Via SchiffGold.com,

We recently reported that the Federal Reserve plans to launch a 12-week pilot program in partnership with several large commercial banks to test the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The US isn’t alone in experimenting with digital currency. India is working on developing a digital rupee and recently announced the second phase of testing.

After successfully running a pilot program to test its digital currency at the wholesale level, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced it will test the digital rupee in a retail setting.

According to the RBI, the central bank digital currency “is a legal tender issued by a central bank in a digital form. It is the same as a fiat currency and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency. Only its form is different.”

Digital currencies are similar to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They exist as virtual banknotes or coins held in a digital wallet on your computer or smartphone. The difference between a government digital currency and bitcoin is the value of the digital currency is backed and controlled by the state, just like traditional fiat currency.

As the RBI put it, “Unlike cryptocurrencies, a CBDC isn’t a commodity or claims on commodities or digital assets. Cryptocurrencies have no issuer. They are not money (certainly not currency) as the word has come to be understood historically.”

According to a report in the Economic Times of India, the National Payments Corporation of India will host the platform for the digital rupee payment system during the testing phase. The Reserve Bank of India wants each commercial bank in the pilot to test retail use of the digital rupee with 10,000 to 50,000 users.

State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank will participate in the pilot program. If the pilot is successful, the RBI will roll out the program to the entire Indian banking system.

“The e-rupee will be stored in a wallet, the denominations will be available as per the customer’s request, just like you request cash from an ATM. Banks are launching this only in select cities,” a person involved in the program told the Times.

In a concept note, the RBI touted the benefits of digital currency.

It is believed that retail CBDC can provide access to safe money for payment and settlement as it is a direct liability of the central bank. Wholesale CBDC has the potential to transform settlement systems for financial transactions and make them more efficient and secure. Going by the potential offered by each of them, there may be merit in introducing both CBDC-W and CBDC-R.”

Government-issued digital currencies are sold on the promise of providing a safe, convenient, and more secure alternative to physical cash. We’re also told it will help stop dangerous criminals who like the intractability of cash. But there is a darker side – the promise of control.

At the root of the move toward government digital currency is “the war on cash.” The elimination of cash creates the potential for the government to track and even control consumer spending, and it would make it even easier for central banks to engage in manipulative monetary policies such as negative interest rates.

Imagine if there was no cash. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest transaction from government eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to Starbucks wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As Bloomberg put it in an article published when China launched its digital yuan pilot program, digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.”

The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases. Bloomberg described just how much control a digital currency could give Chinese officials.

The PBOC has also indicated that it could put limits on the sizes of some transactions, or even require an appointment to make large ones. Some observers wonder whether payments could be linked to the emerging social-credit system, wherein citizens with exemplary behavior are ‘whitelisted’ for privileges, while those with criminal and other infractions find themselves left out. ‘China’s goal is not to make payments more convenient but to replace cash, so it can keep closer tabs on people than it already does,’ argues Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who writes for Bloomberg Opinion.”

China launched its digital yuan pilot program last year. The Chinese government-backed digital currency got a boost when the country’s biggest online retailer announced the first virtual platform to accept the Chinese digital currency.

Economist Thorsten Polleit outlined the potential for Big Brother-like government control with the advent of a digital euro in an article published by the Mises Wire. As he put it, “the path to becoming a surveillance state regime will accelerate considerably” if and when a digital currency is issued.

Governments around the world have quietly waged a war on cash for years. Back in 2017, the IMF published a creepy paper offering governments suggestions on how to move toward a cashless society even in the face of strong public opposition.

As with most things the government does, you should be wary of the digital dollar. It has a dark side that you can be sure the mainstream will mostly ignore.

Thousands of workers across approximately 40 countries are planning to take part in ‘Black Friday’ protests to demand better wages and working conditions in the company’s warehouses, as the global cost-of-living crisis increases

The protests will coincide with the largest holiday shopping season of the year, which means Amazon warehouse workers are going to be very busy for the next week as consumers panic buy deeply discounted items, though there might be a huge problem: less than 24 hours before the big sale begins, Bloomberg reported Amazon warehouse workers across 40 countries are about to strike.

We would note that the world’s biggest retailer has longstanding ambitions to automate its warehouses – with robots that don’t strike. 

Amazon workers in the US, UK, India, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and across Europe are set to walk out of warehouses on Friday as they demand higher wages and better working conditions amid the worst inflationary environment the world has seen in decades. 

The labor action is called “Make Amazon Pay” and is coordinated by an army of trade unions, with support from civil society and environmental groups. 

“For workers and consumers, the price of everything is going up. And for everyone, the global temperature is rising and our planet is under stress. But instead of supporting its workers, communities and the planet, Amazon is squeezing every last drop it can,” Make Amazon Pay’s website said. 

Make Amazon Pay is correct by outlining “real wages are going down”… and as we noted not too long ago, have been negative for 19 months — hence why labor unions have gained so much traction. 

“It’s time for the tech giant to cease their awful, unsafe practices immediately, respect the law and negotiate with the workers who want to make their jobs better,” said UNI Global Union general secretary, Christy Hoffman.

The group also outlines Amazon’s corporate greed, not paying taxes, and polluting the world. It also published a map of all the strike locations. 

The company replied to the protests, saying “While we are not perfect in any area, if you objectively look at what Amazon is doing on these important matters you’ll see that we do take our role and our impact very seriously,” pointing to the company’s green ambitions to reach net zero status by 2040, which is “continuing to offer competitive wages and great benefits, and inventing new ways to keep our employees safe and healthy.”

Ah, that settles it then.

Unions in France and Germany – CGT and Ver.di – are spearheading the latest collective action, with coordinated strikes in 18 major warehouses, intended to disrupt shipments across key European markets.

Monika di Silvestre, head of Ver.di’s Amazon committee in Germany, said that workers were particularly concerned about the way their productivity was closely monitored by computers, with algorithms determining targets, for example for the number of packages they need to handle per hour. -Stars & Stripes

“The workers are under a lot of pressure with these algorithms,” said di Silvestre, adding “It doesn’t differentiate between workers, whether they are old or have limited mobility. Workers stay awake at night thinking only of their productivity stats.”

Amazon warehouse employees have been speaking out against working conditions for years – notably complaining of low pay, pressure not to take sick leave when ill, and having to work so many hours they’re forced to urinate in bottles.

It’s not clear how disruptive the strikes will be for Amazon, but it’s just another reason why the world’s biggest retailer is full steam ahead in automating warehouse (read: “Amazon Unveils Warehouse Robot To Replace Human Pickers Amid Unionization Threats”). 

By Brian Westenhaus of OilPrice.com

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s new discovery could finally usher the development of solid-state lithium batteries, which would be more lightweight, compact, and safe than current lithium batteries. The growth of metallic filaments called dendrites within the solid electrolyte has been a longstanding obstacle, but the new study explains how dendrites form and how to divert them. This is a goal that’s been pursued by labs around the world for years.

The key to this potential leap in battery technology is replacing the liquid electrolyte that sits between the positive and negative electrodes with a much thinner, lighter layer of solid ceramic material, and replacing one of the electrodes with solid lithium metal. This would greatly reduce the overall size and weight of the battery and remove the safety risk associated with liquid electrolytes, which are flammable.

But that quest has been beset with one big problem: dendrites.

Dendrites, whose name comes from the Latin for branches, are projections of metal that can build up on the lithium surface and penetrate into the solid electrolyte, eventually crossing from one electrode to the other and shorting out the battery cell. Researchers haven’t been able to agree on what gives rise to these metal filaments, nor has there been much progress on how to prevent them and thus make lightweight solid-state batteries a practical option.

The new research published in the journal Joule in a paper by MIT Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, graduate student Cole Fincher, and five others at MIT and Brown University, seems to resolve the question of what causes dendrite formation. It also shows how dendrites can be prevented from crossing through the electrolyte.

Chiang said in the group’s earlier work, they made a “surprising and unexpected” finding, which was that the hard, solid electrolyte material used for a solid-state battery can be penetrated by lithium, which is a very soft metal, during the process of charging and discharging the battery, as ions of lithium move between the two sides.

This shuttling back and forth of ions causes the volume of the electrodes to change. That inevitably causes stresses in the solid electrolyte, which has to remain fully in contact with both of the electrodes that it is sandwiched between. “To deposit this metal, there has to be an expansion of the volume because you’re adding new mass,” Chiang said. “So, there’s an increase in volume on the side of the cell where the lithium is being deposited. And if there are even microscopic flaws present, this will generate a pressure on those flaws that can cause cracking.”

Those stresses, the team has now shown, cause the cracks that allow dendrites to form. The solution to the problem turns out to be more stress, applied in just the right direction and with the right amount of force.

While previously, some researchers thought that dendrites formed by a purely electrochemical process, rather than a mechanical one, the team’s experiments demonstrate that it is mechanical stresses that cause the problem.

The process of dendrite formation normally takes place deep within the opaque materials of the battery cell and cannot be observed directly, so Fincher developed a way of making thin cells using a transparent electrolyte, allowing the whole process to be directly seen and recorded. “You can see what happens when you put a compression on the system, and you can see whether or not the dendrites behave in a way that’s commensurate with a corrosion process or a fracture process,” he said.

The team demonstrated that they could directly manipulate the growth of dendrites simply by applying and releasing pressure, causing the dendrites to zig and zag in perfect alignment with the direction of the force.

Applying mechanical stresses to the solid electrolyte doesn’t eliminate the formation of dendrites, but it does control the direction of their growth. This means they can be directed to remain parallel to the two electrodes and prevented from ever crossing to the other side, and thus rendered harmless.

In their tests, the researchers used pressure induced by bending the material, which was formed into a beam with a weight at one end. But they say that in practice, there could be many different ways of producing the needed stress. For example, the electrolyte could be made with two layers of material that have different amounts of thermal expansion, so that there is an inherent bending of the material, as is done in some thermostats.

Another approach would be to “dope” the material with atoms that would become embedded in it, distorting it and leaving it in a permanently stressed state. This is the same method used to produce the super-hard glass used in the screens of smart phones and tablets, Chiang explained. And the amount of pressure needed is not extreme: The experiments showed that pressures of 150 to 200 megapascals were sufficient to stop the dendrites from crossing the electrolyte.

The required pressure is “commensurate with stresses that are commonly induced in commercial film growth processes and many other manufacturing processes,” so should not be difficult to implement in practice, Fincher added.

Fischer explained that in fact, a different kind of stress, called stack pressure, is often applied to battery cells, by essentially squishing the material in the direction perpendicular to the battery’s plates – somewhat like compressing a sandwich by putting a weight on top of it. It was thought that this might help prevent the layers from separating. But the experiments have now demonstrated that pressure in that direction actually exacerbates dendrite formation. “We showed that this type of stack pressure actually accelerates dendrite-induced failure,” he said.

What is needed instead is pressure along the plane of the plates, as if the sandwich were being squeezed from the sides. “What we have shown in this work is that when you apply a compressive force you can force the dendrites to travel in the direction of the compression,” Fincher said, and if that direction is along the plane of the plates, the dendrites “will never get to the other side.”

That could finally make it practical to produce batteries using solid electrolyte and metallic lithium electrodes. Not only would these pack more energy into a given volume and weight, but they would eliminate the need for liquid electrolytes, which are flammable materials.

Having demonstrated the basic principles involved, the team’s next step will be to try to apply these to the creation of a functional prototype battery, Chiang said, and then to figure out exactly what manufacturing processes would be needed to produce such batteries in quantity. Though they have filed for a patent, the researchers don’t plan to commercialize the system themselves, he said, as there are already companies working on the development of solid-state batteries. “I would say this is an understanding of failure modes in solid-state batteries that we believe the industry needs to be aware of and try to use in designing better products,” he said.

The research team included Christos Athanasiou and Brian Sheldon at Brown University, and Colin Gilgenbach, Michael Wang, and W. Craig Carter at MIT. The work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

***

Assuming the press release has adequate data for not being certain this work will yield a prototype battery, the odds are that there will be a successful prototype built. How many models are tried and what works in the end is very much in the air for now.

On the other hand the mechanical formation research result looks quite compelling and actually makes reasoned sense now that it is explained. That raises questions. Does the dendrite formation greatly impede the battery capacity and function or does that added dendrite surface area increase it? Then one wonders how the dendrite formation impacts overall lifespan?

This effort isn’t over yet. But this is a significant milestone with lots of clues and hints on where further research might go. It looks like solid state lithium metal batteries are just a matter of innovation, insight and creativity away from the market.

Mercedes-Benz is the latest auto manufacturer to unveil a subscription fee to unlock perks, such as the ability to boost acceleration. 

The $1,200 yearly subscription is called “Acceleration Increase” and can be found on Mercedes’ online store. 

“COMING SOON – Accelerate more powerfully: increase the torque and maximum output of your Mercedes-EQ,” reads the description on the online store. It’s available for all upcoming EQ electric models that will “improvement in acceleration of 0.8 to 1.0 seconds (0-60 MPH).” 

According to The Drive, the performance improvements will only cost owners $1,200 a year. Here’s what owners get: 

• Mercedes-EQ EQE 350 4MATIC (from 288 horsepower to 349 horsepower/0-60 mph from 6.0 to 5.1 seconds)
• Mercedes-EQ EQE SUV 350 4MATIC (from 288 horsepower to 349 horsepower/0-60 mph from 6.2 to 5.2 seconds)
• Mercedes-EQ EQS 450 4MATIC (from 355 horsepower to 443 horsepower/0-60 mph from 5.3 to 4.5 seconds)
• Mercedes-EQ EQS SUV 4MATIC (from 355 horsepower to 443 horsepower/0-60 mph from 5.8 to 4.9 seconds)

Is it worth it? Absolutely no. Those 0-60 mph times are awful when compared to other EVs. Plus, you don’t have to pay extra. This might prove that Mercedes intentionally detuned the EQ models to allow such a subscription. 

This comes several months after BMW introduced the ConnectedDrive Store, a portal for existing owners can download various apps over the air to upgrade features on their vehicle, similar to how Tesla offers upgraded Autopilot subscriptions for a hefty monthly fee. 

However, BMW sparked social media uproar by charging an $18 monthly subscription in some countries for owners to use heated seats already installed in the vehicle. 

Subscription fees appear to be the new normal for the automotive industry to slap customers with to unlock extra technology or performance even though the vehicles already have capabilities. These fees sound like a scam. 

The internet wasn’t too thrilled about this…,

The most ridiculous part of this is that if you purchase the vehicle, you shouldn’t have to spend any additional money on performance for the BASE vehicle. I feel like this would have to be easy to get around through the ECU.

— Tyler Sloboda (@A_Username_Here) November 24, 2022

In case anyone forgot this is “their” plan for us pic.twitter.com/O0MCBRmhVn

— A man has no name 🇨🇩 (@CaptainPree) November 24, 2022

Microtransactions have come to destroy everything we enjoy https://t.co/oK7uiRsZhI

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 24, 2022

Imagine your airbags won’t deploy because you missed a subscription payment 💀

— BalaSiva (@L3VIfps) November 24, 2022

This type of stuff should be made illegal before it’s too late and we’re paying to use our seatbelts

— AxoLofa (@AxoLofa) November 24, 2022

By Michael Every of Rabobank

If you wanted to embody how the turkeys running things react when confronted with the fact that they voted for Thanksgiving and Christmas, it would be Bankman-Fraud being invited to speak at a New York Times event next week alongside Yellen, President Zelenskiy, and Ben Affleck/Batman. Alleged harems, billions of dollars in client money missing, and public accusations it was used as a personal and political piggy bank? Hey – have a seat alongside the global elite (and Batman) to say sorry and tell us about all the good things you did! Madoff obviously wasn’t available.

If only this nonsense were a one-off, but the market heads into the US Thanksgiving holiday in fine mood because ‘the Fed minutes were dovish’, confirming their wrong-all-year view. Yet the compromise between Fed doves, who are there, and Fed hawks, who are running things, is that while the pace of hikes will slow, the ultimate level of rates will be higher. If I carve you with a smaller knife, but more times, is that ‘dovish’? Try ‘turkey-ish’! Philip Marey, well ahead of the Street in calling a 5% peak, has his view here: he thinks 50bp is coming in December, but rates aren’t going down at all until 2024. That’s a sour cranberry, or real stuffing for some turkeys given Treasury yields fell after the minutes, and the dollar sold off.

Note the RBNZ flirted with 100bp yesterday before going a record 75, and are saying their overnight cash rate needs to hit 5.5%, even at the cost of 3-quarter recession. Yes, rates are contractionary there – and they want them to be: “Spend wisely this Christmas,” said Governor Orr as he signed off, literally encouraging Kiwis to not be turkeys, and to save, not spend. Likewise, the BOC governor just told parliament that Canadian rates need to rise even higher because inflation is not under control. Again, note the absence of turkeys.

In China, there is buzz about another cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR). There are still turkeys who think this matters despite umpteen RRR cuts already to no effect. As Covid cases soar, lockdowns intensify, and footage of unrest emerges at the world’s largest iPhone factory, Bloomberg asks, ‘Is a Wealth Tax How Xi Fills China’s Empty Coffers?’ Months ago Western investment banks were piling into ‘wealth management opportunities’; now, some are slashing jobs after seeing only ‘poultry’ returns. Relatedly, Bloomberg flagged ‘High-Yield Party Returns to Emerging Markets Too Cheap to Ignore’ earlier this week; how long until the ‘Oops, They Got a Lot Cheaper’ headline emerges?

In Europe, ECB speakers were generally hawkish. However, European politicians said ‘yelp’ – which is what a turkey says, as well as having the more regular meaning of surprise/panic.

From January, Germany will start a “double-kaboom” policy. Not losing to two late goals in football, which the rest of Europe would love, but a EUR200bn gas and electricity subsidy, which Europe won’t. Households and SMEs will see gas prices capped at 12 EUR cents gross/KwH for 80% of their previous consumption until April 2024, and electricity at 40 EUR cents/KwH. For industry, the gas cap is 7 EUR cents net for 70% of consumption, and electricity is 13 EUR cents plus taxes, levies, and surcharges. Notably, Germany has already faced EU anger over the fact that it can afford to save itself while others can’t: with Germans looking after Germans in this crisis, which Germans looking after Germans got the EU into, expect EU knives to be sharpened.

Moreover, Politico says ‘EU plans subsidy war chest as industry faces ‘existential’ threat from US’, noting: “If it weren’t enough that energy prices look set to remain permanently far higher than those in the US thanks to Russia’s war in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden is also currently rolling out a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act. EU officials fear that businesses will now face almost irresistible pressure to shift new investments to the US rather than Europe. EU industry chief Thierry Breton is warning that Biden’s new subsidy package poses an “existential challenge” to Europe’s economy.

The European Commission and countries including France and Germany have realized they need to act quickly if they want to prevent the Continent from turning into an industrial wasteland… the EU is now working on an emergency scheme to funnel money into key high-tech industries.”

In short, the EU will resist US mercantilism; which is resisting Chinese mercantilism; which Europe has had no issue with for decades. Yet Europe overlooks that they are the least prepared bloc for such a realpolitik backdrop: talk about turkeys voting for Christmas! Indeed, they are saying they will push back against pro-EU President Biden while:

• Running large twin deficits, as the German fiscal deficit is about to get much larger due to the “double-kaboom”, which smells like a potential market Cluster-Truss;
• The EU energy crisis is only being tempered by imports of LNG from the US;
• The EU are reliant on US weapons to fight the must-win war in Ukraine;
• The EU are reliant on exports to the US; and
• The EU are reliant on Eurodollar swaplines from the US to maintain financial stability at a time when the Fed is raising rates, which it still is.

More realistically, the EU also announced a gas price cap that does not actually cap gas prices; and the G7 announced a Russian oil price cap that does not actually cap the price of Russian oil.

On energy, gas prices are low now, but will only rise over 2023. Oil prices are sending a clearer signal, but wait and see what happens if the Fed does what the market wants for Christmas. I have kept saying that when we see long US yields go down and commodities tumble it will mean something: we are seeing that now.

Yet yelp all you want, but that is not compatible with a weaker dollar. If the US is in trouble, try being everyone else with a lag. Mercantilism is a force very much on the US side, and is as much a story for 2023 as any ‘pivots’.

As they say, if you don’t know what’s on the Thanksgiving menu – it’s you.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Nov. 23 filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County.

Lake sued Stephen Richer, the county’s recorder, and other officials in Arizona Superior Court. She’s asking the court to compel the officials to promptly produce records on the administration of the midterm elections, which featured widespread issues in the state’s largest county.

“Given instances of misprinted ballots, the commingling of counted and uncounted ballots, and long lines discouraging people from voting, as demonstrated in the attached declarations, these records are necessary for Plaintiff to determine the full extent of the problems identified and their impacts on electors,” the 19-page suit states.

Maricopa County officials have acknowledged that tabulators across many polling sites stopped working properly on election day. Among the advised solutions was voters placing their ballots into a box to be counted later. Declarations attached to the new suit from poll observers say that workers mixed counted and uncounted ballots in the same container at the end of the night.

Another solution to the tabulator problem was a voter checking out of a site and utilizing a mail-in ballot. To try to figure out the extent of the problems, the Lake campaign on Nov. 15 requested information such as all records related to voters who checked into a site and who also submitted a ballot by mail. The campaign sent another request on Nov. 16. None of the records have been produced yet, which violates Arizona law that public record requests must be fulfilled “promptly,” the suit states.

“We need information from Maricopa County,” Lake said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room.”

“They ran the shoddiest election ever, in history, and we want some information. We’re on a timeline, a very strict timeline when it comes to fighting this botched election. And they’re dragging their feet. They don’t want to give us the information, so we’re asking the courts to force them to give us the information.”

At present, Lake’s opponent Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who serves as Arizona’s secretary of state, is ahead in the race. Maricopa County is scheduled to canvass the results on Nov. 28, with the state following on Dec. 5. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey this week said he’s working to help Hobbs transition to become governor.

The suit asks the court to compel the county to produce the records prior to the canvassing. “This deadline (or its substantial equivalent) is, under the circumstances presented, necessary to ensure that vital public records are furnished promptly and that apparent deficiencies can be remedied before canvassing of the 2022 general election,” it says.

Maricopa County did not return requests for comment on a different lawsuit filed this week by Abe Hamadeh, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, and the Republican National Committee. Its offices were closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

An election worker carries trays filled with mail in ballots to open and verify at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 11, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Attorney General

The office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, recently requested information from Thomas Liddy, the chief of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office’s Civil Division, after receiving hundreds of complaints about issues related to the midterms.

“These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law,” Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright wrote.

“Furthermore, statements made by both Chairman Gates and Recorder Richer, along with information Maricopa County released through official modes of communication appear to confirm potential statutory violations of title 16.”

The information indicated that the county did not uniformly administer the election, as is required by state and federal law, and that poll workers weren’t trained to check out voters who left sites where the tabulators weren’t working right, she added.

Wright requested the information on or before the county submits its canvass to the secretary of state because the issues “relate to Maricopa County’s ability to lawfully certify election results.”

Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors, said in a statement that the county would not delay the canvass.

“Prior to the canvass, the County will respond to a letter from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office requesting information about the administration of the November General Election,” he said at the time.

“Board members received this letter on Saturday night and had a team working on a response all day Sunday, even as staff continued counting votes. We look forward to answering the AG’s questions with transparency as we have done throughout this election.”

Brnovich’s office has not indicated that the county has provided the information, nor has the county said it handed over the information.

Lake said on “War Room” that the county is “trying to run out the clock,” referring to the looming canvass.

Not the ‘Main Case’

At least one other lawsuit is in the works, according to Lake.

“This is not our main case. When our main case drops, they will hear it,” she said.

Lake reiterated that whistleblowers are coming forward and that officials “better think long and hard” before certifying the election in light of the widespread issues that unfolded in Maricopa County.

The forthcoming suit may cite findings from nearly a dozen Republican attorneys who observed the election at Maricopa County sites and attested to the tabulator failures being more widespread than county officials presented.

The issues led to “substantial voter suppression,” attorney Mark Sonnenklar wrote in a memorandum summarizing the findings. Since Republicans voted in larger numbers on the day than Democrats, “such voter suppression would necessarily impact the vote tallies for Republican candidates much more than the vote tallies for Democrat candidates,” he added.

By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

Bloomberg reports EU Talks Stall Over Price Level for Proposed Russian Oil Cap

The EU’s executive arm proposed a level of $65 a barrel, which Poland and the Baltic nations rejected as being too generous to Moscow, the people said. But several countries with major shipping industries, including Greece, don’t want to go below $70, the upper end of the range put forward by the EU earlier Wednesday.

$70 is about where Russian oil known as Urals trades right now. 

Reuters reports EU Split on Russian Oil Price Cap Level, Talks to Resume Thursday

• Representatives of the EU’s 27 governments met in Brussels to discuss a G7 proposal to set the price cap in the range of $65-$70 per barrel, but the level proved too low for some and too high for others.
• Poland, Lithuania and Estonia believe the $65-$70 per barrel would leave Russia with too high a profit, since production costs are around $20 per barrel.
• Cyprus, Greece and Malta – countries with big shipping industries that stand to lose the most if Russian oil cargos are obstructed – think the cap is too low and demand compensation for the loss of business or more time to adjust.

Enforcing the Cap

The kicker is amusing: “EU diplomats said most EU countries, with G7 members France and Germany taking the lead, were supportive of the price cap, worried only about the ability to enforce it.”

This brings us back to how any economist can possibly think such a cap might work.

The Incentive to Cheat

For further discussion of the obvious that many economists refuse to see, please consider the Carnegie article  The Flaw in the Plan to Cap Russian Oil Prices

Whenever countries on sanctions lists face difficulties in selling their natural resources, creative minds will find a way to thwart the proposed measures with help from companies prepared to turn a blind eye to the shady elements of ostensibly legal transactions. Oil shipments could be bundled with some symbolic but pricey services, such as customs services, laboratory analysis, or document translation. Another scheme would involve loading a supposedly full 80,000-ton oil tanker with only 50,000 barrels of oil, bringing the cargo price per barrel closer to the market price.

Such schemes would, of course, require some collusion on the part of intermediary countries, but that is unlikely to be a problem.  In recent months, Malaysia’s oil exports to China have exceeded the country’s actual oil production by one-third. Malaysia also cooperates with Iran and Venezuela in contravention of sanctions regimes. 

Paradoxically, Russia may get some help from the OPEC countries here. For them, an emerging buyers’ cartel risks potentially manipulating the entire oil market and its prices. If the cartel succeeds in forcing Russia to obey its rules, the Arab countries may be next. If Russia counters the price cap by reducing its output, therefore, Saudi Arabia may be reluctant to increase its oil exports to compensate for the reduction, whether it has sufficient available production capacity or not.

Finally, the jury is still out on whether India and China, the biggest new buyers of Russian oil, are prepared to join the price cap coalition.

Western Allies Aim to Agree on Russian Oil Price Cap Wednesday

The Wall Street Journal reports Western Allies Aim to Agree on Russian Oil Price Cap Wednesday emphasis mine.

The aim of the plan, which was pushed hard by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, is to crimp Russian energy exports revenue while avoiding a surge in oil prices when a European embargo on Russian oil imports kicks in early next month. Despite European reluctance at the time, the G-7 first agreed on setting the oil price cap in June following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Aim of the Plan

The aim of the plan is to not eat Russian cake while eating Russian cake.

It’s quite amazing that anyone thinks the plan can possibly work, but president Biden, the EU, Janet Yellen and even prominent economists think the cap is a good idea.

Q&A Why Not?

Q: Why not cap the price of everything and end inflation?
A: Figure it out.

Q: Is it possible a cap might seem to work?
A: Yes. If the cap is set high enough it will be meaningless.

And if by some lucky fate a cap is set where the direction of oil is headed anyway, then the economic illiterates will be hooting and cheering their alleged success.

Why Won’t Caps Work?

• China, India and other countries will not go along. That’s enough right there to show the ridiculousness of the idea.
• Countries in the EU have an incentive to cheat. 

One of Two Things

1. The cap will fail and do nothing.
2. The cap fail spectacularly and drive up the price by re-routing oil headed to the EU to China and India instead. Then the EU will have to get oil from the US or OPEC over longer routes increasing the cost.

The above two points are in isolation. But things should not be viewed in isolation. Given a pending global recession, oil prices are likely to drop anyway.

If they do, then as noted above, the economic illiterates will be hooting and cheering the alleged success of caps.

Related Articles

• Wild Oil Price Swings on an OPEC Rumor Followed by a Denial
• The Biden Oil Fiasco Continues With Export Control Threats
• G-7 Agrees to Cap the Price of Russian Oil Using a Buyer’s Cartel

That third bullet point is from June 27. The US and EU have been struggling since then trying to get agreement on price caps. The bloc still needs approval from all 27 nations on a precise cap.

Many of the above points were also in my November 22 post Under Pressure From the US, EU Agrees to Cap the Price of Russian Oil.

The struggle to get agreement stems from the impossibility of the goal to not eat Russian cake while eating Russian cake. That alone tells you the plan is doomed: this cap idea is so stupid that only economists and politicians are dumb enough to believe it can work. 

By Alex Kimani of OilPrice.com

Plans to introduce price caps on natural gas prices have hit a dead-end after EU energy ministers on Thursday failed to reach an agreement amid deep divisions. 

Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela has, however, said that the ministers did manage to agree on other “important measures”, including joint gas purchases, supply solidarity in times of need and expediting the authorization process for renewable energy. Sikela has also revealed that the ministers will meet again In December to try and work out their differences.

Earlier this week, the European Commission issued a statement whereby it declared what it called a “safety price ceiling” for gas prices set at 275 euros, or $283 dollars, per megawatt-hour.  

The EC also planned to tie benchmark European gas futures prices to the price of liquefied natural gas on the spot market. The “safety price ceiling” would be triggered automatically, when “the front-month TTF derivative settlement price exceeds €275 for two weeks” and, second, when “TTF prices are €58 higher than the LNG reference price for 10 consecutive trading days within the two weeks”.

Both moves have caused trepidation amongst gas traders, “Even a short intervention would have severe, unintended and irreversible consequences in harming market confidence that the value of gas is known and transparent,” said the European Federation of Energy Traders this week.

Earlier in the year, Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, hatched a radical plan to contain the oil price hike. The former European Central Bank president floated the idea of creating a “cartel” of oil consumers at a meeting with Joe Biden in order to increase their bargaining power similar to how the biggest oil-producing nations came together through OPEC to agree annual oil production quotas. The two met at the White House in order to coordinate their positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic fallout from the conflict.

“We are both dissatisfied with the way things work, in terms of oil for the US and in terms of gas for Europe. Prices don’t have any relationship with supply and demand,” Draghi said.

According to Brussels think tank Bruegel, since September 2021, Germany, France, Italy and Spain–four of the largest EU economies–have each spent €20bn-€30bn to artificially lower energy prices. However, these subsidies are viewed as less than ideal since they help to fund Moscow, drain public finances and harm the environment.

Multiple class action lawsuits filed by Jeffrey Epstein accusers accuses JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank of enabling Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse victims by turning a blind eye in order to “churn profits,” Bloomberg reports.

The lawsuits, filed in a New York court, allege the banks had “knowingly benefited and received things of value for assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization.”

JPMorgan was accused in the suit of “financially benefiting from participating” in the alleged sex trafficking through providing financial support from 1998 to August 2013. Deutsche Bank was accused of knowing that they would “earn million of dollars” from its relationship with Epstein. 

Both suits are seeking unspecified damages and ask to be certified as a class action. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman said the claim “lacks merit” and the bank will present its arguments in court. A spokesman for JPMorgan in London declined to comment. -Bloomberg

“Epstein and his co-conspirators could not have victimized without assistance from wealthy individuals and financial institutions,” said Bradley Edwards of Edwards Pottinger, one of the firms representing victims. “We will not stop fighting for the survivors until everyone is held responsible.”

And while Epstein’s client list has remained amazingly concealed during his – and sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell’s trials, the new class-action suits threaten to bring Epstein’s associations back into the spotlight – as a bevy of prominent financiers, entrepreneurs, celebrities, politicians and the British Royal Family have been associated with the dead pedophile (many of whom, like Bill Gates, had no problem hanging out with him after his first conviction).

The UK’s Prince Andrew had to withdraw from public duties after a disastrous television interview about his ties to Epstein. Jes Staley abruptly stepped down as chief executive officer of Barclays Plc last year after UK regulators shared with Barclays the preliminary findings of their multi year probe into what he told the bank’s board about his relationship with Epstein.

Staley has said that he knew Epstein since 2000 when he was head of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s private bank and was told to strike up a professional relationship with the financial adviser. -Bloomberg

“Staley made sure Epstein and his illegal sexual abuse organization was absolutely protected by the bank,” reads the lawsuit, filed Nov. 24.

Meanwhile, anonymous accusers are being represented by David Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner, who represented Virginia Giuffre vs. Prince Andrew in a case which subsequently settled. We’re sure the prominent Democrat attorney wasn’t chosen to protect Epstein’s client list while ensuring Giuffre was also paid.

Epstein, a prolific pedophile who was, by all appearances, running a honeypot operation on prominent men, “was found dead in his US jail cell in 2019,” Bloomberg reports – which omitted any suggestion that he committed suicide.