Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has refused to allow federal election monitors from the Justice Department into polling locations.

In a statement earlier this week, the DOJ said it was sending officials to 64 jurisdictions throughout the country – most of which would be in red or purple states.

Included in the list was Broward County, Miami-Dade County, and Palm Beach County.

Brad McVay, General Counsel at the Florida Department of State, responded…

“(T)he Florida Department of State received copies of your letters to Miami-Dade and Broward Counties in which you seem to indicate that the Department of Justice will send monitors inside polling places in these counties,” reads a letter to the DOJ from McVay.

“We also understand you sent a similar letter to Palm Beach County.”

“But Department of Justice monitors are not permitted inside a polling place under Florida law,” McVay continues.

“Section 102.031(3)(a) of the Florida Statutes lists the people who ‘may enter any polling room or polling place.’ Department of Justice personnel are not included on the list. Even if they could qualify as ‘law enforcement’ under section 102.031(3)(a)6. of the Florida Statutes, absent some evidence concerning the need for federal intrusion, or some federal statute that preempts Florida law, the presence of federal law enforcement inside polling places would be counterproductive and could potentially undermine confidence in the election.”

In short, pound sand.

As the Daily Wire notes, McVay’s letter noted that the Biden administration’s communications with counties in Florida “do not detail the need for federal election monitors.

“None of the counties are currently subject to any election-related federal consent decrees,” the letter continues. “None of the counties have been accused of violating the rights of language or racial minorities or of the elderly or disabled.”

“Your letters simply provide a non-exhaustive list of federal elections statutes as the basis for this action without pointing to any specific statutory authorization,” McVay concludes. “When asked for specific authorization during our phone call this evening, you did not provide any. Accordingly, the Florida Department of State invokes its authority under section 101.58(2) of the Florida Statutes to send its own monitors to the three targeted jurisdictions. These monitors will ensure that there is no interference with the voting process.”

Despite ongoing dollar weakness, oil prices tumbled for a second straight day as China Zero-COVID easing hopes faded and the crypto meltdown today appeared to hit ewvery asset class for a period…

“The lack of a concrete timeline or any real details about plans to reopen the Chinese economy and move away from the still very strict and economically crippling restrictions weighed on the energy market into the afternoon,” wrote analysts at Sevens Report Research.

Of course, traders are also waiting for any signals on supply/demand tomorrow with tonight’s API report offering some early insight…

API

• Crude +5.618mm (-700k exp)

• Cushing -1.848mm – biggest draw since May

• Gasoline +2.553mm (-1.2mm exp)

• Distillates -1.773mm (-900k exp)

Expectations were for a small crude draw on top of last week’s surprisingly large draw but instead API reported a significant build of 5.618mm barrels. Additionally Cushing saw a major draw and Distillates stocks dropped again…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was holding just above $89 ahead of the API data and extended losses below the low of the day after the surprise build…

“Inventory numbers should be in focus this week as the U.S. will aim to extend last week’s small increase to distillate stocks, which remain persistently low,” said Robbie Fraser, manager, global research and analytics at Schneider Electric, in a daily note.

“Strong export demand has kept diesel in short supply, and some additional inventories would be welcomed ahead of a heating season that could carve out more room for diesel as global natural gas supply remains tight,” said Fraser.

Separately, in a monthly report released Tuesday, the EIA raised its 2022 and 2023 price forecast for heating oil and diesel.

It said U.S. supplies of the fuels known as distillates, which are primarily consumer as diesel and heating oil, finished the month of October at their lowest level in any October since 1951.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Do you remember in early 2020 when they told us that the shortages that we were experiencing would just be temporary?  Of course some of them were, but then more shortages just kept on erupting.  That wasn’t supposed to happen, and now it appears that our supply chain problems could potentially get a whole lot worse.  In just a few short months, we will be three years away from the beginning of the pandemic in the United States.  But instead of a “return to normal”, more shortages are on the way.  And in some cases, they could even be life threatening.

Let me give you an example.  We need Amoxicillin to treat some of the most common infections that our children experience.  Unfortunately, the FDA is warning us that we are now facing a very serious shortage of Amoxicillin…

Ear infections and strep throat.

Both are common childhood illnesses, for which the go-to prescription is in short supply, according to a recent nationwide alert from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The warning specifically involves the powder, which pharmacists use to mix liquid Amoxicillin for childhood infections.

This is a really big deal.

According to one recent survey, close to two-thirds of all pharmacies in the nation are having difficulty getting Amoxicillin right now, and the national shortage of Adderall is even worse…

Nearly 66% of pharmacies are having challenges obtaining amoxicillin, according to a new National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) survey of 8000 pharmacy owners and managers, whereas 89% are realizing a shortage of Adderall.

Of course we are dealing with lots of other drug shortages at this moment as well.

In fact, according to the official FDA drug shortage list there are nationwide shortages of a whopping 183 different drugs in the United States right now.

We truly are in unprecedented territory.

Up in Canada, things are even worse.

If you can believe it, at this point the Canadians are facing “an acute shortage of basic painkillers”…

The Canadian healthcare system is experiencing an acute shortage of basic painkillers, particularly acetaminophen and ibuprofen, which are commonly used to relieve pain and fever in children during flu season.

Canada’s Association of Medical Assistance in Dying Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) chose this perhaps awkward moment to roll out a webinar for healthcare professionals that advised them to offer assisted suicide to their suffering patients.

So why don’t the Canadians have enough Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen right now?

Well, we are being told that the primary reason is “a lack of raw ingredients to make the drugs”…

CBC News quoted health officials who blamed “a lack of raw ingredients to make the drugs,” “an uptick in respiratory viruses fueled by the relaxed [Chinese coronavirus] measures,” and “panic buying” for the shortage of painkillers for children.

As I have covered in previous articles, most of the basic ingredients that go into our pharmaceutical drugs come from China.

So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until war with China erupts.

Once that happens, our pharmacies will get really empty and our entire healthcare system will experience a historic meltdown.

Switching gears, with Thanksgiving coming up I wanted to talk about the fact that we are now facing a nationwide shortage of turkeys…

As CNBC reports, the price of turkey is up 73% from last year, a pretty astonishing figure. Experts attribute it to the bird flu, which has devastated turkey stocks this year. Apparently, the disease normally doesn’t flourish during the summer as farmers get their holiday flocks together. But, you know, the 2020s haven’t been easy so naturally, the flu hit hard right in the middle of the year when it could do the most damage.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that you will still probably be able to get a turkey if you are willing to pay enough.

The bad news is that supplies of turkey just keep getting tighter and tighter.

One business owner in San Francisco recently stated that it is “like pulling teeth trying to get turkeys from the companies” at this stage…

But it’s not just the Thanksgiving bird that’s at risk — it’s your lunchtime turkey sandwich, too. San Francisco delis and butchers are already feeling the effects of the shortage.

“It’s like pulling teeth trying to get turkeys from the companies,” said Sal Qaqundah, owner of Arguello Market, a San Francisco cult favorite for its “world famous” turkey sandwich.

Unfortunately, we are also facing a shortage of butter in the weeks ahead.

The USDA is urging consumers not to “panic buy” butter so that there will be enough to go around for everyone…

Butter is another area where the war and cost of dairy products has affected supply, as the price of the condiment and baking ingredient has gone up a dollar per pound since January of this year, per Eater. Fearing a full-blown butter shortage, the USDA has asked consumers not to rush or panic buy, but simply secure what they need at a given time, per Best Life.

Did you ever imagine that we would be talking about a butter shortage in late 2022?

Things just keep getting crazier and crazier.

And if the diesel fuel shortages eventually get as bad as some are projecting, we could soon be facing severe shortages of countless products.

Our ships, our trains and our trucks run on diesel fuel.

So if there is not enough diesel fuel, we are going to have a real problem trying to fill up our stores with enough stuff for everybody.

Even now, supplies of diesel fuel are so tight that one big player in the industry just issued a major alert…

A major fuel supply and logistics company is raising a red flag on upcoming diesel fuel shortages.

Mansfield Energy issued the alert Friday stating there was a developing diesel fuel shortage in the southeastern region of the United States. The company speculated that the shortage could be generated from “poor pipeline shipping economies” and a historically low supply of diesel reserves.

“Poor pipeline shipping economics and historically low diesel inventories are combining to cause shortages in various markets throughout the Southeast,” the company said. “These have been occurring sporadically, with areas like Tennessee seeing particularly acute challenges.”

There are a number of reasons why supplies of diesel fuel have gotten so tight.

But the biggest is the fact that imports from Russia have been totally cut off…

But the primary reason is the cutoff of Russian imports. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. was importing nearly 700,000 barrels per day (BPD) of petroleum and petroleum products. Most of those imports were finished products and refinery inputs that boosted distillate supplies in the U.S.

The loss of those Russian imports have caused problems for refineries as they struggle to fill holes in their product slates. Refineries do have a small amount of flexibility in shifting gasoline production to diesel production. But it’s a relatively small amount (e.g., ~5% in a refinery I once worked in). That also means that if refiners do shift production, that also potentially creates shortages in the gasoline market.

So why don’t we just produce more ourselves?

Well, thanks to our politicians, the number of refineries in the United States has actually been declining in recent years even as our population has grown.

At this point we simply do not have enough refineries, and this is a problem that is not going away any time soon.

In the months ahead, we aren’t going to completely run out of diesel fuel as some people out there are suggesting.

But supplies may get so tight that it could potentially create widespread supply chain nightmares that are quite severe.

Let us hope that such a scenario does not materialize.

Because the American people are already angry enough about the economy.  In fact, a brand new survey has found that it is the number one issue for U.S. voters at this moment…

The Washington Post and ABC gave Americans eight top issues they will be considering when making their decision in a poll that showed likely voters split between the Democrats and Republicans.

The economy was cited by 26 percent of likely voters as one of the most important factors, followed by abortion with 22 percent and inflation and threats to democracy each by 21 percent.

For decades, we have been able to rely on our supply chains to continuously fill our stores with mountains of cheap goods.

But now our supply chains are breaking down.

In fact, our entire economic system is breaking down and most people are completely and utterly unprepared for the difficult times that are coming.

I know that many of you have been patiently waiting for a long time for life to “return to normal”.

Sadly, that isn’t going to happen.  The incredibly bad decisions that our leaders have been making are now catching up with us in a major way, and a great deal of pain is ahead.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Update (1535ET): Former President Trump has called for protests over voting irregularities across the country.

“The Absentee Ballot situation in Detroit is REALLY BAD. People are showing up to Vote only to be told, “sorry, you have already voted,” Trump wrote on Truth social. “This is happening in large numbers, elsewhere as well. Protest, Protest, Protest!“

Trump also said that “Maricopa County in Arizona looks like a complete Voter Integrity DISASTER,” adding “Likewise Detroit (of course!), Pennsylvania, and other places. Not being covered by the Fake News Media!”

Trump also addressed the 20% of precincts in Maricopa County, AZ which have had major issues, ‘Truthing’: “Only Republican areas? WOW! Kari Lake, Blake Masters, and all others are being greatly harmed by this disaster. Can’t let this happen, AGAIN!!!”

*  *  *

Nearly 20% of voting centers in Maricopa County, AZ are experiencing issues, according to officials.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s office says technicians have been dispatched to fixed broken tabulation machines.

“We’ve had a few tabulator issues at a couple locations where the tabulator isn’t immediately taking the ballot,” said County Recorder Stephen Richer after being asked about two locations with issues. “Instead it can either be Central count tabulated here, or if that issue can be addressed there, then it can be fed into the tabulator…“

AZ: There are 223 voting centers across Maricopa County— that means at least 44 of their polling locations are experiencing issues with tabulators. Election officials say techs are out working on the problem but there is no estimate on when the issues will be resolved.

— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) November 8, 2022

BREAKING: Reports out of Maricopa county of Machines “not working” and ballots being “misread”

WHAT IS GOING ON?
pic.twitter.com/lkd0YXegXZ

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 8, 2022

BREAKING: Now issues reported with machines in Wickenburg, AZ, northwest Maricopa.

Worker tells the voter to stop filming pic.twitter.com/ACFiivw3vn

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 8, 2022

Just yesterday…

Yesterday Maricopa County Election Officials Held A Presser on ‘False Election Narratives’

Ensuring Voting Machines Have Been Tested & Are Accurate…

Today They Are Reporting At 20% of Voting Centers Machines Are Not Working… #Arizona pic.twitter.com/5yYVWH1OKx

— Covid-1984 (@Spiro_Ghost) November 8, 2022

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Kale says she’s getting “flooded with calls” from frustrated voters.

I am getting flooded with calls and text messages from people who are having trouble voting all over Maricopa County.

THIS is why we must reform our elections. https://t.co/oFFElskQFs

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 8, 2022

If you have already checked in at a Maricopa County voting location where the tabulators do not work, you can (1) wait for your ballot to be tabulated on site, (2) ask to use the handicapped voting machine, or (3) leave your ballot in a box to be counted later. (2/2)

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 8, 2022

They only had two years to figure this out… Unless of course this is a feature, not a bug.

I’d like to note once again that Brazil — with a population of similar size to the US (especially with mandatory voting and a voting age of 16) — counted all votes nationwide in every race within 3 hours after the polls closed. Every race was decided that night. https://t.co/8phpLUQA6j

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 7, 2022

Meanwhile, every single Dominion voting machine is down across Mercer County, New Jersey, according to officials.

In a Tuesday morning notice, West Windsor Township informed residents that “Due to a Mercer County-wide system outage, all voting machines are currently down in each district across the County.

Voting machines are currently down, vote on a standard ballot https://t.co/TXVP7Cy8lQ

— West Windsor Police (@westwindsorpd) November 8, 2022

“The Board of Elections has advised the county of issues with voting machines. Poll workers will be on hand to walk voters through the process. The board is working with Dominion, the machine maker, to resolve the issue,” reads a notice posted on Facebook, ABC6 reports.

For the second election cycle in a row, I go to vote and the machines are not working. Had to submit a provisional ballot. You have to do better Mercer County, NJ. The poll workers were wonderful amid the chaos.

— Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (@esglaude) November 8, 2022

In response, the New Jersey Republican State Committee (NJGOP) says they’re aware of the issue, and that voters can still cast their ballots on paper. 

“On behalf of our NJGOP legal counsel and election integrity team, I want to make crystal clear to the voters of Mercer County that in spite of reported problems with scanners on voting machines in Mercer County, this issue does not affect their voting experience at all. Voters will still enter their polling place, cast their vote, and insert the paper ballot into the machine as they normally would.”

Voters can be completely rest assured that NJGOP is ensuring voters’ rights are protected at all phases of the process and that their vote counts -Tom Szymanski, Executive Director NJGOP

For further updates, check back.

Via Remix News,

After two sexual assaults at a refugee hotel housing both child and adult asylum seekers, Labour MP Diane Abbott criticized Home Secretary Suella Braverman for her anti-migrant rhetoric…

Former shadow home secretary for the U.K. Labour party, MP Diane Abbott

A U.K. Labour MP is under fire for suggesting the rape of a teenage boy at a hotel accommodating asylum seekers in northeast London last month “is what happens when you demonize migrants.”

Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary in ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, made the remarks in a tweet published on Thursday afternoon.

She referenced the plight of a teenage boy who was raped at a hotel housing asylum seekers in the London borough of Waltham Forest. The attack reportedly took place on Oct. 5 but has only just come to light.

“Officers attended and spoke to the victim, a boy in his teens, and his family,” a spokesperson told Sky News on Thursday. “Specialist support is being provided.

“A man, aged in his 30s, was arrested at the scene and taken into custody,” they added.

Abbott called the incident a “terrible case,” before suggesting that “it is what happens when you demonize migrants and take no responsibility for safeguarding migrant children.”

She ended the tweet by calling for the ousting of current Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

The accommodation facility in Waltham Forest is currently housing both child and adult asylum seekers. There are reportedly 150 children and 250 adults residing at the facility.

It is not known whether the children are all unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) or children who have arrived with parents.

Another incident allegedly took place at the same facility, which saw a male claiming to be aged 17 arrested on Sept. 11 and charged with one count of sexual touching of a child under 13.

Labour MPs have called for the resignation of Braverman due to the overcrowding of facilities, including at the Manston immigration processing center in Kent, a facility that has a capacity for 1,600 people, is intended to be used solely for processing, and is currently accommodating around 3,500 asylum seekers.

Braverman has vowed to tackle the crisis, as well as bring down the cost to taxpayers for housing those awaiting processing for asylum. Her promise came after it was revealed by Home Office staff during a parliamentary select committee hearing last week that Britons are paying almost £7 million a day to house asylum seekers in hotels.

“The number of people arriving in the UK via small boats has reached record levels and continues to put our asylum system under incredible pressure,” a Home Office spokeswoman explained.

“We urge anyone who is thinking about leaving a safe country and risk their lives at the hands of criminal people smugglers to seriously reconsider. Despite what they have been told, they will not be allowed to start a new life here,” she added.

Braverman recently described the current numbers arriving in Kent as an “invasion,” and although her rhetoric was heavily criticized by Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama on Wednesday, many supporters of Braverman say there is no other way to describe Britain’s current migration crisis. More than 12,000 of the 40,000 arrivals this year to Britain via the English Channel have originated from Albania, despite Rama admitting on Wednesday that it is a “safe country of origin.”

He suggested that rather than fuel xenophobia by highlighting the number of Albanian arrivals, the British government should better focus its efforts on securing its own borders.

In recent weeks, gold has been caught in a perfect vice of bullish and bearish forces.

On one hand, the Hawkish Fed has continued to pile relentless pressure on the precious metal; to wit, during his recent press conference, Chairman Powell hinted at slowing down the pace of rate hikes, while also signaling that terminal rates may peak at a higher level. Following the conference, US rates and the dollar surged. Importantly, the Fed reiterated that bringing inflation down to 2% remains a top priority, triggering a sharp fall in gold after the announcement.

But wait, isn’t inflation good for the world’s oldest inflation hedge? Well, as Goldman’s Mikhail Sprogis writes in a note this morning, in given circumstances, it is: for example, high inflation tends to be (extremely) bullish for gold when the market questions the central bank’s ability to fight it, such as during Burns’s tenure in the 1970s. In contrast, high inflation tends to be bearish for gold when the market gives the CB credit in its ability to reduce it, such as during Volcker’s fight on inflation in the early 1980s.

In any case, the Fed’s consistent message that it is willing to sacrifice growth to bring inflation under control has helped keep breakeven inflation expectations stable and pushed real rates to the highest level since the GFC. As a result, gold ETFs and speculative positions have fallen as the effect of higher real rates has offset the impact of rising recession worries.

On the other hand, as we reported last week, Central Bank buying of gold, especially among emerging markets, just hit a record: according to the World Gold Council, in Q3 2022 CB gold purchases of 400 tonnes, the largest quarterly figure on record, and 300 tonnes above trend.

As an aside, and as we discussed last week, the record-high buying emanated from an “unexplained” component of the World Gold Council data, which reflects purchases by countries which either do not report their activity or report with a lag. For example, Russia stopped reporting gold purchases this year, while China often reports with a large lag. The largest reported purchases came form Turkey, Uzbekistan and Qatar. Still, one thing we can be reasonably sure of is that the buying is done by a combination of EM CBs. Meanwhile, DM CBs have not been significant gold buyers since the 1960s.

In any case, this furious EM central bank buying cannot be explained solely by dip-buying behavior or low interest rates. It is particularly impressive also given persistent dollar strength through Q3 that, all else equal, would have normally depressed non-USD purchases of gold. It also means that, even without any further gold purchases in Q4, 2022 is set to be a record year for CB gold demand.

This paradoxical divergence between record central bank demand, and depressed pricing due to Fed policies, creates – according to Goldman strategist Mikhail Sprogis – gold’s return asymmetry: as he writes, “EM CB demand appears to be a reflection of geopolitical trends that have been years in the making vs a one-off spike.” As a result, the Goldman banker believes that structurally higher EM CB demand creates an asymmetric payoff for gold as it provides a floor to gold if further ETF liquidation occurs in response to further hawkish Fed surprises.

Meanwhile, in a scenario where a US recession leads to a turn in the US monetary cycle – which it will, it’s only a matter of time before the Fed breaks something badly – Goldman estimates that gold could rally by 20-30% depending on the degree of Fed cuts.

To fine tune this analysis, Goldman looks at the gold price sensitivity to changes in CB demand. According to Sprogis, “in order to estimate then impact of higher CB purchases on gold, we look at the price sensitivity of net jewelry demand (jewelry demand minus scrap), the balancing factor in the gold market. The logic here is that persistently higher CB demand will have to either destroy jewelry demand or incentivize more scrap collection, all else equal.”

The bank’s results indicate that in order to accommodate an additional 350 tonnes of CB demand through jewelry demand destruction or scrap increases, gold has to rally by 10% (poor Goldman still thinks that the physical and paper gold markets are connected when in reality nothing could be further from the truth courtesy of rampant paper gold manipulation by central and commercial banks and the BIS). In any event, Goldman continues and notes that with CB demand rising by 233 tonnes over the past year, the gold price was boosted by 6.5%, all else equal. Going forward, if CB gold purchases were to continue at a 400 tonnes quarterly pace, that could boost equilibrium gold prices by 25%, all else equal. In a less extreme scenario where purchases moderate to 250 tonnes per quarter over the next year, we believe gold could increase by 12.5%, all else equal.

One way to think about what’s going on is that EM central bank demand acts as a ‘put’ on the gold price; meanwhile elevated growth risks create a positive asymmetry for gold returns. According to Goldman, the precious metal’s downside in the case of a ‘soft landing’ or further Fed hawkishness is significantly less than gold’s upside in the case of a growth shock that pushes the US economy into recession. Strong demand from central banks further enhances this asymmetry: in 3Q22, 300 tonnes of above-trend CB purchases were outweighed by 250 tonnes of below-trend ETFs demand and a 340 tonne decrease in speculative futures positions. In other words, massive physical gold buying by central banks was offset by even more massive selling of levered and derivative paper gold positions. As a result, gold prices tumbled as investor selling outweighed CB buying.

But going forward, even Goldman thinks there is limited further downside in Spec positioning which is already close to historic lows. The bank also thinks that, while the drawdown in US ETFs can continue, European liquidations should slow after the ECB turned more dovish. Thus, structurally higher CB demand should help absorb further ETF selling which further enhances the gold price return asymmetry in our view.

There is much more in the full Goldman note available to pro subs in the usual place.

Authored by Steven Vannelli via Knowledge Leaders Capital blog,

The Federal Reserve has been raising rates at an extremely aggressive manner in 2022, taking the federal funds rate from 25bps to 4%. At the same time, they have been letting assets run off their balance sheet in quantitative tightening. This double-barreled tightening is likely contributing to the pressure risk markets are feeling.

According to my chart below, the Fed’s assets peaked at $8.95 trillion in April and have since declined to $8.68 trillion, or a cumulative drop of $270 billion. It may be no coincidence that last week markets experienced a vicious sell-off as the Fed withdrew $46B.

We don’t have a lot of history with quantitative tightening so predictions based solely on this variable may be unreliable. For example, in 2016-2019 the Fed held the balance sheet steady for 18-months and then began quantitative tightening in 2019. During this period, the S&P 500 increased from under 2,000 to over 3,000.

What factors may be mitigating the current bout of quantitative tightening and interest rate increases for that matter? Government continuing to inject money into the economy is the simple answer.

The Federal Government maintains an account at the Federal Reserve. When this account increases, the federal government is taking money out of the economy. They raise funds through bond sales, but don’t spend all the money, parking the remainder at their account at the Fed.

When the Federal Government runs down its deposit account, it releases funds into the real economy, thereby stimulating economic activity.

The Government’s deposits peaked in April 2022 at $957 billion and have since fallen to $552 billion, for a cumulative drop of $405 billion.

So, while the Fed took $287 billion out of the economy, the federal government was busy completely overwhelming these actions by injecting $405 billion into the economy.

This lack of monetary and fiscal coordination is confusing and gives the appearance that the government’s left hand isn’t talking to its right hand.

The cynic in me thinks the federal government has been quietly adding more money into the economy than the Fed is taking out in an effort to succeed in the mid-term elections.

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow night if this strategy worked.

About two months after the US Gov’t forced chip designer Nvidia Corp. to halt sales of high-end microchips to China, a move that would limit the country’s access to artificial intelligence computing, the American company announced an alternative chip that meets export restrictions. 

“The Nvidia A800 GPU, which went into production in Q3, is another alternative product to the Nvidia A100 GPU for customers in China.

“The A800 meets the US Government’s clear test for reduced export control and cannot be programmed to exceed it,” a Nvidia spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.

People familiar with the production timeline told WSJ that shipments to China would begin in the second half of this month, and buyers include US firms such as Dell Technologies Inc. for products they sell in China. 

Here’s some context about the latest US crusade against China’s semiconductor industry: 

In August, Nvidia’s data center chip A100 was added to the US Commerce Department. Then in early October, the US banned the export of advanced chips and equipment to manufacture advanced chips by Chinese chipmakers, a move to paralyze chip development in the world’s second-largest economy. 

The problem with the A800 is that it only can send 400 gigabytes per second, while the A100 can send 600 gigabytes. “The change is akin to reducing the lanes of a highway from six to four, and would have the largest impact on the performance of supercomputers, which string thousands of graphics-processing chips together,” WSJ said. 

“The A800 looks to be a repackaged A100 GPU designed to avoid the recent Commerce Department trade restrictions,” Wayne Lam, an analyst at CCS Insight, told Reuters. 

“China is a significant market for Nvidia and it makes ample business sense to reconfigure your product to avoid trade restrictions,” said Lam.

Nvidia previously reported the new license requirement might impact hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of high-tech chips to overseas markets. The new chip appears to be a remedy for the financial loss. 

Shares in Nvidia have been halved this year due to souring PC shipment demand and the tensions between US-China. Nvidia is higher Tuesday premarket, up nearly 3%. 

Other chip stocks rising on this news include Advanced Micro Devices, Qualcomm, Intel, Lam Research, and Applied Materials. 

Authored by Pat Buchanan,

“Make no mistake — democracy is on the ballot for us all.”

So declaiming in his Union Station speech to the nation on the real stakes in the 2022 elections, President Joe Biden, who was immediately echoed by Barack Obama, painted himself and his party into a corner.

For if Trump Republicans carry the day Tuesday, Biden will have to declare, if there is any consistency left in him, a “defeat for democracy” and a victory for the party that he has said is steeped in “semi-fascism.”

Assume, for the sake of argument, a GOP capture of the House of Representatives and of a majority of the U.S. Senate.

How would Biden describe that GOP victory, if he has persisted in his stated belief that the fate of “democracy” itself was on the table? Would he say that “democracy” had been rejected in America, dealt a crippling blow, a “shellacking,” by a party dominated by semi-fascists?

How does Biden then work for the next two years with leaders of a party whose ascendancy James Clyburn, third-ranking Democrat in the House, has just compared to the Nazis coming to power in Germany?

If you have equated your rising Republican rivals across the aisle in the early 2020s with the ascendant Nazis in the early 1930s, how do you work together with such as these on a common agenda?

What do liberal Democrats do, if, in a free and fair election, U.S. voters throw them out and replace them with people our elites routinely equate with fascists and Nazis?

We may be about to find out.

Indeed, if Trump Republicans are what the Democratic leaders say they are, and the country still votes them into office, what would that tell us about the character of the American electorate and American people?

Prediction: Democrats, if defeated Tuesday, will find a way to work with the victorious Republicans. Why? Because they do not truly believe in the names they have been calling Republicans, and because they lack the courage and conviction to rise up and rout genuine Nazis, if they should one day confront them.

Which brings us to what the election is really all about: the failure of a regime, and of the president, party and philosophy steering that regime.

In a republic such as ours, the government has many major duties.

High among them are resisting foreign invasions, securing the nation’s borders, protecting the value of the currency and securing the rights of citizens, first and foremost, the right to be free from domestic violence.

The Democratic Party that controls both houses of the Congress and the presidency has abjectly failed in all of these fundamental duties.

Consider.

In Biden’s 22 months in office, the U.S. has witnessed an invasion across its 1,900-mile southern border by millions of illegal aliens. Another million illegals have entered our country while effectively evading contact with U.S. authorities. These are the “gotaways.”

We do not know who these people are, where they came from and why, or where they are now, except to say that they have broken our laws and broken into our national home and are living here among us.

Some 250,000 migrants are now arriving at the border every month, irretrievably altering the character and composition of our country over the enraged protests of its citizens.

The president is thus failing abysmally in one of his foremost duties — to secure our borders. And neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris has shown the least interest in protecting that bleeding border, or even visiting it.

As for protecting the value of the U.S. dollars that constitute the wages, salaries and savings of our people, that value has been eaten up for a year by a cancerous 8% inflation that began soon after Biden began to implement his policies.

As for protecting the rights of citizens of this republic to be free from domestic violence, the Biden years have been witness to a pandemic of murders, rapes, robberies and assaults. Media reports and videos of the new savagery in our society have converted “crime” into one of the primary national concerns in a nation we used to call “God’s Country.”

This, then, is what Tuesday’s election is really all about.

“Democracy” is not on the ballot. What is on the ballot is a huge slice of the leadership and ruling class of the national Democratic Party, which is not the same thing. What is being decided by the ballots this election season is the verdict of the nation on a president who has failed, a party that has failed, and a political philosophy that has failed.

Democracy has not failed America. The reigning Democrats have failed America. And their desperate leaders are urging us to equate their party’s defeat and repudiation with a rejection of our political system.

If we lose the election to these Republicans, Democratic leaders have been telling America, it is because the American people preferred fascism to democracy.

This is the Big Lie of 2022.