In a recent interview with ProPublica, Joe Biden engaged in a short but revealing interview that covered the spectrum of establishment media and far-left talking points concerning the durability of conservative movements (including MAGA) and their supposed threat to “democracy.”  

ProPublica, a “non-profit” organization that claims to be an independent news organization, has been at the center of a number of stories attacking conservative leaning officials and groups, including conservative Supreme Court members like Clarence Thomas.  They have also been criticized for taking millions in donations from leftist elites including Charles Rockefeller and George Soros; throwing lavish parties for oligarchs in New York while at the same time asserting that they are “shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust.”

The group offers a series of leading (or well rehearsed) questions to Biden, who mumbles through the interview with his typical brand of intermittent incoherence.  However, there are a few major points to be taken from this interaction.

The discussion itself comes off as rather desperate – The level of focus on Trump, MAGA and January 6th reflects panic in the wake of a recent ABC poll, which shows Trump ahead of Biden by 10 points in a hypothetical election battle in 2024.  With Trump far ahead of any other candidate in the GOP primaries, the rematch may already be set in stone.  What is Biden’s response to this development?

Democracy Is “Under Threat?”

ProPublica launches into the interview with the admission that when they talked to Biden during the last election, they did not expect things to go well for him.  This was a sentiment held by millions of Americans including many Democrats leading up to November 2020, which is why the debate over election manipulation is so believable.  It is difficult to comprehend how a candidate that drew weak crowds and little enthusiasm during his campaign somehow garnered over 81 million votes – With a huge spike in votes counted overnight after most Americans went to bed.  

Both political parties have in the past questioned the validity of vote counts and election integrity, but rarely has the demand for a recount or the protests that followed been demonized so completely.  That said, the repetitive claims on J6 as an “insurrection” have not had the affect on public sentiment that Democrats intended.  The fear mongering over the protest (an unarmed conservative march which was far less violent than many major BLM marches) has been the only play at the disposal of Democrats seeking to paint conservatives as the biggest threat to American stability since the Civil War.

Because, when your candidate has been at the helm of the country during the worst stagflationary crisis in 40 years and people’s savings accounts are quickly drying up, the only thing that might save him is the idea that the other guy will make things even worse if he’s allowed into office.

Rule By The Majority?

The far-left does not represent the majority of Americans, but this notion is consistently implanted in the establishment media just as it is implanted in the above interview.  And it bears repeating – The US is not a democracy, and it is not rooted in rule by the majority.  The US is a Constitutional Republic ruled by checks and balances and inalienable rights.  The political left believes that if they repeat the same falsehood over and over again that eventually the public will believe it.

Rule Of Law?  

Americans got a serious taste of what Democrats perceive to be the “rule of law” during the BLM riots and the covid lockdowns.  They have seen double standards put in place, for example, to protect the image of leftist BLM rioters while maliciously slandering conservatives.  They witnessed BLM being given free rein to amass in the streets during lockdowns while conservative anti-mandate protesters were compared to terrorists.  

They also witnessed numerous BLM related violent crimes and attacks be ignored by the media while they attempted to destroy a young man’s life (Kyle Rittenhouse) for defending himself against that same violence.

Then there were the numerous attempts in 2021-2022 by Democrats to enforce medical authoritarianism, including attempted vaccine passport programs and an array of punishments for the unvaccinated.  Keep in mind that this was all done in the name of a virus with a tiny 0.23% Infection Fatality Rate (officially).  Mandates are not laws, they are unconstitutional dictates from on high.

“Christian Nationalists” And Hateful Revolution?

Such double standards lead to rebellion, and Biden knows this. Which is why the interviewer dares to address it in the first place.  ProPublica, like all leftist platforms, seeks to marginalize the feelings of rebellion across the country as a product of “Christian nationalism” (which means different things to different people).  For progressives, the terminology is supposed to conjure images of neo-nazis and evil rednecks.  The wording was carefully chosen to associate all patriots with racism.

Biden immediately latches onto the propaganda by talking about Strom Thurmon and “hate” hiding just under the surface of America.  But Strom Thurmon was originally a Democrat and didn’t switch to Republican until he started changing his image.  And didn’t Biden give a eulogy at Strom Thurmon’s funeral?  Hasn’t Biden made numerous comments in the past that would be construed as racist by today’s progressive standards?

The reality is that Democrats have long been a party associated with hate and nothing has changed.  Except now they view minorities as property on the voting plantation instead of the traditional slave plantation.  Numerous minorities are also conservative and libertarian patriots that do not like the current path of the country; are these people also inspired by hate?  

Elon Musk Ruining “Journalistic Integrity” With Free Speech?

Yes, it’s true, not long ago information was bottlenecked by a handful of corporate media entities which engaged in editorial spin to omit facts and misinform the public, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.  Now, because of digital media they are dying and this can only be a good thing.  Biden thinks otherwise, with yet another dig at Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X.

It is perhaps hard to grasp how important Twitter was to the establishment as a filter to remove undesirable truths from public discussion.  The level of salt on display among leftists and globalists when it comes to Twitter introducing even a modicum of free speech makes it clear that the platform was a key asset.  

The issue is really one of saturation – In order to control the public narrative the establishment must control all major media and social media structures.  If even one large platform slips through the cracks then people will have alternative access to information and that platform will rise in popularity, just as Twitter/X user numbers are now hitting record highs. 

With the covid lockdowns, as long as some places in the US and in the world remained free from the mandates then people would be able to see that there was a better way to handle the pandemic that did not require oppressive restrictions.  When people can see an alternative that works better, they will naturally gravitate to it.  The same goes for information, media and political leadership.

As long as alternatives outside the bottleneck exist, people like Biden and his ilk cannot dictate popular discourse.  The goal of such people will forever be to eliminate alternatives; leaving only the choices they allow.  

After President Joe Biden over the weekend signed a stopgap funding bill that did not include aid for Ukraine, given Congressional Republicans are blocking it, European leaders have vowed Monday to commit to lasting support for Kiev.

EU foreign ministers are taking part in a “historic” meeting in the Ukrainian capital, even as the war grinds on into its 20th month. “We are convening in a historic meeting of the EU foreign ministers here in Ukraine, candidate country and future member of the EU,” the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced. He said it is to “express our solidarity and support to the Ukrainian people,” but also cautioned that the meeting “does not have the aim of reaching concrete conclusions and decisions.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba praised the EU at a moment of simultaneous disappointment with Washington as billions in US aid hangs in the balance. “For the first time ever the foreign affairs council is going to sit down outside of its current borders — outside the borders of the European Union — but within future borders of the European Union,” Kuleba said in a press briefing alongside Borrell.

France’s foreign minister Catherine Colonna framed the meeting as intending to signal Moscow that Europe is ready to stand by Ukraine for the long term, even as US support is set to wane or possibly be halted altogether for the first time. “It is a demonstration of our resolute and lasting support for Ukraine, until it can win,” she said in a press statement.

“It is also a message to Russia that it should not count on our fatigue. We will be there for a long time to come.” Colonna said this at a moment the Kremlin is celebrating the clear ‘war fatigue’ out of Washington. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said from Moscow the same day that in the West, “Fatigue will lead to the fragmentation of the political establishment,” 

Days ago, CNBC wrote that “Ukraine is trying to keep its international backers close as the spillover effects of the war with Russia — as well as the thorny issues of diplomatic gaffes, conflict fatigue and elections — threaten to upset its alliances and damage support for its cause.”

“Opinion polls in both Europe and the U.S. carried out this summer show there has been an overall decline in support for measures backing Ukraine, particularly when it comes to additional funding and the supply of military equipment,” the report underscored.

At Monday’s Kiev gathering of EU foreign ministers, Germany’s FM Annalena Baerbock said Europe must be ready to increase its support to protect the Ukrainian people ahead of the cold winter months. She called for a “winter protection plan”…

“Ukraine needs a winter protection plan of air defense, generators and a strengthening of the energy supply,” she said in Kyiv, as quoted in AFP. “We saw last winter the brutal way in which the Russian president wages this war, with targeted attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants.”

“Regardless of what happens in the US, the EU will continue supporting and increasing its support for Ukraine”, says EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell.

Unelected bureaucrat decides to drag millions of Europeans closer and closer to Armageddon. Just another day in the EU. pic.twitter.com/f7sW0RtL6G

— Thomas Fazi (@battleforeurope) October 2, 2023

“With every village, every meter that Ukraine liberates, with every meter where it is saving its people’s lives, it also paves its way into the European Union,” Baerbock said additionally.

Still, as The Wall Street Journal says in a fresh report, America’s “step back” has sent “shockwaves” across the Atlantic:

The U.S. decision sent shock waves across the Atlantic. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed Sunday that his country would fight on to victory, saying there is no “expiration date” for its willingness to resist Russia. 

On Monday, in a show of solidarity with Kyiv, European foreign ministers held a meeting in Ukraine with Zelensky and his foreign minister in attendance, a rare gathering outside the bloc for the European officials. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv is working with both parties in Congress to ensure the “incident” over the weekend isn’t repeated.

“We don’t feel that the U.S. support has been shattered,” he said on Monday. 

Below: The United States has by far led the way with military support to Kiev; however, the EU has pledged the most overall financial support, also to keep civic institutions and services afloat amid the war…

Notably absent from the EU meeting was Poland, Hungary, and Latvia. “The Polish and Latvian representatives were ill,” a Ukrainian government official claimed.

But clearly at least in the cases of Poland and Hungary, tensions with Kiev have been on the rise, particularly over grain imports. Poland has led the way in extending a blockage on all Ukrainian grain in order to protect its own farmers.

Warsaw also shocked allies last month when it declared no more future arms and funding for Ukraine, amid an intensifying war of words which has also seen Polish officials stress they must look out for their own defense as the number one priority. 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take a longshot challenge to former President Donald Trump’s eligibility on New Hampshire’s ballots during the 2024 election.

John Anthony Castro filed an appeal with the Supreme Court several weeks ago and claimed that the former president should be disqualified under a reading of a section of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Mr. Castro, a Texas lawyer who is running for president, claimed President Trump partook in an insurrection against the federal government due to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.

“The decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissing Petitioner John Anthony Castro’s civil action on the grounds that he lacks constitutional standing to sue another candidate who is allegedly unqualified to hold public office in the United States pursuant to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Mr. Castro wrote in a petition for a writ of certiorari (pdf).

At the same time, he asserted that because he is a Republican candidate, President Trump’s name on the ballot injures his ability to obtain donations. According to records from the Federal Election Commission, Mr. Castro has raised exactly zero dollars and appears to have given his own campaign $20 million.

His petition with the high court comes as a number of left-wing activist groups have tried to block the former president from appearing on state ballots, using a rationale similar to Mr. Castro’s arguments.

For example, the left-wing group Free Speech for People wrote to the secretaries of state of Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin, calling on them to not include President Trump on state ballots. Six Colorado voters also filed a lawsuit earlier in September to block him from appearing under their interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which was written in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War in the mid-19th century.

However, even Democratic secretaries of state appear to have little appetite in blocking President Trump on those grounds. Some legal analysts have also said that the insurrection clause under the 14th Amendment was targeting individuals who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

“We’re not the eligibility police. We are responsible for ensuring that basic facts are met to get someone on the ballot,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who has frequently been critical of the former president, told Axios in September. She was responding to calls from pressure groups to keep him from being on the ballot in her state.

As for Mr. Castro, he’s filed lawsuits in multiple states, including Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, according to a recent Newsweek interview. He also intends to submit court papers in Massachusetts and others.

President Trump has not issued a public comment on Mr. Castro’s claims. Several weeks ago, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek about Mr. Castro: “Who’s that?”

Mr. Cheung has been critical of lawsuits and efforts to bar him from ballots under interpretations of the 14th Amendment.

“The people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump are stretching the law beyond recognition, much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia and D.C.,” Mr. Cheung said in a statement to news outlets last month, adding: “There is no legal basis for this effort except in the minds of those who are pushing it.”

The former president wrote on Truth Social in September that the 14th Amendment claims are merely “election interference” and represent “just another ‘trick’ being used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election.”

Meanwhile, retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz argued over the summer in an opinion article that President Trump cannot be disqualified under the 14th Amendment’s Section 3. It’s because, he wrote: “the amendment provides no mechanism for determining whether a candidate falls within this disqualification, though it says that” Congress can vote to “remove such disability” with a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate.

“A fair reading of the text and history of the 14th Amendment makes it relatively clear, however, that the disability provision was intended to apply to those who served the Confederacy during the Civil War,” he wrote. “It wasn’t intended as a general provision empowering one party to disqualify the leading candidate of the other party in any future elections.”

The justices rendered their action on Mr. Castro’s claim on Oct. 2, the first day of their new nine-month term. However, it might not be the final time the Supreme Court is asked to evaluate the 14th Amendment-related claims against the former president because similar litigation is playing out in lower courts.

A UK dark money nonprofit with outsized influence over the digital advertising space and political sphere, which popped up seemingly out of nowhere, is run by a British operative who reportedly had dreams of being a spook in his younger years – only to surround himself with spook-adjacents in his quest to deplatform opinions that diverge from establishment orthodoxy.

As Paul Thacker writes in Tablet, Former British Labour party operative Imran Ahmed heads up the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which in March of 2021 released a report about online misinformation that quickly reached the pre-Musk Twitter regime, and was used to silence Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who the report named as one of “The Disinformation Dozen.” The report was then cited by by the Biden administration.

“There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” claimed former White House spox-turned-MSM gaslighter Jen Psaki in July 2021.

The report notes how Ahmed’s group, funded by all sorts of dark money, pulled off a near-impossible feat in DC – climbing to the upper echelons of influence in the DC cesspool dominated by massive think tanks and hardball lobbyists.

Founded in 2018 in London, CCDH’s funding has been the focus of numerous articles, independent “X” threads, and of course, the Twitter Files, while Ahmed’s previous group, “Stop Funding Fake News,” has also come under scrutiny. The CCDH’s influence has also been covered extensively by journalist Matt Taibbi.

Thacker, a former Senate investigator for Chuck Grassley and master of rabbit holes, has just tossed a stick of dynamite into this one.

A brief summary of excerpts via Tablet:

• “Shortly after appearing on Twitter in 2019, Stop Funding Fake News claimed some very sizable left-wing scalps in London, mostly by lobbing vague accusations of fake news at political enemies. The group helped to run Jeremy Corbyn out of Labour Party leadership while tanking the lefty news site Canary, after starting a boycott of their advertisers…“

• “Although CCDH is still based in the U.K., Ahmed grew the group dramatically after he jumped across the Atlantic to incorporate CCDH as a D.C. nonprofit in 2021. In the states, he forged ties in Hollywood: Talent agent Aleen Keshishian, who teaches in the cinema program at the University of Southern California, now sits on his board.”

• “When a federal judge chastised the Biden administration for possible censorship and restricted federal agency interactions with social media companies last July, Ahmed criticized the decision in a New York Times report.“

• “Ahmed’s history is hard to track. The two groups he has run—Stop Funding Fake News and CCDH—seem to pop up out of nowhere, switch addresses, rarely disclose funders, omit naming all employees, and feature websites that change names or disappear from the internet.”

• “One rumor that came up often in the dozen or so conversations I’ve had, with people who have observed Ahmed for years, is that he works for British intelligence. Along with other questions emailed to Ahmed a couple weeks back, Tablet asked him to address the allegation he is connected to British intelligence, but he did not respond to repeated requests for comment. One of Ahmed’s long-standing friends told me that Ahmed once mentioned that he had applied to either MI5 or MI6. Because the conversation took place so long ago, the friend couldn’t remember which of the two British intelligence agencies it was, and they never later discussed if he had gotten in.“

CCDH also targeted ZeroHedge with a false report initially claiming that we were demonetized by Google for peddling hate speech, when in fact the CCDH took passages from our comments section and claimed they were the views of ZH. The report was laundered through NBC‘s “verify” fact check unit. NBC News was internationally condemned for going after a rival using CCDH research, and written by a 25-year-old (trust fund) UK journalist who has since bounced around various outlets without much in the way of actual journalism to show for it.

12. But Ahmed’s report wasn’t true. Ahmed took passages from the comments section and claimed they were articles. NBC then stealth edited their story.

This is NBC’s “verify” fact check unit, mind you. pic.twitter.com/2BGkfxsz5y

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) July 18, 2023

In short, Ahmed – who reportedly wanted to join British intelligence, has been successful at handing censorious governments talking points on ‘misinformation,’ and deplatforming anti-establishment voices by convincing advertisers to abandon outlets with disfavorable reporting.

Dark money

Thacker confirmed that CCDH took in $1.47 million in 2021 after Ahmed took the helm – of which $1.1 million (nearly 75%) came from the Schwab Charitable Fund, which allows people to anonymously donate money via private accounts.

3) CCDH is running their money through Schwab Charitable Fund, that allow anonymous donors to give without leaving a paper trail. I found someone gave Ahmed $1.1 million in 2021, meaning 75% of their funding.

Ahmed won’t respond to questions. pic.twitter.com/QaVmUNgQ8K

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) October 2, 2023

Meanwhile, CCDH’s chairman is Simon Clark, a former senior fellow at the John Podesta-founded Center for American Progress (CAP), a Democrat think tank. CAP also has close ties to the Biden administration.

“Indeed, one might conclude that CCDH functions as an arm of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, to be deployed against the perceived enemies of corporate Democrats, whether they come from the left or the right.” -Tablet

Thacker also notes that Clark was also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab, which Taibbi noted is funded by various US government agencies and defense contractors, and which remains a key element to the “censorship industrial complex.”

8) Ahmed’s bridge into American politics is Simon Clark–formerly Center for American Progress and Atlantic Council.

Basically, Clark is a Democratic Party operative w/ ties to the CIA. pic.twitter.com/Wvrkzixg5K

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) October 2, 2023

According to former State Department official Mike Benz, who now runs the Foundation for Freedom online, a free speech watchdog, “The Atlantic Council, in the past several years, has had seven CIA directors on its board of directors or board of advisers,” adding “And it’s one of the premier architects of online censorship.“

Who is funding this organization? They spread disinformation and push censorship, while claiming the opposite. Truly evil.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2023

Lawsuits and inquiries

The CCDH’s blazing rise to prominence as a tool of the establishment has piqued the interest of Congress amid a very public fight with Twitter which has erupted into a lawsuit.

Last July, Musk’s lawyer sent Ahmed a letter, warning him that a report CCDH put out contained false and misleading claims about Twitter’s control of hate speech on the platform. Ahmed’s research consisted of eight papers, including one alleging that Twitter had taken no action against 99% of the 100 Twitter Blue accounts that CCDH accused of “tweeting hate.”

Publicly, Ahmed ridiculed Musk’s letter, saying it was a declaration of war. Twitter then filed a lawsuit against him and CCDH. Seizing on the lawsuit, Ahmed sent out an appeal for funding, and gave a series of interviews where he claimed Musk was bullying him. -Tablet

Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio sent a letter to CCDH demanding they provide a list of funders, along with communications they’ve had with social media companies and federal agencies accused of censoring online content. When CCDH  told Jordan to pound sand, he slapped Ahmed with a subpoena and accused them of working directly with Biden officials.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

President Trump has called for New York Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the Democrat who pulled the fire alarm in the Cannon Congressional Office Building in order to shut down Congress during a last ditch spending vote Saturday, to be prosecuted in the same fashion as January 6th prisoners.

Speaking after a rally, Trump stated “This is the crap, and then they’ll let him out because he’s a Democrat radical left lunatic, and he should be prosecuted the same exact way as the J6 people were prosecuted.”

Trump continued, “many of them have been treated more unfairly than anybody in the history of our country. And I don’t know if I should be saying that because I don’t know what these people behind me say, but I’ll bet they agree with me. There’s never been anybody treated so unfairly, just about.”

“What they’ve done to the J6ers is terrible, and Bowman went, and he pulled an alarm, and you could add riots, you could add everything else, and he did it during a vote! And he should be treated the same exact way,” Trump further urged.

“We’ll see what happens because a lot of people are saying, ‘What are you going to do about J6?’” Trump continued, adding “I don’t think they’re going to be disappointed. I can tell you that.”

Watch:

Trump also made the same call in a Truth Social post, asserting that Bowman’s “egregious act is covered on tape, a horrible display of nerve and criminality.”

*  *  *

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Jury selection in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial begins on Tuesday this week, kicking off a trial that is expected to last about six weeks following the crypto firm’s historic $40 billion bankruptcy. 

US prosecutors have labeled FTX “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history,” Financial Times noted in their trial preview this weekend. SBF stands accused not only to defrauding “dozens” of the world’s top investors, but also his millions of customers. The report also noted the trial will likely include “millions of pages of evidence” and testimony from SBF’s friends and romantic partners. 

Prosecution is going to be tasked with trying to get seven different charges, including conspiracy to commit money laundering and fraud against lenders, investors and customers, to stick, the report notes. They will try to show that Bankman-Fried collaborated covertly to channel billions from FTX customers to his cryptocurrency trading company, Alameda Research.

Funds were then spent on luxury property, political contributions and high-profile advertising.

As the report notes, four people who used to work under Bankman-Fried have already admitted guilt. Caroline Ellison, who was previously the CEO of Alameda and was once romantically involved with SBF, is anticipated to be a key witness in the case.

If the trial goes the distance and SBF doesn’t admit guilt, plea out or settle prior to trial, the defense is slated to cast blame on others, including Ellison. SBF has claimed to be uninformed about the financial mechanisms that were operating behind the curtain of his business empire, insisting that he had no intention of committing fraud. 

Sarah Paul, a former federal prosecutor and partner at law firm Evershed Sutherland told Financial Times: “This is a hugely important case. This is the biggest trial we have seen in the crypto world. If there is not justice here for the victims, I think it will be a real blow. And I think it’s dangerous. You have to get bad actors like this out of the industry.”

She continued: “I think the government’s case looks extremely strong. They have multiple co-operating witnesses who worked very closely with him and are going to say that they committed a crime with him. It’s hard to imagine that doesn’t carry the day here.”

If it does make it to trial, one key question will be whether SBF takes the stand. Bradley Simon, a criminal defense partner at Schlam Stone & Dolan, told Financial Times:  “It would be foolhardy for Bankman-Fried to testify. He’s shown himself to be very erratic. Presumably his counsel are telling him that’s out of the question. But sometimes clients don’t listen.”

Simon added: “This is a young man who I don’t think is going to generate a lot of sympathy. He was a high roller. There are going to be jurors from every walk of life. I don’t think they are going to relate to him very well. But you never know. All it takes is one juror to hold out and then everything for the government goes down in flames.”

Meanwhile, over the weekend, short seller Jim Chanos lashed out at author Michael Lewis after Lewis made comments on a 60 Minutes interview seemingly defending Bankman-Fried and comparing the fall of FTX to a bank run.

This was literally Enron’s defense. “If it wasn’t for those meddling short-sellers and journalists causing a run-on-the-bank, we would’ve been fine.” This is nonsense, as both FTX and Enron were both massively insolvent, not illiquid. https://t.co/3nrJqUrYCg

— Diogenes (@WallStCynic) October 2, 2023

Lewis said during the interview that the fall of FTX left a “Sam Bankman-Fried-shaped hole in the world.” Lewis, who apparently does not seem to understand that FTX was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, also claimed that “if there hadn’t been a run on customer deposits, they’d still be sitting there making tons of money.”

“This was literally Enron’s defense. ‘If it wasn’t for those meddling short-sellers and journalists causing a run-on-the-bank, we would’ve been fine.’ This is nonsense, as both FTX and Enron were both massively insolvent, not illiquid,” Chanos responded on X/Twitter, over the weekend. 

As MarketWatch correctly noted on Monday, a crucial distinction between illiquidity and insolvency lies in the quality of assets a company holds. An illiquid business possesses high-quality assets that it can either liquidate or use to secure loans, whereas an insolvent one lacks such assets. Prior to its downfall, Alameda Research had a balance sheet laden with (now worthless) FTT tokens, according to reports by CoinDesk.

Now let’s see if a jury can understand the difference…

Despite disappointing macro data (and tightening financial conditions), US manufacturing survey data was expected to rise in final September data released this morning and S&P Global’s PMI Manufacturing jumped from 47.9 in August to 49.8 in September (and up from 48.9 in the flash September print). That is the highest print for US manufacturing since April but remains in contraction (below 5). That is the 5th straight month in contraction and 10th month in the last 11 in contraction (sub 50).

The ISM Manufacturing print also rose (to 49.0), up from 47.6 and better than the 47.9 exp (but still below 50 for the 10th straight month).

Quite a decoupling from the ‘hard’ data’s decline…

Source: Bloomberg

While the two surveys show the same headline (just sub-50 – contraction) headline prints, below the surface they could not be more different…

Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:

“September saw a welcome near-stabilization of business conditions in manufacturing, but a further increase in price pressures is a concern on the inflation front.

“Output reversed some of the loss seen in August as higher employment and improved supply availability helped factories fulfil backlogs of orders.

“Although the pace of production growth remains disappointingly subdued thanks to a further decline in new orders received during the month, notably from weak export markets, there are signs that the situation will improve as we head through to the end of the year.

“Manufacturers’ expectations of future output have jumped to their highest for nearly one and a half years, supply conditions continue to improve, and the rate of order book decline has moderated considerably in recent months, in part due to fewer producers and customers reporting deliberate cost-focused inventory reduction policies.

“Less encouraging was the news on the inflation outlook, as producers’ costs rose at the fastest rate for five months, largely on the back of higher oil prices. These increased costs are already feeding through to higher prices to customers, which will inevitably result in some renewed upward pressure on inflation.”

So, take your pick!

• PMI – higher prices (fast inflation) and slower orders/production (growth slowing)

• ISM – lower prices and faster orders

However as the chart shows, the ISM’s faster orders remain below 50 (in contraction)

It would seem the tightening financial conditions may finally be having an effect…

So, summing everything up, despite the headline improvement in the ‘soft’ survey data, the Manufacturing reports shows production continuing to slow while prices are re-accelerating higher… in other words ‘Stagflation’.

Time to panic Mr.Powell?

As we start October, DB’s Jim Reid asks whether we can power out of the gravitational pull of bad September seasonals. He notes that September 2023 was the 4th year in a row that the S&P 500 and the STOXX 600 were down for the month, as well as the 7th year in a row that Bloomberg’s global bond aggregate was down for the month. The damage in bonds has been more severe and more sustained than for equities and you can’t help wondering where the real damage is. The bottom line as the strategist puts it, is that “you can’t have this much value destruction in bonds without there being some stress somewhere. However, it’s near impossible to work out where exactly it might come to the surface.”

One thing that is certain is that it will, just give it time.

The good news as we start the week and the new business month is that the US averted a shutdown just before the deadline on Saturday night which will keep the government running until November 17th. This gives negotiators more time to pass something more long standing. We will see if we’re in the same position in six weeks’ time though.

For now no shutdown means that US data will get published on time this week. The highlight is clearly Friday’s payrolls. Before that, the JOLTS (tomorrow) and ADP (Wednesday) data will give us some early clues. The former is a month behind but is obviously a key report to assess labour market tightness by looking at the quits rate, hirings and vacancies etc.

The highlights for the rest of the week are the US ISM and a Powell roundtable discussion today, an expected hold from the RBA tomorrow, US services PMI, Euro Zone retail sales, Euro Zone PPI and a Lagarde speech on Wednesday, French IP on Thursday with German factory orders on Friday. The full week ahead is at the end, including a bevy of central bank speakers, but we’ll quickly preview today’s ISM and Friday’s payrolls below.

Going back to the main events, DB’s economists and the consensus are expecting +165k for headline payrolls (+187k previously) with the unemployment rate expected to dip back down a tenth to 3.7% after surprisingly increasing three tenths last month. A reminder that every headline payroll number has now been revised lower in 2023. In early summer we were on a run of 13 successive beats but some of that has now gone with revisions.

Today’s US manufacturing ISM (47.5 expected at DB vs. 47.6 last) and Wednesday’s services ISM (54.1 vs. 54.5) are expected to be fairly stable. For the former our economists’ models suggest an uptick but the UAW strikes could offset that as perhaps foretold by a weak Chicago PMI last week. Note that it’s likely too early for this strike to impact payrolls but it could make a sizeable impact next month. For services watch for the employment index as this surprisingly soared 4 points to 54.7 last month.

Talking of such indices, the official China manufacturing PMI edged up to 50.2 (50.1 expected) over the weekend from 49.7 in August. Services also beat by a tenth to 51.7 from 51.0 in August. The private Caixin equivalents were at 50.6 and 50.2 respectively, below the 51.2 and 52.0 expected. So a mixed set of data as China starts a holiday week.

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday October 2

• Data: US September ISM index, August construction spending, UK September Nationwide house price index, Japan Q3 Tankan indices, Italy September manufacturing PMI, new car registrations, budget balance, August unemployment rate, Eurozone August unemployment rate, Canada September manufacturing PMI
• Central banks: Fed Powell, Harker and Williams speak, BoJ Summary of Opinions September MPM, ECB’s Centeno and de Cos speak, BoE’s Mann speaks

Tuesday October 3

• Data: US September total vehicle sales, August JOLTS, Japan September monetary base, France August budget balance
• Central banks: Fed’s Mester and Bostic speak, ECB’s Simkus, Lane and Villeroy speak, RBA decision

Wednesday October 4

• Data: US September ISM services, ADP report, August factory orders, UK September official reserves changes, Italy September services PMI, Q2 deficit to GDP, Eurozone August retail sales, PPI
• Central banks: Fed’s Bowman and Goolsbee speak, ECB’s Lagarde, Guindos, Centeno and Panetta speak
• Earnings: Tesco

Thursday October 5

• Data: US August trade balance, initial jobless claims, UK September construction PMI, new car registrations, Germany September construction PMI, August trade balance, France August industrial and manufacturing production, Canada August international merchandise trade
• Central banks: Fed’s Daly, Barr and Mester speak, ECB’s Nagel, Villeroy, Guindos and Lane speak, BoE DMP survey, Broadbent speaks
• Earnings: Constellation Brands

Friday October 6

• Data: US September jobs report, August consumer credit, Japan August leading and coincident indices, labor cash earnings, household spending, Italy August retail sales, Germany August factory orders, France August trade balance, current account balance, Canada September jobs report
• Central banks: Fed’s Waller speaks

* * *

Turning to just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data releases this week are JOLTS job openings on Tuesday, the ISM services report on Wednesday, and the employment report on Friday. There are many speaking engagements from Fed officials this week, including Chair Powell, governors Bowman and Waller, Vice Chair for Supervision Barr, and presidents Harker, Williams, Mester, Bostic, Goolsbee, and Daly.

Monday, October 2

• 10:00 AM Construction spending, August (GS +0.8%, consensus +0.6%, last +0.7%)
• 10:00 AM ISM manufacturing index, September (GS 48.5, consensus 47.7, last 47.6): We estimate the ISM manufacturing index rebounded by 0.9pt to 48.5 in September, reflecting the rebound in East Asian industrial activity and upward convergence towards other business surveys. Our GS manufacturing tracker was unchanged on net at 49.1.
• 11:00 AM Fed Chair Powell and Philadelphia Fed President Harker (FOMC non-voter) speak: Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker will participate in a roundtable discussion with workers, small business owners and community leaders in York, Pennsylvania. A Q&A is expected. On August 25 Harker said, “right now, I think that we’ve probably done enough… I’m in the camp of, let the restrictive stance work for a while… and that should bring inflation down.”
• 01:30 PM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) moderates discussion: Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams will moderate a discussion with Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz at 2023 Environmental Economics and Policy Conference: Measuring and Adapting to Climate Risk, hosted by the New York Fed and Columbia SIPA. Text is not expected. On September 29 Williams said, “my current assessment is that we are at, or near, the peak level of the target range for the federal funds rate. I expect we will need to maintain a restrictive stance of monetary policy for some time to fully restore balance to demand and supply and bring inflation back to our 2% longer-run goal.”
• 07:30 PM Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester will speak on the economic outlook at the 50 Club of Cleveland monthly meeting. Text and audience Q&A are expected. On September 1 Mester said, “In the labor market, some progress is being made in bringing demand and supply into better balance, but the job market is still strong.”

Tuesday, October 3

• 08:00 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic will take part in a moderated conversation at Leadership Atlanta’s alumni roundtable. He will discuss the economic outlook for 2024, inflation, interest rates, the labor market, and sources of uncertainty. Audience Q&A is expected. On September 4 Bostic said, “I think that it’s appropriate to just be cautious at this stage. We don’t have to rush and we can let our policy do its work and continue to slow the economy down and continue us on that road to the 2% target.”
• 08:15 AM ADP employment change, September (GS +190k, consensus +158k, last +177k): We estimate a 190k rise in ADP payroll employment in September, reflecting stronger Big Data employment indicators.
• 10:00 AM JOLTS job openings, August (GS 8,800k, consensus 8,830K, last 8,827k)
• 05:00 PM Lightweight motor vehicle sales, September (GS 15.5mn, consensus 15.4mn, last 15.0mn)

Wednesday, October 4

• 10:00 AM Factory orders, August (GS +0.3%, consensus +0.3%, last -2.1%)
• 10:00 AM ISM services index, September (GS 53.5, consensus 53.5, last 54.5): We estimate that the ISM services index deletion declined to 53.5 in September. Our forecast reflects a net decline in business surveys (our nonmanufacturing tracker fell 0.4pt to 52.6) and our GSAI.
• 10:25 AM Fed Governor Bowman speaks: Fed Governor Michelle Bowman will deliver the keynote address at a community banking research conference at the St. Louis Fed. Text is expected. On September 22 Bowman said, “I expect it will likely be appropriate for the Committee to raise rates further and hold them at a restrictive level for some time to return inflation to our 2 percent goal in a timely way.”
• 10:30 AM Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC voter) speaks: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will deliver welcoming remarks at the Chicago Payments Symposium. On September 7 Goolsbee said, “we are very rapidly approaching the time when our argument is not going to be about how high should the rates go; it’s going to be an argument about how long do we need to keep the rates at this position.”
• 03:00 PM Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC voter) moderates discussion: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will moderate a discussion with former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan, the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School. Q&A is expected.

Thursday, October 5

• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended September 30 (GS 210k, consensus 210k, last 204k): Continuing jobless claims, week ended September 23 (last 1,670k)
• 08:30 AM Trade balance, August (GS -$59.7bn, consensus -$64.3bn, last -$65.0bn)
• 09:00 Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester will introduce a keynote speaker presenting on cybersecurity trends at the Chicago Payments Symposium.
• 12:00 PM San Francisco Fed President Daly (FOMC non-voter) speaks: San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly will speak at the Economic Club of New York. Q&A is expected. On September 22 Daly said, “the thing that would be a problem is if we decided that we wanted to call it done we’d say we’re done, we say definitely one more, when we actually don’t know. Patience is a prudent strategy.”
• 12:15 PM Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Barr speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr will speak on cyber risk in the banking sector at the Cleveland Fed’s Large and Foreign Banking Organizations Cyber Conference. Q&A and livestream are expected.

Friday, October 6

• 08:30 AM Nonfarm payroll employment, September (GS +200k, consensus +168k, last +187k); Private payroll employment, September (GS +180k, consensus +150k, last +179k); Average hourly earnings (mom), September (GS +0.30%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.2%); Average hourly earnings (yoy), September (GS +4.28%, consensus +4.3%, last +4.3%); Unemployment rate, September (GS 3.7%, consensus 3.7%, last 3.8%); Labor force participation rate, September (GS 62.8%, consensus 62.7%, last 62.8%): We estimate nonfarm payrolls rose by 200k in September (mom sa). Big Data indicators indicate strong job growth, consistent with the further decline in initial jobless claims and fewer end-of-summer layoffs than usual. We do not assume a drag from labor disputes, because the United Auto Workers strike started after the beginning of the survey week. On the negative side, September payrolls exhibit a negative bias in the initial prints, with payroll growth subsequently revised higher in eight of the last ten years (we assume a 40-50k headwind in Friday’s report). We estimate that the unemployment rate declined to 3.7%, reflecting a rise in household employment and unchanged labor force participation at 62.8% (we do not expect the August rise in the foreign-born labor force to reverse). We estimate a 0.30% increase in average hourly earnings (mom sa) that edges the year-on-year rate lower by 1bp to 4.28%, reflecting waning wage pressures but positive calendar effects (the latter worth +5bps month-over-month, on our estimates).
• 12:00 PM Fed Governor Waller speaks: Fed Governor Christopher Waller will participate in a moderated discussion about the payments system at a Brookings Institution event. Q&A is expected. On September 5 Waller said, “I don’t think one more hike would necessarily throw the economy into recession if we did feel that we needed to do one. It’s not obvious that we’re in real danger of doing a lot of damage to the job market, even if we raise rates one more time.”

Source: DB, Goldman. BofA

This morning Tesla released its production and delivery numbers for Q3, stating it delivered 435,059 vehicles and produced 430,488 vehicles, missing consensus delivery estimates of 456,722, according to Bloomberg.

Shares were down as much as 3.5% in pre-market trading on Monday before slightly paring losses. The market had expected lackluster numbers for the quarter, but Tesla’s report still missed the street’s most modest of estimates. 

A consensus of analysts polled by StreetAccount and cited by CNBC had even higher estimates for the quarter of 461,640 deliveries. The company appears to have sent out a consensus of 455,000 for the quarter, per social media posts last week. 

The quarter marked the first sequential drop in total deliveries since Q2 2022. Prior to that, the last sequential drop in total deliveries occurred in early 2020, as the chart below shows. 

The company acknowledged the miss and chalked it up to downtime, stating in its press release the “sequential decline in volumes was caused by planned downtimes for factory upgrades, as discussed on the most recent earnings call.”

CEO Elon Musk had said on the company’s last conference call that it would “continue to target 1.8 million vehicle deliveries this year.” However, he also warned about production numbers dwindling due to “summer shutdowns for a lot of factory upgrades.”

The company delivered 15,985 Model S/X vehicles, missing estimates of 17,721 vehicles.

And Tesla delivered 419,074 Model 3/Y vehicles, missing estimates of 439,362. 

Despite the Q3 miss, Tesla claims that its 2023 “volume target of around 1.8 million vehicles remains unchanged”. Tesla didn’t weigh in on sales of its semi or its Cybertruck yet and says it will report earnings on October 18. 

This quarter’s earnings will be the first with Chief Accounting Officer Vaibhav Taneja in the CFO role. 

Via SchiffGold.com,

The markets seem to think that everything is fine. They believe the Fed has effectively beat price inflation and it can mop it up without crashing the economy. In his podcast, Peter Schiff said in reality the Fed is at a fork in the road, and there is an imminent disaster waiting no matter which way it goes. He also warned that the biggest crisis is the one nobody sees coming.

The bond selloff continued last week. With yields rising coupled with dollar strength, gold got clobbered, closing the week below $1,850. That represented about a 4% drop in the price last week. Gold stocks fared even worse with the GDX dropping about 8%.

Peter said that it wasn’t the move he would expect given what’s going on.

Although I understand it because you have so many people that don’t get what’s going on. They look at this rise in interest rates, and they look at persistent inflation, and I’m going to get to the economic news in a bit, but the news that came out again was consistent with more inflation and the Fed being higher for longer. And that narrative is what’s driving gold prices down.”

Peter said the market has this completely wrong.

This is all bullish for gold and it’s bearish for the dollar. It’s not a sign that the Fed is going to have to fight harder to win the fight against inflation. It’s a sign that the Fed has already lost the fight against inflation. It doesn’t matter if it fights harder. It can’t win. And in the meantime, if it keeps on fighting, it is going to collapse the economy.”

Every element of the economy will be subject to the collapse from governments, to corporations to individuals.

Everybody that’s been borrowing money for the past 15 years – there is going to be a crisis if the Fed keeps interest rates at this level or raises them.”

That’s the position the Fed is in, but the markets seem to think the Fed can manage it without collapsing everything.

But Peter said we’ve reached a fork in the highway.

The Fed has been able to successfully kick the can down the road, and we’ve now caught up with the can and there’s a fork in the road at this point. But no matter which direction the Fed kicks that can, there’s an imminent disaster waiting.”

Either the Fed keeps fighting inflation and causes an economic meltdown, or it tries to avoid the meltdown in the economy and the banking sector by pivoting and cutting rates. That would mean even more inflation.

They have to do one of these two things, but either way, there’s a disaster. There’s no policy choice this time, I think, where you don’t have an imminent disaster.”

The markets see rising interest rates and they are reacting based on their perception that it’s bearish for gold. Peter said the problem is they’re not looking beyond one move ahead.

They’re all playing checkers. I’m playing chess. I see this through to the checkmate. I know how this game is going to end. I know that ultimately, everything that is happening right now, is bullish for gold, and it’s bearish for the dollar.”

Peter said most of the mainstream people have no idea what’s right around the corner. These are the same people who had no idea that the 2008 financial crisis was right around the corner.

It’s the same people making the same mistakes.”

And he reminds us that the worst crisis is the one nobody sees coming.

Peter said he took advantage of the selloff and bought more gold stocks.

I’m happy that gold sold off because it gives me a chance to buy more gold stocks at a better price, and I think everybody else should be viewing it the same way. When this thing changes — when the people who don’t have any idea what’s about to happen find out, when they’re blindsided by what happens, then they’re going to be rushing to buy gold.”