tech also underperformed. Defensive sectors, including telecoms and health care, posted gains. Among individual movers, AstraZeneca climbed more than 3% after trial data showed its Tagrisso drug slowed disease progression in lung cancer patients. German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall AG advanced as much as 4% after announcing it will open a new plant in Ukraine. Banco Santander SA rose after kicking off a share buyback. Here are some of the other most notable movers:

• Currys soars as much as 38% after the UK electronics retailer said over the weekend it rejected a preliminary offer of 62p/share from Elliott; Currys now have two potential bidders
• Temenos rises as much as 6.9%, the most in a month, recouping part of the losses incurred after a report by Hindenburg last week, which accused the company of irregular accounting
• Telecom Italia shares rise as much as 4.7% after Bank of America upgraded the carrier to buy on an improved outlook for its customer-facing arm, as the network segment inches closer to a sale
• Forvia rises as much as 5.9% after reporting 2023 results Oddo said could “reassure” investors amid challenges in Europe, with a further boost from a new competitiveness plan
• Icade shares advance as much as 4.4% after the real estate investment trust reported group net current cash flow that beat estimates, and launching its new ‘ReShapE’ strategic plan
• Bank of Georgia rises as much as 6.2% to touch a new record high after agreeing to buy Armenia’s Ameriabank. Analysts say deal potentially gives the London-listed lender a valuation premium
• Bechtle falls as much as 3.2% as Barclays initiates the stock at underweight, seeing no profit growth for the German IT company in 2024 and cites the firm’s E-Com division as a “structural drag”
• Thales falls as much as 3.5%, the most in a month, after UBS downgraded the aerospace and defence company to sell from neutral, citing challenges faced by its space division
• AQ Group falls as much as 6.5% after SEB cut its recommendation for the industrial component manufacturer to hold, with a recent strong run limiting upside for the stock going forward

Earlier in the session, Chinese stocks finished higher in their first trading session after reopening from more than a weeklong holiday thanks to what appeared to be another intervention by Beijing’s plunge protection team; shares dropped in Hong Kong after a three-day rally. Elsewhere, Asian stocks were little changed as Chinese shares traded mixed, with mainland markets rising. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index moved in a narrow range, with Tencent and Nintendo among the biggest drags, while Samsung and BHP provided boosts. South Korean benchmarks rose more than 1% on continued enthusiasm for the government’s efforts to boost valuations, while most other markets were little changed. Stocks in India rose for a fifth consecutive session to push key gauge NSE Nifty 50 Index to its all-time high as regional peers advanced. The NSE Nifty 50 Index rose 0.5% to 22,157.40, surpassing its prevision peak seen in early January, while the S&P BSE Sensex advanced by a similar measure. The benchmark Sensex is now 0.8% short of its all-time high.

In Fx, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is flat while the kiwi tops the G-10 FX pile, rising 0.3% versus the greenback.

In rates, bond markets were muted, with no cash trading of Treasuries due to the US holiday. They fell on Friday, with two-year yields up seven basis points to 4.65% after the producer price index rose on a sizable jump in costs of services. The greenback weakened against most of its Group-of-10 peers.

In commodities, oil slid from the highest level in three weeks as lingering concerns over the demand outlook offset ongoing Middle East tensions. Gold held a two-day gain. Concerns over China’s economy also led iron ore to slump after five days of gains.

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

It’s a US holiday today so expect a quiet start to what is a quiet week for data. I’m going to a 2-hour junior concert tonight where 8yr-old Maisie is performing a 60-second solo piece at some point on the piano. I suspect the other 1 hour 59 minutes might not go that quickly and I suspect all the other parents will feel similar after their child has performed.

Talking of going solo, it’s a reflection of the world we live in that the most important event of the week may be Nvidia’s earnings on Wednesday. It is now the 4th largest company in the world and the best performer in the S&P 500 so far this year (+46.6% YTD), so this will be very important for sentiment. China’s return from holidays will also add some interest after its recent equity market volatility and weak growth/inflation numbers. Overnight our Chinese economist has written about how the Lunar New Year consumer activity was moderately encouraging. See the piece here for more.

Elsewhere, we do have the FOMC January minutes on Wednesday but a lot of data has flowed under the bridge since then and market pricing has moved closer to the Fed’s dots and tone since then so its hard to see how much we’ll learn from their thoughts three weeks earlier. The account of the January ECB meeting on Thursday will also be of note.

In terms of data, the global flash PMIs come out on Thursday and in the US this week’s claims on the same day correspond to survey week for payrolls. Winter storms may make data challenging to interpret in the next few weeks though. Tomorrow’s leading indicators and Thursday’s existing home sales are the other US highlights.

Over in China, after leaving the 1-yr MLF rate unchanged yesterday (as expected), tomorrow sees them decide on the 1-yr and 5-yr loan prime rates. The market is expecting the latter to be cut 10bps to 4.1%.

You can see the rest of the week ahead, including earnings and central bank speakers at the end as usual. Thursday is a big day for Fed speak including Vice Chair Jefferson who we haven’t heard from since the FOMC, so his views at the centre of the committee will hold some weight.

As I check my screens in Asia, the KOSPI (+1.10%) is leading gains across the region with the CSI (+0.46%) and the Shanghai Composite (+0.62%) trading higher after their week long break. Elsewhere, the Nikkei (-0.15%) is slightly lower, tantalisingly close to its all-time high last seen 34 years ago, while the Hang Seng (-1.11%) is lower after a decent run since it returned from hols last Wednesday. Outside of Asia, S&P 500 futures are just in positive territory with the Nasdaq equivalent +0.22%. Meanwhile, there is no cash trading of US Treasuries on account of the President’s Day holiday.

Early morning data showed that core machine orders in Japan rebounded +2.7% m/m in December, in line with Bloomberg estimates, swinging back from the prior month’s decline of -4.9%.

Looking back at last week now, the key theme was renewed concerns about persistent high US inflation after a red-hot CPI print on Tuesday was followed by another upside surprise in producer prices on Friday. Headline January PPI rose 0.3% month-on-month (vs 0.1% expected), and 0.9% in year-on-year terms (vs 0.6% expected), exceeding expectations across every aggregate. Following the CPI and PPI prints, our US economists see January core PCE inflation tracking at +0.36% month-on-month, which would be the strongest print since early 2023. In other data on Friday, we had the University of Michigan’s inflation expectations for February, which saw both 1yr and 5-10yr inflation expectations beat estimates at 3.0% (vs 2.9% expected) and 2.9% (vs 2.8% expected), respectively.

Off the back of this, investors significantly dialled back the amount of rate cuts they were expecting this year. The amount of Fed cuts expected by December fell to as low as 80bp intra-day after the PPI print, though this was back to 90bps by the close (still down -22.3bps over the week and -5.8bps on Friday). So that’s nearly a full 25bps hike being taken out last week, with expected 2024 easing shrinking almost in half since a peak of 168bps on January 12.

This backdrop sent 10yr Treasury yields up +4.9bps on Friday, and +10.5bps on the week to 4.28%, their highest weekly close since late November. The more interest-rate sensitive 2yr yield jumped +16.1bps (and +6.8bps on Friday). Across the pond in Europe, the bond sell-off was more muted, but 10yr bund yields did reach their highest level since the end of November at 2.40% (+4.3bps on Friday and +2.1bp over the week).

The sell-off in rates put some pressure on equities but they were fairly resilient given the rate implications of the data. The S&P 500 fell by -0.42% last week as a decline late on Friday (-0.48%) ended a streak of five consecutive weekly gains. The volatility following the CPI and PPI prints sent the VIX up +1.3pts to 14.24 (+0.2pts on Friday). This is well below its peak of 15.85 after the CPI print but still the highest weekly close since early November. Tech stocks underperformed, with the NASDAQ falling -1.34% (and -0.82% on Friday) and the Magnificent 7 down -1.50% (-0.84% Friday). Although it fell by -1.39% on Friday, the Russell 2000 index of smallcap stocks was an outperformer last week, rising +1.13%, returning the index into the black in year-to-date terms. This was mostly driven by a bout of AI optimism sending small tech stocks up so you can’t escape their influence. European equities outperformed with the STOXX 600 rising +1.39% (and +0.62% on Friday).

Authored by Tom Rabbe via The Spectator,

I don’t know about you, but I’m all worn out with this GOAT thing.

Every category has a greatest of all time. And while it makes for pregnant discussion, it does get a little exhausting arguing whether Michael Jordan or LeBron James is the GOAT of pro basketball. Whether Tom Brady earns such a monicker, or if the designation should go to Joe Montana or, now, after his Super Bowl LVIII triumph, Patrick Mahomes. And then, a couple of weeks ago, two GOAT football coaches left their jobs on the same day, Nick Saban and Bill Belichick — one voluntarily, the other not — and everything in the media was GOAT, GOAT, GOAT — all GOAT all the time.

As I said … exhausting. 

I think it’s time to give a different category a little exposure — the WOAT (worst of all time).

This is a more restrictive discussion, because we must choose a category in which participants are limited. You could not really acclaim any single major league baseball player as the worst of all time because the pool of qualified candidates numbers in the thousands. You might get away with designating the worst NFL quarterback of all time, but even then, the contenders are legion, some of whom are unknown even to the cognoscenti. For every Ryan Leaf, there might be a truly el-stinko backup QB for the 1947 Chicago Cardinals whose name everybody has forgotten.

No, the category has to be pretty narrow. The Supreme Court might be fertile ground, as the number of justices is limited, but apart from legal scholars, who can name any justices from, say, the 1870s? Vice presidents? Possibly, but it’s difficult to tell which is good or bad, much less the worst, as they don’t do anything to begin with. And besides, it’s impossible to totally obliterate recency bias in that contest (Kamala would win in a landslide). Senators? You’d have a 500-way tie for first place.

On this Presidents Day weekend, as we honor our chief executives of past and present, the only category that makes sense is president of the United States. There are, after all, only 45 of them.

We can eliminate certain presidents who so briefly held office as to be more forgettable than awful. Zachary Taylor was in office for a mere year and a half, which was a lifetime compared to the tenures of William Henry Harrison (he delivered the longest inaugural address in history, only to serve the shortest period of time in office, 31 days) and James Garfield (199 days).

So, the rule is that they must have served one full term to be WOAT-eligible. That eliminates a number of attractive candidates, like Warren Harding, Millard Fillmore, Chester Arthur, and John Tyler. It also technically cuts out Andrew Johnson, but he accomplished so much bad in his less-than-one full term that we’re allowing his inclusion.

While it would be plausible simply to list the presidents serving in near proximity to the Civil War and leave it at that, a more expansive and nuanced view of the office is required.

And while he will probably blow away the field once he’s eligible, it seems unfair to include in the list the current president. He has nine months to pad his resumé — and his lead in WOAT-ness — but, as a work in progress, or regress, he gets a pass.

With that in mind, we turn to the nominees:

• Franklin Pierce: One of a number of pre–Civil War compromisers, Pierce was passionate about adding new slave states to the Union and also signed into law the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed residents of new states to decide whether to allow slavery, and the Fugitive Slave Act. Although from New Hampshire, he was a Jackson Democrat who even proposed at one point annexing Cuba as another slave state. Even while enlisting a pretty good author to write his campaign bio — his buddy Nathaniel Hawthorne — he failed to be renominated by his party for the 1856 race.

• Jimmy Carter: It says something about one’s presidency when one is called the best ex-president of history. From killer rabbits to Billy Beer, from his “crisis in confidence” speech — known as the malaise speech — to the Iran embassy crisis and the aborted desert rescue, the presidency of the man from Plains was marked with risibility and retreat.

• Andrew Johnson: On the plus side, while president, the Tennessean did resist fellow Southerners who tried to undo the results of the Civil War. Also, after leaving office, Johnson broke the political mold by showing humility and returning to public life in a lesser capacity (like John Quincy Adams) by serving in the U.S. Senate. But he was a political oaf and made numerous tone-deaf mistakes, showing indifference to the plight of newly emancipated blacks to the point of opposing the 14th Amendment. Plus, he was impeached — which is, contrary to some current spin, still a bad thing — and survived removal by all of one vote. Seems to have been not very popular with his peers.

• Lyndon B. Johnson: Another of the Johnson boys, Lyndon did as much damage internationally as he did domestically. Ike gave us steadiness; JFK gave us Camelot; LBJ ratcheted up Vietnam to its height. As Bill Murray said in Stripes, when it comes to war, we’re 10 and one, and LBJ is pretty much responsible for the one. He also followed up the New Deal with the Great Society, which nobody thinks is so great anymore.

• James Buchanan: History has not been kind to James Buchanan, as close to a consensus No. 1 pick as you can get. Think of him as a gopher ball served up to Abraham Lincoln; he is the Ray McLean to Lincoln’s Vince Lombardi, the Mike Shula to Lincoln’s Nick Saban. Even before becoming president in 1856, he was a tergiversator with no equal, supporting measures that perpetuated North–South division, like the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and, in his inaugural address, encouraging the Dred Scott decision. Once in office, his hands went perpetually numb from his sitting on them.

• Barack Obama: No such list would be complete without the president who vowed to “fundamentally change America” even though most of America pretty much liked America the way it was. As an African American, he also had the opportunity to heal — or at least radically improve — race relations in America but opted to play the same old racial grievance game.

So, who is your WOAT?

Vote in the comments below; write-in candidates are acceptable.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the first injectable medication to treat frostbite.

Actelion Pharmaceutical’s Aurlumyn uses main ingredient iloprost to dilate blood vessels and prevent blood from clotting, reducing the risk of finger or toe amputation.

The drug was initially approved in 2004 to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension.

“This approval provides patients with the first-ever treatment option for severe frostbite,” said Dr. Norman Stockbridge, director of the division of cardiology and nephrology in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Having this new option provides physicians with a tool that will help prevent the lifechanging amputation of one’s frostbitten fingers or toes.”

According to the Epoch Times, the most common side effects are headache, flushing, heart palpitations, fast heart rate, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and low blood pressure.

The medication was studied in a 12-year trial which included 47 adults who had severe frostbite following mountain rescues. The average age of the patients was 33, and each of them had frostbite affecting the feet and hands at high altitude.

Each patient took aspirin and received standard care, while one subgroup took an IV of Aurlumyn for six hours per day for up to eight days. The second group received Aurlumyn plus an unapproved medication, while a third group received other medications not yet approved for severe frostbite.

None of the patients who received Aurlumyn required amputation, vs. 19% in the 2nd group, and 60% in the third group.

As the Epoch Times reports further;

Frostbite can range from mild to severe. In its earliest stage, frostbite is actually known as frostnip. Frostnip does not damage the skin. Likewise, mild frostbite typically does not require medical intervention, as it does not cause permanent damage. Symptoms of frostbite include cold skin or a prickly feeling caused by reduced blood flow. Numbness follows, as well as inflamed or discolored skin. The skin may become stiff or waxy-looking as the frostbite worsens and severe frostbite sets in.

Severe frostbite occurs when the skin and underlying tissue freeze and blood flow stops. When this happens, amputation is sometimes the only available option. Now, Aurlumyn can be injected into the site to prevent blood from clotting.

While severe frostbite can be a risk in extreme sports like mountain climbing, it is also a risk to homeless populations, children, and older people. Whatever the person’s situation, being out in the cold for prolonged periods increases the risk of frostbite and can worsen the outcome of injuries.

In particular, individuals with certain medical conditions, including peripheral vascular disease, malnutrition, Raynaud’s disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism, arthritis, and stroke, are at higher risk of frostbite. Those living at high altitudes or where there is a high wind chill factor are also at heightened risk.

Bringing New Hope to Those in a Tough Situation

The medication’s approval provides an encouraging option for health care providers treating patients with severe frostbite. While additional studies will be required to better understand the long-term impacts and other potential uses of Aurlumyn, the Feb. 14 approval marks a significant milestone in the medical field.

The medication is expected to be available in Spring 2024. Pricing has not yet been set, NewsMax reported.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

200 clueless and very biased economists demand more of the policies that had led to a collapse in the support of Greens all across the EU.

How to Make Models Worse

Eurointelligence explains How to Make Models Worse

A group of economists has written a letter to the European Commission that it should change its economic models to take climate policies into account. If climate were an important factor in macroeconomic performance over the forecasting horizon, usually a year or two, then so it should. But it isn’t.

We are no slouches ourselves when it comes to criticising general equilibrium based economic models, the kind of which the Commission uses. Our argument is that these models are worse than useless. Not only do they get it wrong all the time. The massive forecasting errors guide policymakers into making wrong decisions. A specimen of one such Commission forecast came out yesterday. We recall an analyst – obviously not in the employ of the Commission – who once took it upon himself to check the forecast against the actual data. He came up with a correlation coefficient of zero. This is quite hard to achieve even if you tried to.

The argument by the 200 economists goes in a complete different direction. They don’t care about accuracy. They want to introduce even more bias.

Their main argument is that current models favour market-based over regulation-based solutions. If that were the reason for the models’ poor performance, we would accept this argument. But again, this is not the case. The purpose of a change in model is to introduce a positive bias in favour of climate change investment, presumably because electorates are pushing in the other direction.

The letter is testimony to ongoing delusions amongst economists that they are in charge of economic policy and that their models really matter to the world. We are seeing central banks, like the ECB, are starting to distance themselves from those models because of chronically poor performance.

It’s notable that the economists are not at all interested in the Truth. They want biased models to produce a certain outcome.

Unaccountable Regimes

“Unaccountable regimes always end up like this”

Thanks @guyverhofstadt for explaining farmer protests in nearly every EU country

— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) February 18, 2024

Guy Maurice Marie Louise Verhofstadt is a former prime minister of Belgium, the European Parliament Brexit Coordinator, Chair of the Brexit Steering Group, and current member of the European Parliament.

The image he posted was from 2014.

Inadvertently, Verhofstadt explains the farmer protests in the EU.

Frustration Grows

AP News reports An EU farmer’s frustration grows with every click of the mouse

On a farm in northern Belgium, not far from the hundreds of tractors blocking Europe’s second-biggest port to demand more respect for farmers, Bart Dochy was switching on his computer, waiting for a government program to load with maps of his land next to empty digital boxes demanding to be filled with statistics on fertilizer, pesticides, production and harvesting.

Over morning coffee, his father, Frans Dochy, 82, remembers how, in his youth, he would harvest beets out of the cold, thick earth by hand for hours. Yet, he says, 2024 bookkeeping “would have driven me off the farm long ago.”

He sees how his son has to register the arrival of any artificial manure within seven days. “And it has to be done even at the busiest times on the field, of course,” said Bart Dochy. “Then it has to be registered exactly how it is spread on every single little plot of land — how many kilos and how it is distributed,” he explained, going through some of the thick folders in his office. “And with the smallest error, there are fines.”

What really gets Dochy is when bureaucratic deadlines are imposed on him, for example if certain crops or green fertilizers need to be sown by Sep. 1. “If the last week of August is unbelievably rainy, you will not be able to sow this properly. But you are nevertheless obliged to sow. Otherwise, you may be faced with a fine,” he said.

Cultural Enrichment

Apologies offered, but we feel obliged to interrupt this post on climate with a brief message on cultural enrichment.

Eritrean African immigrants burn down The Hague, Netherlands.

Right-wing alarmism over immigration turned out to be accurate, while left-wing alarmism over climate did not.

For most W. Europeans, the biggest issue of “warming” will be their burning neighborhoods as a result of decades long failing immigration policies. https://t.co/G5I8wuOptC

— Ralph Schoellhammer (@Raphfel) February 18, 2024

Now that you are aware of the urgent need for more cultural enrichment, we now return to our scheduled program.

Welcome to Greenlash

The Guardian comments Farmers are in revolt and Europe’s climate policies are crumbling. Welcome to the Age of ‘Greenlash’

Ursula von der Leyen surrendered to angry farmers last week faster than you could shake a pitchfork or dump a tractor-load of manure outside the European parliament. The European Commission president, expected to announce her candidacy for a second term heading the EU executive next week, told lawmakers that the commission was withdrawing a bill to halve the use of chemical pesticides by 2030 and would hold more consultations instead.

The proposed measure was a key plank in the commission’s European Green Deal and its Farm to Fork strategy, intended to make the EU carbon-neutral by 2050, make agriculture more environmentally friendly and preserve biodiversity.

Von der Leyen’s sudden U-turn on one of her signature policies was not just an attempt to defuse a spreading continent-wide rural revolt over rising fuel costs, burdensome environmental regulations, retailers’ price squeezes and cheap imports. It was also a sign of growing panic among the EU’s mainstream parties over the seemingly inexorable rise of far-right nationalists ahead of the June elections.

I have seen unpublished opinion polling conducted for the European parliament in January that showed Eurosceptic, sovereigntist or populist parties have taken the lead in eight of the 27 EU members, and are in second place in four more. Moreover, the countries where the far right is polling most strongly include those with the most seats in the legislature – Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Romania and the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, farmer discontent over curbs on nitrogen emissions led to the sudden rise of the Farmer-Citizen Movement, a party that came from nowhere to win the most votes in regional elections last March. Many of those protest voters have since switched to Wilders’ Freedom party, which topped the poll in a general election in November and has gained more ground since then.

Recent polling suggests that the ecologists are set to lose up to one-third of their 72 seats in the 720-member legislature due to the “greenlash”.

Yes, Guy Verhofstadt, unaccountable regimes always end up like this:

Germany industrial production via St. Louis Fed, chart by Mish.

Please note Germany’s Industrial Superpower Days are Over, a Green Victory?

And in the US, The True Costs of Net Zero Are Becoming Impossible to Hide

Biden’s Wind Tax

In the US, manufacturers have yet to stand up to idiotic Biden regulations, mostly because they have received tax incentives that hide the true costs.

But the actual costs are difficult to hide now that subsidies won’t hide the true cost. So Biden’s schemes are unraveling.

It’s increasingly difficult for Biden and the EU to hide the true costs of net zero mandates.

Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In a Feb. 15 hearing by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, U.S. health officials side-stepped a question when asked whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is actively conducting extended safety surveillance on those who received early COVID-19 vaccines.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) asked Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, whether the FDA is conducting active surveillance and if there are any specific health markers they’re studying that may signal trends requiring further inquiry.

“Every time we go through and do the safety surveillance, we start back, and it goes back to 2020. In some cases where we’re looking for certain things, we might use a different window, but indeed, we have to look from the beginning of the period of surveillance. I can turn it over to Dr. Jernigan because he can speak for CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] in that regard,” Dr. Marks said.

“So with regard to myocarditis, we certainly have been monitoring the issue with various different data systems. I think the most recent data really demonstrates that you’re about eight times less likely to get myocarditis if you’re vaccinated compared to those that are unvaccinated,” Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the CDC responded.

Rep. Malliotakis told Jernigan she wanted to know about “everything,” not just myocarditis.

Dr. Jerrigan asked her to repeat the question, and she asked again whether the FDA was conducting extended safety surveillance on early recipients of COVID-19 vaccines.

“Most of the reports that we get of adverse events are in the few weeks following the vaccination,” Jernigan said. In terms of monitoring these over time, Jernigan said the agency has “vaccine effectiveness” systems in place at the CDC.

Neither Jernigan nor Marks referenced any active surveillance initiatives being undertaken by their agencies to monitor people who received the original COVID-19 vaccines for long-term health effects.

“There is no system in place for long-term vaccine safety surveillance in this country,” Ms. Liz Willner, founder of OpenVAERS, told The Epoch Times.

“The FDA and CDC do not actively search for safety signals. They did not find the myocarditis or the thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome that led to the withdrawal of the J&J COVID vaccine—those signals were discovered by the European Medicines Agency. The Vaccine Safety Datalink has never corroborated any vaccine safety signals, including myocarditis, because you cannot find what you are not looking for,” she added.

According to the CDC, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a passive reporting system co-managed by the FDA and CDC that relies on individuals to send reports of their experiences to the agencies. It is not designed to determine whether a vaccine caused a health condition. The Vaccine Safety Datalink uses electronic health data from participating sites to monitor and assess the safety of vaccines and is not available to the public.

At one point during the hearing, Dr. Marks was asked whether COVID-19 vaccines have resulted in an increase in cancers and whether “turbo cancers” are real.

“I’m a hematologist oncologist that’s board certified. I don’t know what a turbo cancer is. It was a term that was used first in a paper in mouse experiments describing an inflammatory response,” Dr. Marks said. “We have not detected any increase in cancers with the COVID-19 vaccines.”

The inquiry was part of a long line of questioning to examine the government’s post-marketing surveillance of COVID-19 vaccine safety and the process for adjudication claims for compensation.

FDA Director Dr. Peter Marks said they tried to be prepared for reports that may come into VAERS but received a “tremendous” avalanche of adverse event reports after COVID-19 vaccines were released.

In 2023, the world experienced another wave of science and technology (S&T) innovation, from the introduction of the first over-the-counter birth control pill in the U.S. to the stunning growth of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, explores the world’s top 50 science and technology hubs leading these innovations based on data from the Global Innovation Index 2023. Hubs were ranked by their combined share of international patent applications and scientific publications.

East Asia Dominance in S&T

The world’s five most significant science and technology hubs are in East Asia.

The top-ranked Tokyo-Yokohama cluster made up just over 10% of all patent applications between 2018-2022.

The first American cluster on the list, the San Francisco Bay Area, is home to major tech companies such as Adobe, eBay, Google, and PayPal.

Along with Cambridge in the United Kingdom, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most S&T-intensive clusters relative to overall population density.

For the first time, China topped the list of countries with the highest number of clusters among the top 100, having 24 total. The United States follows, with 21 clusters, then Germany with nine.

In addition, nearly every Chinese cluster rose in the rankings compared to last year, with only Beijing falling by one place.

São Paulo (Brazil); Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, and Mumbai (India); Tehran (Islamic Republic of Iran); Istanbul and Ankara (Türkiye); and Moscow (Russian Federation) are the only middle-income economy clusters outside China.

According to the Global Innovation Index, the U.S. leads in research and development (R&D) expenditure, followed by China, Japan, Germany, and the Republic of Korea.