Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

As we anticipate what 2023 might have in store for investors, we must first consider what the Fed may or may not do. We think there are three potential paths the Fed might follow in 2023. The three paths determine the level of overnight interest rates and, more importantly, liquidity for the financial markets. Liquidity has a heavy influence on stock returns.

Let’s examine the three paths and consider what they might mean for stock prices.

The Road Map for 2023

The graph below compares the three most probable paths for Fed Funds in 2023. The green line tracks the Federal Reserve’s guidance for the Fed Funds rate. The black line charts investor projections as implied by Fed Funds futures. Lastly, the “something breaks” alternative in red is based on prior easing cycles.

Scenario 1 The Fed’s Expectations

To provide investors transparency into Fed members’ economic and policy outlooks, the Fed publishes a summary of each voting member’s economic and Fed Funds expectations for the next few years. The latest quarterly guidance on the Fed Funds rate, as shown below, is from December 14, 2022 (LINK).

The dots represent where each member expects the Fed Funds rate to be in the future.

The range of Fed Funds expectations for 2023 is between 4.875% and 5.625%. Most FOMC members expect Fed Funds to end the year somewhere between 5.125% to 5.375%. Based on comments from Jerome Powell, the Fed seems to think Fed Funds will increase in 25bps increments to 5.25%.

While investors place a lot of weight on the Fed projections, it’s worth reminding you they do not have a crystal ball. For evidence, we only need to look back a year ago to its 2022 projections from December 2021.

Their misguided transitory inflation forecast grossly underestimated inflation’s lasting power and how much they would have to raise rates. The point of sharing the graph is not to belittle the Fed but to highlight its poor ability to predict the future.

Scenario 2 Implied Market Expectations

Fed Funds futures are monthly contracts traded on the CME. Each contract price denotes what the collective market implies the daily Fed Funds rate will average each month. For example, when writing the article, the June 2023 contract traded at 95.05. 100 less 95.05 produces an implied rate of 4.95%. We can arrive at an implied path for Fed Funds by stringing the monthly implied rates together.  

The market thinks the Fed will raise rates to just shy of 5% in May and hold them there through July. After that, the market implies increasing odds of a Fed pivot. By December, the market believes the Fed will have cut interest rates by about 40bps.

Like the Fed, the Fed Funds market can also be a poor predictor of Fed Funds.

In late 2019 we wrote an article studying how well the Fed Funds futures market predicts Fed rate hikes and cuts. Per Investors are Grossly Underestimating the Fed:

As shown in the graphs, the market underestimated the Fed’s intent to raise and lower rates every time it changed monetary policy meaningfully. The dotted lines highlight that the market has underestimated rate cuts by 1% on average, but at times during the last three rate-cutting cycles, market expectations were short by over 2%.

During the last three recessions, excluding the brief downturn in 2020, the Fed Funds market misjudged how far Fed Funds would fall by roughly 2.5%. Implied Fed Funds of 4.6% today may be 2% by December if the market similarly underestimates the Fed and the economic and financial environment.

Scenario 3 Something Breaks

The first two alternatives assume the Fed will tread lightly, be it raising rates a little more or a slight pivot in 2023. The third path is the outlier “something breaks” forecast.

There is a significant lag between when the Fed raises rates and when the effect is fully felt. Economists believe the lag can take between nine months and, at times, over a year. In March 2022, the Fed raised rates by 25bps from zero percent. Since then, they have increased rates by an additional 4%. If the lag is a year, the first interest rate hike will not be fully absorbed into the economy until March 2023.

The third path, in which the Fed aggressively lowers rates, would be a response to a significantly weakening economy, inflation falling much more rapidly than expected, or financial instability. It could also be a combination of any or all three factors.  

In The Foghorn is Blowing, we discuss how an inverted Treasury yield curve that un-inverts has been a great predictor of recessions, stock market drawdowns, and corporate earnings declines. The re-steepening of the yield curve is almost always the result of the Fed lowering interest rates.

The yield curve is currently inverted to a level not seen in over 40 years. It will un-invert; the only question is when and how quickly. As we wrote:

The financial foghorn is blowing. Historical odds greatly favor a recession, stock market drawdown, and a much lower Fed Funds rate.

If it un-inverts as violently as it has in the past, the 2% Fed Funds for the year-end scenario may prove too high!

Asset Performance in The Three Paths

Stock investors expect the second path with a slight pivot during the summer. Currently, corporate earnings are expected to grow by 8% in 2023. Such implies economic growth. Therefore, it also intones the Fed will not over-tighten and cause a recession. This goldilocks scenario may provide investors with a positive return.

The first alternative, the FOMC’s expected path, may entail more pain for stock investors as it implies rates will rise higher than market expectations with no pivot in sight.

The third “something breaks” scenario is the potential nightmare scenario. While investors will receive the pivot they have been desperately seeking, they will not like it. Historically, rapidly declining economic activity and financial instability do not bode well for stocks, even if the Fed adopts a more accommodative policy stance.

The graph below shows that the yield curve steepens well before the market bottoms. Likely, the steepening will result from the Fed quickly slashing interest rates in response to “something breaking.”

Don’t Forget About QT

Another Fed policy facet to consider is QT. The Fed is removing liquidity at a sizeable clip. Like interest rates, QT has a lag effect. In time, economic and financial market liquidity diminishes with QT.

Leveraged investors must often reduce exposure as liquidity becomes harder to obtain and more expensive. Usually, the deleveraging process starts slowly with fringe assets and overly leveraged investors feeling pain. However, deleveraging can spread quickly to the well-followed broader markets. The U.K. pension fund bailouts and failing crypto exchanges like FTX are likely signs of liquidity exiting the system.

Even if the Fed stops raising rates or marginally lowers them, QT will present headwinds for stock prices.

Summary

The unprecedented influx of liquidity that drove asset prices higher in 2020 and 2021 is quickly leaving the market. The lag effect of higher interest rates and fading liquidity will likely play a prominent role in determining stock prices in 2023.

Based on the Fed’s determination to quash inflation via higher interest rates and QT, we think the “something breaks” scenario is the likely path ahead.

World renown investor Stanley Druckenmiller seems to agree with us per a recent quote- “I would be stunned if we didn’t have a recession in 2023.”

Given the dynamic nature of economic and financial market activity and the difficulty of predicting the economic future, the Fed’s projections and the other two paths we discuss should be monitored closely throughout the year.

Expect the unexpected in 2023 and keep the Fed’s path top of mind.

Salesforce Inc. shares rose in premarket trading after the company announced a broad restructuring plan “intended to reduce operating costs, improve operating margins, and continue advancing the Company’s ongoing commitment to profitable growth.” 

Add Salesforce to the growing list of technology companies decreasing headcount amid recession threats. The company plans to reduce the current workforce by 10%. The latest SEC filings show the company has 73,541 employees. 

Salesforce plans to scale back on real estate and slash office space in certain markets. All of this was disclosed in a filing with the SEC.

Total costs of the restructuring are expected to be “approximately $1.4 billion to $2.1 billion,” of which about $800 million to $1 billion is expected to be incurred in the 4Q23.

These charges consist primarily of $1.0 billion to $1.4 billion in charges related to employee transition, severance payments, employee benefits, and share-based compensation; and $450 million to $650 million in exit charges associated with the office space reductions. Of the aggregate amount of charges that the company estimates it will incur in connection with the Plan, the company expects that approximately $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion will be in future cash expenditures. –SEC filing 

Also in the filing was a letter by Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff addressed to employees that read: 

Letter to Employees

Date: January 4, 2023

Subject: Important Company Update

As one ‘Ohana, over the last 23 years, Salesforce has built the #1 CRM that drives incredible customer success across every line of business for every industry around the world. We have never been more mission-critical to our customers. We have an unparalleled ecosystem, with thousands of partners and millions of Trailblazers building their companies on our platform.

However, the environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions. With this in mind, we’ve made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 10 percent, mostly over the coming weeks.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we came to this moment. As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that.

Within the next hour, employees who are initially affected by this decision will receive an email letting them know. Our leadership will reach out directly to these employees, and provide clarity for their teams about changes within their organizations.

For those who will be leaving Salesforce, our priority is to fully support them, including by offering a generous package. In the U.S., affected employees will receive a minimum of nearly five months of pay, health insurance, career resources, and other benefits to help with their transition. Those outside the U.S. will receive a similar level of support, and our local processes will align with employment laws in each country.

The employees being affected aren’t just colleagues. They’re friends. They’re family. Please reach out to them. Offer the compassion and love they and their families deserve and need now more than ever. And most of all, please lean on your leadership, including me, as we work through this difficult time together.

I’m grateful for every single one of you who has contributed to our continued success as a company, and the hard work and sacrifices you have made to generate success for our hundreds of thousands of customers. You’ve built our company — for all of our stakeholders — and you’ve shown incredible resilience every step of the way.

With gratitude,     

Marc

News of the restructuring plan sent Salesforce shares up nearly 3% in premarket. 

Add Salesforce to the growing list of tech companies slashing headcount and costs ahead of what could be a recession. 

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times,

Figures show more than a million children need treatment for serious mental health problems, including eating disorders, in the time since lockdowns were imposed in England.

NHS data analysed by the PA news agency show a 39 percent rise in a year in referrals for NHS mental health treatment for under-18s, to 1,169,515 in 2021 to 2022.

This compares with the previous year of 2020 to 2021, when the figure was 839,570. In 2019 to 2020 there were 850,741 referrals.

From 2020 to early 2022 the UK government imposed multiple COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions.

The England-wide data include children who are suicidal, self-harming, suffering serious depression or anxiety, and those with eating disorders.

Hospital admissions for eating disorders were also found to be increasing among under-18s.

There were 7,719 admissions in 2021/22, up from 6,079 the previous year, and 4,232 in 2019/20, an 82 percent rise across two years.

‘Heightened Sense of Anxiety and Loss of Control’

Elaine Lockhart, chairwoman of the child and adolescent psychiatry faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the rise in referrals for children and young people reflects a “whole range” of illnesses including psychosis, suicidal thoughts, and severe anxiety disorder.

Lockhart said children and young people’s mental health had been getting worse before the pandemic.

“When the lockdowns and pandemic struck, that really had such a negative effect on a lot of children,” she added.

“Those who had been doing well became vulnerable and those were vulnerable became unwell,” she said.

“And part of that was about children themselves feeling very untethered from the day-to-day life that supports them, but also seeing their own parents struggle, and then that collective heightened sense of anxiety and loss of control we all had really affected children,” said Lockhart.

The data show that anorexia is the most common eating disorder leading to hospital admission among all ages, with 10,808 admissions in 2021/22.

Bulimia is the next most common, with 5,563, while other eating disorders accounted for 12,893 admissions.

Exacerbated

Gary Sidley, a retired clinical psychologist and HART member, has warned of the increase in emotional distress of the British people throughout the pandemic via COVID-19 restrictions.

HART was set up by medical and health professionals to share concerns about policy and guidance recommendations relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The people who are prone to eating disorders, it is a common theme that they have this kind of inflated desire to try and get control over their life and their environment because they kind of sense that everything is out of control,” Sidley told The Epoch Times.

“And therefore what happens is that they focus on their one narrow aspect, eating, and try and control that. That’s often a key thing underpinning eating disorders,” he said.

“The restrictions generally including lockdowns and the unpredictability of them and the nonsensical nature of them, would have exacerbated that kind of concern about being out of control,” he added.

In 2021 and in September 2022, HART wrote that mounting evidence of harms to children over the past two years suggests that the government response “placed too much weight on the need to protect vulnerable adults at the expense of the less immediately obvious (but more long-term) damage to the well-being and futures of our children and young people.”

“With children confined to their homes and isolated from community life, statutory and third-party services pared back or online, and many strategies used to ameliorate mental health difficulties banned or restricted (eg sport, family connection, school engagement, socialising), many children and young people were left to cope with deteriorating mental health without adequate support,” the group wrote.

“Again, the most disadvantaged children suffered the most,” HART added.

‘The Trends Have Been Going Up’

Agnes Ayton, study lead and chair of the Eating Disorders Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists said that a number of factors can affect a child’s chance of developing an eating disorder.

This can include genetics, social media, anxiety, and weight-loss advertising.

“The numbers, the trends, are going up. There definitely has been an impact of the pandemic but the trends have been going up since way before then,” she said.

“There is no indication that the figures will go down without a strategy that includes prevention, improved treatment, better access to effective inpatient treatment, and better research facilities,” she added.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Improving eating disorders services is a key priority and we’re investing £53 million per year in children and young people’s community eating disorder services to increase capacity in 70 community teams across the country.

“We are already investing £2.3 billion a year into mental health services, meaning an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access support by 2024—and we’re aiming to grow the mental health workforce by 27,000 more staff by this time too.”

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

The United States has become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas alongside Qatar.

Bloomberg reported today that the lighting fast increase in U.S. LNG shipments abroad had brought it on par with the world’s largest exporter per cargo-tracking data compiled by the news agency.

Both countries, Bloomberg said, exported 81.2 million tons of the superchilled fuel last year.

What’s more, the U.S. could have topped Qatar if it weren’t for the fire that shut down the Freeport LNG facility in mid-2022 and kept it shut down for the remainder of the year. With Freeport LNG, total U.S. LNG exports would have hit 86 million tons, Rystad Energy said at the end of last year.

This year, however, when Freeport LNG restarts, the United States could see an 11-percent increase in LNG exports, Rystad Energy said last year, which would make it officially the largest LNG exporter globally, surpassing Qatar.

Looking forward to the more distant future, however, U.S. producers of LNG would need to make an effort to retain the top spot as Qatar works to boost its annual export capacity to over 100 million cu m.

Demand, meanwhile, is something that U.S. producers do not need to worry about. As Europe pivots away from Russia pipeline gas, it will remain a huge source of demand for American LNG for the observable future.

Demand for LNG in Asia is also on the mend, Rystad Energy analysts said in December, which suggests prices for the fuel will also likely remain elevated for the observable future.

The United States only joined the LNG export scene in 2016 amid an abundance of shale gas and growing demand for gas globally. Asia used to be the top destination for U.S. cargos until last year when Europe suddenly emerged as a major importer amid Russia’s gas supply cuts and the EU’s determination to switch its gas dependence on Russia with one on the United States.

Authored by Denes Albert via Remix News,

There were riots in several French cities, almost 700 cars were set on fire, and nearly 500 people were arrested on New Year’s Eve in France.

However, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in a statement that New Year’s Eve celebrations in the country had taken place “without any major incidents.”

The French authorities were on high alert for the end of the year, with 90,000 police officers and gendarmes mobilized across the country for New Year’s Eve, according to a statement by Darmanin.

The French politician also pointed out that New Year’s Eve 2022 showed a historic improvement in the number of vehicles set on fire, with “only” 690 cars burned nationwide. According to figures in the release, that number was 874 last year, a 21 percent improvement.

Merci aux 90000 policiers et gendarmes engagés la nuit dernière pour le réveillon de la #SaintSylvestre, qui s’est déroulé sans incident notable :
✅Baisse historique de 21% du nombre de véhicules incendiés
✅Augmentation de 11% du nombre d’interpellations pic.twitter.com/qZmRyxQyh2

— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) January 1, 2023

Darmanin pointed out that 490 people were detained, 11 percent more than the previous year, leading the minister to conclude that the police and gendarmes on the streets were fully capable of maintaining law and order. Twitter users mocked Darmanin’s post, pointing out that the country was flooded with 90,000 officers, creating a very costly police state for what should be a festive occasion, and even then, hundreds of vehicles were set on fire and police attacked.

Although the French interior minister says that there have been “no notable incidents” in the country, the people of Nantes may be of a different opinion. In the city, rioters set fire to several cars on New Year’s Eve and then attacked police and firefighters with fireworks. Some of the arson attacks were caught on film.

La nuit du Nouvel an s’agite à #Nantes. Après une première voiture brûlée quartier Halvêque vers 22 h, trois véhicules sont en feu à 23 h face au Sillon de Bretagne. Pompiers et policiers accueillis par des tirs de mortiers d’artifice. pic.twitter.com/ysAormKBIy

— Christophe JAUNET (@JAUNET3) December 31, 2022

A French local newspaper, Le Dauphiné Libéré, reported that a gendarmerie barracks in Pierrelatte, a municipality in the southeastern part of the Drôme department, was attacked and fireworks were fired at the building, which caught fire. There were no injuries or serious damage to property, but in several other municipalities in the county, several bins and cars were set on fire.

In Alsace, scenes of carnage were filmed across the city, including a number of arson attacks against cars and buses.

Blessures par pétards, départs de feu, interpellations… le bilan de la soirée du nouvel an en Alsace pic.twitter.com/5lDSRhL3Ll

— BFM Alsace (@BFM_Alsace) January 1, 2023

#MUTZIG #NOUVELAN A Mutzig. Situation toujours tendue pic.twitter.com/R5J0O7ouNp

— DNA (@dnatweets) January 1, 2023

In the Haute-Garonne department in the south of the country, the last night of 2022 was also a busy one, with 41 fires reported by the authorities; according to the La Dépêche newspaper, a children’s home was also set on fire, with six people inside the building having to be housed in a nearby village.

The city of Bordeaux was also hectic on New Year’s Eve, with dozens of vandals shooting fireworks in the streets; footage of the scene showed that the projectiles were deliberately aimed at people.

Pendant que @GDarmanin est au sport d’hiver à Mayotte, la ville de Bordeaux est tombée aux mains des racailles pour cette nuit du 31 Décembre pic.twitter.com/sZNosNFCeu

— Réalité Actuelle (@RAbsolument) January 1, 2023

As Remix News reported yesterday, young migrants were mostly responsible for the chaos in Berlin during the New Year, with youths targeting police and rescue vehicles, and setting fires across the city. Given the scenes of violence recorded across the city, police are calling for a ban on all fireworks.

Via Remix News,

The European Parliament announced on Monday, Jan. 2, that it had initiated an urgent procedure, following a request from the Belgian judiciary to lift the immunity of two MEPs in the corruption investigation into alleged bribes offered by Qatar to European officials and civil servants, news agencies AFP and EFE reported.

The two MEPs are Italian Andrea Cozzolino and Belgian Marc Tarabella, both members of the European Social Democrats (S&D) group.

“Following a request from the Belgian judicial authorities, I have launched an urgent procedure for the waiver of immunity of two Members of the European Parliament. There will be no impunity. None,” promised European Parliament President Roberta Metsola on Twitter.

Following a request from the Belgian judicial authorities, I have launched an urgent procedure for the waiver of immunity of two Members of the European Parliament.

There will be no impunity. None.

— Roberta Metsola (@EP_President) January 2, 2023

She called on “all services and committees to give priority to this procedure with a view to concluding it on 13 February,” when the European Parliament’s second plenary session starts this year.

The first plenary session will take place on January 16-19, but European bureaucratic mechanisms would not allow it to be completed at that time, hence Metsola’s deadline for the February session.

Several current and former EU officials and civil servants are charged in the case, which is linked to alleged money offered by Qatar and Morocco to promote a positive image of Qatar and influence EU institutions, including to allow visa-free travel for Qataris in the EU.

The most notable names accused in the case are Greek Socialist MEP Eva Kaili, who was sacked as European Parliament vice-president, and her life partner, Italian Francesco Giorgi, who is MEP Andrea Cozzolino’s assistant.

Kaili and Giorgi are currently in pre-trial detention in Belgium, as are former Italian Socialist MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, who heads an NGO.

Authored by Robert Freeman via Common Dreams,

When the president of the poorest, most corrupt nation in Europe is feted with multiple standing ovations by the combined Houses of Congress, and his name invoked in the same breath as Winston Churchill, you know we’ve reached Peak Zelensky.

It’s a farcical, almost psychotic over-promotion, probably surpassed only by the media’s shameful, hyperbolic railroading of the country into war with Iraq, in 2003. Paraphrasing Gertrude from Hamlet, “Methinks the media doth hype too much.”

Let’s remember that before ascending to his country’s presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky’s greatest claim to fame was that he could play the piano with his penis. I’m not joking. And he ran on a platform to unite his country for peace, and for making amends with Russia. Again, I’m not joking.

Now, he’s Europe’s George Washington, FDR, and Douglas MacArthur all rolled into one and before whom the mighty and powerful genuflect. Please. The only place to go from here is down. And, that is surely coming. Soon.

Consider some inconvenient facts that the fawning media, which is essentially the public relations arm of the weapons industry, doesn’t want you to know.

The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, recently let slip that the Ukrainian army has lost more than 100,000 troops in the eight months since the beginning of the war. Over the nine-year span of the Vietnam War, the U.S. with a population six times that of Ukraine, lost a total of 58,220 men.

In other words, on a per day, per capita basis, Ukraine is losing soldiers at a rate 141 TIMES that of U.S. losses in Vietnam. The U.S. lost the public on Vietnam when middle class white boys began coming home in body bags. Does anybody with half a brain believe such losses in Ukraine are sustainable? Does anybody have another plan to avert such slaughter?

Von der Leyen is among the shrewdest public figures in the world. What she is doing is laying the predicate for Western withdrawal from Ukraine and ending the War. If you look at the facts on the ground, not the boosterish propaganda ladled out by the media, you can understand why.

In a matter of weeks, Russia, with its hypersonic missiles, destroyed half of Ukraine’s electrical power infrastructure. This, as winter is coming on. It can just as easily take out the other half, effectively bombing Ukraine back into the Stone Age. Is that what anybody wants?

The startling, indeed, terrifying part of this is that neither Ukraine nor the West have any defense against these hypersonic missiles. They travel so fast, and on variable trajectories, they cannot be shot down, even by the most advanced Western systems. They represent one of the greatest asymmetries in deliverable destructive power in the history of warfare, probably dwarfed only by the U.S.’s possession of atomic bombs at the end of World War II.

This week, Ursula von der Leyen, an EU official, released and deleted a video where she said that Ukraine had lost 100,000 troops, unconfirmed data that Ukraine claims is classified.

She later re-released a video with the casualty estimate edited out.pic.twitter.com/daAfRPRIQs

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) December 1, 2022

Again, there is no effective defense against them. The Russians have them. The Ukrainians don’t. Game over. Can you understand why leaders in the West are beginning to wake up?

On the conventional front, the Ukrainians are having trouble securing even conventional weapons to defend themselves. U.S. arms suppliers are working around the clock to replace their own stocks and the stocks that European countries have given to Ukraine. But the backlog is running into years. A recent headline from The Wall Street Journal stated, “Europe is Rushing Arms to Ukraine but Running Out of Ammo.”

Finally, the U.S. has committed $112 billion to Ukraine. That includes $45 billion just slipped into the omnibus funding bill against the likelihood that a Republican-controlled House will cut such funding, almost certainly substantially.

That’s more than $10 billion per month since the war started in February. And that doesn’t even count the subsidies, both material and financial, from the EU which amount to billions of dollars more per month.

Without such subsidies, Zelensky would not have lasted a month in the war. How many hours do you think he is going to last once that flow dries up? And it surely is.

The Europeans are coming to realize that their continent is being de-industrialized, literally moved backwards an entire epoch in economic terms, because of their willingness to serve as the doormat for the U.S.’ imperial war against Russia. Not even they, with their supine fealty to U.S. domination, are willing to commit collective economic suicide on behalf of the U.S.

France’s Macron and Germany’s Scholz are suggesting that accommodations to Russian interests must be devised in order to bring about a peaceful settlement of the war.

Macron suggested in a television address to his nation that an antagonized Russia is not in the security interests of Europe. “We need to prepare what we are ready to do…to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.”

Scholz was even more specific. In an article in Foreign Affairs he declared, “We have to go back to the agreements which we had in the last decades and which were the basis for peace and security order in Europe.”

This is a direct repudiation of the U.S.’s maximalist position before the start of the War, that Russia’s security needs were of no interest to a marauding NATO.

Even U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is now mooting the idea that territorial concessions must be on the table. In a Wall Street Journal article, Blinken stated that, “Our focus is…to take back territory that’s been seized from [Ukraine] since February 24th.”

Notice, that this is a significant climb down from the U.S.’ earlier position that all Russian gains since 2014, including Crimea, must be reversed before negotiations could begin. And this is just Blinken’s opening hand. More concessions are sure to follow as Russian gains become greater and their likelihood of being reversed, lesser.

Put these four things together: staggering, unsustainable losses of soldiers; terrifying, indefensible asymmetries of destructive power; inability to supply oneself with even conventional defensive weapons; and categorically reduced support from your most important backers.

Does that sound like the formula for winning a war? It is not. It’s the formula for losing the war, which is why von der Leyen, Macron, Scholz, and Blinken are now laying pipe for getting out. The tide is going out under Zelensky. He will soon be remembered as a Trivial Pursuits question, or an answer on Jeopardy: “The only modern head of state known to be able to play the piano with his penis.” Ding. “Contestant #3?” “Who is Volodymyr Zelensky?”

A peace will soon be declared. Russia will keep the Donbas and Crimea in recognition of the facts on the ground. Both sides will be better off for this. The Donbas is ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and culturally Russian, which is why it voted overwhelmingly for assimilation into Russia. Besides, if Kiev loved them so much, it wouldn’t have murdered 14,000 of them over the past eight years and resumed massive shelling in early February of this year, before the Russian invasion.

Ukraine will foreswear any future affiliation with NATO. This is Putin’s highest priority and what he asked for–and was denied–in his request to the U.S. and NATO last December, before the invasion was launched. If Russia begins its much-feared winter offensive, as many expect, Ukrainian generals will dispatch Zelensky in a coup rather than send their few remaining soldiers to certain annihilation.

U.S. grain and pharma conglomerates will buy up Ukrainian farmland—some of the best in the world—for pennies on the dollar. This is the standard MO of U.S. multinational vultures coming in after the kill to pick apart the carcasses. U.S. weapons makers will look for and help provoke the next feeding frenzy, much as they materialized Ukraine barely a year after the humiliating U.S. defeat in Afghanistan derailed their last gravy train.

Russia and China, driven together by U.S. bullying, will continue to constellate the nations of the Global South into an anti-Western bloc committed to collaborative, mutually profitable, peaceful development. The U.S. and its closest allies will cower behind the walls they’ve constructed of the ever-shrinking share of the global economy that they can manage to hold as their own.

Ukraine will prove a turning point in the dismantling of U.S. hegemony over global affairs that it has enjoyed—and, let’s be honest, often abused–since 1945. The U.S. public is not psychically prepared for such a come down. But that is the cost of living in the fantasy world that the media lavishes up to keep that self-same public ignorant, fearful, confused, entertained, and distracted.

Finally, the neo-cons who have led the U.S. into the serial debacles of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine, costing the country tens of trillions of dollars and even greater amounts of destroyed reputational capital, will claim their customary immunity from any accountability for their savage failures and cheerily move on to their next calamity. We need to be on the lookout for their next gambit to pillage the treasury and advance their own private interests above those of the nation. It will surely come.

When properly maintained, well-built cars can last an impressive amount of miles.

Consider this 2006 Honda Civic, which hit one million miles on its original engine and transmission. Amusingly, the car’s odometer maxes out at 999,999 miles.

While that case may be an extreme outlier, most modern cars are expected to last 200,000 miles before experiencing some significant failure. That’s roughly double the lifespan of cars from the 1960s and 1970s, which typically lasted about 100,000 miles.

In this infographic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Ls and Athul Alexander used data from iSeeCars to determine which cars are the most likely to reach⁠— or even surpass⁠—the 200,000 mile benchmark.

Study Methodology & Data

To come up with their rankings, iSeeCars analyzed over 2 million used cars between January and October 2022. The rankings are based on the mileage that the top 1% of cars within each model obtained. Models with less than 10 years of production, such as the Tesla Model 3, were excluded.

The following tables show an expanded list of the longest lasting cars, by model category. Our infographic only includes the top five from each.

Sedans & Hatchbacks

The only non-Japanese model in the top 10 is the Chevrolet Impala, which is one of the most commonly found rental cars in the U.S.

Another interesting takeaway is that Lexus is the only luxury brand in this list. This is likely due to the fact that Lexus and Toyota often share drivetrain components.

SUVs

iSeeCars has a larger top 20 list for the SUV category.

This is a more diverse list, with American and Japanese models seemingly on par. The GM family of SUVs (Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon, and Yukon XL) are narrowly edged out by Toyota’s full size options (Sequoia and Land Cruiser).

The Land Cruiser was discontinued in the U.S. for 2021, but it remains a very popular model in Middle Eastern countries like Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE.

Pickup Trucks

Once again, Japanese manufacturers hold the top spots. According to Toyota, the Tundra is the only full-size pickup that is currently being built in Texas.

Despite their marginally higher potential lifespans, sales of Japanese trucks come nowhere close to their American counterparts.

Electric Cars

The last category is EVs, which due to the 10 years of production requirement, only includes the Tesla Model S (133,998 miles) and Nissan LEAF (98,081).

These figures are much lower than the gasoline cars discussed above, but it’s not exactly a fair comparison. We probably won’t be able to judge the long-term reliability of EVs until they’ve been around for at least another decade.

In addition to needing more time, another reason is scale—the Model S and LEAF have been sold in relatively limited numbers. The Tesla Model 3, which is the first EV to sell over one million units, will likely become the first reliable benchmark.