“Ceiling The Deal?” – What Happens If Risk-Free Rates Turn Out To Be Full Of Risk
By Benjamin Picton of Rabobank
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will this week meet with President Biden to attempt to nut out a deal on raising the US debt ceiling. The meeting is slated to occur tomorrow, and is looking more and more like last chance saloon for US politicians to find enough common ground to avoid a default that Janet Yellen and Jamie Dimon have both said would be a “catastrophe”. The WSJ this morning reports that the Biden administration is exploring “experimental” ways for the US to keep paying its bills until the ceiling is raised. Ever helpful, Donald Trump last week suggested that House Republicans should allow a default to occur should the Democrats refuse to support deep cuts to welfare spending. Trump is the clear poll leader for the GOP nomination for the Presidency, and his grip on the party will serve to paint nervous GOP lawmakers into a corner on spending concessions. The political cost of a climbdown is increasing, and the delta of a default occurring is increasing along with it.
1-month T-bills are this morning paying 5.37% vs 4.89% for the 2-month note.
There’s a comical element in the market attempting to reflect increased credit risk for short-dated US government securities in traded yields. Once upon a time this situation would have been ludicrous, but we live in interesting times. The scenario that we are now countenancing is deeply binary. The yield premium in short-dated bills looks a bit like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller in the context of a potential default that would reverberate through a world financial system predicated on US government IOUs constituting a ‘risk free’ investment. With commercial real estate and US regional banks already teetering from rapid monetary tightening, how much more debt brinkmanship can the nerves of traders handle? What price assets if risk free rates turn out to be full of risk?
Speaking of monetary tightening, last week brought some interesting developments on inflation expectations. The University of Michigan 5-10 year inflation expectations spooked the market by printing at 3.2%. That was up two ticks from the April reading, and defied expectations of a 1 tick fall. As this Daily noted on Friday, the Bank of England raised their 2024 inflation forecast from 1% to 3.4%. With revisions that large, one would be forgiven for asking exactly what the point of forecasting is? On the flipside, New Zealand 2-year inflation expectations fell from 3.3% to 2.79% and the RBA revised down its forecast for 2023 trimmed-mean inflation from 4.3% to 4% the week before. That change in forecasts from the RBA sits oddly with an internal research document from September that the RBA released last week under a freedom of information request. This research showed that the RBA staff estimated 3.8% to be a “reasonable nominal neutral rate estimate”. If the boffins’ “reasonable estimate” of neutral is correct, that might explain why services inflation has been so persistent with a cash rate that has only just hit 3.85%.
Clearly the revelations out of the RBA imply that markets are under-clubbing the risk of higher policy rates. The idea that risk is weighted to the upside is also prevalent elsewhere, despite fracturing banking systems, weak forward indicators and signs that inflation has already peaked in most major economies. The Bank of England’s Huw Pill (always good for a line) has helpfully noted that UK inflation is at a “turning point”. Unfortunately, with UK growth in the doldrums, and GDP languishing below pre-Covid levels, that turning point resembles the one used by the Titanic moments before striking the iceberg. Pill had earlier told Britons to get used to the idea of being poorer, and our own UK expert, Stefan Koopman, believes that a recession is required to sustainably take the wind out of UK inflation pressures. Gloomy stuff.
Elsewhere, the Fed is poised to pause, and the ECB is sending signals that the end of the cycle is nigh. ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos last week said that there could still be more rate hikes on the way, but hedged his comments with the usual line that further hikes will depend on the flow of data and considerations of the tightening in credit conditions that was presaged by the Euro area lending survey earlier in the month.
Conjecture over whether or not central banks are doing enough to get inflation under control (or whether they can actually do anything to get inflation under control) is all well and good, but the debt ceiling remains the elephant in the room for now. Markets are fixing their eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen (the ‘star variables’), and hoping that the unthinkable doesn’t happen in the meantime. This week we will be looking forward to US politicians ‘ceiling a deal’ to keep markets turning over so we can all go back to worrying about normal things like inflation and geopolitics.
Key Events This Week: Retail Sales, Retail Earnings And Lots Of Fed Speakers
After several busy weeks, and with some 90% of S&P companies having already reported Q1 earnings, newsflow slows down and there are no blockbuster US data releases, but US retail sales (tomorrow) and a selection of US housing data will be the highlights. Across the globe, we will also see the monthly China economic activity data dump (tomorrow), GDP and CPI reports from Japan (Wednesday and Friday), along with labor market reports in the UK (tomorrow). In addition, there are a lot of central bank speakers, especially from the Fed. Fed Chair Powell and ECB President Lagarde both speak on Friday with the latter also up tomorrow.
Elsewhere the latest G7 summit starts on Friday in Hiroshima and earnings season still lingers with notable companies reporting being US retailers Walmart and Home Depot, along with China’s tech giants Alibaba and Tencent.
Taking a more detailed look at the data, DB’s Jim Reid starts with his preview of US retail sales tomorrow, where DB economists expect the headline to print at +0.7% in April, up from -0.6% previously, or +0.5% vs -0.4% ex autos (we will have a detailed retail sales preview later in the day). Headline will likely be boosted by strong auto sales in the month. The gain in ex-autos sales is likely to be gas price related while economists expect a flat reading on retail control (unch. vs. -0.3%), which is the direct input into GDP for goods spending. So consumption is grinding lower after a strong start to the year, something we detailed over the weekend in “There Goes The US Consumer: Card Data Reveal First Drop In Household Spending In Two Years As Upper-Income Wages Tumble, Unemployment Benefits Soar.” Investors will also get a read on the US consumer from US retailers which report earnings, including Walmart (Thursday), Target (Wednesday) and Home Depot (tomorrow).
Tomorrow’s NAHB housing market index (DB at 44 vs. 46) starts the week for US housing data and will be followed by Wednesday’s housing starts and permits and then Thursday’s existing home sales.
Thursday’s jobless claims will be more important than usual for a couple of reasons. Firstly it is the survey week for the next payrolls release and secondly we saw it confirmed on Friday that a decent slug of the recent rise in claims were likely due to fraudulent filings in Massachusetts. This state seems to have accounted for around half the +23% rise in the 4-week moving average claims number from the late January lows. The 4-week moving average for continuing claims is up around 10% this year so the labor market is easing but not quite as much as the raw claims numbers had suggested.
In Europe, the UK labor market data tomorrow will be interesting following last week’s twelfth consecutive BoE meeting hike. Whether the data shows persistent wage pressures, following the last hot print, will likely contribute to whether a pause is feasible at the next meeting on June 22, although another round of wages and inflation data will be due by then as well. The house view is that they will hike another 25bps in June which will be the last for the cycle but with the risks that there’ll be more. Elsewhere in Europe, key indicators include the ZEW survey (tomorrow) and the PPI report (Friday) for Germany and Q1 GDP, trade balance for March (tomorrow) and industrial production (today) for the Eurozone.
This week will also be a busy one for the major Asian economies. Starting with Japan, Q1 GDP will be released on Wednesday, trade balance data on Thursday, and the CPI report on Friday.
In China, investors will be focused on the latest economic activity signals tomorrow, with the release of retail sales, industrial production and property investment data. Amid base effects, our economists expect +11% and +21% YoY growth in industrial production and retail sales, respectively (vs 3.9% and 10.6% in March). The industrial production print and its contrast with retail sales will be especially in focus given flailing momentum in the former. New home prices data are due on Wednesday.
China will also be in the spotlight for corporate earnings this week. Its tech giants, including Alibaba (Thursday), Tencent (Wednesday) and Baidu (Tuesday) will be among the most anticipated reports. The full day-by-day week ahead in at the end as usual.
Q1 earnings season is in its final stages, with 80-90% of companies having reported in the US and in Europe. Earnings growth came in better than consensus expected, at -3% y/y in the US, and +3% y/y in Europe, which is a positive surprise factor of 7% and 10% vs IBES estimates, respectively. The low hurdle rate entering the reporting season, combined with the improving fundamentals during the quarter, has likely helped S&P500 blended EPS inflect higher. The last week of earnings as usual focuses on retailers, and we will hear from Walmart (Thursday), Target (Wednesday) and Home Depot (tomorrow).
Below is a day-by-day calendar of events courtesy of DB:
Monday May 15
Data: US May Empire manufacturing index, Japan April PPI, machine tool orders, Italy March general government debt, Eurozone March industrial production, Canada March wholesale trade sales, April housing starts, existing home sales
Central banks: Fed’s Bostic, Kashkari and Cook speak, ECB’s Nagel speaks, BoE’s Pill speaks
Data: US May New York Fed services business activity, NAHB housing market index, April retail sales, industrial production, capacity utilization, March business inventories, China April retail sales, industrial production, property investment, UK Q1 output per hour, March average weekly earnings, employment change, April payrolled employees monthly change, Germany and Eurozone May ZEW survey, Eurozone Q1 GDP, employment, March trade balance, Canada April CPI, March manufacturing sales
Central banks: Fed’s Mester, Logan and Williams speak, Fed’s Barr testifies before House Financial Services Committee, ECB’s Lagarde and Makhlouf speak
Earnings: Home Depot, Baidu, Vodafone
Others: Joe Biden meets with Congressional Republicans to try to hammer out a deal on the debt ceiling. As covered above, this will be the key theme for the week. We will also see industrial production and retail sales numbers out of China (will that consumer-led revival materialize?) UK employment data, the German ZEW survey, US retail sales and Canadian CPI. ECB Chief Christine Lagarde will be providing comment, as will the ECB’s Makhlouf and a slew of Fed speakers that includes Mester, Barr, Williams, Goolsbee and Bostic.
Wednesday May 17
Data: US April housing starts, building permits, China April new home prices, Japan Q1 GDP, Japan March capacity utilization, Italy March trade balance, France Q1 ilo unemployment rate, EU27 April new car registrations
Central banks: Fed’s Bostic and Goolsbee speak, ECB’s Guindos speaks
Other: Wednesday: Preliminary 1st quarter GDP data for Japan will kick off a relatively quiet day. The market is looking for a read of 0.2% q-o-q for GDP and 2.1% y-o-y for the price deflator. We will get US housing numbers for April later in the day where starts are seen falling slightly to 1400 for the month. De Cos, Elderson Centeno, Rehn and Guindos will all be in action for the ECB.
Thursday May 18
Data: US May Philadelphia Fed business outlook, April leading index, existing home sales, initial jobless claims, Japan April trade balance
Central banks: Fed’s Jefferson and Logan speak, Fed’s Barr testifies before Senate Banking Committee, BoE’s Pill speaks, BoC’s Financial System Review
Other: Thursday is Aussie jobs Day. The expectation is for 25,000 new positions added in April with the unemployment rate to remain steady at 3.5% and participation also steady at 66.7%. US initial jobless claims will be released later in the day. Expectation there is for a figure of 252,000, well down on the prior read of 264,000. We will also get the Philadelphia Fed’s business outlook for May and the Bank of Canada’s Financial System Review. In terms of central bank speakers, human headline Huw Pill will be in action, as will BOE Governor Andrew Bailey, De Guindos from the ECB and the Fed’s Jefferson, Barr and Logan will also be speaking.
Friday May 19
Data: UK May GfK consumer confidence, Japan April CPI, March tertiary industry index, Germany April PPI, Canada March retail sales
Central banks: Fed’s Powell, Williams and Bowman speak, ECB’s Lagarde, De Cos and Schnabel speak, BoE’s Haskel speaks
Earnings: Deere
Other: Kiwi trade balance numbers start us off on Friday. Bloomberg provides no estimates for this, but another atrocious number seems a safe bet given recent form. Japanese CPI figures will be out next with the market expecting prices to have risen 3.5% y-o-y in April (up three ticks from the previous month). Out of the UK we will get consumer confidence figures (likely diabolical) and the results of the Bloomberg economic survey, while in Germany we will see April PPI figures and over in the US we will also get results for the Bloomberg economic survey. The Bank of England’s Haskell will be speaking, as will the Fed’s Williams and Bowman. Later on Jerome Powell will be speaking on a panel with Ben Bernanke, while from the ECB we will hear from Lagarde, Schnabel and de Cos.
* * *
Finally, focusing on just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data releases this week are retail sales on Tuesday and the Philly Fed manufacturing index on Thursday. There are many speaking engagements from Fed officials this week, including Chair Powell; Vice Chair Nominee Jefferson; governors Cook, Barr, and Bowman; and presidents Bostic, Goolsbee, Kashkari, Mester, Williams, and Logan.
Monday, May 15
07:30 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will participate in an interview with CNBC. On April 20, Bostic said, “Our policy works with the lag. We’ll have moved firmly into restrictive space. And then I think it’s time for us to let the restrictive action work its way through. And that will take some time.”
08:30 AM Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC voter) speaks: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will participate in an interview with CNBC. On May 10, Goolsbee said, “You don’t want to land the plane nose down. So we’re trying to balance off — can we slow the inflation without sending it into a recession…We’ve had some promising indicators on that front, but it’s always a possibility.” On May 8, he said, “I am certainly getting vibes…in the market and in the business context that a credit crunch or, at least, a credit squeeze, is beginning.”
08:30 AM Empire State manufacturing survey, May (consensus -4.0, last +10.8)
08:45 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will deliver welcoming remarks at the Atlanta Fed’s annual financial markets conference.
09:15 AM Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari (FOMC voter) speaks: Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will participate in a moderated discussion at the ACEC’s Minnesota Transportation Conference & Expo. Q&A with audience is expected. On May 11, Kashkari said, “Inflation has come down but it’s still well above our 2% target. We have seen some softening in wage growth nationally, but it’s very mixed…We’ve been surprised at how high it got, we’ve been surprised at how persistent it’s been. And it’s coming down – there is some evidence that it’s coming down. But so far it’s been pretty darn persistent. That means we’re going to keep at it for an extended period of time.”
02:00 PM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will participate in an interview with Bloomberg TV at 2:00 PM and hold a media Q&A at the Atlanta Fed’s financial markets conference at 3:00 PM.
05:00 PM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook will deliver a commencement address at the U.C. Berkeley Spring 2023 Economics Commencement. Speech text is expected. On April 21, Cook said, “Currently, with the federal funds rate target near 5%, I am looking at what rate will be sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to 2%, over time…If tighter financing conditions are a significant headwind on the economy, the appropriate path of the federal funds rate may be lower than it would be in their absence. But if data show continued strength in the economy and slower disinflation, we may have more work to do.”
Tuesday, May 16
08:15 AM Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester will discuss the economic and policy outlook at a Global Interdependence Center event hosted by the Central Bank of Ireland. Speech text and a Q&A with the audience are expected. On April 20, Mester said, “I anticipate that monetary policy will need to move somewhat further into restrictive territory this year, with the fed funds rate moving above 5% and the real fed funds rate staying in positive territory for some time. Precisely how much higher the federal funds rate will need to go from here and for how long policy will need to remain restrictive will depend on economic and financial developments.”
08:30 AM Retail sales, April (GS +1.3%, consensus +0.8%, last -0.6%); Retail sales ex-auto, April (GS +0.8%, consensus +0.4%, last -0.4%) ;Retail sales ex-auto & gas, April (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.2%, last -0.3%); Core retail sales, April (GS +0.5%, consensus +0.3%, last -0.3%): We estimate core retail sales rebounded by 0.5% in April (ex-autos, gasoline, and building materials; mom sa). Our forecast reflects a rebound in high-frequency consumer spending data, including in mall-based categories such as clothing stores. However, we expect another month of flat-to-down grocery spending due to the expiration of pandemic food stamp benefits. We estimate a 1.3% rise in headline retail sales, reflecting higher auto sales and gasoline prices.
09:15 AM Industrial production, April (GS +0.2%, consensus flat, last +0.4%); Manufacturing production, April (GS +0.3%, consensus +0.1%, last -0.5%); Capacity utilization, April (GS 79.8%, consensus 79.7%, last 79.8%): We estimate industrial production increased 0.2% in April, as stronger auto production is partially offset by weaker natural gas utilities. We estimate capacity utilization remained at 79.8%.
10:00 AM Business inventories, March (consensus flat, last +0.2%)
10:00 AM NAHB housing market index, May (consensus 45, last 45)
10:00 AM Fed Governor Barr speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr will testify before the House Financial Services Committee in its Semiannual Hearing on Supervision and Regulation. Speech text will be available.
12:15 PM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Fed President John Williams will participate in a moderated discussion on the economic outlook and monetary policy at an event hosted by the University of the Virgin Islands. On May 9, Williams said, “We haven’t said we are done raising rates…We’ve made incredible progress” but “if additional policy firming is appropriate, we’ll do that.” He added, “In my forecast I see a need to keep a restrictive stance of policy in place for quite some time to make sure we really bring inflation down from 4% all the way to 2%. I do not see in my baseline forecast any reason to cut interest rates this year.”
02:30 PM Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC voter) speaks: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will participate in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
03:15 PM Dallas Fed President Logan (FOMC voter) speaks: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will moderate a panel discussion at the Atlanta Fed’s Financial Markets Conference. Q&A with audience is expected. On April 20, Logan said, “Over the past six weeks, I’ve also been closely watching the effects of stresses in the banking system—both on the macroeconomy and on local communities, especially here in Texas where small and midsize banks are so important. Smaller banks are particularly significant in small business, rural, middle-market, and commercial real estate lending.”
07:00 PM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) and Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC voter) speak: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will participate in a moderated discussion on the economic outlook during the Atlanta Fed’s annual financial markets conference. On May 10, Goolsbee said, “You don’t want to land the plane nose down. So we’re trying to balance off — can we slow the inflation without sending it into a recession…We’ve had some promising indicators on that on that front, but it’s always a possibility.” On May 8, he said, “I am certainly getting vibes…in the market and in the business context that a credit crunch or, at least, a credit squeeze, is beginning.”
Wednesday, May 17
08:30 AM Housing starts, April (GS -1.1%, consensus -1.4%, last -0.8%): Building permits, April (consensus flat, last -7.7%)
Thursday, May 18
08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended May 13 (GS 240k, consensus 252k, last 264k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended May 6 (consensus 1,818k, last 1,813k): We estimate that initial jobless claims fell to 240k in the week ended May 13. Last week’s jump in initial claims partly reflected fraudulent filings in Massachusetts. Our forecast assumes that those fraudulent filings—which we estimate could be boosting the level of claims by roughly 20-30k—are curtailed. While the annual seasonal factor revisions that took place last month appear to have resolved most of the seasonal distortions in initial claims, we believe the revisions may have intensified the distortions in continuing claims. Those distortions have likely contributed to the net decline over the last few prints, and we estimate they could exert a cumulative drag on the level of continuing claims of up to 400k between April and September.
08:30 AM Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index, May (GS -16.0, consensus -19.8, last -31.3): We estimate that the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index rebounded 15.3 points to -16 in May, reflecting the gradual rebound in East Asian trade and industrial activity following weakness in the winter.
09:05 AM Fed Governor Jefferson speaks: Fed Governor Philip Jefferson will deliver a speech on the economic outlook at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) International Insurance Forum. Speech text is expected. On May 9, Jefferson said, “The economy has started to slow in an orderly fashion…I am of the view that inflation will start to come down and the economy will have the opportunity to continue to expand.” President Biden will nominate Jefferson as Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve.
09:30 AM Fed Governor Barr speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr will testify before the Senate Banking Committee in its Semiannual Hearing on Supervision and Regulation. Speech text will be made available. Barr released the review of the Fed’s supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank on April 28.
10:00 AM Dallas Fed President Logan (FOMC voter) speaks: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will deliver a speech, followed by moderated Q&A with audience, at Texas Bankers Association’s annual convention.
10:00 AM Existing home sales, April (GS -5.0%, consensus -3.2%, last -2.4%)
Friday, May 19
08:45 AM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Fed President John Williams will deliver a keynote address at a monetary policy research conference hosted by the Fed.
09:00 AM Fed Governor Bowman speaks: Fed Governor Michelle Bowman will participate in a discussion at the Texas Bankers Association Annual Convention. Speech text and a moderated Q&A are expected. On May 12, Bowman said, “Should inflation remain high and the labor market remain tight, additional monetary policy tightening will likely be appropriate to attain a sufficiently restrictive stance of monetary policy to lower inflation over time. I also expect that our policy rate will need to remain sufficiently restrictive for some time to bring inflation down and create conditions that will support a sustainably strong labor market.”
11:00 AM Fed Chair Powell speaks: Fed Chair Jerome Powell and former chair Ben Bernanke will participate in a panel discussion during a monetary policy research conference hosted by the Fed. At the May FOMC meeting, Powell said that he does not expect a recession, unlike the Fed staff, and he made his clearest statement so far that he thinks a soft landing is possible and finds the labor market rebalancing to date encouraging, views that we share. We see this as dovish too—if Powell thinks that a recession is not necessary to solve the inflation problem, he will be reluctant to deliver future hikes that he thinks would materially raise the risk of pushing the economy into a recession.
Supplier ARC Fights NHTSA Request To Recall 67 Million Airbags For Faulty Inflators
In one of the most sprawling auto recall attempts in recent memory, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is calling for 67 million airbag inflators to be recalled after it was found that they may “rupture and injure drivers and passengers”.
The inflators were made by ARC Automotive, Inc. and had been manufactured for use in the U.S. auto market during the 18-year period before January 2018, according to Engadget. They were then used by six different airbag manufacturers, the report says.
The NHTSA argued in a letter to ARC that there were 9 incidents where an inflator ruptured. “Air bag inflators that project metal fragments into vehicle occupants, rather than properly inflating the attached air bag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury,” it wrote.
In response, ARC wrote back: “After nearly eight years of intensive scrutiny, none of [the manufacturers using its products] has identified a systemic or prevalent defect across this inflator population.”
ARC also says it tested 918 inflators that were taken from vehicles in salvage yards, wherein none of them exploded after being subjected to testing.
ARC has also argued that the NHTSA’s results came from “one-off” anomalies that had already been addressed using lot-specific recalls. As Engadget notes, companies like GM have already issued recalls for individual lots of vehicles for “suspect airbag inflator[s]”.
But the agency has told ARC that they should be prepared to furnish “additional analysis of the problem beyond ARC’s past presentations” if they want to make the case to abandon the recall.
Over the past 15 years, rupture related incidents have prompted millions of airbags to be recalled, with the most notable coming from Takata, who had 67 million airbags recalled in the U.S. and over 100 million recalled worldwide.
Senator Josh Hawley urged Friday that the Biden administration is intending to “collapse the immigration system” on purpose and that “they want the chaos” at the border.
“I think the plan is exactly what you’re seeing, they want the chaos,” Hawley told Fox News host Laura Ingraham, adding “The plan is to try to collapse our immigration system completely, collapse the courts collapse the asylum process, overrun the border.”
“That is the plan. That’s what they want. They want the chaos,” The Senator reiterated, adding “If you thought the fentanyl problem in this country is bad. You thought it was bad in my state, where it’s the number one cause of death in the state of Missouri for young people. Just wait because they are about to turn it on full throttle.”
Hawley continued, “The drugs that will come across this border, the crime that will come across this border, the danger to our families and our communities, it’s going to be unlike anything we’ve ever seen in terms of border crossings in our country’s history.”
“It already is, and they haven’t even lifted title 42 yet,” Hawley continued, adding “They want the immigration system to collapse because the Democrat Party’s base now flies around and jets and conferences in Davos and are a bunch of globalists who want to drive down the price of labor in America.”
“They want to drive down wages for blue-collar workers in America. They want to do the bidding of the global multinationals. That’s who runs the Democrat Party today,” Hawley asserted.
Watch:
The situation at the border is critical with the highest number of illegal crossings ever recorded in the past week, following the end of Title 42.
Reporter Bill Melugin related that this past weekend the Border Patrol arrested an Afghani individual at the border who is on the terrorism watchlist.
.@BillFOXLA reports that border patrol agents arrested an Afghan national who crossed illegally and was on the FBI’s terror watchlist. pic.twitter.com/MkPbQ7fe4Z
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 14, 2023
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Platinum Market “Entering Substantial Deficit This Year”
The global shortage of platinum is set to worsen in the coming quarters, resulting in one of the most significant deficits in half a century, the World Platinum Investment Council (WPIC) said in a quarterly report on Monday. This should continue to support spot prices of the metal.
Rolling power blackouts in South Africa, a country responsible for mining approximately 70% of the world’s supply, disrupt production. It comes as demand remains robust and will outstrip supply by 983,000 ounces in 2023. This means the shortfall will be the largest since the 1970s — and compares with a deficit forecast of 556,000 ounces made by WPIC in March.
The forecast deficit for 2023 (-983 koz) is 77% deeper than projected in the Q4’22 Platinum Quarterly in March 2023, and reflects a 1% decline in total supply and a 28% increase in demand versus 2022.
Besides South Africa, WPIC said Western sanctions against Russia have also contributed to sliding global supplies.
“This reflects the attractive investment outlook of a market entering a substantial deficit this year, with deficits likely to be sustained for several years unless there is a substantial increase in supply or significant demand destruction, both seeming unlikely. It is quite possible that this interest in platinum investment could spread to other geographies as well, and of course, the more broad-based the investment thesis is acted upon, the more self-fulfilling the result,” said Trevor Raymond, WPIC chief executive.
“The trend over the last few years in South Africa has been to buy the equities over the metal.
“Now with the challenges facing the companies in terms of inflation and Eskom the funds there are preferring the metal itself,” Ed Sterck, director of research at WPIC, told Bloomberg.
The surge in exchange-traded platinum funds led platinum prices to a more than 20% rally between mid-February into late April from $907 per announce to $1,127. Prices have since struggled to break above $1,100.
Meanwhile, WPIC said industrial demand is expected to surge 17% year-on-year to an unprecedented level, primarily fueled by glass and chemical-making capacity in China.
“The UAE Is Poised To Become A 21st Century Switzerland”
By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
“This is how to think about the UAE” said the wealthy investor, a banker turned money manager, entrepreneur, an expatriate who left London with his young family.
“They have built exceptional hardware, national infrastructure,” he said. “They enshrined English common law like Singapore and Hong Kong in various business-friendly jurisdictions like ADGM [here] and DIFC [here],” he said. “But hardware is worthless without software, IP, so they do whatever necessary to entice the world’s best people to move here and build their businesses.”
ADGM is Abu Dhabi’s financial center. Created in 2015, it now has over 4k registered business entities. Shopping, luxury living, hotels, schools, courts, regulators. Venture business hubs. Over 13k people work there. They plan to expand it 10x. DIFC is Dubai’s equivalent. Created 19yrs ago, 36k people work there. 700 tech companies. 27 of the world’s 29 systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) have a presence. 60 hedge funds. Both cities are ranked the safest places to live in the world. Income and investment tax rates are zero.
“US start-up infrastructure was built over generations largely around our universities,” said Shan Aggarwal, head of venture investing for Coinbase. “It’s easy to take it for granted,” he continued, speaking with a venture investor at one of UAE’s SWFs. I listened. “The ecosystem you’re building here for early-stage ventures lays the foundation for tremendous innovation from the region and is superior to anything I’ve seen outside the US,” Shan said. “It’s remarkable, built with such conviction, intention, vertically integrated with the leaders in government, investors, sovereign wealth funds, business centers, entrepreneurial hubs, regulators, banks.”
“We’ve made over 400 venture investments in the past 5yrs,” added Shan. “We tend to invest very early, in small size. Geographically, roughly 30% of our portfolio companies were founded outside of North America. 10-20 of our companies have moved to the UAE or considered establishing a presence in the past year. All organic. And they include some of the strongest teams,” Shan said. “We make investments in firms throughout the world,” replied the SWF venture investor.
“Many are strategic, very long-term horizon. They tend to be larger investments than yours. And the companies know that behind the initial capital we provide sits a monster.”
“Upstairs is the mining company,” said the investor, focused on start-ups that build critical digital asset infrastructure, capitalizing on America’s reluctance to embrace blockchain technology. The UAE is hosting COP28 this December and building over 5 gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity. Like all renewable energy projects, there is no cost-effective way to store excess off-peak electricity production. So, the UAE now mines bitcoin with excess electricity, generating over $100mm per year to support investment in renewables. “We are operating at a fraction of our eventual output.”
UAE has the 8th largest oil reserves (100bln barrels). Venezuela has the most (304bln), followed by Saudi (298bln). The US has 69bln. When a nation with the 8th largest reserves builds over 5 gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity, it sends a powerful signal about the appetite for making long-term investments in oil and gas. The global energy transition has begun. If the world’s top producers slow investment in oil infrastructure, we could see a non-linear jump in the price of hydrocarbons, ironically, because we are weaning ourselves from them.
“Consider each emirate on its merits,” said the head of one of the nation’s leading family offices, mid-30s, Ivy league educated. We sat in a WeWork tower, an innovation hub he helped pioneer, soon-to-be 3,200 desks. “I’ll be happy no matter what you choose, after all, I’m a republican,” he said, content with a victory for UAE, no matter which of its seven emirates wins. “But I think you’ll find Abu Dhabi is the place where you’ll want your greatest presence,” he said, his team of investors and infrastructure consultants in a healthy competition with Dubai.
Anecdote:
I first traveled to the UAE in early 2001 to lead a technology project in Sharjah, one of seven emirates, working out of a windowless warehouse at the airport, a tax-free zone built to entice entrepreneurs. Back then, skyscrapers were rising, sporadically, abruptly, separated by vast tracts of desert, connected by wide empty highways. Fast forward 22 years and the UAE is transformed by ambition, execution. Poised to become a 21st century Switzerland. Open to all, aligned with none, a vital place where East meets West.
“You see right there?” asked a sovereign wealth fund investor this week, pointing north, through the tower’s window. “Two miles out there are 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, more than 200 years of supply,” he said, the Arabian Gulf spread before us, powder blue, sandy islands, cranes spinning. I had asked what inspired the UAE to act so aggressively, with such clear intention, to transform its economy. And why the UAE had made such remarkable progress, when Kuwait, by comparison, appeared somewhat frozen in time.
“In 20 years, perhaps 30, all that oil will be worth nothing,” he said. “The energy transition is now happening, and we have committed to Net Zero by 2050.” The UAE has roughly 1.5mm citizens, 8.5mm expatriates, $1.5trln in sovereign wealth fund investments, and is racing to diversify, reinvent. “Kuwait is somewhat of a sad story, the war with Iraq was devasting, they never fully recovered,” he said, touched by the travails of his northern neighbors, but more interested in focusing on his nation’s future.
“We have been making strategic investments across the globe for years, generating strong financial returns, bringing key technologies here, creating the space for young firms to grow, searching for synergies,” he said. “I am a chameleon, sitting here with you, dressed as such, and in Silicon Valley I’m in jeans, tee-shirt. New York, Taipei, all over the world,” he said. “Our strategy rapidly accelerated with US and China geopolitical strains, then came Covid, Ukraine. There’s now a flood of people, businesses, opportunities.”
US NatGas Drilling Collapses At Fastest Rate Since 2016
According to a new report from Baker Hughes Co., the US natural gas sector is rapidly pulling drilling rigs from the field due to oversupply conditions that have led to a collapse in NatGas prices over a nine-month period.
Baker Hughes reported Friday that exploration companies reduced rigs by 16 to 141 this week. This is the most significant weekly decline since February 2016.
Nabors Industries Ltd., one of the top providers of rigs to shale drillers, warned last month about the fall in rig orders. The rig provider expects a 9% slide in its US rig leases by the end of June. Its bearish forecast comes as prices once commanded more than $10 per million British thermal units in late August 2022 and have since plunged to $2.25.
Bloomberg explained a combination of factors led to the NatGas glut:
“The glut developed after a key US gas-export facility was shut by a fire and abnormally mild winter weather gutted heating demand.”
The good news is that low prices have pushed drillers to curtail production growth. Comstock Resources Inc. and Southwestern Energy Co. have already said drilling in Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale region would be reduced.
“What’s going to suffer the most is the number of drilling rigs,” said Angie Gildea, who heads KPMG LLP’s US energy, natural resources, and chemicals team. She noted companies “will take lower production growth over having to reduce dividends to shareholders.”
Meanwhile, Citigroup Inc. analysts warn some exploration companies are shutting down existing wells due to the supply glut and low prices.
“We expect further reductions across both natural gas rigs and frac fleets in the Haynesville, while throttling and shut-ins are likely to be needed across all basins by the summer,” Citigroup’s Paul Diamond wrote in a note to clients.
Low NatGas prices plus tighter credit conditions will make it even more challenging for drillers to tap credit lines from big banks. This is the necessary step to correct oversupply conditions.
Let’s summarize what we now know of the negative efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, and why vaccinated people—not the unvaxxed—suffer frequent bouts of COVID-19.
The COVID-19 vaccines—and the new bivalents, of which they are a part—are alarmingly and irredeemably unsafe, as well as ineffective for the advertised purposes. It is increasingly recognized by laypeople, physicians, and scientists throughout the world that the COVID-19 vaccines are neither safe, nor effective, nor reversible.
In this article, I show irrefutable proof that the COVID-19 vaccines are irredeemably ineffective. (See many dozens of my other Substack articles, and my book, “Neither Safe Nor Effective,” on how dangerous these vaccines are.)
Background
U.S. mortality data at the end of 2020 did not support the allegation of a pandemic, because there was no more of an outlying peak in excess deaths in 2020 than other peaks throughout the past two decades, as reported at that time. A series of CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] revisions have continually increased the number claimed dead in 2020. Even now, as of April 24, the CDC shows that 3,383,729 people died from all causes in the United States in 2020 on one page written in December 2021, [1]
If even two years after the end of 2020, allegations of the number of those dead in 2020 continue to increase, at what point will that number be settled? How is it that by December 2021 an accurate number of deaths in 2020 was not available to the CDC?
In either case, mortality for 2020 (the year of COVID-19 virulence) was less than for 2021 (the year of the COVID-19 vaccine), which was 3,464,000. [2] The 2020 mortality number remained at about one percent of the total U.S. population, as in each of the previous three years, in which there was no pandemic.
Notably, December 2020 had by far the highest deaths of any month in 2020 in the United States, 32 percent higher than the average of the previous 11 months of what had been advertised to be the worst pandemic in a century, but in fact had no more than typical numbers of deaths in the U.S. during that alleged pandemic.
Data released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that each of those last three weeks in December 2020, excess deaths (number of deaths over those expected) had higher excess deaths than any of the previous weeks of the alleged pandemic. [3] Each of those last three weeks of December 2020 exceeded 25,000 excess deaths per week, whereas even the worst COVID-19 hospitalization weeks, the first two weeks of April 2020, did not exceed 25,000 excess deaths per week.
The Pfizer vaccines were released to the American public on Dec. 14, 2020. [4]
As of this time, no children are known to have died in the United States with a COVID-19 diagnosis except for those having terminal leukemia and other advanced cancers and grave terminal illnesses and other non-COVID-19 life-threatening circumstances. It has been calculated that seasonal flu, lightning, and being a passenger in a motor vehicle are all more life-threatening to children and adolescents than any of the COVID-19 variants.
It may be no coincidence that December 2020 was the month that the vaccines became available to the public. Early 2021 showed striking excess deaths, and the COVID-19 vaccine was the new factor. Furthermore, January to November 2020 show an average of 274,000 deaths in the United States per month, but since December 2020, according to the same CDC tables of data, the average deaths per month jumped to 288,250.
The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines first became available for mass vaccination in the United States on Dec. 14, 2020, followed by the Moderna vaccine a few days later. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine would not become available till Feb. 27, 2021. As soon as the earlier vaccines became distributed en masse, the total number of deaths per week for the rest of 2020 from all causes in the United States jumped from 63,000 to 84,000, which is a 32 percent increase, unlikely to be attributable to any other cause but the vaccines. Before the officially reported numbers change yet again, let’s take a screenshot from the CDC.
Notice how much higher January 2021 deaths are than for each of the next five months. Although January is typically the month with highest deaths in most years, January’s death rate was 32 percent higher than February’s.
It can be seen from the CDC data, that the deaths per week in the United States in each of the first seven weeks following the Pfizer and Moderna rollout all exceeded even the deadliest weeks of 2020 (the two weeks ending April 11 and April 18 of 2020). [5] This should be enough to make anyone hesitant about the vaccines, and logically, more fearful of the vaccines than of COVID-19.
Public Health ‘Experts’ Have Not Been Straightforward With the Data
A confounding factor for assessing safety or efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines has been a deceptive use of the word “unvaccinated” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to not only include those who were never COVID-19-vaccinated but also those who have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine less than seven or 14 days ago. This “case-counting window bias” allows infections, injuries, and deaths immediately following vaccination to be assigned to, and sometimes even attributed to, the “unvaccinated” category, by deceptive sleight of hand.
Fung, Jones, et al. write of such deception: “This asymmetry, in which the case-counting window nullifies cases in the vaccinated group but not in the unvaccinated group, biases estimates.” [6] A problem with this miscategorization is that injuries and deaths have all peaked closely following COVID-19 vaccination—mostly on the first day—as in the graph below. Yet those individuals, for being so recently vaccinated, are falsely assigned the label “unvaccinated,” confounding much of the reported data.
The only good about this mis-categorization problem is that it is no longer such an issue now in 2023 and going forward. This deception really confounded much data in 2021, the year of peak COVID-19 vaccine uptake, and to a much lesser extent in 2022.
Now in 2023, very few individuals are still being COVID-19-vaccinated, so nearly everyone has made their decision to be vaccinated or not, more than 14 days ago, and are therefore now in widely agreed upon and accurate categories at this late time. But there is little likelihood at this point of eventual correction of previous miscategorization—and therefore corruption—of this essential public health data, 2020 through 2022.
COVID-19 Vaccines Have Negative Efficacy, and What That Means
The COVID-19 vaccines are so ineffective against COVID-19 that they have negative efficacy. This means that you have a greater likelihood of infection and/or hospitalization from COVID-19 after having received the vaccine than not receiving it. The COVID-19 vaccines have not only failed to reduce cases and hospitalizations from Omicron and COVID-19 generally, but they have actually increased the incidence of both. Results of negative efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines are seen all over the world.
Neither the Pfizer nor Moderna clinical trials addressed preventing transmission.
Tal Zaks is the chief medical officer at Moderna. He told the British Medical Journal, “Our trial will not demonstrate prevention of transmission, because in order to do that you have to swab people twice a week for very long periods, and that becomes operationally untenable.” [7]
Dr. Larry Corey oversaw the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. He said on Nov. 20, 2020: “The studies aren’t designed to assess transmission. They don’t ask that question, and there’s really no information on this at this point in time.” (The article where he was quoted as saying this had not been, but is now, behind a paywall.) [8]
Negative Efficacy Shown by the Most Prestigious Medical Journals
The New England Journal of Medicine shows that those who are fully vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19 recover significantly more slowly from the illness and remain contagious for longer periods of time after SARS-CoV-2 infection. [9]
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published data showing that persons receiving two or more doses of COVID-19 vaccines experienced more re-infections with COVID-19 than people receiving 0 to 1 dose and that the probability of reinfection increased with time. “Surprisingly, 2 or more doses of vaccine were associated with a slightly higher probability of reinfection compared with 1 dose or less.” [10]
An analysis in the British Medical Journal found a “net expected individual harm” from the COVID-19 vaccines in the context of college mandates, and calculated that “boosting young adults with BNT 162b2 [BNT162b2 is a lipid nanoparticle–formulated, nucleoside-modified RNA vaccine that encodes a prefusion stabilized, membrane-anchored SARS-CoV-2 full-length spike protein] could cause 18.5 times more SAEs [significant adverse events] per million (593.5) than COVID-19 hospitalizations averted (32.0).” And “for each hospitalization averted we estimate approximately 18.5 SAEs and 1430-4626 disruptions of daily activities—that is not outweighed by a proportionate public health benefit.” [11]
Negative Efficacy of the COVID Vaccines Is Seen Throughout the World
Subramanian and Kumar examined COVID vaccination across 68 countries and found “… the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.” [12]
Switkay showed that Subramanian and Kumar’s trend line regarding relation between new COVID-19 cases and vaccination is not only positive but “… indeed, there is a very strong positive association.” [13]
A Bayesian analysis of data from 145 countries shows that the COVID-19 vaccines cause more COVID-19 cases per million and more COVID-19-associated deaths per million over the vast international scope of this study. [14] The study found “a marked increase in both COVID-19 related cases and death due directly to a vaccine deployment …” The results in the United States were 38 percent more cases per million [15] and 31 percent more deaths per million [16] caused by the COVID-19 vaccines.
Other studies found no difference in viral loads or rates of infection between vaccinated and unvaccinated. [17] [18] [19]
In order to further comprehend this vast worldwide lack of efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, let’s now look at analyses of the phenomenon of negative efficacy of the vaccines in specific countries.
A study of 51,011 employees of the Cleveland Clinic in the United States was done. It found the “Risk of COVID-19 increased with time since the most recent prior COVID-19 episode and with the number of vaccine doses previously received.” [20]
The following graph shows increasing cumulative incidence of COVID-19 disease starting after the first day of the Cleveland Clinic study. We can see a clear dose-dependent increase in infections made worse by each successive dose of the COVID-19 vaccines, with the unvaccinated having far less COVID-19 disease than their vaccinated co-workers.
The small print at the right says, going down from the top [in yellow] more than 3 doses. [in blue] 3 doses, [in green] 2 doses, [in red] one dose, [in black] 0 doses.
An Oxford University study of 900 hospital staff members in Vietnam showed that peak viral loads among the infected vaccinated (“breakthrough” infected) staff were 251 times higher than those of unvaccinated personnel. [21]
This Danish study [22] showed that both Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines showed negative efficacy against the Omicron variant within only 90 days of administration and that that decline in efficacy was even faster for Omicron than for the earlier Delta variant. This sharp decline is illustrated in the following graph.
The above graph shows that both of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines predispose toward increased risk for Omicron infection, as the timeline passes the 90-day point, due to negative efficacy.
89.7 percent of people infected with Omicron in Denmark were either “fully vaccinated” or had their first booster. 77.9 percent of the Danish population was fully vaccinated as of the time of the study. [23] Therefore, the vaccinated have been more predisposed to Omicron infection than the unvaccinated in Denmark.
Data from the UK government, Office for National Statistics, shows that each successive vaccine dose has increased the likelihood of testing positive for the Omicron variant, in a stunning display of negative vaccine efficacy. [24]
Worse yet, risk of death from COVID-19 is shown to increase with each successive dose of vaccine for most age groups, as in the following table published by the UK government’s Health Security Agency. [25]
On a population-wide level in Ireland, mass vaccination is correlated in timing with dramatically rising COVID-19 cases. The Irish population has had among the highest rates of vaccine penetration in its adult population, 94.8 percent fully vaccinated as of Jan. 22, 2022, yet COVID-19 cases rose 317 percent over the previous January before the vaccines were in use. [26]
In Scotland also, among those who had received one, two, or three vaccines, or none at all, the unvaccinated had the lowest case rates in January 2022 of all four groups, as seen in this table [27] and graph. [28]
A study of 4,020 cases of Omicron in Germany on Dec. 31, 2021, showed that of those, 1,137 were boosted. There were only 1097 unvaccinated Omicron cases. [30] [31]
However, there are similar numbers of people in the three categories of “boosted,” fully vaccinated” and “unvaccinated” in Germany as of Dec. 31, 2021. German scientists studying the German government’s excess mortality data observed that the higher the vaccination rate, the higher the excess mortality. [32]
As we can see, the unvaccinated have had a strong advantage against Omicron, which was the prevalent COVID-19 strain throughout the world at that time. The COVID-19 vaccines do not work against the Delta strain either. In July 2021, in the United States, in Massachusetts, at a time and place that Delta was predominant, of a total of 469 new COVID-19 cases, 346 of those (74 percent) were in people who were partially or fully vaccinated, and 274 of the vaccinated were symptomatic. [33]
In Delhi, India, of 34 Omicron cases at a hospital, 33 were fully vaccinated (97 percent). However, India’s COVID-19 vaccination rate was only 40 percent at that time. [34]
Both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were found to plunge to negative efficacy within months. [35] [36] [37]
The Implications of Negative Efficacy in a Heavily Jabbed World
A study by Chemaitelly et al. in Qatar of over 2,000,000 people, for whom vaccination status and COVID-19 disease incidence data were available, showed, just as the preceding studies, that zero to negative efficacy was apparent within months after injection. Authors attributed that decline to “immune imprinting compromising protection in people who had the booster vaccination against the newer omicron sublineages.” The authors explain the mechanism further as [the booster] “could have trained the immune response to expect a specific narrow pre-omicron challenge; thus the response was suboptimal when the actual challenge was an immune-evasive omicron subvariant.” [38]
Original Antigenic Sin
OAS is likely exacerbated by the mistaken approach of vaccinologists, tampering with the blood, whereas the body is well-prepared to confront new microbes by way of the respiratory tract, not by way of first introduction through the blood.
If the COVID-19 vaccines merely predisposed one to higher risk of the common cold now known as the Delta and Omicron and subsequent variants, then we might simply laugh off these vaccines as a frivolous and superstitious activity. However, the safety data are nothing less than horrifying.
[2] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Vital Statistics System. State and national provisional counts. Monthly and 12-month ending number of live births, deaths, and infant deaths: United States. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/provisional-tables.htm
[3] Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. OECD Stat. Health, COVID-19 health indicators, Excess deaths per week, 2020-2023. https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx
[5] U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Vital Statistics System. State and national provisional counts. Monthly and 12-month ending number of live births, deaths, and infant deaths: United States. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/provisional-tables.htm
[7] P Doshi. Will COVID-19 vaccines save lives? Current trials aren’t designed to tell us. Oct. 21, 2020. British Medical Journal. 371. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4037
[11] K Bardosh, A Krug, et al. COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk benefit assessment and ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities.Dec. 5, 2022. BMJ J Med Ethics. https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2022/12/05/jme-2022-108449
[12] S Subraminian, A Kumar. Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States. Sept. 30, 2021. Eur J Epidemio. 36 (12) 1237-1240. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/
[18] C Brown, J Vostok, et al. Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infections, including COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections, associated with large public gatherings, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, July 2021. Aug 6, 2021. MMWR Morb Moral Wkly Rep. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8367314/
[22] C Hansen, A Schelde, et al. Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection with the Omicron or Delta variants following a two-dose or booster BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 vaccination series: A Danish cohort study. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.20.21267966v3.full.pdf
[35] C Hansen, A Schelde, et al. Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection with the Omicron or Delta variants following a two-dose or booster BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 vaccination series: A Danish cohort study. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.20.21267966v3.full.pdf
[38] H Chemaitelly, H Ayoub, et al. Long-term COVID-19 booster effectiveness by infection history and clinical vulnerability and immune imprinting: a retrospective population-based cohort study. Mar 10, 2023. Lancet Infect Dis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10079373/
The WEF Wants Equitable ‘Democratization’ Of Stock Markets
“Talent and intellect are equally distributed, opportunity is not…”
This is the claim made by the World Economic Forum in a recent video describing their intention to create a more “democratized” stock market.
Obviously, the truth is the opposite; talent and intellect are not equally distributed, but every person is given the opportunity to take a shot and attempt to succeed. Any democratized economic policy would seek to change all of that.
The WEF program seems to run parallel to the ESG related woke ideology that has been spreading like a cancer into major corporations and western governments. While promoting fairness in investing, the WEF addresses theory while ignoring practice. How would such fairness be achieved? What is the WEF definition of fairness?
If we go by the common ideological mantras of globalists and the political left, fairness for them means equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. There are no significant barriers to the average person buying stocks, but nearly half the population of countries like the US stay out of retail markets. Why? Is it a lack of “equity”, or is it something else?
The WEF seems to address this issue without directly admitting the problem. Trust is in fact the issue, and people distrust markets because they are openly rigged to a certain extent. The WEF glances over this concern as if it is unjustified or requires more government intervention. Yet, over a decade of government and central bank manipulation of markets is proof enough that certain corporations and certain financial mechanisms are protected while others are not. At least, not until recently…
It’s interesting that the WEF is announcing its goal to make investing more democratic at the very moment that western banks are on the verge of an unprecedented credit crunch. With the implosion of SVB, the buyout of Credit Suisse, the crash of First Republic and Signature, the financial system is fast approaching a reckoning.
U.S. corporate bankruptcies are rising in 2023, with the first two months of the year registering the highest total for any comparable period since 2011, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. In other words, bankruptcies are on pace to hit a 12 year high.
Echoes of the crash of 2008/2009 are ringing in people’s ears and they are rightly suspicious of markets. But what about short selling? Can the public make money through shorts? Well, that’s not allowed. While globalists want more investment activity at a time of major risk, they are also adamant that people only be allowed to buy in, rather than going short.
This double standard has culminated in the mass chastising of investors that went short on failing banks like SVB, as regulators and elitists like Jamie Dimon partially blame social media driven short selling for the crash and demand that people who do such organizing be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
In a completely interconnected world, how do the globalists plan to get billions of people to invest in stocks without them organizing, data sharing or engaging in activism, and with equal outcome? Either everyone wins, or everyone loses within their theoretical investment democracy. How do markets function without both winners and losers?
The dynamics that are being established seem to be designed to encourage or perhaps even force the public into market participation. The WEF’s goals would not be met unless wages were somehow garnered through government regulation and invested without people’s consent or oversight. Otherwise, skepticism will continue to rule the day and half the population (or more) will continue to bow out.
Or, maybe the goal is not to save the system as it exists, but to lure the populace in today, bounce stocks for a time, and then let the bottom drop out tomorrow while destroying everyone’s wealth simultaneously (except the wealth of insiders and bailout recipients, of course). It’s hard to say. What we do know is that ESG related programs are a major contributor to the decline of US banks like SVB, so how would ESG programs for stock markets possibly help?
A primary school teacher sacked after refusing to use an eight-year-old child’s trans pronouns has said her only intention was to safeguard the pupil.
The teacher from England, who can’t be named to protect the child’s identity, told The Epoch Times she had raised concerns about the potential damage social transition could have on the young pupil.
The woman—who is now taking legal action against Nottinghamshire County Council over her dismissal—claimed she was stonewalled by school chiefs after raising concerns over the welfare of the eight-year-old.
She was dismissed last year after raising a number of concerns regarding the facilitation of a new school pupil into her class who wanted to be treated as a boy.
The child—with the support of both parents—requested to be called a different name and required that staff use pronouns aligned to the child’s new gender identity.
School employees, including the pupil’s new teacher, were instructed to follow the family’s wishes, which included allowing the child to use of the boys’ toilets and dressing rooms.
After raising issues with the principal—which the teacher felt went against her Christian beliefs—the child was removed from her class.
However, discussions continued with school bosses on how she would address the child if they came into contact within the school setting.
The teacher suggested using a “gender neutral type of nickname,” but was told that she could only use the name and pronouns requested by the child.
After refusing, she was suspended for failing to comply with what she was told was a “reasonable management request.”
‘Censorship’
She said: “At that point, I did get in touch with the legal people and started asking, what’s the law say about this?”
“Because from my point of view, I felt that they are forcing me to live contrary to my conscience, and they’re forcing me to go along with something that I think is actually harmful.
“And so the legal people did argue the point that basically what was being required of me was compelled speech, and they were compelling me to live against both my Christian beliefs and, I suppose you could say philosophical beliefs, that are formed by actually what evidence I had seen.”
The teacher was allowed to return to work with an agreement that she would refer to the child in “gender neutral” terms.
However, the atmosphere within the school had changed, she claimed.
“I felt as though I was being very much silenced,” she told The Epoch Times.
“For example, they were requiring me to write a paragraph to the head teacher explaining what I would say to staff should they ask me questions about why I had been away from school for so long.
“She didn’t want me to tell them that I had been suspended.”
The woman also claims she was told not to share any of her personal opinions, including her beliefs, with any other members of staff.
“It’s like censorship,” she said. “So I thought, well, how on earth do we protect these children?
“I’d already started that safeguarding process in terms of raising it with the head teacher.
“I gave them quite detailed explanations as to why I thought it was harmful, I just thought, well, I’m going to continue then and I started to raise it formally.”
The teacher raised her concerns about the child’s transitioning with the primary school’s board of governors.
She said:
“I actually presented them a 100-page, expert report from a psychotherapist, a psychologist, and endocrinologist who were experts in the field who had worked with these kids, and who are all saying don’t affirm them in these beliefs.
“It’s it’s going to do more harm than good.”
Sacked
The teacher also raised her concerns with the local authority but was told that the school and council had gone through the correct procedures.
She was then told that there would be no further correspondence with her on the issue.
After seeking further legal advice, she disclosed information on the child to her lawyer in preparation for a judicial review into the case.
“I went into school one morning about to set up the classroom and was met by the head teacher and deputy,” she explained.
“They asked me had I disclosed information on the child to my lawyer? They didn’t even give me a chance to explain that it was done privately and with confidentiality.
“They said I would have to be suspended and escorted me out of the school.”
The teacher was formally dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct a short time later.
She now faces never being able to teach again after the school reported her to the Teacher Regulation Agency for an alleged confidentiality breach.
She has brought an employment tribunal claim against the local authority that runs the school, claiming unfair dismissal and religious discrimination.
The woman is currently working in a sandwich shop ahead of the hearing, expected to take place in August.
She said: “I would hope this at least gets people talking and thinking are we doing harm?” she said. “It’s like we’ve lost sight of what’s really important in that debate. It’s about: is this actually harmful?”
A Year 1 pupil colours a dolphin poetry worksheet while respecting social distancing rules in a classroom during a lesson at the College Francais Bilingue De Londres French-English bilingual school in north London on June 2, 2020 (Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images)
Ongoing Concerns
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, is backing the teacher’s case.
She told The Epoch Times that the centre has been inundated with concerns from teachers and other school staff.
“People are calling us every single day because of the situation in schools, parents, even students sometimes, and teachers who are who are very concerned about pupils or perhaps materials that they are being told that they have to teach,” she said.
“This teacher was being asked to essentially affirm an eight year old in the gender that they said they were and she felt very concerned because of the surrounding circumstances of this child.
“The child was displaying concerning behaviour and it was really as a result of that that the teacher felt that it was really important that safeguarding issues were raised around this particular child because the child’s wellbeing was at stake.”
For raising her concerns, Williams said the woman is now facing her very ability to teach being completely removed.
She “wants to see this whole situation around children change, and different policies put into place.”
The local authority has been contacted for comment.
