In an unexpectedly sharp escalation of diplomatic rhetoric, China’s foreign minister said that the US should change its “distorted” attitude towards China or “conflict and confrontation” will follow, while defending the country’s stance on the war in Ukraine and defending its close ties with Russia.

Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of an annual parliament meeting in Beijing, Foreign minister Qin Gang took an uncharacteristically direct swipe at the US, and said that the U.S. had been engaging in suppression and containment of China rather than engaging in fair, rule-based competition.

“The United States’ perception and views of China are seriously distorted,” said Qin, a trusted aide to President Xi Jinping and until recently China’s ambassador in Washington. “It regards China as its primary rival and the most consequential geopolitical challenge. This is like the first button in the shirt being put wrong.”

The U.S. says it is establishing guardrails for relations and is not seeking conflict but Qin said what that meant in practice was that China was not supposed to respond with words or action when slandered or attacked. “That is just impossible,” Qin told his first news conference since becoming foreign minister in late December. U.S. officials often speak of establishing guardrails in the bilateral relationship to prevent tensions from escalating into crises.

Qin’s comments struck the same the tough tone of his predecessor, Wang Yi, now China’s most senior diplomat after being made director of the Foreign Affairs Commission Office at the turn of the year.

“If the United States does not hit the brakes, and continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailment, which will become conflict and confrontation, and who will bear the catastrophic consequences?”

Qin also likened Sino-U.S. competition to a race between two Olympic athletes.”If one side, instead of focusing on giving one’s best, always tries to trip the other up, even to the extent that they must enter the Paralympics, then this is not fair competition,” he said, effectively suggesting that Biden is handicapped.

While relations between the two superpowers have been deteriorating for years over a number of issues including Taiwan, trade and more recently the war in Ukraine, they worsened dramatically last month after the United States shot down a balloon off the U.S. East Coast that it says was a Chinese spying craft.

During Qin’s nearly two-hour news conference, he answered questions submitted in advance and made a robust defence of “wolf warrior diplomacy”, an assertive and often abrasive stance adopted by China’s diplomats since 2020.

“When jackals and wolves are blocking the way, and hungry wolves are attacking us, Chinese diplomats must then dance with the wolves and protect and defend our home and country,” he said. Qin also said that an “invisible hand” was pushing for the escalation of the war in Ukraine “to serve certain geopolitical agendas”, without specifying who he was referring to.

He reiterated China’s call for dialogue to end the war. China struck a “no limits” partnership with Russia last year, weeks before its invasion of Ukraine, and China has blamed NATO expansion for triggering the war, echoing Russia’s complaint. Additionally, China has declined to condemn the invasion and has fiercely defended its stance on Ukraine, despite Western criticism of its failure to single Russia out as the aggressor.

While China has vehemently denied U.S. accusations that it has been considering supplying Russia with weapons, Qin said China had to advance its relations with Russia as the world becomes more turbulent and close interactions between President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, anchored the neighbours’ relations.

He did not give a definite answer when asked if Xi would visit Russia after China’s “Two Sessions” event, which goes on for one more week. He did, however, say that the Ukraine crisis has a complex history and cause. In essence, it is an eruption of the problems built up in the security governance of Europe.

“The Ukraine crisis is a tragedy that could have been avoided. But it has come to where it stands today. There are hard lessons that all parties should truly reflect upon.”

The Ukraine crisis is a tragedy that could have been avoided. But it has come to where it stands today. There are hard lessons that all parties should truly reflect upon. pic.twitter.com/orc0koUwWt

— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) March 7, 2023

Naturally, Qin also mentioned Taiwan, saying that “If the US truly expects a peaceful Taiwan Strait, it should stop containing China by exploiting the Taiwan question, return to the fundamental of the one-China principle, honor its political commitment to China, and unequivocally oppose and forestall Taiwan independence.”

Qin also warned that mishandling of the Taiwan question will shake the very foundation of China-US relations: “Separatism for Taiwan independence is as incompatible with peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait as fire with water.”

“For peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, its real threat is the separatist forces for Taiwan independence, its solid anchor is the one-China principle, and its genuine guardrails are the three China-US joint communiqués.”

The foreign minister then made several key observations, exposing US hypocrisy:

“The Chinese people have every right to ask: Why does the US talk at length about respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity on Ukraine, while disrespecting China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Taiwan question?”

“Why does the US ask China not to provide weapons to Russia, while it keeps selling arms to Taiwan in violation of the August 17 Communiqué?”

Why does the US keep on professing the maintenance of regional peace and stability, while covertly formulating a “plan for the destruction of Taiwan”?

The bottom line: “The Taiwan question is the core of the core interests of China, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-US relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations.”

Asked whether it was possible that China and Russia would abandon the U.S. dollar and euro for bilateral trade, Qin said countries should use whatever currency was efficient, safe and credible.

China has been looking to internationalize its currency, the yuan, which gained popularity in Russia last year after Western sanctions shut Russia’s banks and many of its companies out of the dollar and euro payment systems.

“Currencies should not be the trump card for unilateral sanctions, still less a disguise for bullying or coercion,” Qin said, clearly referring to the weaponization of the US dollar in the aftermath of the Ukraine war.

* * *

It wasn’t just the foreign minister lashing out at the US: Chinese leader Xi Jinping also issued what the WSJ dubbed an “unusually blunt rebuke” of U.S. policy on Monday, blaming what he termed a Washington-led campaign to suppress China for recent challenges facing his country.

“Western countries—led by the U.S.—have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to our country’s development,” Xi was quoted by state media as saying on Monday, the WSJ reported.

Xi’s comments marked an unusual departure for a leader who has generally refrained from directly criticizing the U.S. in public remarks—even as his decadelong leadership has demonstrated a pessimistic view of the bilateral relationship. The accusation of U.S. suppression of China’s development over the past five years comes as Mr. Xi faces charges from investors that China’s economy has been damaged by his policies, including the emphasis on national security.

The comments were part of a speech to members of China’s top political advisory body during an annual legislative session in Beijing, according to a Chinese-language readout published by the official Xinhua News Agency.

As the WSJ notes, “while Xi has mentioned the U.S. in critical tones during internal speeches, such remarks have often filtered out through subordinates relaying his messages for broader audiences, within the party and beyond.” In statements made in public settings or directly reported by state media, Xi has typically been more measured and vague regarding the U.S. and other Western countries, referring to them as “certain” countries rather than naming them explicitly.

Not this time: by directly accusing the U.S. of seeking containment, a term loaded with Cold War meaning, Xi appears to be associating himself more closely with nationalist rhetoric—widely used by lower-ranking officials and state media—that attacks Washington, at a time when bilateral tensions continue to simmer over trade, technology, geopolitical influence and discordant views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The English-language version of Xi’s speech reported by Xinhua didn’t refer to containment or the U.S. Instead, it quoted him telling fellow officials to “have the courage to fight as the country faces profound and complex changes in both the domestic and international landscape.”

The accusations by Xi against the U.S., delivered to an audience that includes politically connected businesspeople, appeared in part to be an effort by Xi to shift blame away from his own policymaking, including tough Covid controls that have weakened the economy and pressure on technology companies that cost the industry some of its dynamism.

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

US stocks are poised to outperform their European peers as recession risks in Europe look underpriced.

Like a pendulum, sentiment in markets has a tendency to swing from one extreme to another. It was barely a year ago that the prevailing narrative was a Europe on the verge of an energy-driven existential crisis. The seriousness of the predicament concentrated minds wonderfully, and Europe has so far managed to dodge the most doom-laden predictions.

But the pendulum has swung back too far. The narrative has transformed into a Europe that will avoid a recession, or much of a downturn, altogether. Yet the data tell a different story.

Leading economic data is the most pivotal for markets, which are (or should be) forward-looking mechanisms.

I’ve combined such data into an indicator that leads European growth by about six months. It paints an unequivocally downbeat picture.

So where is the optimism coming from? Most of the reason for cheer in Europe is due to bounces in PMIs, with the Spanish and Italian manufacturing surveys now back in expansionary territory. Also economic sentiment, compiled by the European Commission, has risen, while the ZEW’s expectations of economic growth has bounced hard. Consumer confidence is higher as well.

But recoveries in soft, survey-based data when not accompanied by a similar improvement in hard data are paper thin, and can quickly be reversed. That is where we are with Europe.

Since last summer, economic surprises have been driven by soft data. It is the rise in surprises that has helped propel European equities to their best outperformance of US stocks in almost twenty years.

Labor data have stayed supported, but other hard data such as retail sales, factory orders and industrial production remain weak. Most egregious is the largest fall in real M1 growth on record, surpassing a level that has preceded the last two European recessions.

Some have argued that M1 has lost its forecasting power as higher rates have made overnight deposits less attractive than longer-term ones. But the latter are counter-cyclical, while overnight deposits (whose drop is driving M1’s fall) exhibit a clear relationship with future activity. Ignore the collapse in M1 growth at your peril.

There was a good case to be made for European equity outperformance last year. The market was oversold and underowned, sentiment was very negative and equity returns were broad based. None of those is true today.

After a 30% rally off the October lows, the market is looking overbought. The move higher is now being driven only by revenues, unlike last year when these, along with margins and dividends were all contributing to returns.

US stocks, on the other hand, are beginning to look relatively attractive. Despite a roster of reasons to be skeptical about the resilience of the US market – recession risk, instabilities from zero-day option trading, negative gamma, overvaluation – some technicals are becoming constructive.

The beauty of those is that they are pure – aloof from commentary, opinion or the economy – driven only by price and volume. They may sometimes go against your “common sense” view, but when a weight of them point in one direction, it’s often prudent to drop your current narrative and follow the price.

Of most note is the change in the S&P’s trend this year. One of the simplest and most reliable measures of the stock-market’s medium-term trend is the 13-week versus 26-week moving-average crossover. Very simply, the market is in a downtrend when the 13-week is below the 26-week, and vice-versa.

The 13-week moving average went back above the 26-week about 5-6 weeks ago, suggesting the current upward trend in US stocks could be maintained for several more weeks at least, perhaps much longer.

On top of that, other technicals, such as advancing versus declining issues, number of stocks making new 52-week highs, and the percentage of stocks trading above their 200-day moving average are all constructive for higher prices, with none indicative of extremely overbought behavior that can precede a larger correction.

The Fed is most likely closer to the end of its series of hikes than the ECB. Indeed, the ECB risks amplifying the weakness in the economy that hard data betrays, as it becomes more gung-ho in its hawkishness, emboldened by resilient soft data and sticky inflation.

Europe has had a good run, but the summer tends to be a graveyard for outperformance versus US stocks, with May to September showing a consistently negative trend. Even more, the US on average outperforms global stocks May through November.

It is said life is like a pendulum: the deeper the sorrow, the greater the joy. After several months of sorrow, US stocks may soon be about to experience the joy of pre-eminence once more.

Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is preparing to carry out another round of layoffs this week as part of its efforts to enhance organizational efficiency, according to Bloomberg. 

The upcoming job cut is part of cost-cutting measures known as “flattening,” as per anonymous sources familiar with the matter. These insiders revealed that Meta had asked directors and vice presidents to compile lists of employees who could be terminated. This comes as the world’s largest social networking company has experienced a decrease in advertising earnings and dialed back investments in the metaverse. 

The job cut, which could start as early as this week, will add to the November layoffs of approximately 13% of its workforce (equivalent to around 11,000 employees). Sources said the job cut would be ready before CEO Mark Zuckerberg goes on parental leave for his third child. 

Zuckerberg has previously indicated 2023 will be a “year of efficiency.” He told analysts in February he is focused on “cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be crucial” and plans on “removing layers of middle management to make decisions faster.”

According to the Financial Times, Meta team leaders and project managers allegedly have trouble planning their workloads due to the lack of transparency regarding the imminent headcount reduction. 

As the prospect of new job cuts looms, workers at Meta have reportedly informed the Financial Times that no work is being completed.

“The year of efficiency is kicking off with a bunch of people getting paid to do nothing,” another employee said, adding that day-to-day work “is a mess.”

Headcount reduction at tech companies continues full steam ahead in 2023. Website job tracker Layoffs.fyi show 461 tech companies have slashed 125,677 jobs so far this year. 

Here are the some of the largest tech job cuts over the last several years. 

There’s no slowdown in tech layoffs. 

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Is the recent correction a “bear trap?” Or is the bounce just a selling opportunity for a return of the bear market?

“A bear trap occurs when there is a bearish correction or reversal amid an overall uptrend. A downward correction sees shorting temporarily overcoming buying pressure, leading to a short-term price fall. The decline may be small or large, potentially failing at recent price highs in the uptrend.

The downward correction may last several trading sessions, giving a false impression that the market has indeed reversed. Traders might take short positions to profit on falling stock prices, but when buyers begin seeing prices drop and increase their buying activity, the market won’t support prices falling further. It then rapidly resumes its uptrend.” –Investopedia

Such will be the center of the debate after the recent market correction that tested support at the 200-DMA. However, as we discussed at the beginning of February, a correction was needed if the bull market was going to continue. To wit:

“If the “bear market” is “canceled,” we will know relatively soon. To confirm whether the breakout is sustainable, thereby canceling the bear market, a pullback to the previous downtrend line that holds is crucial. Such a correction would accomplish several things, from working off the overbought conditions, turning previous resistance into support, and reloading market shorts to support a move higher. The final piece of the puzzle, if the pullback to support holds, will be a break above the highs of this past week, confirming the next leg higher. Such would put 4300-4400 as a target in place.”

Such is precisely what happened with the market testing, and holding, the rising trend channel from the October lows. The market also held the 200-DMA, which, as noted, confirmed the bullish breakout above a level that proved to be resistance in 2022.

Furthermore, as discussed in the past weekend’s newsletter, the MACD “sell signal” is close to reversing to a buy signal.

“Importantly the MACD ‘sell signal,’ which warned of the recent correction, is beginning to reverse. However, that reversal occurs midway through regular oscillation, suggesting that the upside is somewhat limited.”

The chart below is longer-term than what we showed in the newsletter but better indicates the validity of the “sell signal.” The “buy signals” were also good opportunities to trade rallies during last year’s decline.

While there are certainly many fundamental reasons to remain “bearish” on the markets, The technical backdrop continues to confirm and reaffirm a more bullish trend developing.

If this is a “bear trap,” thenJim Cramer may be correct when he says:

“If we’re in a bull market, and I think we are, you have to prepare yourself,” he said, adding, “We have to prepare for the down days now because in a bull market, they’re buying opportunities.” – CNBC

While the short-term technicals are bullish, the longer-term technicals also remain bullishly biased.

Long-Term Technicals Remain Bullish

Daily price charts can provide a short-term view of market psychology from days to weeks. The problem with daily price analysis is volatility can cause short-term swings in the market that can disconnect from the market’s underlying trend or fundamental data.

If we slow that price action by examining weekly pricing data, the volatility gets smoothed out. Such reveals a clearer picture of the market delivering a more bullish message.

The S&P 500 has scored seven weekly closes above its 40-week moving average, which is a positive sign. In addition, the market has cleared the 40-week DMA downtrend line from January and December 2022, suggesting a potential bullish turn in the trend. Assuming supports hold, the next major resistance beyond the post-FOMC peak at 4195 is the August 2022 peak at 4325 (orange dashed line).

Furthermore, the October low held support at the 200-week moving average, which remains support for the market since the 2009 lows.

The weekly 14-period relative strength index (RSI) has also turned sharply positive and is above 50, suggesting markets are back in a bullish trend. That index broke above resistances that capped bear market rallies in April, August, and December 2022.

Lastly, our most critical bullish signals are the short- and intermediate-term Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicators. We post this weekly chart in our website’s 401k plan management section. Both sets of weekly MACD indicators have registered buy signals from levels lower than during the financial crisis. The market has also broken above both weekly moving averages and, as noted above, held the long-term bullish trend line.

Bull Now, Bear Later

Given the abundance of bullish signals, we must give some credence to the message and invest accordingly. However, ample fundamental evidence supports the argument that the “bear market” is not yet dead.

The markets have grown “manic,” quickly swinging wildly from extreme pessimism to optimism. Such is not the basis on which investing activity resides but rather where speculation abounds in its purest form.

Over the next 12 months, the “bear market is over” thesis will depend much on the Federal Reserve, Government policies, and inflation. The recent passage of the “Inflation Reduction Act” will increase taxes on corporations and households. Such will reduce growth and profit margins along with stubbornly high inflation. Furthermore, the surge in the money supply will continue to reverse, reducing earnings growth rates further.

Of course, tighter monetary from the Federal Reserve is weighing on economic growth, which will continue later into the year, with a recession become more likely with each rate hike. Notably, there is a high correlation between economic growth and earnings.

Such is an important backdrop. The markets are pricing earnings of roughly $199 per share by the end of 2023, down from $242 in July. However, if the Fed continues its fight against inflation and triggers a recession, earnings could drop to $170/share. At a generous forward multiple of 18x those earnings, you are looking at a fair market calculation closer to 3000 on the S&P 500 index.

Conclusion

While the technicals suggest this is a “bear trap,” the fundamentals do not support that argument. When it comes to equity risk, it is corporate earnings that will drive equity prices. As the Fed hikes rates to slow economic activity and potentially cause a recession, such will translate into slower earnings growth and reduced profit margins. Given that valuations are near 29x earnings currently, such suggests that stocks must reprice lower. The 6-month annual rate of change of the Leading Economic Index (LEI) supports that thesis, meaning earnings will decline over the next two quarters.

Whether the bull or bear trap view wins will only become known in time. However, as noted, while the bulls currently control the technical picture, the Fed still has control of the macro environment. While we will continue to trade the markets tactically in the short term, in our view, there is still a risk of a more profound decline unless the Fed changes course in short order.

We must wait and see who wins the “bull market is over” debate.

Authored by John Rubino via Substack,

The past few decades of unnaturally easy money have created a world of “moral hazard” in which a ridiculous number of people borrowed far more than they should have.

Now, with money getting tighter, not just businesses and individuals but some governments are staring at the “suddenly” part of that old saying about bankruptcy.

Japan is the poster child for this slow walk towards – then quick rush over – a financial cliff.

Here’s how it works for a government, in 10 steps.

Step 1: Build up massive debt. A bursting real estate bubble in the 1990s confronted the Japanese government with a choice between accepting a brutal recession in which most of that debt was eliminated through default, or simply bailing out all the zombie banks and construction companies and hoping for the best. They chose bailouts, and federal debt rose from 40% of GDP in 1991 to 100% of GDP by 2000. 

Step 2: Lower interest rates to minimize interest expense. Paying 6% on debt equaling 100% of GDP would be ruinously expensive, so the Bank of Japan pushed interest rates down as debt rose, thus keeping the government’s interest cost at tolerable levels.

Step 3: Continue to borrow at virtually no cost. While interest rates fell, the zombie companies soaking up public funds were joined by a growing number of retirees who began drawing on japan’s versions of Social Security and Medicare. Government spending, as a result, continued to rise and deficits kept growing, further intensifying the pressure to lower interest rates. The BoJ began buying bonds with newly-created yen to force interest rates down to zero and even below (meaning that the remaining private sector buyers of Japanese government paper actually paid for the privilege). Since the government now earned money by borrowing, there seemed to be no reason to stop, and debt soared to the current 262% of GDP, which might be the highest figure ever recorded by a major government.

Step 4: Experience sudden, sharp inflation. In 2022, all that new currency finally caused the inflation that critics of easy money had been predicting. Japan’s official cost of living is now rising at a 4% annual rate, making the real yield on a zero-percent government bond -4%.

Step 5: Experience a plunging currency. With most other central banks tightening to combat inflation, the BoJ kept buying bonds to keep its interest rates low. Investors noticed this yield differential and stopped buying yen-denominated paper, sending the yen’s exchange rate down sharply versus the US dollar.

Step 6: Reluctantly allow interest rates to rise. Also in 2022, the BoJ realized that unless it wanted to buy all the paper the government was issuing, it would have to let interest rates rise a bit. Which they very quickly did, from 0% to .25% and then .5%.

Step 7: Get swamped by interest expense. Now all the debt issued or rolled over by Japan’s government carries a cost. Let’s say the average yield rises to the current 0.5%. On debt equaling 260% of GDP, interest expense equals 1.3% of GDP, a crushing burden that adds to already massive deficits, raising overall debt and therefore interest expense going forward. 

Now For The “Suddenly” Part

All of the above has either happened or is happening. The next steps are scheduled for the near future:  

Step 8: Desperately try to lower rates. Recognizing that soaring interest expense spells national bankruptcy, the BoJ tries to stop and reverse the trend by buying even more government debt with ever larger amounts of newly created yen. But the world’s other central banks are much slower to ease, so the gap between yields on Japanese paper and that of, for instance, the US and Germany, continues to widen.

Step 9: Watch impotently as the yen craters. With government debt rising parabolically and no one other than the BoJ willing to buy the resulting tsunami of paper, Japan enters the realm of full-on Modern Monetary Theory, where the government just finances itself with newly created currency. The rest of the world, recognizing the inflationary implications, dumps the yen and the currency’s exchange rate goes into free fall. A falling currency raises the cost of imports, which increases inflation, which weakens the yen further, putting upward pressure on interest rates, and so on, in what headline writers call a “death spiral”.

Step 10: Game over. Japan is forced into an official devaluation/currency reset which limits its ability to spend and inflate going forward. Everyone who trusted the government and held the old currency is impoverished while those who recognized the scam and converted cash and government bonds into real assets are enriched. It’s a familiar story. But this time it’s happening to a serious country.

Questions

The possibility of a major country going off a financial cliff raises questions about how widespread the effects might be and how US investors might prepare. And of course: “How do we short Japan”? That discussion is coming in a separate post next week.

*  *  *

Subscribe to John Rubino’s Substack to survive and thrive in the coming crisis

Whether it’s a day off in lieu of a national holiday, a religious festival, or simply a mandated minimum for paid vacation days, there are different rules in each country that set the base threshold of paid time off for workers.

As Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes details below,

Resume.io analyzed the laws on statutory paid leave and paid public holidays in every country around the world and created these graphics to reveal the minimum amount of vacation days employees are entitled to (at least on paper).

Countries With the Most and Least Paid Vacation

The data in the study focuses in on two types of paid leave: public holidays and paid vacation days. Combine them together and you have the total amount of paid leave.

Here’s how the numbers break down on both ends of the spectrum:

Some African, European, and Central Asian countries, including Togo (43), San Marino (46) and Yemen (45), have been extremely generous with doling out vacation days.

At the very top is Iran with a total of 53 vacation days, split almost equally between public holidays and paid time off.

Meanwhile, others including the Oceanic countries of Micronesia (9) and Nauru (10) rank at the bottom of the list. The U.S. is tied with Nauru in second-last place, with employees mandated a minimum of only 10 vacation days a year.

Which Countries Have the Most Paid Leave Days?

View the full-size infographic

If you’re working full-time and devoting 40 hours per week to your workplace, many nations believe you deserve time off.

In most countries, laws to provide statutory leave to employees are in place. 22 countries have a generous 30-day leave policy, with 10 located in Africa.

However, the amount of paid leave around the world often relies on the employee’s tenure. And not all countries have the same minimums, as the U.S., Nauru, Micronesia, and Kiribati, have zero mandated paid leave days.

It’s important to note that this does not mean that all employees in these countries have zero paid leave. Instead it means that it’s up to the hiring employer, with some companies using generous paid leave to entice skilled employees while others offer none.

Which Countries Have the Most Public Holidays?

View the full-size infographic

Countries around the world celebrate public holidays for numerous different occasions. They honor significant national, cultural, and religious events.

Again, the number of these days can vary worldwide. Iran offers the highest number of paid public holidays in the world with a total 27 days per year including the Islamic Republic Day. It is followed by Bangladesh (24), Azerbaijan (21), and Cambodia (21).

On the other extreme, Libya has no paid public holidays, while Lebanon has only two paid public holidays per year.

And not every celebration is a holiday. For example, despite having a plethora of festivals and days of national importance, India has only three paid national holidays: Republic Day, Independence Day, and the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.

However, India is also a good example of countries which also offer state-level holidays. Every state is empowered to add to its list of paid holidays based on their religious, cultural and historical occasions.

Authored by Victoria Kelly-Clark via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An Australian senator has said he is concerned about the country’s therapeutic authorities’ delayed approach to updating Australia’s Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN) after it was revealed the government body had neglected to include a number of deaths attributed to the vaccine, including that of two children aged 7 and 9.

This comes after a Freedom of Information request by an Australian doctor revealed the Australian pharmaceutical and drug administrator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), had not updated its DAEN with the deaths.

Australian Liberal Party senator, Gerard Rennick, told The Epoch Times that he was deeply concerned about the TGA’s failure to update DAEN and is calling for there to be some independent oversight on the TGA, given the conflict of interest.

“A third independent medical party should examine the evidence as the TGA has a conflict of interest because they approved the vaccines and would therefore be held responsible for the deaths of these children due to poor regulatory oversight,” Rennick said.

The senator noted that he was highly concerned that the TGA had soft-pedalled the risks involved with the COVID-19 vaccines, especially those around myocarditis and cardiac arrests.

“They are definitely downplaying the risks. They do not have enough information to rule it out given the known link between the vaccines and myocarditis and myocarditis and cardiac arrests,” Rennick said.

As of March 6, the DAEN states that since the beginning of the vaccination rollout in Australia, 137,576 adverse events have been reported relating to the range of COVID-19 vaccines. Of those, 134,224 are believed to be directly related to the vaccines, while 980 are vaccine-related deaths.

TGA Independent Review Board

The TGA does have a pre-existing independent review vehicle for vaccines called the Vaccine Safety Investigation Group (VSIG).

The group is meant to provide independent specialist immunisation (and other relevant) expertise to assist the TGA in investigating and managing Adverse Event Following Immunisation (AEFI) that require the services of national-level experts.

The group is described as a time-limited working group that can be convened when a single serious AEFI that is unexpected and without an obvious non-vaccine cause occurs. The TGA notes that an AEFI is considered unexpected when it is not listed in the product information document for the vaccine or is listed, but causality has not been established.

Read more here…

With many automakers transitioning from petrol-powered vehicles to electrified ones, Porsche and Ferrari are pursuing a new strategy by concentrating on the advancement of eFuels to preserve gas-powered engines. This decision follows the European Commission’s delay last week of the proposed 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles as the commission prepares to carve out a role for eFuels after 2035.

“Porsche and Ferrari’s status as national icons was enough to move their governments to challenge the EU plan last week just days before a scheduled vote,” Bloomberg wrote. 

Germany’s Transport Minister Volker Wissing told the European Commission that he would withhold support for the approval of the new engine standards to end the sale of new combustion engine cars unless there were a plan for eFuels post-2035. Italy also threatened to fight the reforms.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday, discussing a comprise that would likely involve eFuels. 

Germany and Italy are home to the world’s top sportscar manufacturers. There has been growing opposition against Brussels’ plan to ban petrol-powered engines. That’s because who in their right mind would purchase an all-electric Porsche 911? 

The alternative route, mainly for sportscar brands, is the development of eFuels as a climate-neutral way to preserve combustion engines—just something about the sound of a twin-turbo V-8 or V-6 that captivates motorheads.

While most carmakers are pouring tens of billions into the EV shift, Porsche has also invested in an e-fuel plant in Chile, partly because the manufacturer doesn’t plan to make its 911 sports car with a plug. Operating combustion-engine vehicles in a climate-neutral way could also help speed up the decarbonization of the transport sector, according to a Porsche spokesman. Existing vehicle stock should be included in the push to lower CO2 emissions faster, he added. Ferrari has said it’s pursuing alternative fuels to keep making combustion-engine cars that preserve its heritage.

Proponents of e-fuels, say they’re essentially renewable electricity that’s been converted into a combustible, liquid fuel. To make it, scientists combine captured carbon dioxide with hydrogen that was split from water in a process powered by renewable energy, creating a synthetic hydrocarbon fuel. When burned in a combustion engine, the e-fuels create carbon dioxide. But since it was made from previously captured CO2, they argue it’s climate neutral.

We’ve outlined the growing resistance among vehicle brands and motorsport organizations that are firm in their belief the combustion engine will be sticking around for years to come. 

• Mercedes-AMG Boss Says V-8 Engine Will Be In Demand For “Next Ten Years”

• Formula 1 Boss: We “Will Never Switch To Electric”

• Ducati Says ‘Battery Technology Not Ready’ For E-Bike

It’s straightforward, the push for eFuels for sportscars will likely preserve the combustion engine, but the cost per gallon might make the cost to operate the vehicle so expensive that only the rich will only be able to afford it. 

Authored by Amir Taheri via The Gatestone Institute,

In studying history predictions that didn’t happen are often as interesting as those that became real events.

Remember the “clash of civilization” that was to pitch one part of mankind to another in a multilayered cultural, religious, economic and, yes, even racial war? Decades later we see that at least part of the predicted clash is taking place within the same “civilization”. It is in the United States and Western Europe that we witness such phenomena as wokeism and cancel culture while many “emerging nations” are breaking some taboos to open a wider space for discussion and dissent.

It is also in Western democracies that bowdlerization even of classical texts is making a comeback.

In his seminal essay “The West and the Rest”, English philosopher Roger Scruton predicted that, with the end of the Cold War, the world was being divided into two antagonistic camps. Scruton was offering a philosophical version of Rudyard Kipling’s famous, or infamous, line, “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet!”

Scruton believed that in the post-Cold War world the West will be the realm of peace, the rule of law, economic prosperity and cultural effervescence while, chained to religious, cultural and ideological traditions, the “rest” is doomed to experience wars, economic stagnation, political oppression and cultural stagnation.

Scruton didn’t specify exactly what he meant by the “rest”. But a close reading of his essay shows that, with few exceptions such as Japan, his “rest” covered all nations that were not part of the Anglosphere and the European democracies.

In his “rest,” Scruton assigned a big role to Islam, or militant fundamentalism, as a challenge to the West. Thanks to high birth rates and mass immigration, Muslims were supposed to modify the population mix in the West. Inspired by Scruton, some writers even warned against Europe becoming Eurabia (an Arabized Europe) while others feared “the great replacement” of current populations by hordes of newcomers from “the rest”.

What happened in the past two decades may offer a different picture.

To start with, with the exception of wars exported by the “west” to Afghanistan and Iraq, the “rest” has lived largely in peace while the “west” has experienced a series of wars in the Balkans; northern Caucasus, Transcaucasia, and currently in Ukraine.

These wars have produced more immigrants than did the “rest”.

The Syrian civil war produced more than 10 million refugees and displaced persons, but most of them went to neighboring countries all of which are part of the “rest”. In contrast, the estimated 13 million refugees from the Balkan wars and the current Ukrainian war ended up in the “west”.

As far as economic buoyancy is concerned, the “rest” has done better than the “west”.

Economic growth rates in the “rest” have averaged around six per cent per annum while the “west” has failed to do better than 2.2 per cent. Productivity per head has also been higher in the “rest” than in the “west”, largely thanks to massive imports of technology and capital from Europe and North America, Japan and Taiwan.

With the exceptions of China, Iran and Russia that have experienced a stiffening of authoritarian rule, most “rest” nations have timidly moved towards an opening of the political space, if not actual democratization. In contrast, several nations in Scruton’s “west” have seen the emergence of populist-authoritarian, and ultimately anti-democratic, trends.

The intensely partisan politics of the United States today and the divisive adventure that was the Brexit showed that the “west” isn’t ensured against hate-based and xenophobic platforms that Scruton sees in the “rest”.

The rapid spread of social media has brought the “west” and the “rest” together in many walks of life. Similar patterns have emerged in the way people, especially the young, dress, speak and live with cyberspace annihilating geographical distances. By last account “alternative lifestyles”, including the “rainbow” options, first shaped in the “west” have spread to almost all nations in the “rest”. Fast-food developed in the “west” has spread to almost all nations in the “rest,” and countries such as China, Brazil, India and even the Islamic Republic of Iran are now among the biggest importers of French cognac.

Visually the “rest” increasingly resembles the “west” or its clichéd vision. Today, there are more skyscrapers in Shanghai or Jakarta than in New York. The world’s tallest buildings are no longer found in Chicago, New York or London but in Dubai, Shanghai and Mecca.

Almost 5,000 brands, mostly developed in the “west” but manufactured in the “rest” dominate shopping malls across the globe. Travelers in the “rest” stay in hotels run trans-national chains, ride in Uber vehicles, eat trans-national meals and listen to music that no longer has a distinct cultural origin and watch the same series and soap operas on streaming boxes.

Last year, at least eight countries in the “rest” featured among the 20 nations with the largest number of billionaires.

The “rest” is invading the “west” in some other ways. Cinema, once dominated by the US, France and Great Britain has achieved a universal dimension with more than 40 countries in the “rest” moving beyond niche markets. In a recent visit to my favorite bookshop in Paris I spotted more than 30 new novels directly written in French by authors from the “rest”. Authors from the “rest” have already won some of the most prestigious literary prizes in the “west” as have done “rest” film-makers getting Oscars and top prizes in Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals.

The “west” and the “rest” have also come closer to each other in such fields as scientific research than Scruton could have imagined. Iran alone is “exporting” an average of 180,000 scientists to Europe and the United States each year. Millions of Chinese students are attending universities and colleges in the “west”, a good number of them choosing never to return home. In exchange numerous businessmen, technical experts and marketing managers from the “west” have settled in the “rest” including China, India and Indonesia helping and profiting from rapid economic growth.

Kipling’s “twain” have met and realize that what happens to either of them affects the other. Maybe we no longer have a “west” and a “rest” but a “great everywhere” in which we find the same clothes, the same food, the same brands, the same music, the same follies and strokes of genius — where even a suburb of Hanoi may remind Dorothy of her Kansas.

Depending on where you live, investors can have wildly different preferences when it comes to choosing asset classes.

For a modern example, we can see how different countries (and regions) act when it comes to cryptocurrency. Within the European Union – one of the regions dealing with faster crypto adoption – attitudes towards investing can vary considerably.

This graphic from Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali and Gilbert Fontana looks at crypto popularity amongst investors in the EU using data from the European Commission’s Eurobarometer. It compares exposure to cryptocurrencies relative to stocks, funds, and bonds.

Crypto Popularity in Europe in 2022

Given that crypto has experienced bubble-like asset rallies, including a dramatic rise to over a trillion dollars in value before crashing, it’s fair to say it’s well known by now.

But even with a vast rise in awareness, there are still discrepancies between the level of investment crypto receives amongst European Union nations. Let’s see which countries have the highest proportion of citizens invested in crypto:

Topping the list is Slovenia, considered by some the most crypto-friendly nation in the world. According to the survey, 18% of the country’s population has some sort of investment in it. Cyprus also ranks high in its crypto-friendly rank and hits an investment figure of 13%.

Also notable is the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which despite having a small population of 640,000 also has a strong reputation as a global financial hub. When it comes to crypto, 14% of the population owns or has owned the asset, relative to 36% for stocks, bonds, or funds.

Crypto Unpopularity?

In regards to the countries with lower levels of crypto investment, one observation is that they tend to be wealthier and more developed EU nations. Here’s how the nations at or below the 10% crypto-investment threshold rank:

At the “bottom” of crypto interest are France, Germany and Italy, also the EU’s largest economies. At a glance, this might suggest that citizens of stronger economies invest less in crypto.

However, it’s important to note that the countries with higher levels of crypto investment tend to have lower levels of wealth on average. Though less of their investors seem to engage in crypto trading, countries like France and Germany might have more comparable levels of crypto investment on a pure dollar-basis.