It’s official: the newest generation of homebuyers are flocking to the midwest. Cities with the most homebuyers under the age of 25 are located in this more affordable part of the country, a new study released by Construction Coverage found. 

The study used data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and researchers at Construction Coverage “calculated the share of all home purchase loans taken out by applicants under 25 years old.”

The study says that only “conventional home purchase loans originated in 2022 were considered for this analysis”.

The key points of the study found:

• The total number of conventional home loans originated in 2022 was down across all age groups from the year prior. Among all age cohorts, 65–74 year-olds experienced the largest percentage decline, decreasing by 22.3%. Notably, the under-25 age group only experienced a 12.3% decline, the smallest of all cohorts and a sign of persistent housing demand from younger generations despite economic headwinds.
• Many of the states with the highest shares of home purchase loans from adults under age 25 are found in the more affordable Midwest, led by Iowa at 11.5%. The same trend holds at the local level, with many of the top metropolitan areas for young homeowners also found in that region.
• In contrast, high-cost coastal states including Hawaii (1.6%) and California (1.9%) have much lower shares of home purchase loans from young adults. In these areas, would-be young homebuyers face more expensive homes and higher living costs, creating a higher barrier to entry in these real estate markets.

As the study notes, millennials—those born from 1981 to 1996—now representing the largest age group in the United States and entering their prime years for acquiring their first or even second homes. These dynamics contribute to a surge of buyers vying for a diminishing pool of available properties. Freddie Mac reports that even before the pandemic hit, the housing market was facing an all-time low in supply.

While there are indications that the feverish pace of the residential real estate market may be slowing after its unprecedented surge amid the COVID-19 crisis, the path to homeownership remains steep, the study says. The competitive landscape and escalating home prices pose particular challenges for younger individuals entering the market for the first time.

The moderation in the housing market is further underscored by a decline in the issuance of conventional home loans in 2022, a trend that spanned all age brackets compared to the previous year. Among the various age groups, individuals aged 65–74 witnessed the most significant reduction, with loan originations plummeting by 22.3%. Conversely, younger buyers exhibited more resilience. Specifically, the cohort under 25 years old saw only a 12.3% drop in home loan volume, the least among all age groups. This suggests a sustained demand for housing from younger generations, even in the face of economic challenges.

The study notes that before 2022 even came into focus, there had been a rising trend in homeownership interest among younger purchasers. In 2020, the rate of homeownership for those below 25 hit 25.7%, equaling a prior high point set during the 2005 housing bubble. While this percentage experienced a minor decrease in 2021, it rebounded to 25.4% in 2022. This is notably higher than the rates documented in the 1980s and 1990s, indicating a sustained enthusiasm for homeownership among the youngest cohort of adults.

For those young adults eyeing homeownership, geographic disparities offer both opportunities and challenges. The Midwest states, spearheaded by Iowa at an 11.5% share, are notable hotspots for home purchase loans among individuals under 25. Lower housing prices in this region make it a more feasible option for younger buyers, who often have less equity compared to older home seekers. This pattern also persists at the city level, with numerous Midwestern metropolitan areas ranking high for young homeowners due to affordability.

On the flip side, coastal states with high living costs, such as Hawaii and California, boasting meager shares of 1.6% and 1.9% respectively, present significant obstacles for young potential homeowners. The steep prices and elevated cost of living in these states construct a formidable barrier to entering their real estate markets.

You can review the full study’s findings and sort by metro size here. 

In a deal that would be transformational for the US energy sector, and spark another shale revolution, the WSJ writes that US supermajor, the largest US energy E&P and formerly the world’s largest company by market cap, Exxon – the company that according to the Big Guy made more money than God in 2021, is closing in on a deal to shale giant Pioneer Natural Resources, a blockbuster takeover that could be worth roughly $60 billion and reshape the U.S. oil industry.

The deal, which the WSJ first leaked back in April and has described as “seismic” (metaphorically but also literally, ha ha)  could be sealed in the coming days, though it is still possible there won’t be one, sources told the Journal.

After posting a record profit in 2022, and flush with cash, Exxon has been exploring options that would push it deeper into West Texas shale. An acquisition of Pioneer, with a market cap of around $50 billion, would be Exxon’s largest deal since its megamerger with Mobil in 1999, and would give Exxon a dominant position in the oil-rich Permian Basin, a region the oil giant has said is integral to its growth plans.

Such a deal would not only eclipse the U.S. oil industry’s most recent blockbuster, Occidental’s 2019 acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum for about $38 billion, and top Exxon’s 2010 purchase of XTO Energy for more than $30 billion, it would make Exxon the second most important energy company in the world after Saudi Aramco.

It would also be a legacy-shaping move for Exxon CEO Darren Woods, whose tenure at the company has seen its peaks and valleys.

Woods, an Exxon-lifer who became CEO in 2017, initially promised to dramatically grow Exxon’s oil production only to see his plans felled by the pandemic. An oil-market collapse in 2020 led to Exxon’s first annual loss in decades—more than $22 billion. It lost a historic proxy fight in 2021 to investment firm Engine No. 1, which excoriated Exxon’s finances and argued it had no long-term strategy.

And yet, without any handouts from the Biden admin unlike so many of its unionized corporate peers, Exxon rebounded to a record profit of $55.7 billion last year, propelled by soaring global demand for oil and gas as economies reopened. Exxon has used its prolific cash flows to reward investors with buybacks and dividends and pledged disciplined spending, though many wondered whether the company would dip into its coffers for a megadeal in the oil patch.

We now know the answer. The acquisition marks Woods’s second significant acquisition, coming only a few months after Exxon scooped up CO2 pipeline operator Denbury for $4.9 billion. It would add vast swaths of West Texas acreage considered the core of the U.S. shale boom.

As the WSJ notes, Pioneer’s acreage in the Midland Basin (the eastern portion of the Permian Basin, which straddles West Texas and New Mexico) is one of the largest collections of fertile oil land in the U.S., and the company holds one of the largest numbers of untapped drilling locations of any Permian player, analysts have said. In the wake of the pandemic, Pioneer snapped up two other large Permian operators, Parsley Energy and DoublePoint Energy, for a combined $11 billion in 2021.

The tie-up will presage a wave of consolidation among shale companies. The industry has shifted from the rapid growth it pursued for more than a decade to a mature business underpinned by fiscal restraint and hefty investor payouts. But producers are contending with dwindling drilling locations. Drilling for new oil discoveries has fallen out of favor with investors, leaving many companies with few options other than to acquire rivals to extend their runway.

Producers have deep coffers at their disposal to pursue deals after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year sent global prices soaring to more than $127 a barrel. Prices have retreated and been volatile since then. Exxon’s acquisition of Pioneer could be the first of a series of deals in the Permian, which contains shale wells that produce rapidly and don’t bind companies to decadeslong megaprojects that have fallen out of favor with some investors who fear a future decline in oil demand.

The best news, however, is that Exxon just slapped the progressive lobby in its sanctimonious face. While environmentalists, lawmakers and others have hoped oil and gas companies would invest their record profits into green energy, that won’t be happening. And while Woods has pledged Exxon will invest $17 billion through 2027 in cutting the company’s carbon emissions and building a business that would help other companies reduce theirs too, investing in areas including carbon capture, biofuels and lithium mining, all that the shrewd CEO is doing is getting to the front of the line of the government’s green handouts.

The bottom line: Exxon’s move to purchase Pioneer, even after its acquisition of Denbury, the CO2 pipeline operator, signals the company is still primarily planning to lean on its traditional oil-and-gas business for decades.

That said, nothing is guaranteed in the energy sector which together with crypto, has emerged as the most hated industry of the so-called Democrats. In 2020, when the price of oil collapsed, and when many were doubting that Exxon would avoid bankruptcy, it subsequently emerged (again via the WSJ) that Exxon was considering a merger with Chevron, the energy sector’s 2nd largest company.  Back then, talks between Exxon and Chevron were preliminary and yielded no result.

Then again, if Exxon manages to become not only the biggest it has ever been but also a cash flow machine and the world’s 2nd most important energy company under a Democratic administration, one can only imagine what will happen in 13 months time when the senile teleprompter reader is finally kicked out.

Observing the cartoonish circus that is Japan’s central bank and ministry of finance, Bloomberg’s Masaki Kondo writes that Japan’s hesitation to let go of the yen means the BOJ is managing monetary policy amid an almost impossible trinity of outcomes. In the end the yen will probably take precedence over bonds with 10-year yields likely to climb toward 1%.

The Mundell-Fleming trilemma stipulates a nation can’t achieve the free flow of capital, independent monetary policy and a fixed exchange rate simultaneously. The fact that Japan’s apparent reluctance to let JPY weaken despite the nation’s open capital account is putting the BOJ in this trilemma, to a certain degree.

This difficulty is pronounced by the BOJ’s bond-purchase operation; the central bank may want to buy more bonds to keep yields low, but concern over a further weakness in the yen is preventing the BOJ from doing so. Japan’s way to get around this problem is to split the tasks: the MOF for the currency and the BOJ for yields.

Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. But the initial rebound higher for USD/JPY after Tuesday’s slide suggests Japan’s authorities need to be even more convincing.

* * *

Meanwhile, continued yen weakness means one thing: inflation will keep rising and rising as real wages keep falling and falling… and just hit a record low.

And there will come a point when even the world’s most compliant and sheepish society says enough.

Authored by Mary Gillis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Norwegian scientists have discovered an unusual side effect in COVID-19-vaccinated women who don’t menstruate: atypical vaginal bleeding after injection with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

Researchers studied close to 22,000 women across different reproductive aging stages over about nine months and found that 3.3 percent of postmenopausal, 14.1 percent of perimenopausal, and 13.1 percent of premenopausal women experienced at least one unexpected bleed after receiving the COVID-19 shot, according to the authors of the study published in Science Advances.

About half of the bleeds were said to have occurred within the first four weeks of getting the vaccine. Postmenopausal women’s risk of bleeding was two to three times higher during the 28 days after injection than before receiving the shot. The link was stronger in perimenopausal and premenopausal women, with both groups showing a three- to fivefold elevated risk. Perimenopausal women are typically in their 40s and have begun experiencing some menopause symptoms but can still get pregnant, while premenstrual women have no menopause symptoms.

“We had already, from the early pandemic, biweekly questionnaires going out to cohort participants to monitor effects of the pandemic,” Ms. Blix told Nature.

Responses to the 2021 questionnaire indicated that some women experienced unusually heavy menstrual bleeding after receiving the vaccine. “This urged us to ask for bleeding patterns in a structured manner,” she said.

Ms. Blix’s team didn’t investigate the reasons for the unexplained bleeding, and no conclusive evidence supports that the shot caused it. However, one theory is that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the vaccines may be a culprit.

In 2022, The Lancet published a study where researchers showed that a cohort of nearly 64,000 respondents ages 18 and older experienced menstrual irregularities or vaginal bleeding in the form of altered menstruation timing and severity of menstrual symptoms to menopausal bleeding and resumption of menses.

“Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”

Investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore revealed Thursday morning another bombshell report on the massive grade scandal in the progressive state of Maryland:

FACT: Current state of Maryland public schools. More than 200 schools (according to state data) have 5% or fewer students proficient in math. Meaning, in at least 200 schools, at best 95% of students are NOT math proficient. Seems unbelievable, but true.

FACT: Current state of Maryland public schools. More than 200 schools (according to state data) have 5% or fewer students proficient in math. Meaning, in at least 200 schools, at best 95% of students are NOT math proficient. Seems unbelievable, but true.https://t.co/yGj9e7cnhL

— Chris Papst (@chrispapst) October 5, 2023

Papst wrote in the report, “There are at least 200 schools where, according to the state’s data, the percentage of students proficient in math is five percent or less. More than 77,000 Maryland students took the test in those roughly 200 schools. There’s a chance none are proficient in math. Project Baltimore only has the raw data for Baltimore City schools. So, taxpayers will never know because the state won’t tell you.”

Papst said for over a decade, the Maryland State Department of Education has redacted test scores in what they say is “enhanced deidentification.” The redactions replace test score data with asterisks so the public will never know students’ progress, while state officials can boast about spending the most ever on education. 

Sean Kennedy from the Maryland Public Policy Institute told Papst in April: “The State Education Department is instituting a cover-up of what’s going on in public schools; it’s outrageous.” 

In February, Papst revealed that 23 Baltimore City Schools had zero students proficient in math from an inside source in the school system. And again, last month, he found 13 Baltimore City High Schools had zero students proficient on the state math exam. 

ANALYSIS: In those 13 Baltimore high schools (with zero students proficient in math), 1,736 students took the test, and 1,295 students, (74.5%) scored a one out of four. One is the lowest level. Meaning those students were not even close to proficient.https://t.co/vjBdrLV2Wn

— Chris Papst (@chrispapst) September 19, 2023

State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury is anticipated to step down over the grade scandal on Friday.

It’s absolutely absurd that education officials appear to be covering up failing test scores across the leftist state while robbing the younger generation blind of an education. Maybe they care more about their paychecks and bonuses than the future. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) ordered Democrats who recently left leadership positions to vacate their private offices in the U.S. Capitol shortly after becoming acting speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. McHenry ordered Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was speaker until January, to vacate her hideaway office, Ms. Pelosi said.

“One of the first actions taken by the new speaker pro tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol,” she said in a statement.

“Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) died on Sept. 29 at age 90.

Ms. Pelosi said that the eviction was “a sharp departure from tradition,” referencing that she allowed former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to keep his private office “for as long as he wished.”

According to reports, an email from Mr. McHenry’s office to Ms. Pelosi states that he was going to reassign the hideaway “for speaker office use.”

“Please vacate the space tomorrow,” the email reportedly reads.

Ms. Pelosi said, “Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them. Now that the new Republican leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”

Democrats Cry Foul

Ms. Pelosi was one of the members who didn’t vote on the motion earlier on Oct. 3 to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker.

Mr. McCarthy, who was ousted from the speaker position and apparently allowed Ms. Pelosi to keep her private office, didn’t return an inquiry.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who held a leadership position until January, was also told to vacate his hideaway office by Mr. McHenry, a spokeswoman for Mr. Hoyer told The Epoch Times via email.

Mr. McHenry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Democrats decried the move.

“While Nancy Pelosi is in California mourning the loss of her longtime friend, Patrick McHenry does this. From top to bottom the House GOP are classless and shameful people who are desperate to score cheap political points rather than govern,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

Mr. McHenry became speaker pro tempore after the House approved a resolution to remove Mr. McCarthy. Eight Republicans, not including Mr. McHenry, sided with Democrats to approve the resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

Mr. McCarthy compiled a list of members who would serve as speaker pro tempore if he were ousted, under rules passed by the House. Mr. McHenry, known as an ally of Mr. McCarthy, was at the top of the list.

Mr. McHenry, as acting speaker, will exercise authorities such as presiding over proceedings of the House, including a vote for the next speaker. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) told reporters that Mr. McHenry’s main task will be to “get us a new speaker.” Anything further would spark a move to oust Mr. McHenry as well, he said.

What’s Next

Until a new House speaker is installed, it’s unlikely that further action will be taken on bills to fund the government, with lawmakers facing a Nov. 17 deadline to provide more money or face a partial government shutdown.

Although the speaker sets the overall legislative agenda in the House, it’s the House majority leader who schedules specific bills to be debated and voted upon in the chamber.

Republican lawmakers said they would need at least a week to choose a new speaker, which will eat into the time necessary to pass that needed legislation.

Democrats can also put forth a candidate and are expected to offer Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Mr. Jeffries lost the race to Mr. McCarthy in January. That race went 15 rounds and took days to resolve.

To win, a candidate needs the votes of a majority of members present.

Mr. McCarthy, the first speaker removed by a motion to vacate in U.S. history, said he wouldn’t run again. He remains in the House and can vote in the upcoming speaker election.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House speaker doesn’t have to be a member of Congress, so some Republicans have floated the name of former President Donald Trump for the position, even though he’s running for president and has said he doesn’t want the job.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Each year, Russian President Vladimir Putin uses the occasion of the Valdai Discussion Club hosted in Sochi to present on a wide range of foreign policy issues in an off the cuff manner, which most often comes out in Q&A format. He did the same Thursday at this year’s Valdai event, and one of the statements which is grabbing the attention of Western officials was related to testing nuclear weapons, at a sensitive moment where the last nuclear weapons treaty with Washington is set to fail.

“I think no person of sound mind and clear memory would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia,” Putin began in that segment of a speech before Russian foreign policy officials. That’s when he made a statement being widely perceived as signaling openness to resumption of nuclear testing: 

“I hear calls to start testing nuclear weapons, to return to testing,” he added. “I am not ready to say whether we really need to conduct tests or not.”

He also raised eyebrows in immediately touting completed work on the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, with the former being identified as a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

“We conducted the last successful test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered global-range cruise missile,” he said. This weapon hasn’t been publicly mentioned by Putin since 2018, and suddenly he’s revealed it’s been successfully tested.

Code-named Skyfall by NATO, the consensus among Western analysts has long been that the technology is likely too hard to achieve given unreliability and volatility of such a nuclear propulsion engine. On the deep significance of the ‘threat’ to possibly put the Burevestnik on combat readiness, Mario Nawfal comments:

Putin also declined to rule out the possibility it could carry out weapons tests involving nuclear explosions for the first time in more than three decades. Today, Putin warned the West of a ‘response’ to the pressure, and his willingness to ‘end the war’:

“There is permanently increasing military and political pressure [from the West]. We have to respond. I have said many times that it was not us who started the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to end it.”

“The West has lost the sense of reality. Ukrainian conflict is not about territories. The issue is about global order.” Zelensky warned Europe that if Ukraine loses, Russia will attack other counties as well. Is Russia posturing again, as we’ve seen in the past, or is this not a bluff?

* * *

Other interesting moments from Putin’s words before Valdai are as follows…

Putin: Not against Ukraine’s EU aspirations, but categorically against NATO membership.

⚡️Putin: “We have never spoken negatively about Ukraine’s accession to the EU, but we are categorically against its accession to NATO” pic.twitter.com/oBbGg4Nhek

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) October 5, 2023

West is now crossing all boundaries in the proxy war:

⚡️Putin: “Our counterparties in the West have lost their sense of reality and crossed all possible boundaries, in vain” pic.twitter.com/sEeKKnfvRO

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) October 5, 2023

He additionally reiterated that Russia has not only resisted US-Europe led sanctions, but he is optimistic for the future of a thriving Russian economy…

“In general, the situation is stable. We have overcome all the sanctions-related issues, and have started the next stage of [economic] development on a new basis, which is fundamentally important,” Putin stated.

The West always needs an enemy, he further stated:

💬 ‘The West always needs an enemy’

🇷🇺 Vladimir Putin says attempts to throw the world into a state of constant struggle is a vicious legacy of the 20th century and a product of the Western political culture#Valdai #Russia #Putin pic.twitter.com/eazG5Etxx1

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) October 5, 2023

He also stressed the usual themes of US unilateralism and “colonialism” – and hegemony at the expense of the rest of the globe:

PUTIN at Valdai: “Western prosperity has largely been achieved by robbing the entire planet” pic.twitter.com/XiqUZQUOXx

— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) October 5, 2023

Putin also at one point asserted that he’s not seeking to expand the war to other countries – contrary to what many pundits in the West have claimed.

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

One of my favorite investors that I love reading and following, Harris Kupperman, has offered up his thoughts on what his next big bet could be.

Harris is the founder of Praetorian Capital, a hedge fund focused on using macro trends to guide stock selection.

Harris is one of my favorite follows and I find his opinions – especially on macro and commodities – to be extremely resourceful. I’m certain my readers will find the same. I was excited when he offered up his latest thoughts, published below (slightly edited for grammar, bold emphasis is QTR’s).

Please be sure to read both my and Harris’ disclaimers, located at the bottom of this post.

The Great Macro Dreamscape Part 1

In late March of 2020, one of the greatest wealth transfers of my lifetime began. It remade our world—or at least it remade my world. Those who recognized Covid as a hoax, were there to reap the rewards. Others who cowered in fear, were my victims. While I pressed the accelerator on exposure and risk, others sought safety in rapidly depreciating cash, or worse, shorted risk assets while they hid from benign germs. Our disparate account statements stand witness to the decisions we each made.

Now, as we enter the great macro dreamscape, I realize that Covid was simply a warm-up for what seems almost inevitable. Rarely has the world’s only superpower undergone a self-immolation of its multi-faceted role in the global order.

Gone are our desires to be the global hegemon, support the world’s reserve currency, or even be seen as a respected adult. As we’re increasingly banished to the kid’s table of global discourse, the macro landscape is spiraling at an ever-faster pace. Our bond market is drifting off, doomed by our precarious fiscal balances. Our place in the world is questioned after Afghan goat herders and then Russian convicts faced off against our military machine with great success.

Meanwhile, our institutions, long hailed globally, descend into corruption, nepotism and incompetence. America isn’t dead, but it needs to be totally reinvented. However, that’s all in the future; as macro investors, we only deal in the present. Nothing is carved in stone, but the outcomes, while path-dependent are increasingly becoming unavoidable.

Empires rise and fall. They follow an arc. The path downward can be graceful, or clumsy—gradual or sudden. This uncertainty is what creates the current opportunity. Meanwhile, the inevitability of this path, sets in action one of those rare wealth transfers that comes along only once or twice in an investor’s career.

I intend to take more than my fair share. I intend to be a pig at the trough.

As an inflection trader, with a focus on second-tier macro trends, I suffered through the 2010s. It was a miserable time for investors like me. Sure, I made a bunch of money, I cannot cry too hard, but it was tough to squeeze Alpha from stone. The trends were mere whispers, and the rewards weren’t always discernable.

I had to hop around, scavenge at opportunities, and suffer through long periods with little to do. It was frustrating—especially as the Globalist Cucks hid out in large cap tech stocks, that seemed to appreciate endlessly, with single-digit realized volatility.

Then Covid came along, awakening all the dormant imbalances in the global order. The overreaction of governments finally tipped things out of stasis. For a fleeting moment, there was a fissure in the universe. They opened the skies and money rained down upon my portfolio. I grabbed it until my arms grew so tired that I couldn’t reach out and grab any more. I literally had to force myself to stay in the game, to stay engaged, to focus and push the envelope—especially after the boredom of the prior decade. I also knew it wouldn’t last—I had to maximize the opportunity.

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Then, the mana became scarce. Opportunity disappeared. Tech resumed its dominance and inflections became rare. I’ve spent the past six quarters wondering if we’re back in the narrative of the past decade, or just traipsing through an extended intermission.

I’m increasingly of the view that we’re in the eye of the storm, a moment to catch one’s bearings and reassess everything that was previously upheld as the truth. The rules are no longer the rules.

The Globalists have tried to resurrect their eminence following the Peak Globalist cluster-fuckery that was Covid. Yet, in the process, they’ve shattered their own image, while not realizing it. That revelation is still oncoming. Now freed from a need to uphold their aura of magnanimity, they’ll unleash their most insidious and aggressive attacks on the natural order.

This will be their final undoing, accompanied first by great suffering for those who are not part of their clique. There is no retreat for the Davos Crowd, they will only push forward, their evil will metastasize. Fortunately, it’s impossible to be a diabolical leader when the peasants laugh at your acronyms and meme your propaganda. The world simply will not congeal to their mold. The tussle to win at all costs will consume them and the nations that they represent.

Today’s malaise in equity markets is simply an echo bubble; peak beneficent Globalism has already passed us by. Soon, it all comes crumbling down. There’s nothing to replace it. Rather, there’s a fight amongst those who’d gladly inherit the world—yet none are particularly ready to bear that mantle.

Now, as I look into the future, I see anarchy. Said another way, I see opportunity. Covid was the dry run. Now we’re into the main event. Will the US go down in a supernova of stupid? Or will we stand and fight?

Will we cower from carbon and affix rainbows to every physical structure, defying the laws of progress? Or will we get on with it and try our best to avert the tailspin? I have no answers, but I know storm clouds when I see them; the storm wall is visible and approaching. How our leaders face these demons, or incite them in fury, will set the tone for this decade’s capital markets.

I’m not here to say what’s right or wrong. I’m merely focused on the mission at hand. I’m an observer of events, a trader of markets. I believe we’re now entering the golden age of global macro.

Old orders are collapsing, pulled down by the weight of their hubris. New orders aren’t yet ready to take their place. Chaos is the eager ally of traders with an open mind. Great traders have a fluidity that adjusts to new realities, while conjuring visions of tail events. I expect a proper clusterfuck, full of fury, violence and volatility. While I recognize the suffering that this will bring, I also know that my mission is to stretch my arms out wide and grab as much as I can.

It’s about to rain opportunity for Macro traders. Unfortunately, it won’t be wealth creation, it will be a wealth transfer. This isn’t my choice, I’m simply a creature of the environment thrust upon me. Those who are ill prepared, are about to be victimized by those who not only understand what’s coming but have educated themselves on how to profit from it. This is my moment!

War, famine, pestilence, and other biblical plagues are mere phenomena when compared to the pernicious nature of inflation. Unless you’ve lived in a country with persistent inflation, you cannot understand how it works, how it infects society, or how it re-orients prior relationships amongst the political class, the economy and capital assets. Books are mere curios; they cannot really explain the social effects of inflation, the lives destroyed by bad decisions, nor those who profited through it. You need to see it yourself; you need to experience it. Inflation is the great leveler.

My focus in college was late Roman decline. I am a fatalist at heart—Gibbon was the relative optimist. At the same time, I see opportunity everywhere. Many will say, “then why don’t you just buy gold?” That’s the lazy man’s hedge for what’s coming. Hugo Stinnes is the man to study, not the parasites selling you collapsing mining schemes.

Come along on this journey into the abyss of the socialist nation-state in its death-rattle. New worlds will be formed. New rules invented. A new hope. But first, the walls must tumble around us. We cannot get too many steps ahead in this adventure. The extreme amplitude of opportunities, the binary nature of bad decisions, they all haunt me, as I know what’s coming.

When you’re treading on the quicksand of a collapsing global order, every trade may be your last. One cannot get distracted—one must stay focused. A better world will come out of the ashes. I want to invest in that world. Investing in chaos has a melancholy to it. However, I’m a trader—I trade the world that I see. That world is shifting and fast. Castles are crumbling. Everything we’ve held sacred in finance is turning upside down. The pace of change will now accelerate, the oddity, the confusion, the old rules vaporizing—they’ll bury speculators who cannot adapt. I plan to prosper.

The next few years will be when winners simply keep winning, because they’re grounded in history, with a healthy dose of cynicism and libertarian ethos. The many will grab for wealth, yet mostly end up with fistfuls of rapidly depreciating sand. Last generation’s winners will surrender everything. The laws of finance and even nature itself will be re-invented. Open your mind to the possibilities. You are on this phantasmal voyage; even if you try and disembark—the choice isn’t yours. It’s simply part of the cycle. Instead, embrace it. Prepare for it. Love it.

It’s about to get wild…

I’ve waited my whole life for this. I’ve studied. I’ve prepared. I’m ready. Bring it on!

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In July of 2022, Starbucks announced the closure of 16 profitable locations due to dangerous incidents involving drug use and “other disruptions” in cafes. In a leaked video, former interim CEO Howard Schultz said that the US “has become unsafe,” and that Starbucks is a “window to America.”

Now, the company is closing seven locations in San Francisco. And while they didn’t cite the explosion in crime in the Golden Gate City (and no leaked videos to shed light), the move comes amid a shocking survey that found roughly 97% of San Francisco’s restaurants have experienced some form of graffiti or property crime in the past month.

“Each year as a standard course of business, we evaluate the store portfolio to determine where we can best meet our community and customers’ needs,” a spokesperson told the NY Post on Wednesday. “This includes opening new locations, identifying stores in need of investment or renovation, exploring locations where an alternative format is needed and, in some instances, re-evaluating our footprint.”

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, some 40 retail stores have ditched the once-bustling Union Square section of downtown San Francisco — in addition to the dozens of others that have pulled up stakes from surrounding regions of the city.

Nordstrom, CB2, Anthropologie, Whole Foods, Old Navy, Saks Off 5th, Office Depot, Athleta, Abercrombie & Fitch, Disney, Marshall’s, H&M, and Gap have either closed stores within San Francisco city limits or announced plans to do so. -NY Post

In June, a study by personal finance website WalletHub ranked San Francisco as the worst-run city in the country, which is no surprise considering that a commercial real estate crisis is unfolding in the downtown area as building owners are defaulting on properties. Crime is out of control, forcing businesses to flee. And Democrats who control the town appear to have no interest in enforcing law and order. 

What’s more, SF office space has plummeted in value, while Moody’s has lowered the city’s credit rating outlook to negative amid a $780 million budget shortfall due to shrinking tax revenues.

And now, the city’s homeless residents have seven fewer places to call home.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

In what Matt Taibbi has described as “the worst op-ed in history”, Politico Europe has published an astonishing article titled “Fighting against the USSR didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi”, which defends the scandal of the Canadian parliament applauding a literal SS Nazi veteran as a “complicated” issue that is being exploited by “propagandists”.

Last year liberals were calling their political opponents Nazis and comparing Putin to Hitler. This year they’re defending Nazis and saying you can’t hate someone just because he swore allegiance to Hitler.

OPINION: Canada’s Yaroslav Hunka scandal demonstrates how when history is complicated, it can be a gift to propagandists who exploit the appeal of simplicity.https://t.co/PyGyK4fZ8O

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) October 2, 2023

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I used to think Nazis were bad but then the mainstream press explained to me that many of the Nazis had reasons for wanting to be Nazis.

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For generations the US empire has been manufacturing a cultural obsession with the second world war in order to frame all its subsequent wars as “Good Guys vs Hitler Guys”, then the millisecond that framework became inconvenient it’s “Actually the Nazis weren’t all that bad if you think about it.”

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So let’s recap.

Jeremy Corbyn supporters: Nazis.

Palestinian rights activists: Nazis.

People who criticize Israel: Nazis.

People who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton: Nazis.

Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi insignia and Nazi ideology: not Nazis.

Actual SS Nazis: not Nazis.

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The war in Ukraine is a giant field demo for war profiteering corporations to show prospective buyers and investors how effective their products can be at ripping apart human bodies. The whole country’s been turned into a giant advertisement for the military industrial complex.

Ukraine is the Superbowl for arms industry ads, except instead of costing millions of dollars to advertise there, it costs rivers of human blood.

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Super excited for a future Republican president to eventually end the US proxy war in Ukraine and get celebrated as an antiwar hero and then immediately take all those military resources and direct them at China.

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Blinken Says China Threatens US-Led ‘Liberal World Order’
The secretary of state says China is a bigger ‘threat’ than Russia
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #China #Blinken https://t.co/2iAsrAPZag pic.twitter.com/yhKTLns8Lg

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) September 28, 2023

Oh no China’s threatening the US-led liberal world order that destroyed Vietnam and Iraq and Libya and Syria and Yemen and Ukraine and keeps ramping up nuclear brinkmanship and working to topple any government who disobeys it and crushing the world to death with an iron fist.

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In the last cold war the media talked about the risk of nuclear war all the time, even at points when the risk wasn’t very high. In the new cold war the media barely talk about the risk of nuclear war at all, even at points where the risk is skyrocketing.

We don’t talk enough or think enough about the fact that the last cold war brought us inches from nuclear annihilation multiple times due to unforeseeable and unpreventable occurrences, yet we’re plunging headlong into a new cold war with two separate nuclear powers.

The list of nuclear close calls shows that we survived the last cold war by sheer dumb luck. There’s no evidence-based reason to believe we’ll get lucky again. But here we are, spinning the cylinder of the revolver and putting it to our temple once again. The last cold war showed us in no uncertain terms that nuclear brinkmanship entails far too many small moving parts to accurately predict and control what will happen. And now we’re moving into a high-tech multi-front nuclear standoff with far more small moving parts than before.

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As David Corn take trashes leftists in Mother Jones, he should recall her words: I am called a Bolshevik, a Red and a radical. I admit to being all. I’m anything that would change monied civilization to a higher, grander civilization for the ages to come. https://t.co/rVRwMXvzWx

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) October 1, 2023

It’s just fascinating how everything gets shifted to the right over the decades. Mother Jones is a centrist propaganda rag. Martin Luther King has been historically revised as an innocuous shitlib. George W Bush is just a harmless old painter. Nazis are just brave heroes protecting their homeland.

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I doubt I’ll ever care about any US president being investigated for corruption or misconduct or collusion with a foreign nation. All US presidents are corrupt liars, and that will always be the least of their crimes. Get back to me when they’re jailed for war crimes and mass murder.

You can care about partisan point-scoring over shit like Trump falsifying business records or Biden engaging in corrupt activities with his son all you want if that’s what excites you, but don’t ask me to. It looks like both parties are going to be trying to impeach each other’s presidents back and forth for the foreseeable future; that’s just what US politics looks like now. Meanwhile the US empire marches on completely unhindered amid all the vapid partisan vitriol.

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Trying to fix crime without addressing the underlying causes of crime is like treating an infection with nothing but painkillers. The factors which give rise to crime are no mystery: trauma, poverty, inequality and despair. Just throwing people in prison addresses none of these.

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