After weeks of ratcheted missile tests in response to recent joint US-South Korean military drills, the north has launched another new missile for the first time, being described as a harder-to-detect missile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). 

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that it was launched from a high angle (presumably a mountainous region) near the capital and traveled 1,000km before plunging into the water between the Korean peninsula and Japan.

It is believed to be a faster rocket than previous ICBMs tested by the north, given it was “a new type of ballistic missile that might have used solid fuel,” according to an official cited in The Hill. 

A Biden administration National Security Council official said the US “strongly condemns” the long-range launch. “This launch is a brazen violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” she the official said. “This action demonstrates that the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] continues to prioritize its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs over the well-being of its people.”

But the statement added that “The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement.”

“The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and Republic of Korea and Japanese allies,” the statement added.

After last week saw The Fed’s balance sheet shrink significantly back from its bank-bailout resurgence, all eyes will be back on H.4.1. report this evening to see if things have continued to ‘improve’ or re-worsened amid regional bank shares unable to bounce above post-SVB lows ahead of earnings.

This week’s $30.27 billion inflow means that over the last five weeks, we have seen over $380 billion flow into money market funds which is the largest ever inflow outside of the COVID lockdown panic…

Source: Bloomberg

That pushed assets to a record $5.277 trillion, well above the $4.8 trillion pandemic peak, suggesting that US commercial bank deposits continued to fall…

Source: Bloomberg

The silver lining there is that the rate of flow into MM funds is slowing and thus, potentially, the pace of deposit outflows is also slowing.

Though not wanting to piss all over those hopeful fireworks, we note that reverse repo continues to rise…

Source: Bloomberg

The most anticipated financial update of the week – the infamous H.4.1. showed the world’s most important balance sheet shrank for the 3rd straight week last week, by $17.59 billion, dramatically less than last week’s $73.558 billion tumble – the biggest weekly decline in The Fed’s balance sheet since July 2020…

Source: Bloomberg

Looking at the actual reserve components that were provided by the Fed, we find that Fed backstopped facility borrowings fell modestly from $149 billion to $139 billion (still massively higher than the $4.5 billion pre-SVB)…

Source: Bloomberg

…but the composition shifted, as usage of the Discount Window dropped by $2.1 billion to $67.6 billion (upper pane below) along with a $8.2 billion decrease in usage of the Fed’s brand new Bank Term Funding Program, or BTFP, to $71.8 billion (middle pane) from $79.0 billion last week. Meanwhile, other credit extensions – consisting of Fed loans to bridge banks established by the FDIC to resolve SVB and Signature Bank  – fell very modestly from $175BN to $173BN (lower pane)…

Source: Bloomberg

There was zero QT this week (which was last week’s big downside driver of the Fed balance sheet) but we do note that ‘Other Fed Assets’ rose by $3.6 billion…

The continued rise in MM inflows suggest bank deposit flight continues and the smaller shrink of The Fed’s balance sheet suggests this is far from over yet. The silver lining is that emergency usage facilities eased modestly (but remain extremely high relative to pre-SVB).

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

On Wednesday, Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report on Substack that alleged the CIA was aware of widespread corruption in Ukraine and the embezzlement of US aid.

The report said the Ukrainian government has been using US taxpayer money to purchase diesel from Russia to fuel its military. Hersh said Zelensky “has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments.”

Hersh said according to one estimate by CIA analysts, at least $400 million in funds were embezzled last year. Sources told Hersh that Ukrainian officials are also “competing” to set up front companies for export contracts to private arms dealers around the world.

The issue of corruption was raised during a meeting between CIA Director William Burns and Zelensky in January. An intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting told Hersh that Burns delivered a stunning message to Zelensky.

Hersh wrote: “The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because ‘he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.’“

During the meeting, Burns presented Zelensky with a list of 35 generals and senior government officials whose corruption was known to the CIA. Zelensky responded by dismissing 10 officials who were engaged in flagrant corruption.

“The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official said.

Hersh said Zelensky’s “half-hearted response” and the “lack of concern” in the White House angered some US intelligence officials. The intelligence official speaking to Hersh criticized President Biden’s two main foreign policy advisors, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

“They have no experience, judgment, and moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories. Diplomatic deniability is something else,” the official said. The official said there was a “total breakdown between the White House leadership and the intelligence community.”

The report said the rift started in the fall when the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines were blown up. According to Hersh’s earlier reporting, President Biden ordered the operation that took out the pipelines. “Destroying the Nord Stream pipelines was never discussed, or even known in advance, by the community,” the official said.

Seymour Hersh
On the war profiteers and the terrible fog of war
Reminding us mutiple truths always exist.
War inc is always pleased with endless war https://t.co/rKKxoZRjI2

— John Cusack (@johncusack) April 13, 2023

The official said there is “no strategy for ending the war” within the Biden administration and offered more scathing criticism of Blinken and Sullivan.

“Burns is not the problem,” the official said. “The problem is Biden and his principal lieutenants—Blinken and Sullivan and their court of worshippers—who see those who criticize Zelensky as being pro-Putin. ‘We are against evil. Ukraine will fight ’til the last military shell is gone, and still fight.’ And here’s Biden who is telling America that we’re going to fight as long as it takes.”

Hersh’s story comes after a series of leaked top-secret documents from the Pentagon and other government agencies surfaced online. Some of the documents show US war planning for Ukraine and reveal the US doubts Kyiv’s ability to launch a successful counter-offensive, offering a starkly different view of Ukraine’s abilities than what Biden officials have been saying publicly.

* * *

Meanwhile, for a deeper look at just who is propping up Ukraine’s budget to the tune of hundreds of billions, see more below…

A significantly softer than expected PPI print confirmed yesterday’s headline CPI (just ignore the core), and with no FOMC minutes or FedSpeak to get in the way today, the algos ran with it lifting stocks to yesterday’s highs, along wth gold and crypto as the dollar dived yet again.

Nasdaq led the surge today, as all of the US majors tagged yesterday’s highs, but could not extend (ahead of tomorrow’s retail sales print)…

Perhaps most notably in equity-land, VIX tumbled back to a 17 handle, testing its lows since Jan 2022. We also note that MOVE (bond VIX) is tumbling back from near-record highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were all higher on the day with the long-end underperforming (30Y +6bps, 2Y +1bps). Intraday, yields tested down to yesterday’s lows before bouncing back. 2Y yields remain the only ones lower on the week (barely)..

Source: Bloomberg

The 2Y yield closed below 4.00% for the second day in a row…

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, after an initial drop, rate-hike odds are basically flat on the day from yesterday’s close, but overall – from before the CPI data, the STIRs curve is dovishly lower by around 5-10bps…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar continued its decline, falling back to its lowest since 2/2…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin rallied back above $30,000

Source: Bloomberg

But it was Ethereum that outperformed, surging back above $2000 for the first time since Aug 2022 after its hard fork did not prompt as much staker selling pressure as feared…

Source: Bloomberg

The last few days have seen ETH dumped and pumped relative to BTC as the hard fork was executed…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold has only closed higher than this on 2 days in history (8/6/20 and 3/8/22)…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices slipped lower today, with WTI falling from almost $83.50 intraday to almost an $81 handle by the close…

Finally, bank stocks refuse to embrace the rebound in broad stocks ahead of bank earnings beginning tomorrow. Bloomberg notes, since the March 13 low in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s meltdown, the S&P 500 has gained ~7% and Nasdaq 100 ~10%. But the KBW Bank Index is little changed, the KBW Regional Banking index is down ~5% and the S&P 500 banks index has fallen more than 1%. Earlier this month the ratio between the S&P 500 Banks and SPX slid to the lowest ever in data going back over 30 years.

Source: Bloomberg

Bank earnings can easily disappoint a low bar as lenders struggle with vast shifts in deposits and plummeting deal-making. Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, notes bank stocks are saying “there is something wrong with this critical part of the US financial system.” Bank earnings calls may be market-moving, he wrote in a note today. Being cheap probably won’t be enough to help bank stocks.

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

Commercial oil stockpiles have been rising in recent months in the developed economies in the OECD, pointing to a less tight market than at this time last year, OPEC said in its monthly report on Thursday, less than two weeks after major OPEC+ producers announced additional production cuts until the end of 2023.  

“On inventories, OECD commercial inventories have been building in recent months, and product balances are less tight than seen at the same time a year ago,” OPEC said in its closely-watched Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) today.  

The building of inventories could be one plausible backdated reason for the decision of some of the biggest OPEC+ producers to remove another 1.16 million bpd from the market between May and December 2023.

The biggest OPEC producers in the Middle East and several other members of the OPEC+ pact announced early this month a total of 1.16 million bpd of fresh production cuts, which add to Russia’s 500,000 bpd cut, which was extended until the end of the year.

Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader and top global crude exporter, will cut 500,000 bpd and said that the move was “a precautionary measure aimed at supporting the stability of the oil market.”

In its report today, OPEC said, referring to the less tight product balances, that “Given these uncertainties surrounding current oil market dynamics, several countries in the Declaration of Cooperation (DoC) have announced additional voluntary adjustments as of May 2023 and until the end of the year, and this was in support of the ongoing relentless and determined DoC effort to support the stability of the oil market.” 

While increased mobility during the U.S. driving season is set to boost demand for transportation fuels, “any weakening in the economy on the back of ongoing monetary tightening measures by the US Fed may offset some of this seasonal dynamic,” OPEC said.

After reaching a three-year high of $66.73 per share, Bud Light parent company Anheuser Busch Inbev lost more than $6 billion in market cap since announcing its partnership with 26-year-old transgender ‘influencer’ Dylan Mulvaney on April 2, as bar owners and distributors report a sharp decline in Bud Light sales over the past week.

The company’s market cap fell as low as $125.7 billion, down from $132.8 billion six days ago, a drop of more than five-percent.

Meanwhile competitor Molson Coors (TAP) saw $350 million added to its market cap over the last week.

Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney included custom cans featuring his face and pro-LGBTQ language to commemorate the biological male’s ‘being a woman’ for over a year. The ad campaign kicked off with naked Mulvaney drinking Bud Light in a bathtub.

And while Anheuser-Busch issued a statement in support of Mulvaney, saying it “works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics,” the Daily Wire reports that company executives had no idea about the ad campaign.

“No one at the senior level” of the company was aware of Bud Light’s polarizing partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, sources close to the situation claim. The company is also allegedly pausing its marketing efforts and scrambling to implement a more “robust” process for evaluating future influencer partnerships.

…

“No one at a senior level was aware this was happening,” said one source, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions. “Some low-level marketing staffer who helps manage the hundreds of influencer engagements they do must have thought it was no big deal. Obviously it was, and it’s a shame because they have a well-earned reputation for just being America’s beer — not a political company. It was a mistake.”

A second source also claimed that a lower level employee had made the decision to include Mulvaney in the campaign, a move that appears to have cost the company $5 billion in market value. The backlash to the iconic American beer brand has been so intense that a Budweiser distributor in Missouri canceled an event with the company’s famous Clydesdale horses because everything was “still sensitive” over the matter. -Daily Wire

This comes after the company’s woke vice president of marketing touted her mandate that that brand be more “inclusive.”

Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing, doubles down on her extreme woke strategy to promote the “declining” American beer brand to “young people”, while smearing her former customers as “fratty and out of touch”.

How’s that working out for you, lady? @budlight pic.twitter.com/zNYKbMnZnu

— Old Row (@OldRowOfficial) April 9, 2023

Wow… 

As I’ve been digging into this, I’m finding this to be 100% true@AnheuserBusch has donated far more to GOP candidates than Dems, and FAR more than woke @MolsonCoors.

Looks like the Dylan Mulvaney campaign was not approved by senior execs.

Heads should roll. https://t.co/e301ZF2vDU

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) April 6, 2023

As we noted on Wednesday, bar owners and distributors have reported a sharp decline in Bud Light sales since the campaign launched.

According to John Ruch, country music singer and owner of the Redneck Riviera bar in Nashville, TN, Bud Light used to be their most popular beer.

“The customers decide. Customers are king,” he told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday. “I own a bar in downtown Nashville called Redneck Riviera. Our number-one selling beer up until a few days ago was what? Bud Light. We got cases and cases and cases of it sitting back there. But in the past several days, you’re hard-pressed to find anyone ordering one. So as a business owner, I go, hey if you aren’t ordering it, we got to put something else in here. At the end of the day, that’s capitalism. That’s how it works.”

According to Rich, fans are finding it “hard to stay loyal” to now-woke brands, and are instead voting with their wallets.

“And there are tons of up-and-coming American brands that people are flooding to right now,” he said.

In one video, a beer merchandiser said of the situation; “I’ve never seen such little sales as in the past few days… I can’t feed my family.”

Meanwhile, Woke, Inc. loves Mulvaney – who’s scored ads with Nike, Oil of Olay and other companies.

Trans Influencer Dylan Mulvaney Ad for Nike pic.twitter.com/JbdU4o5TGM

— Admium 119 (@Admium119) April 9, 2023

Throughout history women have been the chief proponents of patriarchal religions that subjugate them. So it is with gender ideology. Women will buy more Olay stuff because of this ad with Dylan Mulvaney’s grossly stereotyped caricature mocking them.
The patriarchy’s back, baby! pic.twitter.com/nOe1V0LZeo

— Leo Kearse – comedian – see me on YouTube (@LeoKearse) April 12, 2023

Update (1445ET): 21-year-old National Guardsman Jack Teixeira has been arrested in connection with the leak of hundreds of classified documents, according to the Washington Examiner and several other outlets.

Teixeira was identified by the NY Times ahead of his arrest at his home in Dighton, Mass Thursday afternoon. Television footage appeared to show armed personnel leading a male wearing red shorts and a green short with his hands cuffed behind his back, the WSJ reports.

Two police cruisers from the town of Dighton were blocking the road near a residence associated with Mr. Teixeira. They declined to speak about why they had blocked the road. A row of people who say they lived on the street were waiting to pass.

One neighbor said the police began blocking off the street around noon. At least one vehicle outside the police blockade had U.S. government license plates. –WSJ

*  *  *

Update(1255ET): The New York Times says it knows the identity of the leaker of a trove of classified US intelligence documents which has been subject of widespread reporting this week. The Times says he’s a 21-year old member of the Air National Guard: 

The leader of a small online gaming chat group where a trove of classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked over the last few months is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The national guardsman, whose name is Jack Teixeira, oversaw a private online group named Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games.

Two U.S. officials confirmed that investigators want to talk to Airman Teixeira about the leak of the government documents to the private online group. One official said Airman Teixeira might have information relevant to the investigation.

The report suggests he hasn’t even been interviewed by authorities yet, but likely the young man can expect a knock on his door at any moment. NBC is reporting that his arrest is imminent. Below is a social media photograph republished by the NY Times of the accused leaker:

A pic of Jack Teixeira he posted on social media – released by the NYT pic.twitter.com/IGZGUnN2Wb

— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) April 13, 2023

We should caution that at this early phase there’s little that is fully confirmed.

Very likely, the Pentagon and DOJ could still be investigating a number of different leads based on multiple working hypotheses. But on the question of assertions which have now been pretty much discounted, “unnamed US officials” have hit it out of the ballpark again… just days ago there was this headline, based on no less that three anon officials, oops!:

From the prior… and now looking to be a debunked report:

April 7 (Reuters) – Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified U.S. military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, while the Justice Department said separately it was probing the leak.

As always, “Russia!”…

* * *

President Biden announced Thursday while speaking to reporters that US authorities are “getting close” to uncovering the source of the leak of a trove of sensitive Pentagon documents which defense officials say contain “sensitive and highly-classified material.” They been subject of widespread reporting over the past days, despite the White House urging media not to publish their contents.

“I can’t right now [give an update]. There is a full-blown investigation going on with the intelligence community and Justice Department and they are getting close,” Biden said during his trip to Ireland. “I don’t have an answer for you.” 

The president added: “I’m concerned that it happened but there is nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence.” 

Separately a White House official said the administration has “taken steps to further restrict access to sensitive information” as Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin stressed he’ll ‘turn over every rock’ to find the leaker.

All of this comes as The Washington Post has published a report claiming that a young man in his 20s who worked on a military base posted the classified reports in a Discord chat room. But the report presents little in the way of evidence, only a teenage source who is said to be a friend of the leaker. However the teenage source has reportedly refused to disclose the identity or location of the alleged leaker: 

The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers. But they paid little attention last year when the man some call “OG” posted a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon. The words were unfamiliar, and few people read the long note, one of the members explained. But he revered OG, the elder leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people.

Some reports suggest the documents then gained wider circulation on the internet in the context of intense debates over the Ukraine war, as users in the Discord group utilized classified docs during online arguments.

According to more from WaPo:

The young member read OG’s message closely, and the hundreds more that he said followed on a regular basis for months. They were, he recalled, what appeared to be near-verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents that OG indicated he had brought home from his job on a “military base,” which the member declined to identify. OG claimed he spent at least some of his day inside a secure facility that prohibited cellphones and other electronic devices, which could be used to document the secret information housed on government computer networks or spooling out from printers. He annotated some of the hand-typed documents, the member said, translating arcane intel-speak for the uninitiated, such as explaining that “NOFORN” meant the information in the document was so sensitive it must not be shared with foreign nationals.

On the question of whether US authorities believe a foreign government might be behind the leaks, the report has this to offer: 

The source told the Post he believed “OG” only shared the documents to keep members of the group “in the loop” and was not hostile to he U.S. government nor was he working to help another country. 

“He is not a Russian operative. He is not a Ukrainian operative,” the source told the Post. 

We still don’t know who leaked the draft Dobbs ruling because that went to a liberal corporate outlet. (POLITICO).

We still haven’t seen the manifesto of the Nashville shooter because it’s inconvenient.

But this leak was put on Discord, so media outlets are hunting for him.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 13, 2023

And yet, again given the sparsity of actual evidence presented – and given this is all coming from a single source based on one particular theory – it’s hard to assess whether or not this in fact points to the true leaker. Very likely, the Pentagon and DOJ could be investigating a number of different leads based on multiple working hypotheses.

Very likely, the Pentagon and DOJ could be investigating a number of different leads based on multiple working hypotheses.

Employees of JPMorgan Chase internally flagged large cash withdrawals made by Jeffrey Epstein two years before he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution, according to court papers filed Wednesday.

In 2006, the bank’s risk management team noted that Epstein “routinely” took out cash in $40,000 to $80,000 increments, several times a month, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing a filing by the US Virgin Islands in an amended lawsuit against the bank.

The sex-trafficking pedophile was pulling out more than $750,000 per year in cash, according to the lawsuit.

Epstein was first charged with a sex crime in 2006. He pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008 and spent about 13 months in prison. JPMorgan continued providing services to Epstein until 2013, when it says it closed his accounts. Epstein died in jail of an apparent suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

The U.S. Virgin Islands sued JPMorgan late last year in a Manhattan federal court, saying the bank facilitated Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking. The suit alleges the financier used the bank to pay his victims with cash and wire transfers, transactions that should have been concerning to the bank. Another lawsuit filed by an unnamed woman who accused Epstein of sexual abuse also accuses the bank of failing to monitor his transactions. The cases are running together in Manhattan federal court. -WSJ

According to the lawsuit, JPMorgan could have alerted law enforcement to Epstein’s large withdrawals via suspicious activity reports (SARs), typically filed when a client makes sizeable cash withdrawals or transactions that could indicate crimes such as money laundering.

JPMorgan head of asset and wealth management, Mary Erdoes, said in a deposition that JPMorgan execs knew as early as 2006 that Epstein was accused of paying cash to have underage girls and young women brought to his house, the filing continues, adding that Epstein’s behavior was so well known that bank employees joked about his interest in young girls.

In 2008, the filing says, Ms. Erdoes received an email asking whether Epstein was at an event with pop star Miley Cyrus, a minor at the time. 

Ms. Erdoes and a JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment. The bank previously has said Ms. Erdoes wouldn’t overrule the bank’s compliance officials to protect a customer and “has only one recollection of formally meeting with [Epstein], which was the day she fired him as a client.”  -WSJ

The bank, meanwhile, has pinned the blame on former executive Jes Staley, who JPMorgan filed a lawsuit against last month accusing him of having “affirmatively misrepresented the true facts of his and Epstein’s personal interactions.”

Staley, who emailed Epstein in 2010 to tell him to “Say hello to Snow White,” after saying “That was fun,” and that he’d like to try “Beauty and the Beast” next, claims he had no idea about Epstein’s proclivities.

That same year, JPMorgan compliance officers concluded that Epstein “should go,” according to the Wednesday filing.

In 2011, a senior compliance official spoke out against loaning Epstein money in relation to a modeling agency accused of bringing underage girls into the US.

“I would like to know if in fact he is managing anyone’s money at this point or is it all his money,” wrote the official, who noted that Epstein was no longer managing billionaire Leslie Wexner’s money. The compliance officer also noted that Epstein provided money and credit cards for two 18-year-olds in 2004 – one of whom received $450,000 from Epstein, according to the complaint.

Epstein also deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars into one victim’s accounts, and another unnamed “recruiter,” following his 2008 case.

One JPMorgan compliance department official referred to Epstein as a “Sugar Daddy!”

More:

For those interested in learning about Dimon’s links to Epstein from the one and only @_whitneywebb:https://t.co/QN3nUe26n9

— Natalie Brunell ⚡️ (@natbrunell) April 13, 2023

At the dawn of the 19th century, the world population hit a big milestone: 1 billion people.

Over the next 220 years, the number grew to eight times that, or the 8 billion people who live on the planet today, with half of the growth occurring since 1975.

As Visual Capitalist’s Bhabna Banerjee and Pallavi Rao detail below, this continuous climb in global population has been possible thanks to advancements in healthcare and nutrition.

However, the UN forecasts that rapid growth will slow down – and may even stop entirely by 2100 – because of falling fertility rates.

What does that mean for modern nation states conditioned to expect a constant influx of new citizens and labor to power their economies? And how can those changing economies adapt to a shrinking population?

To understand that, we need to first untangle fertility rates, and why they’re falling.

Explained: Fertility and Replacement Rates

The total fertility rate is the average number of births per woman over a lifetime. This measurement makes two key assumptions, however:

• The woman will live to the end of her childbearing years

• The woman will bear children according to the age-specific fertility rates currently observed

Both assumptions add some uncertainty to future fertility rate projections. However, decades of past data collected by the World Bank help show some overall trends around the world, and in many countries.

 The age-specific fertility rate (ASFR) “measures the annual number of births to women of a specified age or age group per 1,000 women in that age group,” according to the UN.

The world fertility rate (expressed as the number of children per woman) has been falling steadily since the 1970s.

In 2020, the world’s fertility rate stood at 2.3, slightly above the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman, which allows for one generation to replace itself. This is down more than two times from 4.7 in 1960.

But the world’s average hides the vast disparities between the fertility rate of countries. We dive into the differences below.

Which Country has the Highest Fertility Rate?

According to the UN, nearly two-thirds of the world’s population lives in a region where the fertility rate is below the critical 2.1 threshold. In the table below, countries are ranked from the highest to lowest average births per woman in 2020.

The African country of Niger currently has the highest fertility rate, at 6.9, which means on average, a woman in Niger will have seven children in her lifetime.

With the exception of Afghanistan (14th), all of the top 30 countries are found on the African continent. In fact, it’s estimated that Africa will add 2.5 billion new people by 2100, while most continents will actually flatline in terms of population growth.

At the bottom of the rankings, the country with the lowest fertility rate is South Korea, at 0.84.

Interestingly, many of the current most populous countries of the world—including China, India, and the U.S.—are all below replacement levels of fertility, with parts of Europe and North America having had persistently low fertility levels since the 1970s.

However, even the countries that currently have high fertility rates have seen a steep decline over the last 60 years. Why?

Why are Fertility Rates Falling All Over The World?

Declining fertility rates are a consequence of a confluence of many related factors, including (but not limited to):

• Better access to contraception
• Improving opportunities for women, outside of childbearing
• Robust healthcare that lowers mortality rates of children

In the past, a larger number of children meant more chances of some making it to adulthood since infant mortality was so high. Women were also restricted to childbearing and rearing, and lacked access to contraception which led to increased—and sometimes unwanted—pregnancies.

Declining fertility rates are thus a triumph of improved socioeconomic development for many countries.

Consequences of Declining Fertility Rates

Although there are obvious issues with our large global population today, a different set of issues arise when fertility rates fall below replacement levels.

Dropping fertility rates can lead to shrinking populations and a higher ratio of the elderly to working adults—which will have unwanted economic consequences like increased healthcare costs and a reduced tax base.

Short-term solutions like immigration can help until populations are shrinking in every country. Longer-term solutions—reducing the cost of raising a child, and providing better support for families with children—are common strategies deployed to ward off demographic disaster.

The current crop of humanity has never had to contend with shrinking populations on a global scale. How will this reshape human livelihoods, priorities and expectations from life? We might soon find out.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

A classified Pentagon document purports to show that self-professed neutral Serbia, which has deep ties with Russia, sent or agreed to send lethal aid to Kyiv…

Serbia, a country that has publicly maintained its neutrality amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, has been secretly supplying Kyiv with weapons, or at least agreed to do so, according to a leaked U.S. intelligence document.

The document, which has been seen by the Reuters news agency, provided a summary of the responses by European governments to Kyiv’s request for weapons and military training.

A chart within the document showed that Serbia had agreed to send lethal aid to Ukraine, or had already supplied it; it also stated that Serbia had the political will and military ability to further arm Ukraine in the future.

“The document is marked Secret and NOFORN, prohibiting its distribution to foreign intelligence services and militaries. It is dated March 2, and embossed with the seal of the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” reported Reuters, which added it had been unable as of yet to verify the document’s authenticity.

The document “could be “could be the most serious leak of U.S. secrets in years,” Reuters added.

Serbia has remained publicly neutral in the ongoing conflict. It is the only European country not to adhere to Russian sanctions, and a country with deep historical, cultural, and economic ties with Russia.

Serbia’s Defense Minister Miloš Vučević has dismissed the leaked report as untrue and accused those leaking the document of attempting to drag Serbia into the war in Ukraine.

“Serbia did not, nor will it be selling weapons to the Ukrainian nor the Russian side, nor to countries surrounding that conflict,” Vučević said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Someone clearly wants to drag Serbia into that conflict, but we are diligently maintaining our policies,” he added.

The Serbian presidential office refused to comment on the leak, as did the Ukrainian embassy in Belgrade and the Pentagon.