FEB 22//GOLD CLOSED UP $6.20 TO $1905.50//SILVER ADVANCES ANOTHER 30 CENTS TO $24.27//GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR FEBRUARY DECLINES AGAIN BY 500 OZ TO 58.842 TONNES AS THE BANKERS ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY FINDING GOLD//SILVER OZ STANDING ADVANCES BY A HUGE 635,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP AS NEW STANDING FOR FEB: 9.125 MILLION OZ//COVID UPDATES/VACCINE MANDATES//VACCINE IMPACT//UPDATES ON FREEDOM CONVOY IN CANADA//PUTIN SIGNS ACCORD RECOGOGNIZING THE INDEPENDENCE OF UKRAINE’S TWO BREAKAWAY STATES, DONESK AND LUGANSK//PUTIN THEN SENDS IN PEACEKEEPERS MUCH TO THE ANNOYANCE OF THE WEST//QUESTION THEN: DID HE INVADE UKRAINE?//COMMODITIES RISING TO RECORD LEVELS: 1) CHICKENS 2/ NICKEL/3 LUMBER//GERMANY HALTS NORDSTREAM 2//TWO GOOD READS FOR YOU TONIGHT: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON AND TOM LUONGO//SWAMP STORIES//

February 22, 2022 · by · in Uncategorized · 2 Comments

FEB 22

FEB22

 · by harveyorgan · in Uncategorized · Leave a comment ·Edit

GOLD;  $1905.50 UP $6.20

SILVER: $24.27 UP 30 CENTS

ACCESS MARKET: GOLD $1898.70

SILVER: $24/08

Bitcoin:  morning price: $37,634 DOWN 2401

Bitcoin: afternoon price: $37,874 DOWN 2161

Platinum price: closing UP $3.45 to $1077.30

Palladium price; closing UP $30  at $2345.40

END

end

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comex notices//JPMorgan  notices filed//comex notices//JPMorgan  notices filed 137/450

EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: FEBRUARY 2022 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,898.600000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 02/18/2022 DELIVERY DATE: 02/23/2022
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED

118 C MACQUARIE FUT 19
332 H STANDARD CHARTE 18
363 H WELLS FARGO SEC 51
435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 9
624 H BOFA SECURITIES 170
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 14
661 C JP MORGAN 345 63
661 H JP MORGAN 74
685 C RJ OBRIEN 1
709 C BARCLAYS 104
732 C RBC CAP MARKETS 3
905 C ADM 29

TOTAL: 450 450
MONTH TO DATE: 17,960

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR  FEB. CONTRACT: 450 NOTICE(S) FOR 45,000 OZ  (1.399  TONNES)

total notices so far:  17,960 contracts for 1,7960,000 oz (55.863 tonnes)

SILVER NOTICES: 

517 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR  2,585,000   OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month  1835  :  for 9,175,000  oz

GLD

WITH GOLD UP $6.20

WITH RESPECT TO GLD WITHDRAWALS:  (OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS):

GOLD IS “RETURNED” TO THE BANK OF ENGLAND WHEN CALLING IN THEIR LEASES: THE GOLD NEVER LEAVES THE BANK OF ENGLAND IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE BANK IS PROTECTING ITSELF IN CASE OF COMMERCIAL FAILURE

ALSO INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL  (phys) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD//

A HUGE CHANGES AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 4.65 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.

CLOSING INVENTORY :1024.09 TONNES

Silver//SLV

WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER UP 30 CENTS:/:

AT THE SLV//

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV

A SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV// A DEPOSIT OF 350,000 OZ INTO THE SLV. 

CLOSING INVENTORY: 551.597 MILLION OZ

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER//OUTLINE


SILVER COMEX OI ROSE BY A VERY STRONG 1371 CONTRACTS TO 162,715  AND RESTS CLOSER TO THE NEW RECORD OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND WITH  THIS STRONG GAIN IN OI, IT WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH OUR TINY $0.07 GAIN  IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON FRIDAY.  OUR BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT ROSE BY $0.07) AND WERE  UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING OUT ANY SILVER LONGS  AS WE HAD A VERY STRONG GAIN OF 2530 CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES .

WE  MUST HAVE HAD: 
I) HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING AS THEY ARE VERY ANXIOUS TO GET OUT OF DODGE!!/. II)WE ALSO HAD  SOME  REDDIT RAPTOR BUYING//.   iii)  A  STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS iiii) A HUGE INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 4.110 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 635,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP//NEW STANDING 9.175 MILLION OZ.         V)    STRONG SIZED COMEX OI GAIN.

 I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL: 


THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI SILVER TODAY: CONTRACTS  -438

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS  FEB. ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF FEB: 

TOTAL CONTACTS for 15 days, total  contracts: :  8827 contracts or 44.135 million oz  OR 2.942 MILLION OZ PER DAY. (588 CONTRACTS PER DAY)

TOTAL NO OF OZ UNDERGOING EFP TO LONDON 8827 CONTRACTS X 5,000 PER CONTRACT:

EQUATES TO: 44.135 MILLION OZ

.

LAST 10 MONTHS TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED  IN MILLIONS OF OZ:

MAY 137.83 MILLION

JUNE 149.91 MILLION OZ

JULY 129.445 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: MILLION OZ 140.120 

SEPT. 28.230 MILLION OZ//

OCT:  94.595 MILLION OZ

NOV: 131.925 MILLION OZ

DEC: 100.615 MILLION OZ 

JAN 2022//  90.460 MILLION OZ

FEB 2022:  44.135 MILLION OZ//

SPREADING OPERATIONS

(/NOW SWITCHING TO SILVER) FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS

SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW COMMENCED   AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE  NEW ACTIVE FRONT MONTH OF MAR.WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF SILVER

HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR ;MODUS OPERANDI OF THE CORRUPT BANKERS AS TO HOW THEY HANDLE THEIR SPREAD OPEN INTERESTS:HERE IS HOW THE CROOKS USED SPREADING AS WE ARE NOW INTO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JAN HEADING TOWARDS THE  ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB, FOR GOLD:

YOU WILL ALSO NOTICE THAT THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST  STARTS TO RISE BUT SO IS THE OPEN INTEREST OF SPREADERS. THE OPEN INTEREST IN WILL CONTINUE TO RISE UNTIL ONE WEEK BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE OF AN UPCOMING  ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH (MAR), AND THAT IS WHEN THE CROOKS SELL THEIR SPREAD POSITIONS BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME OF THE DAY.  THEY WILL USE THE SELL SIDE OF THE EQUATION TO CREATE THE CASCADE (ALONG WITH THEIR COLLUSIVE FRIENDS) AND THEN COVER ON THE BUY SIDE OF THE SPREAD SITUATION AT THE END  OF THE DAY. THEY DO THIS TO AVOID POSITION LIMIT DETECTION. THE LIQUIDATION OF THE SPREADING FORMATION CONTINUES FOR EXACTLY ONE WEEK AND ENDS ON FIRST DAY NOTICE.”

RESULT: WE HAD A VERY STRONG SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 1371 DESPITE OUR TINY  $0.07 GAIN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX// FRIDAY  THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A  STRONG  SIZED EFP ISSUANCE OF  694 CONTRACTS( 694 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR MAR AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH  EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX  TO LONDON  AS FORWARDS    THE DOMINANT FEATURE TODAY: /HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING AS THEY GET OUT OF DODGE//// WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR FEB OF 4.1 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 635,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP  //NEW STANDING 9.175, MILLION OZ//  .. WE HAD A VERY STRONG  SIZED GAIN OF 2065 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES FOR 10.325 MILLION OZ//

 WE HAD 517 NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR  2,585,000 OZ

GOLD//OUTLINE

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A STRONG 5455 TO 602,228 AND CLOSER TO  OUR NEW RECORD (SET JAN 24/2020) AT 799,541 AND  PREVIOUS TO THAT: (SET JAN 6/2020) AT 797,110.

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI IN GOLD TODAY: —1497  CONTRACTS.

THE BIS HAS ABANDONED THE GOLD COMEX TRADING!!!

.

THE  STRONG SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI CAME DESPITE OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $1.80//COMEX GOLD TRADING/FRIDAY/.AS IN SILVER WE MUST  HAD  HUGE BANKER/ALGO SHORT COVERING ACCOMPANYING OUR STRONG SIZED EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE. WE HAD ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION  AS THE TOTAL GAIN ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES TOTALED  8445 CONTRACTS…

WE ALSO HAD A HUGE INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR FEB AT 64.3 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 500 OZ E.F.P. JUMP TO LONDON    //NEW STANDING: 58.842 TONNES      

YET ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $1.80 WITH RESPECT TO THURSDAY’S TRADING

WE HAD A STRONG SIZED GAIN OF 8445  OI CONTRACTS (26.267 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A FAIR SIZED  2990 CONTRACTS:

The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 602,228.

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A VERY STRONG SIZED INCREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 8445, WITH 5455 CONTRACTS INCREASED AT THE COMEX AND 2990 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS  TOTAL OI GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 9952 CONTRACTS OR 30.95TONNES.

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A FAIR SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (2990) ACCOMPANYING THE STRONG SIZED GAIN IN COMEX OI (5455,): TOTAL GAIN IN THE TWO EXCHANGES 8445 CONTRACTS. WE NO DOUBT HAD 1) HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING ,2.) HUGE INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR FEB. AT 64.30 TONNES WHICH FOLLOWS TODAY’S  E.F.P.. JUMP TO LONDON OF 500 OZ//NEW STANDING 58.842 TONNES//  3) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION ,4)  STRONG SIZED COMEX OI. GAIN 5) FAIR ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2022 INCLUDING TODAY

FEB

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF FEB :

46,234 CONTRACTS OR 4,623,400 OR 143.80  TONNES 15 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 3082 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE  SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS :  THIS MONTH IN 15 TRADING DAY(S) IN  TONNES: 143.80 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2020, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS  143.80/3550 x 100% TONNES  4.04% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO 2022 

JANUARY/2021: 265.26 TONNES (RAPIDLY INCREASING AGAIN)

 FEB  :  171.24 TONNES  ( DEFINITELY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN).. 

MARCH:.   276.50 TONNES (STRONG AGAIN/

APRIL:      189..44 TONNES  ( DRAMATICALLY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN//GOLD IN BACKWARDATION)

MAY:        250.15 TONNES  (NOW DRAMATICALLY INCREASING AGAIN)

JUNE:      247.54 TONNES (FINAL)

JULY:        188.73 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST:   217.89 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE.

SEPT          142.12 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE ( LOW ISSUANCE)_

OCT:           141.13 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE (LOW ISSUANCE)

NOV:           312.46 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE//NEW RECORD!! (INCREASING DRAMATICALLY)//SIGN OF REAL STRESS//SURPASSING THE MARCH 2021 RECORD OF 276.50 TONNES OF EFP

DEC.           145.12 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE// 

JAN:2022   247.25 TONNES //FINAL

FEB:           143.80 TONNES//INITIAL

WHAT IS ALARMING TO ME, ACCORDING TO OUR LONDON EXPERT ANDREW MAGUIRE IS THAT THESE EFP’S ARE BEING TRANSFERRED TO WHAT ARE CALLED SERIAL FORWARD CONTRACT OBLIGATIONS AND THESE CONTRACTS ARE LESS THAN 14 DAYS.  ANYTHING GREATER THAN 14 DAYS, THESE MUST BE RECORDED AND SENT TO THE COMPTROLLER, GREAT BRITAIN TO MONITOR RISK TO THE BANKING SYSTEM.  IF THIS IS INDEED TRUE, THEN THIS IS A MASSIVE CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD AS WE NOW WITNESS A MONSTROUS TOTAL EFP’S ISSUANCE AS IT HEADS INTO THE STRATOSPHERE. 

First, here is an outline of what will be discussed tonight:

1.Today, we had the open interest at the comex, in SILVER, ROSE BY A VERY STRONG SIZED  1371 CONTRACTS TO 163,153  AND CLOSER TO OUR COMEX RECORD //244,710(SET FEB 25/2020).  THE LAST RECORDS WERE SET  IN AUG.2018 AT 244,196 WITH A SILVER PRICE OF $14.78/(AUGUST 22/2018)..THE PREVIOUS RECORD TO THAT WAS SET ON APRIL 9/2018 AT 243,411 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS WITH THE SILVER PRICE AT THAT DAY: $16.53). AND PREVIOUS TO THAT, THE RECORD  WAS ESTABLISHED AT: 234,787 CONTRACTS, SET ON APRIL 21.2017 OVER  4 1/2 YEARS AGO.  

EFP ISSUANCE 694 CONTRACTS

OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS  AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:

MAR 694  ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE:  694 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON.  IF WE TAKE THE  COMEX OI GAIN OF 1371 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 694 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,

WE OBTAIN A VERY STRONG SIZED GAIN OF 2065 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACT FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 10.325 MILLION  OZ, 

OCCURRED WITH OUR  $0.07 GAIN IN PRICE.

OUTLINE FOR TODAY’S COMMENTARY

1/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

(report Harvey)

2 ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe,

(Peter Schiff,

3. Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

4. Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

5. Other gold commentaries

6. Commodity commentaries/cryptocurrencies

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)TUESDAY MORNING// FRIDAY  NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 33.47 PTS OR 0.96%       //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 650.07 PTS OR 2.69%  /The Nikkei closed DOWN 461.26 or 1.71%       //Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED DOWN 1.13%  /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP 6.3277    /Oil UP TO 93,84 dollars per barrel for WTI and UP TO 97.52 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED  ALL MIXED       //  ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP AGAINST THE DOLLAR AT 6.3277. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.3228: /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING BELOW LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN  TRADING STRONGER AGAINST USA DOLLAR/OFF SHORE STRONGER/

A)NORTH KOREA//USA/OUTLINE

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

OUTLINE

3 C CHINA

OUTLINE

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

6.Global Issues

OUTLINE

7. OIL ISSUES

OUTLINE

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

 COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS

GOLD

LET US BEGIN:

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A STRONG SIZED 5455 CONTRACTS  AND CLOSER TO THE RECORD THAT WAS SET IN JANUARY/2020: {799,541  OI(SET JAN 16/2020)} AND  PREVIOUS TO THAT: 797,110 (SET JAN 7/2020). AND THIS   COMEX INCREASE OCCURRED DESPITE OUR LOSS OF $1.80 IN GOLD PRICING FRIDAY’S COMEX TRADING. WE ALSO HAD A FAIR SIZED EFP (2990 CONTRACTS). . THEY WERE PAID HANDSOMELY  NOT TO TAKE DELIVERY AT THE COMEX AND SETTLE FOR CASH. 

WE NORMALLY HAVE WITNESSED  EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS ISSUED BEING SMALL AS IT JUST TOO COSTLY FOR THEM TO CONTINUE SERVICING THE COSTS OF SERIAL FORWARDS CIRCULATING IN LONDON. HOWEVER, MUCH TO THE ANNOYANCE OF OUR BANKERS, THE COMEX IS THE SCENE OF AN ASSAULT ON GOLD AS LONDONERS, NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND ANY PHYSICAL ON THAT SIDE OF THE POND, EXERCISE THESE CIRCULATING EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN LONDON AND FORCING DELIVERY OF REAL METAL OVER HERE AS THE OBLIGATION STILL RESTS WITH NEW YORK BANKERS. IT SEEMS THAT ARE BANKERS FRIENDS ARE EXERCISING EFP’S FROM LONDON AND NOW THEY ARE LOATHE TO ISSUE NEW ONES.

EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE

WE ARE NOW MOVING TO THE   ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB..  THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A FAIR SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS.,

THAT IS 2990 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED:  ;: ,   & FEB. 0 APRIL: 2990 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE:  2990 CONTRACTS 

WHEN WE HAVE BACKWARDATION,  EFP ISSUANCE IS VERY COSTLY BUT THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE SCARCITY OF METAL AND IT IS FAR BETTER FOR OUR BANKERS TO PAY OFF INDIVIDUALS THAN RISK INVESTORS ESPECIALLY FROM LONDON STANDING FOR DELIVERY. THE LOWER PRICES IN THE FUTURES MARKET IS A MAGNET FOR OUR LONDONERS SEEKING PHYSICAL METAL. BACKWARDATION ALWAYS EQUAL SCARCITY OF METAL!

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A VERY STRONG  9952 TOTAL CONTRACTS IN THAT 2990 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A STRONG  COMEX OI GAIN OF 6962  CONTRACTS..

// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR FEB   (58.842),

 HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021:

DEC 2021: 112.217 TONNES

NOV.  8.074 TONNES

OCT.    57.707 TONNES

SEPT: 11.9160 TONNES

AUGUST: 80.489 TONNES

JULY: 7.2814 TONNES

JUNE:  72.289 TONNES

MAY 5.77 TONNES

APRIL  95.331 TONNES

MARCH 30.205 TONNES

FEB ’21. 113.424 TONNES

JAN ’21: 6.500 TONNES.

TOTAL SO FAR THIS YEAR (JAN- DEC): 601.213 TONNES

FEB 2022: 58.842 TONNES

THE BANKERS WERE  SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE  //// (IT FELL $1.80) BUT  THEY WERE  UNSUCCESSFUL IN FLEECING ANY LONGS AS WE HAVE  REGISTERED A STRONG GAIN OF 26.267 TONNES OF TOTAL OI, ACCOMPANYING OUR HUGE GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR FEB (58.842 TONNES)…

WE HAD  –1497 CONTRACTS REMOVED FROM COMEX TRADES. THESE WERE REMOVED AFTER TRADING ENDED LAST NIGHT

NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 8445 CONTRACTS OR 844500 OZ OR 26.267 TONNES

Estimated gold volume today: 335,587 /// STRONG//FROM FRI AFTERNOON, SAT, SUN, MON AND TUES

Confirmed volume yesterday: 168,624 contracts  fair 

INITIAL STANDINGS FOR FEB ’22 COMEX GOLD //FEB 22

GoldOunces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory in oznil oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory in oz11,767.253 oz
Brinks 343 kilobars
Delaware: 96.453 oz
3 kilobars
total:346 kilobars
Deposit to the Dealer Inventory in oz15,683.230 OZ
Manfra 
Deposits to the Customer Inventory, in oznil
No of oz served (contracts) today450  notice(s)45,000 OZ
1.3999 TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)958 contracts 95,800 oz
2.979 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month17,960 notices1,796,000 OZ
55.863 TONNES
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers inventory this monthNIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer inventory this monthxxx oz

For today:

one dealer deposit 

Into Manfra:  15,683.230 oz

No dealer withdrawal 0

0 customer deposit

total deposit: nil oz

2 customer withdrawals

i) Out of Brinks:  11,670.800 oz 363 kilobars

ii) Out of Delaware:  96.43 oz (3 kilobars)

total withdrawals:  11,767.213     oz  

ADJUSTMENTS:  1/ customer to dealer//JPMorgan

33,336.276oz

CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR FEBRUARY.

For the front month of FEBRUARY we have an oi of 1408 stand LOSING 37 contracts. 

We had 32 contracts served upon yesterday, so we LOST 5 contracts or an additional 500 oz will NOT stand on this side of the pond looking for gold metal.

The month of March saw a GAIN OF 137 contracts and thus the OI standing is 4562.

April saw a GAIN of 4176 contracts UP to 470,981.

June saw a gain of 593 contracts up to 73,324 contracts

We had 450 notice(s) filed today for 45000  oz FOR THE FEB 2022 CONTRACT MONTH. 


Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer account and 385 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equates to 450  contract(s) of which 74  notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 63 notice(s) was (were) stopped/ Received) by J.P.Morgan//customer account and 0  notice(s) received (stopped) by the squid  (Goldman Sachs)

To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the FEB /2021. contract month, 

we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (17,960) x 100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of  (FEB: 1408 CONTRACTS ) minus the number of notices served upon today  450 x 100 oz per contract equals 1,891,800 OZ  OR 58.842 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this  active month of FEB. 

thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the FEB contract month:

No of notices filed so far (17,960) x 100 oz+   (1408)  OI for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (450} x 100 oz} which equals 1,891,800 oz standing OR 58.842 TONNES in this  active delivery month of FEB.

We LOST 5 contracts or an additional 500 oz will NOT  stand for gold over here

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING:  58.842 TONNES  (HUGE FOR A FEBRUARY DELIVERY MONTH)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

157,392.690, oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC  4.89 TONNES

125,410.592 PLEDGED  MANFRA 2.90 TONNES

54,339.114oz PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1  1.690

278,349.354, oz  JPM No 2  8.65 TONNES

898,821.330 oz pledged  Brinks/27,96 TONNES

12,249,333 oz International Delaware:  0..3810 tonnes

Loomis: 18,615.429 oz

total pledged gold:  1,543,731.047 oz                                     48.01 tonnes

TOTAL REGISTERED AND ELIZ GOLD AT THE COMEX: 32,664,675.447  OZ (1016.00 TONNES)

TOTAL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 15,389,052.621 OZ (478.664 tonnes)

TOTAL OF ALL REGISTERED GOLD: 17,275,622.828 OZ  (537.34 tonnes)

REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 15,731,891.0 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD)  489.32 tonnes

END

FEBRUARY 2022 CONTRACT MONTH//SILVER

INITIAL STANDING FOR SILVER//FEB 22

SilverOunces
Withdrawals from Dealers InventoryNIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory370,474.080  oz
Brinks
CNT
Manfra
Delaware
Deposits to the Dealer InventorynilOZ
Deposits to the Customer Inventory1,111,185.450 oz
CNT
Delaware
No of oz served today (contracts)517CONTRACT(S)
2,585,000  OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)0 contracts (NIL oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)1835 contracts
 9,135,000 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers inventory this monthNIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer inventory this month

And now for the wild silver comex results

we had 0 deposits into the dealer

total dealer deposits:  nil       oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: nil oz

We have 2 deposits into the customer account

i) Into Delaware  511,940.840 oz

ii) Into CNT  599,244.610 oz

total deposit:  1,111,185.450 oz

JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 183.476 million oz/351.678 million =52.14% of comex 

ii) Comex withdrawals: 4

a)Out of CNT 12,196.430 oz

b) Out of Manfra  99,403.900 oz

c) Out of Delaware:  970,800 oz

d) Out of Brinks:  257,902.95 oz

total withdrawal 370,474.080 oz

we had 4 adjustments//all dealer to customer account

i) Brinks  138,515,120 oz

ii) CNT  1,401,346.000 oz

iii) Loomis: 308,148.610 oz

iv) Manfra: 399,760.650 oz

the silver comex is in stress!

TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 81.648 MILLION OZ

TOTAL REG + ELIG. 351.678 MILLION OZ

CALCULATION OF SILVER OZ STANDING FOR FEBRUARY

silver open interest data:

FRONT MONTH OF FEB//2022 OI: 517 CONTRACTS GAINING 127 contracts on the day. We had  0 contracts served upon yesterday.

So we gained 127 contracts or an additional 635,000 oz will stand for silver on this side of the pond.

FOR MARCH WE HAD A LOSS OF 3947 CONTRACTS DOWN TO 47,776 CONTRACTS.

APRIL HAD A 8 GAIN// CONTRACTS RISING TO 301

MAY HAD A  GAIN OF 4278 CONTRACTS UP TO 92,689 contracts

 .

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 517 for 2,585,000 oz

Comex volumes: 135,526// est. volume today//strong//Fri Sat Sun Mon, Tues

Comex volume: confirmed FRIDAY: 72,646 contracts (FAIR)

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in FEB. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at  1835 x 5,000 oz =. 9,175,000 oz 

to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of FEB (517) and the number of notices served upon today 517 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the  standings for silver for the FEB./2021 contract month: 1836 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for front month of FEB (517)  – number of notices served upon today (517) x 5000 oz of silver standing for the FEB contract month equates 9,175,000 oz. .

We gained 127 CONTRACTS OR 635,000 ADDITIONAL oz of silver will stand at the comex.

the record level of silver open interest is 234,787 contracts set on April 21./2017 with the price on that day at $18.42. The previous record was 224,540 contracts with the price at that time of $20.44

END

GLD AND SLV INVENTORY LEVELS:

GLD

FEB 22/WITH GOLD UP $6.20: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 4.65 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1024.09 TONNES

FEB 18/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.80: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1019.44 TONNES

FEB 17/WITH GOLD UP $29.50: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1019.44 TONNES

FEB 16/WITH GOLD UP 414.60 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1019.44 TONNES

FEB 15/WITH GOLD DOWN $12.70 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1019.44 TONNES

FEB 14/WITH GOLD UP $27.20 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1019.44 TONNES

FEB 11/WITH GOLD UP $4.50 A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD IVNETORY AT THE GLD// A DEPOSIT OF 3.48 TONNES INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1019.44 TONES

FEB 10/WITH GOLD UP $1.00: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1015.96 TONNES

FEB 9/WITH GOLD UP $8.05//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1015.96 TONNES

FEB 8/WITH GOLD UP $5.95 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 4.36 TONNES INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1015.96 TONNES

FEB 7/WITH GOLD UP $14.00 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.24 TONNES FROM THE GLD/////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1011.60 TONNES//

FEB 4/WITH GOLD UP $3.40 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.75 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.84 TONNES

FEB 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.55: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.45 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1016.59 TONNES

FEB 2/WITH GOLD UP $7.95//A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 3.78 TONES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1018.04 TONNES

FEB 1/WITH GOLD UP $5.40: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 31/WITH GOLD UP $10.10//NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 28/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.30//NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $36.15//ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.16 TONNES INTO THE GLD.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 26/WITH GOLD DOWN $21.60 A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 4.65 TONNES INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1013.10 TONNES

JAN 25/WITH GOLD UP $10.40 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1008.45 TONNES

JAN 24/WITH GOLD UP $10.10 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: AN UNBELIEVABLE DEPOSIT OF 27.59 TONNES INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1008.45 TONNES

JAN 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $10.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.86 TONNES

JAN 20/WITH GOLD UP $.20 TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .58 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.86 TONNES

JAN 19/WITH GOLD UP $29.65 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A DEPOSIT OF 5.27 TONNES INTO THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 981.44 TONNES

JAN 18/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.25//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 14/ WITH GOLD DOWN $5.25/NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 13/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.75: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 12/WITH GOLD UP $8.65//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 11/WITH GOLD UP $19.25/A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES FROM THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 10/WITH GOLD UP $2.00/NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 977.08 TONNES

CLOSING INVENTORY FOR THE GLD//1024.09 TONNES

Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them

FEB 22/WITH SILVER UP 30 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 350,000 OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 551.597 MILLION OZ//

FEB 18/WITH SILVER UP 7 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.017 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 551.227 MILLION OZ

FEB 17/WITH SILVER UP 31 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.402 MILLION OZ//INVENTORY RESTS AT 550.210 MILLION OZ/

FEB 16/WITH SILVER UP 21 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 547.808 MILLIONOZ

FEB 15/WITH SILVER DOWN 46 CENTS TODAY : NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 547.808 MILLION OZ//

FEB 14/WITH SILVER UP 49 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 3.235 MILLION OZ INTO THES LV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 547.808 MILLION OZ

FEB 11/WITH SILVER DOWN 18 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.573 MILLION OZ///

SLV/FEB 10/WITH SILVER UP 19 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.573 MILLION OZ//

FEB 9/WITH SILVER UP 14 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.573 MILLION OZ//

FEB 8/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 3.143 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 544.573 MILLION OZ//

FEB 7/WITH SILVER UP 52 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.218 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 541.430 MILLION OZ/

FEB 4/WITH SILVER UP 16 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 539.212 MILION OZ

FEB 3/WITH SILVER DOWN 35 CENTS: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT539.212 MILLION OZ//

FEB 2/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 5.411 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 539.212 MILLION OZ/

FEB 1/WITH SILVER UP 18 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.801 MILLION OZ

JAN 31/WITH SILVER UP 7 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.202 MILLION OZ FORM THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.801 MILLION OZ//

JAN 28/WITH SILVER DOWN 36 CENTS : NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 27/WITH SILVER DOWN $1.13 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 26/WITH SILVER DOWN 7 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 25/WITH SILVER UP 10 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.311 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ/

.JAN 24/WITH SILVER DOWN 48 CENTS TODAY: A MASSIVE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 4.8 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 532.692 MILLION OZ//.

JAN 21/WITH SILVER DOWN 41 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.792 MILLION OZ

JAN 20/WITH SILVER UP 52 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.998 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.792 MILLION OZ

JAN 19/WITH SILVER UP 71 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.942 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 525.804 MILLION OZ

JAN 18/WITH SILVER UP 51 CENTS TODAY: TWO HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: 2 WITHDRAWALS OF 1.11 MILLION OZ AND 1.424 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.246 MILLION OZ//

JAN 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 21 CENTS: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 529.780 MILLION OZ//

JAN 13/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 832,000 OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 529.780 MILLION OZ

JAN 12/WITH SILVER UP 38 CENTS TODAY : NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//

JAN 11/WITH SILVER  UP 33 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ/.

JAN 10/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//.

SLV FINAL INVENTORY FOR TODAY: 551.597 MILLION OZ//

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES

1.PETER SCHIFF

end

2.LAWRIE WILLIAM//,//Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, James  RICKARD

LAWRIE WILLIAMS: No war yet. Gold price supported by fear element

As we suggested at the end of last week, Russia seems to have held off on any Ukraine invasion so far despite strident warnings by Western media and prominent politicians that military action was imminent and inevitable. We don’t necessarily agree and think the President Putin is making a point, albeit an extremely expensive one, regarding what Russia sees as NATO encroachment eastwards contrary to what it reckons were Western commitments not to do so. Ukraine joining NATO, which it apparently has aspirations to do, would be a step too far and would be considered an overtly hostile act by the Russians. Enough is already more than enough in their view.

The dangers of a Russia/Ukraine military conflict could be immense in global terms. If Russia perceives Ukraine joining NATO as a realistic threat, it might well retaliate by placing missiles in Cuba (again) and a number of Latin American nations with which it has increasingly strong alliances. Tensions could roll over into east Asia too with President Xi taking a leaf out of the Putin book and ramping up pressure on Taiwan which it has long claimed to be an integral part of China.

Also, in conjunction with North Korea, China could try and pressurise the U.S. to withdraw its military presence from the Republic of Korea (RoK) and the prospect of some kind of naval military action in the South China Sea between the Chinese and U.S. navies could become a reality.

Geopolitical action pitting one nuclear-armed superpower against another has to be making the whole world a more dangerous place for us all. Increasingly bitter confrontational rhetoric could easily become a trigger for military involvement, as it has done in the past. East and West could be painting themselves into a corner from which the only exit might result in a local engagement, which could easily spill out of control with global implications. Modern weaponry makes this an increasingly frightening prospect.

Maybe the above all represents an unlikely worst case scenario. But then nobody could perhaps have foreseen that a 1914 assassination of a Grand Duke and his wife in Sarajevo could have led to a conflict which saw the deaths of millions. Furthermore it probably destabilised the world as we know it for nearly half a century leading, ultimately, to a second global conflict which led to the deaths of millions more. Be warned.

With U.S. markets closed for Presidents Day today, gold and silver have been marked down in Europe – presumably on the non-occurrence of a Russia/Ukraine invasion so far. However off-market trade in the U.S. may well see them bounce back again during the day given the U.S. media’s almost universal obsession with the likelihood of conflict, supported by numerous supposed intelligence reports of Russia being about to launch an imminent offensive.

We shall see, but with the prospect of a military stalemate given the balance of power on both sides of the Ukraine border Russia may be reluctant to launch an attack if there is any chance that it might be repulsed if it were to do so. Anything apart from a rapid capitulation of Kyiv, which is by no means a certainty, might be seen as a defeat for the Russian army, which would reduce its perceived invincibility in an open warfare situation against a considered weaker opponent like Ukraine. To us the risk element is too high for Russia to risk a full-scale onslaught.

However as long as the invasion threat continues – and there seems to be little sign of any de-escalation – safe haven assets like gold will almost certainly remain strong. If this is coupled with risk asset price deterioration, which may well be forthcoming given the possible effects of global central bank attempts to minimise inflation levels through the imposition of higher interest rates, then this could be doubly so. In our view, equities and bitcoin are in a bubble which has the potential to burst dramatically which would definitely be to the longer term benefit of precious metals, although they may suffer also from temporary selling pressure as funds and institutions struggle for liquidity if such a scenario develops.

With so many stocks, particularly in the tech sector, trading at levels based on seemingly unattainable short to medium term profit projections an equity shake-out looks to be inevitable. And, as for bitcoin, this has been a speculator’s dream with little inherent value and has to be ripe for a huge meltdown Talk about assets built on horrendously weak foundations! There has to be a huge coterie of social media-inspired speculators out there who have little or no concept of market realities. When the market turns against them, as it undoubtedly will, the downfall can be rapid and financially devastating.

The only real protection therefore has to be investment in assets like gold, which has a long history of retaining, or even increasing, in value when other assets are in strong decline. Stick with investment safety which has stood the tests of time for long term wealth protection.

-END-

3.  Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

The PCE is the Fed’s favourite indicator for inflation and its report is coming this week. It should register north of 5%

(Bloomberg/GATA)

Another U.S. inflation gauge is heading even higher this week

Submitted by admin on Sun, 2022-02-20 11:54Section: Daily Dispatches

By Vince Golle
Bloomberg News
Sunday, February 20, 2022

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues in the coming week can expect to see their key inflation metric accelerate to a fresh four-decade high last seen when Paul Volcker led the U.S. central bank.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, which the Fed uses for its inflation target, probably jumped 6% in January from a year earlier, according to the median of a Bloomberg survey of economists. The core measure, which excludes food and fuel, is forecast to climb 5.2%. 

Less than a month before the Fed’s next policy meeting, a sharper-than-projected advance in the price gauge could turn up the heat for a half-point increase in the benchmark interest rate. 

January’s consumer-price index rose more than forecast, with broad advances in the costs of goods and services. …

… For the remainder of the report:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-19/another-u-s-inflation-gauge-is-heading-even-higher-eco-week

END

O’Byrne is perfectly correct:  gold has been held back by futures rigging

(Palisades Radio/O’Byrne/GATA)

Gold has been held back mainly by futures market rigging, O’Byrne says

Submitted by admin on Sun, 2022-02-20 17:00Section: Daily Dispatches

5:41p ET Sunday, February 20, 2022

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Interviewed last week by Tom Bodrovics for Palisades Gold Radio, Mark O’Byrne, formerly of GoldCore, more recently founder of the HealthWealthGold consultancy, says the main reason gold has not performed as well as expected is manipulation of its price in the futures market as GATA has documented.

The interview with O’Byrne is 38 minutes long is can be seen at YouTube here:

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

END

Ron Paul on the inflation hitting USA consumers

(Ron Paul/GATA)

Ron Paul: The Fed is the enemy of American workers

Submitted by admin on Mon, 2022-02-21 19:22Section: Daily Dispatches

By Ron Paul
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, Clute, Texas
Monday, February 21, 2022

According to numbers released by the US government, consumer prices have increased by 7.5 percent in the past year, the steepest increase since 1982. The actual price increases are even worse than the government numbers suggest, given that the “official”  statistics are manipulated to understate the real rate of price increases.

According to John Williams of ShadowStats, prices have actually increased by around 15 percent over the past year.

The fact that prices remain at historically high levels shows that inflation is far from “transitory,” as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell had described it. The continuing inflation has led the Federal Reserve Board to suggest the Fed will start increasing interest rates earlier than previously announced. The Fed may also break with its practice of only raising rates by 25 basis points at a time and increase rates by increments of up to 50 basis points. However, the increases the Fed is discussing would still leave interest rates at historic lows. Thus, such interest rate increases would do little or nothing to ease the pain rising prices cause for average consumers.

Most policy “experts” and politicians, including President Biden, support interest rate increases to deal with inflation. However, some progressives oppose raising rates. Opponents of rate increases fear that increasing interest rates will slow economic growth, increase unemployment, and depress wages. These progressives believe the old fallacy that workers benefit from easy money. The truth is workers are inflation’s main victims.

Workers may see their nominal pay (pay unadjusted for inflation) increase while the Fed-produced price increases cause real wages to plummet. That is certainly the case today. In contrast, the Federal Reserve’s money creation benefits crony capitalists who receive the new money created by the Fed before the injection of new money causes prices to rise. This increases the elite’s purchasing power, furthering income inequality. …

… For the remainder of the commentary:

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/february/21/the-federal-reserve-enemy-of-american-workers/

end

4.OTHER GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

END

5.OTHER COMMODITIES/LUMBER

Lumber at record highs and thus the cost to build a house rises!

(zerohedge)

Lumber Prices Have Never Been This High Ahead Of Spring Building Season

SATURDAY, FEB 19, 2022 – 04:40 PM

The spring construction season is about to begin as homeowners face some of the highest lumber prices ever for this time of year. 

March lumber futures in Chicago closed at $1,270 per 1,000 board ft. in Chicago on Friday, up more than 36% since the beginning of the month due to tighter Canadian supplies ahead of the spring building season. 

Bloomberg reports the increase in lumber prices comes as Canfor Corporation, the world’s third-largest integrated forest products company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, announced a supply cut of 150 million board feet of production due to mountain pine beetle infestation that has devastated trees. Simultaneously, West Fraser Timber Co, the world’s largest timber company, reported port congestion and truck and rail car shortage make it challenging to transport lumber to buyers. 

“In Western Canada, these transportation challenges are really unprecedented in both scale and duration,” West Fraser Chief Executive Officer Ray Ferris told investors on an earnings call last Wednesday. 

Over three decades, lumber prices have never been higher for this time of year as the first and third-largest timber companies report supply woes.

Ferris said lumber and plywood shipments fell 20% year-over-year, and pulp shipments plunged 30% in January. He also said shipping “products in a timely manner remains challenged,” warning the company might be forced to take “unscheduled downtime” due to the transportation problems.

Tight lumber supplies ahead of the spring construction season in North America are likely to add more housing inflation to not just prospective homebuyers but also homeowners who want to remodel their kitchens or bathrooms. 

Add lumber to the list of the “shortage of everything,” as Goldman Sachs’ head commodity strategist and one of the closest-followed analysts on Wall Street, Jeffery Currie told Bloomberg TV last week, “We’re out of everything, I don’t care if it’s oil, gas, coal, copper, aluminum, you name it we’re out of it.”

end

5 Commodities That Could Explode As The Ukraine Crisis Escalates

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 11:45 AM

Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com,

  • As tensions between Ukraine and Russia reach a boiling point, several key commodities could be impacted.
  • Russia accounts for ~6% of global aluminum supply, and any sanctions against Moscow could result in a supply shock in an already-tight market.
  • Oil and natural gas supplies are also likely to be strained if the situation worsens in Ukraine.

Escalating tensions in Eastern Europe over Russia’s looming invasion of Ukraine as well as prospects of sanctions against Russia are fueling fears of supply shocks in the commodity markets. After several weeks of joint military drills ended last week, Russia was supposed to start pulling back troops, but that is currently not happening, with as many as 190,000 Russian troops still camping out on Ukraine’s border and Belarus confirming that 30,000 of them would stay in the country indefinitely.

Last-ditch diplomacy doesn’t appear to be working either: in a bid to avert the biggest war in Europe since 1945, French President Emmanuel Macron took to the phone over the weekend and managed to arrange a meeting between Vladimir Putin and President Biden. However, the U.S. only agreed to the summit “in principle,” meaning it’s conditioned on Moscow holding off on an invasion. Russia appears to be continuing preparations for a full-scale assault on Ukraine, with president Biden’s administration warning that an invasion could happen any time now.

U.S. lawmakers have said they are devising the “mother of all sanctions” against Russia as a method of defending Ukraine that would be “crippling to [the Russian] economy.”

Here are 5 key commodities that are likely to be hardest hit if Russia invades Ukraine.

#1. Aluminum

Russia accounts for ~6% of global aluminum supply, and an escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine raises the likelihood of a supply shock in an already tight aluminum market.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Russia made roughly 3.7 million metric tons of aluminum in 2021, with world production of the metal amounting to about 68 million metric tons. Data by  CIA World Factbook shows that China is the world’s biggest aluminum producer, making about 39 million metric tons in 2021, but Russia is also a large exporter of the commodity.

Aluminum prices have risen about 15% year to date, with prices near multiyear highs, but could still rise further. Jefferies analyst Christopher LaFemini says that even if geopolitical risks in Europe subside, aluminum prices probably would decline at first before rising again as the market deficit likely would persist.

[ZH: In fact, Aluminum prices have soared this morning, back near 2008’s record highs…]

Meanwhile, shares of one of the world’s largest aluminum producers Alcoa Corp. (NYSE:AA)  have jumped 270% over the past year and 31.3% YTD. LaFemina has raised his price target to a Street-high $90 from $75, good for 15% upside, while reiterating his Buy recommendation on escalating fears that reduced supplies from Russia.

#2. Oil 

Russia is an oil and gas powerhouse, with the country pumping about 9 million barrels of crude oil a day. In comparison, the U.S. pumps about 11.6 million barrels while global oil production runs to roughly ~96 million barrels per day.

Benchmark international crude oil prices are up about 20% year-to-date to trade near seven-year highs, with the oil markets facing supply headwinds.

OPEC+ has been setting a high bar for itself, boosting production quotas by 400kb/d each month since mid-2021. The group has consistently missed budgets, and there are signs that things are getting worse. The “OPEC 10,” countries within OPEC but excluding Venezuela, Libya and Iran, were budgeted to increase production by 254kb/d in January, with the remainder of the 400kb/d quota allocated to Russia and others.  Official results released a few weeks ago indicate that OPEC 10 had increased production only 135kb/d, and now sits a full 748kb/d below self-imposed quota levels. 

Outside of the core 10, Libyan and Venezuelan volumes fell while Iranian volumes increased. In total, the three countries saw volumes fall 33kb/d month on month. Meanwhile, Russian volumes for January increased 85kb/d, compared to the country’s budgeted 100kb/d increase. 

In a break from recent history, there doesn’t appear to be a strong supply response to rising prices and declining inventories. When Chevron (NYSE:CVX) reported Q4 results two weeks ago, the company guided the street to flay YoY production in 2022. Exxon (NYSE:XOM) did the same, as did BP (NYSE:BP) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP). Bakken producer Whiting (NYSE:WLL) announced they plan to increase capex 55% in 2022 and acquire assets to generate only ~3% production growth. Driller Nabors (NYSE:NBR) reported earnings Tuesday and indicated they don’t expect to add any rigs outside the US in Q1.

Veteran strategist David Roche has predicted that oil prices will “certainly” hit $120 a barrel, and the global economy will be “radically altered” if Russia invades Ukraine.

#3. Natural Gas

Russia is a leading producer of natural gas, pumping about 639 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2021, or nearly 17% of global production of 3.854 trillion cubic meters as per BP data.

European natural gas prices have hit new highs after a pipeline that brings Russian gas to Germany switched flows to the east. Westward gas flows through the 2,607-mile-long Yamal-Europe pipeline, one of the major routes for Russian gas to Europe, have been gradually falling, a move the Kremlin says has no political implications.

Some western politicians contend that Russia is using its natural gas as a weapon in the political tussle tied to Ukraine, as well as delays in the certification of another controversial pipeline, Nord Stream 2. Russia, of course, has denied any connection.

In the event that Russia’s gas supplies to Europe dry up, U.S. gas producers are likely to step in to supply Europe with liquefied natural gas, which would imply a large increase in demand and potentially cause a quick reduction of domestic inventories of natural gas.

[ZH: Medvedev has already warned that gas prices will soar…]

The United States is set to become the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter in the current year, surpassing Qatar and Australia over the course of the year once the new LNG liquefaction units, called trains, at Sabine Pass and Calcasieu Pass in Louisiana are placed in service by the end of the year.

Global LNG demand has hit record highs each year since 2015, thanks in large part to surging demand in China and the rest of Asia. Much of that global appetite has been steadily met by rising U.S. LNG exports, which have reached new records every year since 2016, a trend that appears set to continue.

#4. Copper 

USGS data shows that Russia produced 920,000 tonnes of refined copper in 2021, about 3.5% of the world total, out of which Nornickel produced 406,841 tonnes.

UMMC and Russian Copper Company are the other two major producers, with Asia and Europe being Russia’s key export markets.

Prices of green metals, including copper, are projected to reach historical peaks for an unprecedented, sustained period in a net-zero emissions scenario. Copper prices are sitting at all-time highs thanks to surging demand, especially in developed countries, with increasing usage in electric vehicles and wind farms, solar panels and the power grid, combined with tight supply. 

Benchmark copper prices on the London Metal Exchange are currently sitting at $10,100 per ton, not far removed from its May 2021 all-time high of 10,724.50 per ton. 

Copper is being billed as the new oil, with the ‘green’ shift in the post-COVID economy supporting higher demand for copper and other base metals since EVs use about 4x more copper than gasoline-powered vehicles. The International Copper Association estimates that the rapid rise of EVs will raise copper demand in EVs from 185,000 tonnes in 2017 to 1.74 million tonnes by 2027.

Source: International Copper Association

Copper is indispensable to infrastructure builders and is mainly used to make electric cables.  In fact, copper is known for its uncanny ability to predict the health of the world economy. 

Goldman Sachs estimates that copper demand will grow nearly 600%, to 5.4 million tons by 2030, thanks mainly to the green transition. 

Another factor driving copper prices: Tightening supplies.

According to Goldman, the market could face an 8.2m ton supply gap by 2030, with new mine development being limited for the past decade as mining companies remain cautious about doubling down on new developments amid rising costs.  Quite frequently, promising mines are located in locations that are difficult to access by large equipment. Further, as is common with many metals, developing copper mines requires long lead times, while environmental concerns make it increasingly difficult to acquire mining permits.

In a recent note, Goldman says that copper prices are poised to grow as demand outpaces supply since the concentrate market is very tight, particularly in China. The bank has a 3-month a 12-month price target of $11,500 per tonne.

Sanctions on Russia are likely to lead to even tighter supply and another short-term rally.

#5. Cobalt

According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Russia produced 7,600 tonnes of cobalt last year, more than 4% of the world total.

However, Russia was a distant second to the Democratic Republic of Congo which produced 120,000 tonnes. Nornickel (GMKN.MM) is the largest producer in Russia, selling 5,000 tonnes in 2021. Nornickel sells most of its output to Europe. Nornickel is also the world’s top producer of refined nickel, producing 193,006 tonnes in 2021 or about 7% of global mine production, estimated at 2.7 million tonnes. The company sells to global industrial consumers under long-term contracts.

After climbing more than 90% in 2021, mainly due to supply chain issues, cobalt prices are expected to stabilize in 2022, especially with EV makers like Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and manufacturers in China popularizing lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery chemistries.

In a recent note, S&P Global Platts said cobalt prices are set to fall 8.3% in 2022 as supply chain bottlenecks ease. Sanctions on Russia are, therefore, unlikely to have a major impact on cobalt prices.

*  *  *

“As the Russia-Ukraine situation escalates, there will naturally be a focus on potential impacts to commodity trade flows over the coming months,” said Colin Hamilton, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

“We would expect a diversion of Russian exports of commodities away from Europe and North America, and towards China.”

END

NICKEL

Nickel prices surging

Nickel Prices Surge To Decade High Amid Soaring Battery Demand And Ukraine Crisis

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 04:15 AM

Nickel prices soared to the highest level in more than a decade amid skyrocketing demand for electric cars, as the Ukraine crisis added to supply concerns. 

The combination of nickel-cobalt aluminum is the chemistry behind electric car batteries. Nickel is one of the crucial metals by mass in lithium-ion battery cathodes. Rapidly increasing demand for electric cars has tightened supplies for the metal and pushed prices on the London Metal Exchange to levels not seen since 2011.

Besides rising electric car popularity, the crisis over Ukraine has been another variable of why metal prices are soaring. Russia is the world’s third-largest nickel producer, and if conflict were to break out over Ukraine, global commodity flows would crumble. Western corporate media has spent the better half of the last two weeks hyping up “imminent” war propaganda as Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron for several hours on Sunday about holding a summit with the West to offer a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. However, the Kremlin said there were no “concrete plans” for a summit.

Nickel prices on Monday jumped as much as 2% to $24,610 per ton, the highest level since August 2011. Prices eased to around $24,530. So far, prices are up 18% in 2022. 

In terms of seasonality, the last time nickel prices were at these levels for this time of year, it was in the 2000s commodities boom.

Russia is a major producer of metals, as well as aluminum. Investors have fretted that supply-chain disruptions or sanctions could hit exports from the country in the event of military action in Ukraine. Aluminum prices are on the cusp of breaking out to a new high. 

Another metal that stands out is Lithium, and soaring prices have less to do with Russia but more with soaring electric car demand. Chinese prices (in USD) are up more than 50% since the end-December. 

As a reminder, the spot Bloomberg Industrial Metals Subindex continues to soar to new highs. 

What does this mean for electric car prices? It seems like Elon Musk will have more trouble creating an affordable Model 3. 

CHICKEN

Due to the bird flu hitting the uSA chicken prices are escalating

(zerohedge)

‘Highly Pathogenic’ Bird Flu Detected On Long Island, Poultry Farmers On Alert

SUNDAY, FEB 20, 2022 – 01:00 PM

A “highly pathogenic” bird flu is expanding across the U.S. as the latest infections were detected in a non-commercial backyard flock (non-poultry) in Suffolk County, New York, according to a statement released by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). 

On Saturday, the APHIS confirmed positive tests for the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in what the agency described as a “small, non-commercial backyard flock” on Long Island. Poultry farmers in the area have been told to be on high alert. 

“State officials quarantined the affected premises, and birds on the properties will be depopulated to prevent the spread of the disease. Birds from the flock will not enter the food system,” APHIS said in a statement.

Despite the U.S. having the “strongest A.I. surveillance program” to monitor disease in commercial poultry operations, live bird markets, and in migratory wild bird populations, other states are reporting outbreaks. 

HPAI was recently detected in flocks of birds in Kentucky, Indiana, and Virginia. Poultry farms in those states have begun culling flocks that have been infected with the virus to mitigate spreading.  

According to ABC7 New York, “U.S. surveillance efforts have identified the virus in wild birds in recent weeks in New Hampshire, Delaware, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and South Carolina.” 

APHIS said no human cases of the avian influenza viruses had been detected in the U.S. The agency reminded consumers who eat poultry to cook the meat and eggs to an internal temperature of 165F to kill the virus. 

Culling of infected flocks has yet to tighten supply. Tyson Foods released a statement last week about the troubling situation. 

They said its Kentucky farm where HPAI was detected is one of the thousands that raise chickens and won’t impact overall supply. The company is taking steps to mitigate the spread of the highly pathogenic virus by “boosting biosecurity measures at other farms in the region, placing additional restrictions on visitors, and continuing to test all flocks before birds leave the farms.” 

“Tyson Foods’ chicken products remain safe: the USDA confirms that avian influenza does not pose a food safety risk to consumers in poultry that is properly prepared and cooked,” according to a company statement.

So far, there are no indications (yet) that the U.S. will repeat a 2014-15 bird flu outbreak that caused farmers to cull over 50 million chickens and turkeys and generated $3.3 billion in economic damage. 

However, the spread of the HPAI comes at an unfavorable time as supermarket prices for boneless breast on a per pound basis are around $3.726, or a multi-decade high (keep in mind that overall food prices are at record highs). Future supply constraints due to mass cullings could send chicken prices higher. 

HPAI appears to be spreading, and the question remains if the U.S. has the outbreak under control. We’ll want to keep a close eye on comments from Tyson Foods if there are going to be future chicken wing or nugget supply disruptions

. 

6.CRYPTOCURRENCIES

Your early  currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings TUESDAY morning 7:30 AM

ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED UP 6.3277

OFFSHORE YUAN: 6.3228

HANG SANG CLOSED DOWN 650.07 PTS OR 2.69%

2. Nikkei closed DOWN 461.26 PTS OR 1.71% 

3. Europe stocks  ALL MIXED   

USA dollar INDEX DOWN TO  95.94/Euro RISES TO 1.1351-

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: FALLS TO. +.196/ !!!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 115.07/ THIS IS TROUBLESOME AS BANK OF JAPAN IS RUNNING OUT OF BONDS TO BUY./JAPAN 10 YR YIELD IS NOW TARGETED AT .11%/JAPAN LOSING CONTROL OF THEIR BOND MARKET//

3c Nikkei now  ABOVE 17,000

3d USA/Yen rate now well below the important 120 barrier this morning

3e WTI:: 93,84 and Brent: 97.52–

3f Gold DOWN /JAPANESE Yen DOWN CHINESE YUAN:   ON -SHORE CLOSED UP//  OFF- SHORE  UP

3g Japan is to buy the equivalent of 108 billion uSA dollars worth of bond per month or $1.3 trillion. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion usa./“HELICOPTER MONEY” OFF THE TABLE FOR NOW /REVERSE OPERATION TWIST ON THE BONDS: PURCHASE OF LONG BONDS AND SELLING THE SHORT END

Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and by 2018 they will have 25% of all Japanese debt. Fifty percent of Japanese budget financed with debt.

3h Oil UP for WTI and UP FOR Brent this morning

3i European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund RISES TO +.0.257%/Italian 10 Yr bond yield RISES to 1.91% /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD RISES TO 1.24%…ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD/GERMAN BUND: 1.66: DANGEROUS FOR THE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM

3j Greek 10 year bond yield FALLS TO : 2.57

3k Gold at $1899.35 silver at: 24.06   7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3l USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 113/100 in roubles/dollar AT 79.12

3m oil into the 93 dollar handle for WTI and 97 handle for Brent/

3n Higher foreign deposits out of China sees huge risk of outflows and a currency depreciation. This can spell financial disaster for the rest of the world/

JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 INITIATES NIRP. THIS MORNING THEY SIGNAL THEY MAY END NIRP. TODAY THE USA/YEN TRADES TO 115.07 DESTROYING JAPANESE CITIZENS WITH HIGHER FOOD INFLATION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this morning .9184– as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 1.0424 well above the floor set by the Swiss Finance Minister. Thomas Jordan, chief of the Swiss National Bank continues to purchase euros trying to lower value of the Swiss Franc.

USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: 1.942 UP 2 BASIS PTS

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 2.253 UP 1 BASIS PTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 13.82

Stocks Reverse 2% Overnight Loss, Turn Green As Oil Nears $100

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 08:08 AM

Global stocks and US futures have staged a remarkable recovery and erased overnight losses of as much as 2.2% as investors bet that the surge in geopolitical tensions will mean a less hawkish Fed and as investors clung to hopes that Moscow’s deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine will be as far Russia goes. S&P 500 futures were fractionally in the green at 715am ET after earlier sinking 2.2% and eyeing correction territory; European stocks trimmed losses as investors weighed the risk of geopolitical tensions in Ukraine. Benchmark Treasury yields pared their decline to trade at 1.92% and gold slipped.

The spectre of war on Europe’s eastern flank had flared on Monday, sending oil prices to a seven-year high, less than a $1 away from $100, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine and ordered the Defense Ministry to send what he called “peacekeeping forces” to the breakaway regions. In response, the United States and its European allies started to announce harsh new sanctions in response, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warning that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would now be denied certification to begin operating.

The prospect of a major European war had prompted investors to dump shares and other riskier assets while Brent crude jumped more than $3 to top $99 at one point for its highest since September 2014, reflecting fears that Russia’s energy exports could be disrupted by any conflict.

“We can be pretty confident that this will put upward pressure on oil markets and will be watching gas prices pretty nervously as we wait to see what sanctions are introduced,” said Kit Juckes, macro strategist at Societe Generale

However, after US equity futures plunged on thin volumes during Monday’s holiday, sentiment has turned more positive as traders wager that the unfolding scenario has already been priced into stocks. If the situation de-escalates, a quick 5% rally in U.S. stock markets is possible, according to Morgan Stanley strategists, while Goldman calculated that a de-escalation would lead to a 5.6% jump in the S&P.

“We are not in the clear, but that gives a path to de-escalation,” said Trium Capital fund manager Peter Kisler, referring to the news on Ukraine border recognition.

As usual, Nasdaq futures are hit more than their S&P peers – due to the added threat of a hawkish Fed and higher rates – dropping 0.5% and also recovering a much bigger earlier loss. Major names were trading off their lows of the session: shares in iPhone maker Apple -0.8% premarket, Microsoft -1%, Amazon.com -1%, Meta Platforms -1.4%, Google-owner Alphabet -0.4%, and Nvidia -2.1%. Tesla fells  1.6% premarket, poised to worsen 19% drop YTD and on the verge of a bear market, however major names were trading off their lows of the session. Here are some of the biggest U.S. movers today:

  • Oil and gas companies are among the few gainers in U.S. premarket trading, as oil price nears $100 amid worsening tension over Ukraine. The SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) is trading above triple-top resistance relative to the SPY.
  • U.S.-listed Chinese stocks declined in premarket trading as concerns resurfaced over Beijing’s regulation of the technology sector. Alibaba Group (BABA US) fell 4.3% following a report that Chinese authorities told banks and state-owned companies to report their financial exposure to Ant Group Co.
  • Megacap U.S. tech stocks trimmed earlier drops as investors evaluated the impact from growing tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine. Apple (AAPL US) -0.5%, Microsoft (MSFT US) -0.7%, Meta Platforms (FB US) -1%.
  • Cryptocurrency-linked stocks slump as bitcoin stays near a more than two-week low. Marathon Digital (MARA US) -5.4, Bit Digital (BTBT US) -6%.
  • Watch U.S. cybersecurity stocks amid escalating Ukraine tensions and worries over potential cyberattacks. Watch shares in Palo Alto Networks (PANW US), Crowdstrike (CRWD US), Zscaler (ZS US).
  • Yandex, which operates an Internet search engine and web portal in Russia, plunge 18% in U.S. premarket trading amid intensifying tension between the West and Russia over Ukraine.
  • Celanese gets its only negative analyst rating as Piper Sandler cuts to underweight after the chemicals company announced on Friday a deal to buy the mobility and materials arm of Dupont de Nemours.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index also turned green after falling as much as 2% earlier.  European stocks with exposure to Ukraine and Russia slumped again on Tuesday as tensions intensified, after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine and Western nations threatened new sanctions. Companies involved with the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline linking Russia to Germany dropped amid concerns that sanctions could target the suspension of the pipeline. BASF, Uniper and Engie declined, while Shell – which is also linked to the pipeline – rose on soaring oil prices. Here are some of the other stocks moving in the rest of Europe:

  • Other energy companies exposed to the region, including Austrian oilfield services company Petro Welt Technologies, and miners with assets in Ukraine or Russia, including London-listed Ferrexpo and London-listed Russian gold-miner Petropavlovsk all dropped.
  • Polish-listed Ukranian agriculture companies were mixed, with Astarta, Ovostar and Industrial Milk lower while Kernel rose.
  • Banks including Austria-based Raiffeisen Bank, which had almost 14 billion euros in loans outstanding in the two countries at the end of last year — equivalent to 90% of its equity capital — fell.
  • Hungary’s OTP Bank, France’s Societe Generale and Italy’s UniCredit also declined, reflecting the lenders’ loan exposure to the region.
  • Consumer companies including bottling company Coca Cola HBC, beer stocks Carlsberg and Heineken, grocery company Metro AG and Polish fashion retailer LPP dropped.
  • Event organizer Hyve Group, which gets about 30% of its revenue from Russia, slumped as much as 8.2%.

The threat of new Russian sanctions and disrupted supply kept energy prices elevated, with natural gas prices soaring more than 13%. The ruble climbed after dropping the most since March 2020 the previous day.

“Europe is in a very, very uncomfortable situation,” said Michael Hewson at CMC Markets. “What you’re getting is a classic risk-off play here.”

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks traded negative. The ASX 200 declined as the geopolitical concerns sunk most sectors although energy and gold miners bucked the trend after oil prices advanced on the geopolitical risk premium and with the precious metal underpinned by haven demand. Nikkei 225 was pressured as detrimental currency flows added to the headwinds for the index. KOSPI suffered after daily COVID-19 cases topped 100k for a third consecutive day Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. conformed to the glum mood with notable weakness in the tech sector after China told banks and state firms to report their exposure to Alibaba affiliate Ant and with Tencent also subdued by recent concerns of a crackdown, while Rusal shares dropped nearly 20% on geopolitical tensions and looming Russian sanctions

Japanese equities fell for the sixth time in seven sessions as tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine again intensified. Electronics and auto makers were the biggest drags on the Topix, which fell 1.6%, with all but three of its 33 industry groups in the red. Tokyo Electron and Fast Retailing were the largest contributors to a 1.7% loss in the Nikkei 225.  Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine and ordered the Defense Ministry to send what he called “peacekeeping forces” to the regions. Western leaders condemned the moves, and the U.S. prepared to announce new sanctions against Russia. The U.S. has warned of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, a claim the Kremlin has repeatedly rejected. “Points to watch include what kind of economic sanctions the U.S. would be implementing and how much that would affect inflation or the economic situation,” said Shogo Maekawa, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management. Comments from Federal Reserve officials also bear watching, “whether it be about rate increases this year or about Ukraine.”

Australian stocks dropped to the lowest in two years, with the S&P/ASX 200 index falling 1% to 7,161.30, its lowest close Feb. 7, as banks weighed. The benchmark tumbled alongside regional peers amid intensifying tension between the West and Russia over Ukraine. Nanosonics was the worst performer in Australia following the company’s 1H results. Cochlear was the biggest gainer after reaffirming its full-year profit forecast. In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 index fell 0.3% to 12,114.63

In rates, treasury futures erased Asia session gains as U.S. stock futures rebound and risk-off move on Ukraine developments takes a breather. U.S. yields were cheaper by 6.5bp to 1bp across the curve with front- end led losses flattening 2s10s, 5s30s spreads by 5bp and 3bp; 10-year yields around 1.945%, cheaper by 1.5bp vs. Friday close — bunds and gilts both 1bp cheaper in the sector vs. Treasuries. Yields were cheaper across the curve, led by front-end, flattening spreads. U.S. session’s focus is also on auctions, which start with $52b 2-year note sale at 1pm eastern time. German government bond yields hit their lowest level since Feb. 4 while U.S. Treasuries rallied.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index eased as the greenback weakened against most of its Group-of-10 peers; the Treasury curve flattened as front-end yields rose by up to 4bps and the 10-year yield remained lower. Scandinavian currencies were the best performers as risk sensitive currencies advanced. The euro snapped three days of losses to rise over $1.1350 and bunds erased early gains. The pound fell, reversing Monday’s gains. The Japanese yen erased early gains that took it close to a three-week high of 114.48 per dollar while the Swiss franc held steady near the previous day’s one-month high.

The rouble, which has been hammered by the rising tensions in recent weeks, swept higher in FX markets while German equities – seen as more vulnerable because of the country’s heavy reliance on Russian gas – also erased losses of more than 2% to trade flat.  The rouble has lost 12% on prospects of a Ukraine invasion, with Russian equities down by a third.

In commodities, WTI and Brent were underpinned on geopolitics, with Brent soaring to a high of $99.50/bbl although the benchmarks are off best levels at present. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq would struggle to cover the shortfall in crude supply created by a blanket ban on Russian energy exports as they have already allocated their annual term supplies, according to Argus sources. Qatar’s Emir has received a letter from Russian President Putin regarding supporting and strengthening bilateral relations. Spot gold lies below USD 1900/oz, as havens given up recent gains as officials are yet to label the Russia situation as a full-scale invasion.

Fears of supply disruption from Russia sent London-traded aluminium to a more than 13-year high of $3,350 a tonne while benchmark nickel hit its highest since August 2011. Shanghai-traded nickel hit a record high .

Looking at the day ahead now, data releases include the German Ifo business climate indicator for February, whilst from the US there’s the FHFA house price index for December, the flash PMIs for February and the Conference Board’s consumer confidence measure for February. Central bank speakers include Atlanta Fed President Bostic and BoE Deputy Governor Ramsden. Finally, earnings releases include Home Depot and Medtronic.

Market Snapshot

  • S&P 500 futures down 0.1% to 4,340.50
  • STOXX Europe 600 down 0.7% to 451.82
  • MXAP down 1.4% to 185.33
  • MXAPJ down 1.4% to 610.18
  • Nikkei down 1.7% to 26,449.61
  • Topix down 1.5% to 1,881.08
  • Hang Seng Index down 2.7% to 23,520.00
  • Shanghai Composite down 1.0% to 3,457.15
  • Sensex down 0.8% to 57,230.48
  • Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 1.0% to 7,161.28
  • Kospi down 1.3% to 2,706.79
  • German 10Y yield little changed at 0.20%
  • Euro up 0.2% to $1.1333
  • Brent Futures up 3.9% to $99.14/bbl
  • Gold spot down 0.2% to $1,901.67
  • U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 95.99

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

  • U.S. and European governments threatened new sanctions after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine and ordered troops sent to them in the latest escalation of Moscow’s standoff with the West
  • Stocks erased losses as investors bet that markets can recover from the latest imbroglio between the West and Russia over Ukraine, and a flight to havens eased
  • The U.K. recorded its first fiscal surplus since the start of the pandemic, setting Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on course for an almost 18 billion-pound ($24 billion) budget windfall.
  • German companies grew more confident in February as the country moved past the worst of its latest Covid-19 outbreak. A business-expectations gauge compiled by the Munich-based Ifo Institute rose to 99.2, significantly above economist estimates and the highest reading since July

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsqsuawk

Asia-Pac stocks traded negative as focus remained on geopolitics after Russian President Putin announced Russia is to recognise LPR and DPR as independent states and ordered a ‘peacekeeping’ operation in the two breakaway regions ASX 200 declined as the geopolitical concerns sunk most sectors although energy and gold miners bucked the trend after oil prices advanced on the geopolitical risk premium and with the precious metal underpinned by haven demand. Nikkei 225 was pressured as detrimental currency flows added to the headwinds for the index. KOSPI suffered after daily COVID-19 cases topped 100k for a third consecutive day Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. conformed to the glum mood with notable weakness in the tech sector after China told banks and state firms to report their exposure to Alibaba affiliate Ant and with Tencent also subdued by recent concerns of a crackdown, while Rusal shares dropped nearly 20% on geopolitical tensions and looming Russian sanctions.

Top Asian News

  • ThaiBev Is Said to Revive Unit’s $2 Billion Singapore IPO
  • China Broadens Real Estate Lending Support to Bigger Cities
  • Zhenro Seeks More Time to Pay $1 Billion in Bonds Coming Due
  • Hong Kong Virus Outbreak Builds as City Braces for More Curbs

European bourses have experienced a marked recovery throughout the session, Euro Stoxx 50 Unch., with the FTSE 100 (+0.4%) the marginal outperformer given its crude exposure. A recovery that comes amid numerous geopolitical developments and was seemingly led by oil upside and as we await clarity/insight into any Russian sanctions and as Ukraine’s President remains confident that there will not be a war. Stateside, futures remain negative but have also experienced a marked pick-up; bringing the ES, for instance, to within 10-points of unchanged.

Top European News

  • Traders Delay Bets on First ECB Rate Hike in 2022 to December
  • Energy Prices Surge on Ukraine With Oil Closing In on $100
  • HSBC Says It’s Under Investigation in U.S. Over WhatsApp Use
  • HSBC Boosts Bonuses 31% in ‘Extraordinarily Competitive’ Market

In fixed income,  Core debt avidly in demand in early EU trade before falling from grace as Russia/Ukraine risk aversion wanes. US Treasuries retain flatter curve profile in the run-up to Usd 52 bln 2 year supply. Bunds also dragged back down in wake of an upbeat German Ifo survey.

In commodities, WTI and Brent are underpinned on geopolitics, Brent Apr soared to a high of USD 99.50/bbl (vs low USD 96.50
/bbl). Albeit, the benchmarks are off best levels at present; note, there was no settlement yesterday amid the US holiday. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq would struggle to cover the shortfall in crude supply created by a blanket ban on Russian energy exports as they have already allocated their annual term supplies, according to Argus sources. Qatar’s Emir has received a letter from Russian President Putin regarding supporting and strengthening bilateral relations. Spot gold lies below USD 1900/oz, as havens given up recent gains as officials are yet to label the Russia situation as a full-scale invasion.

In FX, roller coaster ride for the Rouble after Russia recognises independent regions in Eastern Ukraine but only enters to keep the peace and reportedly rejects wider separatist claims. USD/RUB reaches circa 80.9275 before recoiling to sub-79.000 lows. Dollar unwinds safe haven gains around 96.000 in DXY terms as risk sentiment improves from an initial state of pronounced aversion.
Kiwi holds firm on the 0.6700 handle awaiting RBNZ rate verdict amidst expectations for a 25bp hike, but outside bets of half point.
Crude currencies underpinned by Brent hitting USD 99.50/bbl and WTI nearing USD 95.00/bbl.

Geopolitical update

  • Russian President Putin said Russia will recognize the independence of Donbas LPR and DPR separatists, while he ordered a peacekeeping operation involving Russian troops being sent to eastern Ukraine’s two breakaway regions.
  • In response, Ukraine said their border remains unchanged.
  • The DPR and LPR parliaments subsequently ratified the cooperation/friendship agreements with Russia; since then, Russia’s Lower Parliamentary House has voted in favour of the treaty.
  • US President Biden signed an executive order prohibiting new investment, trade and financing to the DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine, while the US will announce fresh sanctions against Russia on Tuesday in which it will coordinate with allies on the announcement.
  • US Secretary of State Blinken said recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics as independent requires a swift and firm response, while he added that they will take appropriate steps in coordination with partners.
  • US Ambassador to the UN said Russian recognition of eastern Ukraine is clearly the basis for an attempt to create a pretext for a further invasion.
  • EU’s Von Der Leyen said the recognition of the two separatist territories in Ukraine is a blatant violation of international law, the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the Minsk agreements.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says Ukraine does not have a right to sovereignty, according to Interfax. Appears to be speaking in relation to the DPR/LPR updates
  • Russian Foreign Ministry says that establishing Russian bases in Eastern Ukraine is not being discussed at the moment, according to Tass; however, steps could be taken if required

US Event Calendar

  • 9am: Dec. S&P Case Shiller Composite-20 YoY, est. 18.00%, prior 18.29%
    • Dec. S&P/Case-Shiller US HPI YoY, prior 18.81%
    • Dec. S&P/CS 20 City MoM SA, est. 1.10%, prior 1.18%
  • 9am: Dec. FHFA House Price Index MoM, est. 1.0%, prior 1.1%
  • 9:45am: Feb. Markit US Services PMI, est. 53.0, prior 51.2
  • 9:45am: Feb. Markit US Composite PMI, prior 51.1
  • 9:45am: Feb. Markit US Manufacturing PMI, est. 56.0, prior 55.5
  • 10am: Feb. Conf. Board Present Situation, prior 148.2
    • Feb. Conf. Board Expectations, prior 90.8
    • Feb. Conf. Board Consumer Confidenc, est. 110.0, prior 113.8
  • 10am: Feb. Richmond Fed Index, est. 10, prior 8

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

The growing geopolitical tensions over Ukraine ratcheted up further yesterday, leading to a slump in global equities and a complete rout amongst Russian assets as investors became increasingly fearful about the prospect of conflict in some form or another. With the US off on holiday the truncated trading session was bad enough, but things got worse in a bit of a market vacuum after Europe closed as Putin made a televised address and signed a decree recognising two separatist regions in the east of Ukraine, whose leaders had called on Putin to recognise their independence and provide them with support against their descriptions of Ukrainian aggression.

On the news, the risk assets that were trading fell fairly sharply and oil spiked a dollar or so to eventually close up +3.16% (flattish overnight). The Russian Ruble fell a further percent or so to close -3.2% – the worst day in two years. S&P futures, that were already down -1.24% at the European close, have fallen an additional -0.34% overnight with Nasdaq futures down -2.17% as I type (covering 2 days). Spot gold, in contrast, has touched a new six-month high of $1910.56. 10yr US treasuries have rallied -6.2bps to 1.866% after being closed yesterday and 2s10s is 4.5bps flatter.

The Nikkei and Hang Seng have fallen over -2.0% while the Shanghai Composite, CSI and Kospi are down more than -1.0%. Meanwhile, Chinese technology stocks have declined for a third consecutive session on mounting concerns of a new wave of tech crackdowns by the authorities.

I can’t pretend to be a geopolitical expert but it seems that the next point of interest will be what sanctions the West puts on Russia after this news and whether the US/UK response is coordinated with the EU one. Europe has more to lose economically so this will be very interesting. Most countries have come out overnight and have said they will be placing sanctions on Russian imminently. Also we will be watching carefully to see what Russian military involvement is in the newly recognised regions.

Even before Putin’s address moves were big yesterday, especially for Russian markets. The MOEX Russia equity index (-10.50%) suffered its worst day since March 2014 during the Crimean annexation, and that comes on top of declines of more than -3% on each of Thursday and Friday. Furthermore, Russia’s 10yr bonds were up a massive +79bps in their biggest daily move higher since December 2014. This volatility also saw Russia’s finance ministry cancel today’s government bond auction that had been planned.

The negative headlines incrementally grew yesterday and meant that any optimism yesterday morning about a potential Putin-Biden summit was swiftly knocked back, not least as a Kremlin spokesman said that there were “no concrete plans” for a leaders’ summit. And matters escalated further just after midday in London as Russia claimed they’d destroyed two Ukrainian military vehicles on Russian territory, with five Ukrainian soldiers killed, whereas Ukraine’s military said these border violation claims were fake.

The main action took place in Europe as the STOXX 600 fell -1.30% to its lowest level since early October. It was a broad-based decline and every single sector in the index moved lower on the day, albeit with cyclical sectors underperforming in particular. Other indices in Europe including the DAX (-2.07%), the CAC 40 (-2.04%) and the FTSE 100 (-0.39%) all lost ground as well, with those indices in Eastern Europe seeing outsized declines in particular.

Sovereign bonds struggled to gain much flight to quality benefit, with yields on 10yr bunds (+1.5bps), OATs (+3.2bps) and gilts (+3.0bps) all moving higher, albeit closing before the worst news of the day. Notably, there was yet another widening in peripheral spreads, with the gap between both Italian and Spanish 10yr yields over German bunds reaching their widest closing levels since June 2020, at 170bps and 104bps respectively. And similar moves were seen in credit too, with Itraxx Crossover widening +6.7bps to 352bps, its widest since November 2020, and Itraxx Main was +1.1bps wider at 72bps, the widest since June 2020.

This backdrop of rising geopolitical risk and tightening financial conditions led to a further reappraisal of the likelihood of ECB rate hikes in 2022 yesterday. By the close, overnight index swaps were pricing in just 36bps worth of ECB hikes by the December meeting, which is the lowest amount since their much more hawkish than anticipated meeting at the start of the month. Bear in mind that after the last meeting and the US CPI report, over 50bps worth of hikes had been priced by year-end, which implied a potential end to negative rates given their -0.5% deposit rate. So these darkening clouds over the outlook have made investors quite a bit more cautious as to whether central banks will follow through on some of their more hawkish rhetoric over recent days.

For commodities, growing tensions led to a fresh rise in oil as discussed at the top. That said, even as markets more broadly are pricing in an increasing risk of a conflict, oil hasn’t broken out above levels seen 10 days ago when Biden made his negative statement before the previous weekend. In addition, natural gas futures in Europe actually fell -2.45% as well to €71.96 per megawatt-hour, although there was a noticeable spike higher intraday after Russia’s claims that five Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, before it pared back those gains later in the session.

The geopolitical turmoil outweighed some very strong numbers in the flash PMIs for February, which came in stronger than expected across Europe. The Euro Area composite PMI rose to 55.8 (vs. 52.9 expected), coming off an 11-month low back in January to reach a 5-month high in February. On a country-by-country basis as well, France’s composite measure rose to 57.4 (vs. 53.0 expected), Germany’s rose to 56.2 (vs. 54.5 expected), and the UK’s hit 60.2 (vs. 55.3 expected) in its fastest pace of expansion since last June. The US numbers aren’t out until later today given yesterday’s holiday.

Finally on the pandemic, UK Prime Minister Johnson confirmed the much-previewed announcement that all legal Covid-19 restrictions would be ending in England, as part of a transition to “living with Covid”. In terms of the changes, from Thursday those who test positive won’t be legally required to self-isolate following a positive test, but will instead be advised to stay at home and avoid contact with others. And from April 1, the government will also no longer be providing free universal testing for the general public in England. It comes as case rates in the UK have been continuing to fall since the Omicron wave over Christmas, and the weekly average of cases is now roughly back in line with its pre-Omicron levels, with hospitalisations and deaths also declining.

To the day ahead now, and data releases include the German Ifo business climate indicator for February, whilst from the US there’s the FHFA house price index for December, the flash PMIs for February and the Conference Board’s consumer confidence measure for February. Central bank speakers include Atlanta Fed President Bostic and BoE Deputy Governor Ramsden. Finally, earnings releases include Home Depot and Medtronic.

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)TUESDAY MORNING// FRIDAY  NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 33.47 PTS OR 0.96%       //Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 650.07 PTS OR 2.69%  /The Nikkei closed DOWN 461.26 or 1.71%       //Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED DOWN 1.13%  /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP 6.3277    /Oil UP TO 93,84 dollars per barrel for WTI and UP TO 97.52 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED  ALL MIXED       //  ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP AGAINST THE DOLLAR AT 6.3277. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.3228: /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING BELOW LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN  TRADING STRONGER AGAINST USA DOLLAR/OFF SHORE STRONGER//

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

///NORTH KOREA

3B JAPAN

3c CHINA

/CHINA

Monday:

Chinese tech stocks suffer its biggest 2 day rout amid fears of more crackdowns

(zerohedge)

Chinese Tech Stocks Suffer Biggest 2-Day Rout Since July Amid Fears Beijing Will Unleash More Crackdowns

MONDAY, FEB 21, 2022 – 11:20 AM

While not directly impacted by the sharp crisis escalation in Ukraine or fears of multiple rate hikes by the Fed, Chinese tech shares suffered their worst two-day drop since July following renewed fears Beijing may roll out more restrictions for private enterprise.

Shares of China’s tech giant, Tencent, sank 5.2% on Monday, hammered by speculation about an unspecified, impending crackdown on China’s largest social media and gaming firm that company spokesman Zhang Jun later denied. Traders pointed to everything from warnings from regulators over the weekend about scams in the metaverse to talk about yet more curbs on the gaming industry. Zhang said the online rumors were unfounded, without elaborating.

Amid the rout, Tencent’s head of public relations Zhang Jun denied online speculation that it’s facing a major regulatory crackdown, issuing an unusually aggressive public response after fears of more tech-sector restrictions tanked markets on Monday. He disputed the widely circulated post that suggested the company would weather another heavy blow from regulators in the near future. The account carrying the rumor has since been suspended, Zhang said on his semi-public WeChat feed.

“Ask me next time, at least that’s more legit. And I’m not afraid of going on record,” Zhang said, poking fun at the post citing an anonymous Tencent employee. Before its removal, the post was widely shared on Chinese social media and stock-trading forums. It hinted at another big step in China’s internet crackdown, without providing specifics.

Tencent shares have plunged 40% since a peak in January last year. The gaming giant, along with peers such as Alibaba and Meituan, were caught in Beijing’s crosshairs as China cracked down on monopolistic behaviors and tightened its grip on user data. The yearlong clampdown has wiped out more than $1.5 trillion in market value from the nation’s tech sector.

Meanwhile, as noted earlier, Chinese authorities told the nation’s biggest state-owned firms and banks to start a fresh round of checks on their financial exposure and other links to Jack Ma’s Ant Group Bloomberg reported after markets closed. Alibaba Group, which owns a third of Ant, fell 3.9% prior to the report.

As a result, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech Index lost 5.9% over two sessions, the biggest 2-day drop since July. The decline started Friday when Meituan plunged as much as 18% after Beijing rolled out a new policy to curb the delivery giant’s service fees.  

“There is concern about new regulatory reforms,” said Justin Tang, head of Asian research at United First Partners. “Prior to Meituan, there was a sense of ‘this is it in relation to reforms.’ Investors are now thinking that there could be more to come.”

As Bloomberg notes, on Friday the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission warned against fund-raising and investment products related to the metaverse concept, citing their speculative nature. A metaverse industry body vowed on Monday that the sector should be developed to serve the real economy.

“The market is very fearful that more crackdown will come and that could leave technology companies very little room to turn around their businesses,” said Castor Pang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi. “The metaverse fears shows that the market is worried that tech firms may not be able to grow a new business rapidly, like how they did in the past in China. That’s really dampening the already-fragile sentiment.”

In coming weeks investors will find out how much Beijing’s ongoing clampdown has impacted the profitability of some of the biggest tech firms as they release earnings; Alibaba will report on Thursday.

“Nerves are on edge this week as Alibaba reports earnings — in the midst of war, additional Hong Kong curbs and regulatory oversight,” said Wai Ho Leong, strategist at Modular Asset Management.CHINAGordon Chang is our resident expert on Chinese affairs. Is Xi Jinping’s days at the helm of China at an end.What to expect this year(Gordon Chang/Gatestone)

Will Xi Jinping’s “End Of Days” Plunge China & The World Into War?

FRIDAY, FEB 18, 2022 – 09:00 PM

Authored by Gordon Chang via The Gatestone Institute,

  • Xi Jinping, China’s mighty-looking leader, has an “enormous array of domestic enemies.” — Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association and editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, to Gatestone Institute, February 2022.
  • Xi created that opposition. After becoming China’s ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as “anti-corruption” campaigns.
  • Beijing is panicking, adding nearly a trillion dollars in total new credit last month, a record increase…. When the so-called “hidden debt” is included, total debt in the country amounts to somewhere in the vicinity of 350% of gross domestic product.
  • Not surprisingly, Chinese companies are now defaulting. The debt crisis is so serious it can bring down China’s economy—and the country’s financial and political systems with it.
  • In the most recent hint of distress, “Fang Zhou and China”… wrote a 42,000-character essay titled “An Objective Evaluation of Xi Jinping.” The anti-Xi screed, posted on January 19 on the China-sponsored 6park site, appears to be the work of several members of the Communist Party’s Shanghai Gang faction, headed by former leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang’s faction has been continually sniping at Xi and now is leading the charge against him.
  • Xi’s problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. He has, for various internal political reasons, a low threshold of risk and many reasons to pick on some other country to deflect elite criticism and popular discontent.
  • The Communist Party of China has always believed its struggle with the United States is existential—in May 2019 the official People’s Daily declared a “people’s war” on America—but the hostility has become far more evident in the past year.
  • Virulent anti-Americanism suggests Xi Jinping is establishing a justification to strike America. The Chinese regime often uses its media to first warn and then signal its actions.
  • America has now been warned.

Xi Jinping, China’s mighty-looking leader, created his opposition. After becoming ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as “anti-corruption” campaigns. Xi’s problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. Virulent anti-Americanism suggests Xi is establishing a justification to strike America.

Pictured: Xi at the Great Hall of the People on May 28, 2020 in Beijing. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

When truckers took over Canada’s capital, Ottawa, and shut down border entry points to America, some called it a “nationwide insurrection.” Mass demonstrations have occurred across the democratic world. People have had enough of two years of mandates and other disease-control measures.

Not so in the world’s most populous state, which maintains the world’s strictest COVID-19 controls. There are no known popular protests in the People’s Republic of China against anti-coronavirus efforts.

Yet China is not stable, and Xi Jinping is facing his “End of Days,” as a recent essay by opposition figures (see below) puts it.

The revolt is not in society at large but at the top of the Communist Party.

As Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association, told Gatestone, Xi Jinping, China’s mighty-looking leader, has an “enormous array of domestic enemies.”

Xi created that opposition. After becoming China’s ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as “anti-corruption” campaigns.

Xi also used the disease to great advantage. As Copley, also the editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, points out, “Xi’s ‘zero COVID’ policy is, indeed, less about stopping the spread of COVID and more about suppressing his internal enemies, both in the public and in the Party.”

The “enormous array” is now starting to strike back. Xi is most vulnerable on his handling of the country’s stagnating economy. For one thing, the draconian campaign against COVID—massive testing, meticulous contact-tracing, strict lockdowns—have of course undermined consumption, which Beijing has touted as the core of the economy.

Beijing is panicking, adding nearly a trillion dollars in total new credit last month, a record increase. Chinese technocrats have also become sneaky, embarking on what the widely followed Andrew Collier of Global Source Partners terms “shadow stimulus”—stimulus provided by local governments and their entities in order to allow the central government to avoid reporting spending.

China needs a vibrant economy to service enormous debts, largely run up as Beijing overstimulated the economy, especially beginning in 2008. When the so-called “hidden debt” is included, total debt in the country amounts to somewhere in the vicinity of 350% of gross domestic product.

Not surprisingly, Chinese companies are now defaulting. The debt crisis is so serious it can bring down China’s economy—and the country’s financial and political systems with it.

For three decades, a Chinese leader was essentially immune to criticism because all decisions of consequence were shared by top figures in the Communist Party. Xi Jinping, however, as he took power also ended up with accountability—in other words, with no one else to blame. With things not going China’s way in recent years, Xi, often called the “Chairman of Everything,” is taking heat.

There are signs of intensifying discord among senior leaders. In the most recent hint of distress, “Fang Zhou and China”— “Fang Zhou” is a pseudonym meaning “ark”—wrote a 42,000-character essay titled “An Objective Evaluation of Xi Jinping.” The anti-Xi screed, posted on January 19 on the China-sponsored 6park site, appears to be the work of several members of the Communist Party’s Shanghai Gang faction, headed by former leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang’s faction has been continually sniping at Xi and now is leading the charge against him.

Fang’s piece incorporates previously voiced criticisms but does so in a comprehensive fashion. Fang blames Xi for, among other things, ruining the economy.

“Xi will be the architect of his own defeat,” writes Fang at the end of the rant, in a section titled “Xi Jinping’s Denouement” or “End of Days.” “His style of governance is simply unsustainable; it will generate even newer and greater policy missteps.”

Fang notes that Xi was able to take advantage of a feeble opposition but has not been able to accomplish much. “Xi’s policies have been retrogressive and derivative, his successes minor and his blunders numerous,” writes the Asia Society’s Geremie Barme, who translated the essay, summarizing Fang’s thoughts. Fang believes Xi “deserves a score of less than zero.”

Xi is not one to let a decade of zero scores get in the way of his continued rule. Communist Party norms require him to step down at the 20th National Congress, to be held sometime this fall if tradition holds. He obviously wants a precedent-breaking third term as general secretary so that he can become, as outsiders say, “Dictator for Life.” Most observers expect he will get that new term.

Maybe. Fang Zhou’s essay shows Communist Party leaders are risking stability by airing disagreements in public. Xi Jinping therefore, now realizes he is in the fight of his life.

Xi’s problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. He has, for various internal political reasons, a low threshold of risk and many reasons to pick on some other country to deflect elite criticism and popular discontent.

In 1966, Mao Zedong, Communist China’s first ruler, started the decade-long Cultural Revolution to vanquish political enemies in Beijing. Xi is doing much the same thing now, especially with his “common prosperity” program, which could return China to the 1950s.

Unlike Mao, however, Xi has the power to plunge the world into war, and he has reason to lash out soon.

Xi is targeting the United States. On August 29 of last year, People’s Daily, China’s most authoritative publication, accused America of launching “barbaric” attacks on the Chinese nation. On the 21st of that month, Global Times, a tabloid controlled by People’s Daily, insinuated the U.S. was working with China’s “enemies.”

The Communist Party of China has always believed its struggle with the United States is existential—in May 2019 the official People’s Daily declared a “people’s war” on America—but the hostility has become far more evident in the past year.

Virulent anti-Americanism suggests Xi Jinping is establishing a justification to strike America. The Chinese regime often uses its media to first warn and then signal its actions.

America has now been warned.

end

CHINA/USA/RUSSIA

China resists Blinken’s pressure to take the uSA side on Russia’s entry into the Donbass

(zerohedge)

China Resists Blinken’s Pressure To Take US Side On Donbas, Urges Calm

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 07:11 AM

China has weighed in for the first time Tuesday after Vladimir Putin’s Monday night speech wherein he issued Russia’s formal recognition of independence for Ukrainian separatist regions Donetsk and Luhansk, followed by a quick signing ceremony and with what have been billed “peacekeeping forces” entering the war-torn eastern Ukraine republics overnight. 

In his official comments, Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged calm and a lowering of tensions in the region, calling for “dialogue and negotiations”. His words carried in state media underscored that China’s stance on the Ukraine issue is consistent, noting that “The legitimate security concerns of any country should be respected,” according to a readout in state-run Global Times. 

Though vague and ambiguous, the choice of emphasizing “security concerns” echoes Moscow’s stance vis-a-vis NATO. Notably there was no use of the words ‘respecting sovereignty’ which would have been a nod more in Ukraine’s and the West’s direction.

The senior Chinese diplomat said, “China once again calls on all parties to exercise restraint, recognize the importance of implementing the indivisible security principle, ease the situation and resolve differences through dialogue and negotiation.”

 GT further noted that China’s representative at the UN also made Beijing’s concerns known in Monday night’s emergency Security Council meeting: 

Chinese Ambassador to UN Zhang Jun also called on all parties relevant on the Ukraine situation to continue dialogue and consultation and seek reasonable solutions to address each other’s concerns on the basis of equality and mutual respect at an emergency Security Council meeting on the Ukraine situation.

But interestingly, in a scheduled phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s entry into the Donbas was not raised by the Chinese side. Instead the Chinese official’s words were focused on regional tensions, particularly defusing the North Korea situation. However, Blinken did press the issue, with the US call readout framing that part of the conversation and Blinken raising “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine”. Wang reportedly sidestepped efforts by the US Secretary of State to side with the US position. According to his full words as reported in the South China Morning Post:

“China is concerned about the evolving situation in Ukraine,” Wang said, reiterating that China’s stance on the matter had not changed and that “every country’s security concern should be respected”.

“The fact that the Ukraine crisis has evolved to this stage is related to the delayed implementation of the Minsk agreement,” Wang said, referring to the protocol signed in 2014 and 2015 whose clause would rule out foreign armed formations, including Nato, equipment and mercenaries.

“China will continue to stick to the facts and be in touch with all parties. The situation in Ukraine is worsening. China would call upon all parties to be restrained and to recognise the universal importance of security for all, and to de-escalate tensions through dialogues,” Wang said.

Additionally, “Wang and Blinken discussed Ukraine and North Korea issues during the Tuesday phone call,” Bloomberg cited a Chinese foreign ministry statement to say. “Wang said the U.S. should attach importance to the reasonable concerns of North Korea; China hopes U.S. and North Korea start direct dialogue.”

The two top diplomats also discussed US-China relations, with Wang saying, “China once again urges the US to take concrete actions to reflect on the series of commitments made by President Biden,” in reference to the virtual summit to two held. Blinken as is typical reiterated the US official stance that it is not seeking conflict with China and further that it opposes Taiwan independence and wishes to maintain the status quo. 

On the Ukraine issue, Russia’s independence recognition of the two breakaway republics could introduce further tension into the US-China relationship, given it’s widely perceived that Putin may have gotten a nod from Beijing that China would ultimately back Moscow if the latter took a more muscular approach to the crisis. 

end

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

GERMANY//RUSSIA

With Russian peace keepers entering the Donbass, Germany halts Nord Stream no 2 and pounds the table that the Russian sanctions to be administered by the west will be tough

(zerohedge)

Germany Halts Nord Stream 2 In Major Sign Impending Russia Sanctions Will Be “Tough”

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 07:33 AM

At a moment the United States and Europe are busy mulling over what sanctions to impose on Moscow for Putin’s independence recognition for Ukraine’s separatist republics – on the one hand wanting Russia to feel the pain as a warning against moving further into Ukraine (beyond what the Kremlin is dubbing “peacekeeping” troops in Donetsk and Luhansk, which entered the republics overnight), and on the other wanting to avoid severe enough economic measures that would almost guarantee immediate escalation – Germany on Tuesday has announced it has halted the certification process for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

As European Union leaders prepare to sanction Moscow, Bloomberg quoted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as saying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline certification can’t happen right now. He explained to reporters that he contacted the Economic Ministry to withdraw a report on the security of supply required for the certification process of pipeline to move forward. Without it, NS2 “cannot go into operation” – he told reporters.

In essence as Bloomberg put it, the controversial Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline appears to be the first major Russian project to fall victim to Putin’s independence declaration for the breakaway Ukraine republics. 

“That sounds technical, but it’s the necessary administrative step so that no certification of the pipeline can happen right now,” Scholz said of the move, adding that “without the certification, Nord Stream 2 cannot go into operation.” 

Concerning the first wave of sanctions reportedly now being prepared targeting Russia, Scholz said, “I expect a very strong and focused package.” What’s expected to be in the package has been revealed and summarized as follows by Bloomberg:

• EU proposed sanctions to target those involved in recognition of breakaway regions
• EU proposed sanctions target banks financing Russian military and other operations in the region
• EU proposed sanctions target Russia’s ability to tap EU’s capital and financial markets
• EU proposed sanctions target trade from two breakaway regions to and from EU
• EU says ministers to meet to finalize proposed first package of sanctions
• EU has prepared and stands ready to adopt additional measures at a later stage if needed in the light of further developments

European natural gas jumped 13% today – hours after Russian troops began entering Donetsk and Luhansk. Brent prices nearing $100 a barrel, and German power and coal prices advanced. This all comes as Europe is dealing with one of the worst energy crisis in years. 

The Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline was completed on Sept. 11 and has been ready to supply Europe for months. Even before this week’s geopolitical turmoil in Ukraine, Germany’s federal network agency, Bundesnetzagentur, halted the pipeline’s certification process in mid-November.

By December, Bundesnetzagentur President Jochen Homann said, “a decision won’t be made in the first half of 2022.” The latest developments to halt the certification process suggest Nord Stream 2 pipeline won’t supply energy crisis-stricken Europe with natural gas anytime soon. 

Likely this first wave is only the very beginning of multiple waves of sanctions to come; however, hawks are already decrying these as too softened and easy for Moscow to endure…

END

UK/COVID/VACCINE MANDATE

Self isolation rules have now been lifted in the uK as hospitalizations continue to drop

(Zhou/EpochTimes) 

England To Scrap Mandatory COVID Self-Isolation As Hospitalisations Continue To Drop

MONDAY, FEB 21, 2022 – 05:30 AM

Authored by Lily Zhou via The Epoch Times,

The UK government’s self-isolation rules will be lifted in England by the end of next week, officials have said amid consistent drops in the number of COVID-19 hospital admissions.

The change, announced on Saturday, marks the end of all domestic CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus legal restrictions in England. Hospital admissions for COVID-19 were down another 13.1 percent this week following a month of declining patient numbers.

Downing Street confirmed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson intends to repeal all pandemic-related regulations that restrict public freedoms in England when he lays out his strategy for living with COVID-19 in Parliament on Monday.

“COVID will not suddenly disappear, and we need to learn to live with this virus and continue to protect ourselves without restricting our freedoms,” Johnson said in a statement.

He said England has “built up strong protections” against the CCP virus through its vaccine rollouts, tests, new treatments, and “the best scientific understanding of what this virus can do.”

Johnson also touted the government’s vaccination programme as the reason England is “in a position” to scrap the restrictions.

Under the UK’s devolution system, public health policies in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are set by local legislatures and administrations, while in England, policies are decided by the overarching UK government in Westminster.

Downing Street said pharmaceutical interventions will “continue to be our first line of defence,” with the vaccination programme remaining “open to anyone who has not yet come forward,” but “government intervention in people’s lives can now finally end.”

Ministers have also suggested that free lateral flow tests could also come to an end, with exceptions for the vulnerable and elderly.

Armed forces minister James Heappey told Sky News on Thursday that he believes people can “change our behaviours and worry less about the need to have ourselves tested,” as future CCP virus variants are expected to be “as mild or, more probably, milder than Omicron.”

He said the proposal to scrap free tests was “the direction of travel” but that Johnson would announce his final decision shortly.

However, Downing Street appeared to keep the door open for state-funded infection sampling to remain in place, following reports that CCP virus studies could be withdrawn as part of the plan. Such sampling helps scientists monitor for new variants and emerging strains of concern.

Officials have said that Monday’s “Living with COVID” plan, as well as the removal of quarantine impositions, will maintain “resilience against future variants with ongoing surveillance capabilities.”

Responding to Johnson’s future blueprint for dealing with COVID-19, the Labour opposition party said people should not be asked to pay for tests or get less sick pay when they’re “still being asked to behave responsibly.”

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting also accused Johnson of attempting to “distract from the police knocking at his door,” and said that while Labour “doesn’t want to see restrictions in place any longer than they need to be, the government should publish the evidence behind the decision to end the restrictions, “so the public can have faith that it is being made in the national interest.”

Johnson is currently one of the more than 50 people under police investigation for attending alleged lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street and the Cabinet office in 2020 and 2021. Members of the opposition and a number of Conservative MPs have openly called on the prime minister to resign over the so-called Partygate saga. If fined by police, a no-confidence vote could be triggered, potentially ousting Johnson as the prime minister.

Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales

Earlier this week, Northern Ireland’s Health Minister Robin Swann rolled back all legal restrictions, replacing some of them with guidance. There’s no change to Northern Ireland’s recommendation for self-isolation, but the government clarified that it’s has always been a “very strong guidance” rather than legally binding.

Masks and social distancing rules are still in place in Scotland and Wales, but Wales will partially roll back its mask mandates on Feb. 28, requiring them only in shops, on public transport, and in health and social care settings.

The rule may be scrapped altogether in Wales by the end of March, along with the self-isolation rules.

NHS COVID Passes are still required in Scotland as a condition of entry to some premises, but First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she will publish a “return to normal” plan on Feb. 22.

END

SCOTLAND/VACCINE MANDATE

What an absolute joke! Scotland stops releasing COVID data (showing vaccinated people are catching the virus more than unvaccinated).  Why? because they must protect the public from reaching bad conclusions

(Turley)

Public Health Scotland Stops Releasing COVID Data To Protect The Public From Reaching Bad Conclusions

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 03:30 AM

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is upset that critics are using its data to oppose Covid mandates and policies.  PHS believes that the anti-vaxxers are seizing on the data to undermine its case for continued mandates. One official is quoted as saying that “[t]he case rates, hospitalization rates, the death rates are very simple statistics” and critics are misreading the data “inappropriately and sometimes willfully.”

The solution? 

PHS will reportedly stop sharing the data with the public. It appears that it is not enough for companies like Twitter to ban critics from social media. Now, citizens will be protected not just from opposing views but information that will only confuse them.

According to papers like The Herald, the PHS will now withhold data after critics noted that, for the first time, the case rate among vaccinated (and boosted) individuals had overtaken the unvaccinated for Covid. The PHS notes that there are various reasons for this shift and that it does not support anti-vax theories.

These officials raise some interesting points to explain the differential, including what is viewed as a higher testing rate for the vaccinated and the overestimation of the size of the unvaxxed population. However, that is the point. I was able to read the interpretation of both sides and reach my own conclusions.  These are not particularly complex explanations for the different rates.

Free speech allows both sides to be heard by an informed electorate. These policies impact every aspect of our lives. Citizens should be allowed access to this data — as should experts who may have opposing views of their import.

Instead, the impulse of these officials is to bar access to information to protect the public from itself. It is reminiscent of the call by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) for Amazon and other companies to use algorithms to steer readers away from bad choices. There was also the letter from Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney of California to cable carriers like AT&T asking why they are still allowing people to watch Fox News.  The problem is that citizens are reaching the wrong conclusions or reading the wrong sources and must be protected from their own proclivities or ignorance.

Even the W.H.O. has publicly supported calls for censorship to combat what it describes as the “infodemic.”

Public health policy is subject to democratic change and citizens should have access to data to make informed decisions. The PHS and its critics can then offer their own interpretations as part of a national debate. James Madison said “a popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.”

Indeed, “knowledge will govern ignorance” unless the government controls what citizens can know.

end

UK VACCINE MANDATES/LOCKDOWNS

Finally, prominent profiler Woolhouse, a member of SAGE who advocated for lockdowns, now admits he was wrong!

(Watson/SummitNews)

Prominent UK Lockdown Advocate Admits He Got It Wrong

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 02:00 AM

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A prominent lockdown advocate who advised the UK government admits in a new book he got it wrong and that there was never any proper consideration of the devastation caused by lockdowns.

Well, we told you so.

Professor Mark Woolhouse is a member of SPI-M, the modelling group on SAGE, the group that advises the British government on lockdown measures.

SAGE has become notorious for consistently predicting doomsday COVID scenarios that never even come close to passing, such as last year’s warning that Omicron could cause 6,000 deaths a day in the UK without harsher restrictions.

Just as SAGE got it spectacularly wrong earlier in the summer, without substantially harsher restrictions being imposed, Omicron caused nowhere near that level of fatalities.

In a new book called The Year the World Went Mad, Woolhouse expresses regret at SAGE’s involvement in pushing lockdown measures that caused huge devastation yet only served to delay the spread of the virus.

“We knew from February [2020], never mind March, that the lockdown would not solve the problem. It would simply delay it,” said Woolhouse, adding that no one in government appeared to recognize the failing of that strategy.

“The early global response to the pandemic was woefully inadequate,” says Woolhouse, adding that the WHO praising China for its draconian ‘zero COVID’ approach set the scene for similar disasters across the world.

Woolhouse was asked why governments set about imposing such brutal restrictions with seemingly no regard for their consequences.

“There was never at any stage, even by the following year, any form of analysis of the harms caused by lockdowns,” said Woolhouse.

“Were they even considered? I haven’t seen any evidence that they were and that is very, very troubling.”

As early as April 2020, SAGE was sent information confirming that lockdowns would “cost three times more years than the disease itself,” but there was virtually no consideration of the fact that “those over 70 had at least 10,000 times the risk of dying as those under 15 years old.”

The government then lied to the public in claiming that the virus “doesn’t discriminate,” despite this being manifestly untrue.

“I heard [the official] argument caricatured as: everyone died, but at least no one was saved unfairly,” said Woolhouse, adding,

“BBC News backed up this misperception by regularly reporting rare tragedies involving low-risk individuals as if they were the norm.”

While those who correctly warned that lockdowns would cause devastation were summarily demonized, smeared, cancelled and deplatformed, what if any punishment will lockdown advocates who got everything wrong face?

*  *  *

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

RUSSIA//UKRAINE/DONBASS

Saturday

Ukrainian separatist leaders declare full military mobilitization

(zerohedge)

Ukrainian Separatist Leaders Declare ‘Full Military Mobilization’ 

SATURDAY, FEB 19, 2022 – 08:44 AM

Overnight both the Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatist sides in Donbas have reported intensified shelling, leading to the military heads of both the Lugansk and Donetsk regions to declare a “general mobilization” on Saturday, urging all military age males to fight. 

“I urge my fellow citizens who are in the reserves to come to military conscription offices. Today I signed a decree on general mobilization,” Denis Pushilin, leader Donetsk People’s Republic, said in a video statement according to the AFP.

The Lugansk separatist republic published a similar mobilization decree, citing that the rebel forces are busy “repelling aggression” and need additional assistance. 

At this point both sides on the ground are accusing the other of seeking to provoke a justification for rapid escalation, at a moment Russia has continued with its large troop presence on the other side of the border, which the US has in the recent days put at anywhere between 130,000 to up to 190,000 troops – including inside Belarus. Washington too has continued pushing its ‘Russian false flag’ narrative. 

Given the rapidly intensifying ground-level situation in Ukraine’s east, officials in Washington have expressed surprise that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is traveling to Munich to attend the major international security conference which is ongoing there. Representing the US at the Munich Security Conference is Vice President Kamala Harris.

CNN reports that “Biden administration officials have privately urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky not to leave Ukraine and visit Munich on Saturday given concerns about a possible incursion from Russia, according to three US officials and one senior Ukrainian official.”

“Some US officials are concerned that him leaving the country could open the door for Russia to make false claims that he has fled,” the report details. “While officials haven’t explicitly asked Zelensky not to make the trip — and have been careful to make it clear that it’s up to him — those concerns have been communicated, one of the officials said.”

Biden had also weighted in Friday, saying “that’s a judgement” for Zelensky and his team alone to make. But the US president added: “In the pursuit of a diplomatic solution, it may — may be the wise choice. But it’s his decision.”

Despite the deterioration along the line of contact in Donbas, Zelensky’s traveling to Germany could also be a significant sign that he still doesn’t believe the White House prediction of an “imminent” Russian invasion. Currently pressure is building on the diplomatic front for Kiev to intensely engage the concerns of the pro-Russian breakaway regions. It appears Moscow is hoping the ratcheting situation forces Ukraine’s government to make concessions for the avoidance of major war.

END

What a riot!! Now confusion erupts among Western leaders whether to call Russian troops into the Donbass “an invasion”

(zerohedge)

Confusion Erupts Among Western Leaders Whether To Call Russian Moves “An Invasion”

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 10:50 AM

That didn’t take long: the White House along with CNN is already calling Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the Ukrainian breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk an “invasion”. This even as European allies are stopping noticeably short of such dramatic and ratcheted language. 

“An invasion is an invasion and that is what is under way,” a top national security adviser who assists Jake Sullivan told CNN host Brianna Keilar, who nodded in agreement with the assessment. White House Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer was asked by Keiler whether or not we are now witnessing “an invasion”. He called it a “fulfilment of what the president said would transpire” – apparently claiming that mere recognition of the breakaway republics means the administration’s prior “imminent invasion” narrative of the past weeks has come true. 

The CNN anchor asked at the start of the segment: “Is this as you see it – as the White House sees it – an ‘invasion’?”

Finer responded: “We think this is – yes – the beginning of an invasion – Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine.” Overnight it was widely reported that the Kremlin ordered what it’s calling “peacekeeping” forces into the two republics in Donbas. 

“And you are already seeing the beginning of our response… within minutes of President Putin speaking yesterday we issued an executive order that effectively blocked all economic activity in the two provinces of Ukraine that Russia now says belongs to somebody else,” he continued, referencing the White House’s very limited action thus far. He claimed that this is in fulfilment of “what the president said would transpire” – and underscored that the “Nord Stream 2 pipeline will not go forward.”

Without doubt this is the start of the mainstream networks in unison with the White House moving the goal posts dramatically. Despite neither Ukraine itself, nor the people on the ground, nor international pundits and correspondents seeing in Putin’s declaration “an invasion” – it’s likely US media will take Jonathan Finer’s words and run with them. The claim will be that the White House predictions were “right” all along – also despite there never being the big ‘false flag’ or ‘chemical attack’ provocation that Jen Psaki and Ned Price have been hyping. 

But from Europe’s perspective, it apparently stops short of classification as an invasion: “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have met and agreed on the need for more diplomacy to stop Russian leader Vladimir Putin from ordering an invasion of Ukraine, and strong responses if Russia does attack,” it was reported Tuesday.

This new attempt to change terms regarding what an “invasion” means also calls to mind last month’s Biden “minor incursion” gaffe which the White House tried desperately to walk back. 

He said in late January: “I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do.”

NPR and others noted at the time that this signaled NATO disunity: “On Wednesday, Biden had predicted Russia would invade Ukraine, but suggested there was a split among NATO members about how to respond if Moscow took action that stopped short of sending its troops across the border — something Biden referred to as a ‘minor incursion.'”

At the same time a Biden admin official has separately said, “Russian troops moving into Donbas would not itself be a new step” – given the crisis there has been ongoing since 2014. This suggests the White House will have to get lockstep on defining its own terms before deciding what level of sanctions to deploy against Moscow. 

So we are already seeing the kind of same confused and contradictory response that’s marked the last month of endless invasion predictions. 

As Bloomberg writes Tuesday, “Western leaders are shying away from saying Vladimir Putin’s move to recognize two self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine amounts to the invasion they’d been warning would likely come, even as the Russian president orders his forces to start deploying to the breakaway areas.”

And just like that, they’re already off and running…

For a look into just how these terms are conventionally defined, Academy Securities dives deeper in the following…

Limited Incursion. While visions of “peacekeepers” rolling into the Ukraine originally drove markets lower, a couple of things seem to have calmed the situation (for markets, not for the Donbas)

Limited response. In the immediate aftermath of Putin’s actions, it seemed like sanctions might be minimal and target the Donbass region and those involved there, rather than applying more broadly to Russia. Some statements, depending on how you chose to interpret them, seemed to indicate that only further incursion into Ukraine would warrant more severe sanctions. This outcome is good for Putin, good for markets, and awful for not only the Donbass, but for those who worry (and I’m one of them) that this just lays out the steps for future incursions, by Russia, and possibly others.

Severe Response. Putting Nordstream2 in jeopardy would hurt Russia. Going after oligarch’s assets across the globe would hurt Putin (not sure if we can get there, but aggressive measures are at least being discussed). It is clear to many, now, even if it should have been clear sooner, that Putin isn’t easily scared. They have been almost dismissive of sanctions, as they have been enduring them, to varying degrees for years and had plenty of time to prepare for this round. Longer term, that China/Russia pipeline deal is helping shape what he can do (not in a good way, for the West). This is worse for markets, better for humanity, but at this stage, seems unlikely to prevent incursion.

Full-scale attack. This remains highly unlikely, as nothing has changed about the logistics and cost to Russia of mounting such an attack. While Putin’s speech was a clear indication that this is something he wants, which increases the odds, it will still be a difficult and brutal battle. Also, after his “performance” yesterday, we may see a much more hardline response from NATO and the West as his dreams, if not intentions, are impossible to deny. Any major conflict, whether it is Ukraine aggressively defending its borders, or Russia pushing far into Ukraine will be incredibly disruptive for markets, at least in the near term.

end

Putin’s Request For Right To Use Military Abroad Approved In Russian Parliament

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 11:24 AM

Russia’s parliament moved to formalize the major decisions announced by President Putin, including on Tuesday the country’s Federation Council unanimously ratifying what’s been called “the agreements on friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance with the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics” submitted by Putin, according to state sources.

The successful ratification was reportedly met with senators breaking out in applause, and are said to be identical for both Donetsk and Luhansk. Heads of the breakaway Ukraine republics – Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, respectively – signed the treaties, which stipulate that “the sides will build their relations as friendly states, being consistently guided by the principles of mutual respect of their sovereignty and territorial integrity and peaceful resolution of any disagreements”.

And crucially, Putin has also now formally requested of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament permission to deploy Russia’s armed forces abroad. Overnight the Pentagon said it observed what the Kremlin has dubbed “peacekeeping” forces moving in the the Donbas regions. 

However, it’s as yet unclear the degree to which significant numbers of troops are already on the ground across the Russian border. 

“The request has been already weighed by the Senate’s committees, the Speaker of the Russian Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, has said,” according to Russian media. The meeting of Russia’s senate was broadcast live, in what’s becoming an ongoing ‘live event’ and bit of muscle flexing aimed at the West.

The Senate quickly issued official authorization for Donbas troop deployment. And in response NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg was quick to condemn what he called “the most dangerous moment in security in a generation.”

Given that Putin has now warned Ukraine against escalating or attacking its forces which will soon pour into Donbas in large-scale formation, the question remains how the West will respond beyond possibly meager sanctions…

developing

end

UKRAINE/USA RUSSIA/MONDAY

USA evacuates the Ukraine embassy in Kiev and moves staff to Poland after Putin recognizes the two breakaway Republics in the Donbass, Donetsk and Lugansk.  Putin sends in peacekeepers to stop the shelling.

US Evacuates Ukraine Embassy Staff To Poland

MONDAY, FEB 21, 2022 – 09:15 PM

The US State Department has evacuated Ukraine embassy staff from Ukraine to Poland on Monday, amid fears that Russia will launch an attack on Kiev, Bloomberg reports. War fears escalated on Monday, after Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow would immediately recognize the breakaway Donbass republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) as sovereign nations.

The officials are expected to remain at a hotel just over the border with Poland, though they could return to Ukraine as soon as Tuesday if the State Department determines that the security situation has stabilized.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed, saying that “for security reasons, Department of State personnel currently in Lviv will spend the night in Poland.  Our personnel will regularly return to continue their diplomatic work in Ukraine and provide emergency consular services.”

The move “of the small contingent of American diplomats still in Ukraine” comes one week after Washington relocated its embassy operations to Lviv from Kiev, citing a “dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces” near Ukraine’s borders. President Joe Biden’s administration has now ordered all remaining State Department employees in Ukraine to leave the country altogether, Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs said on Monday, citing unidentified sources.

Embassy staffers may return to Ukraine tomorrow “if the Russian invasion doesn’t happen, I’m told,” Jacobs added. US officials earlier this month urged American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country, saying they would be allowed to cross into Poland by land without advanced approval from Warsaw.

Embassy and consular activities will continue from Poland and the move is not intended to signal any shift in U.S. support for Ukraine, according to two of the U.S. officials. The U.S. alerted high-ranking officials in Ukraine before pulling out its embassy staff, and consulted with allies who also operate diplomatic facilities in the country, according to Bloomberg.

Last week’s embassy evacuation from Kiev reportedly included destruction of the facility’s computer systems and communications gear for fear that the equipment could fall into the hands of Russian forces. Lviv is in western Ukraine, further away than Kiev from the country’s borders with Russia and Belarus.

Several other countries have moved their embassies and issued travel alerts warning their citizens not to travel to Ukraine, following U.S. assessments that Russia could be planning to invade imminently.

There is hope that the move will compel Americans who remain in the country to get out as quickly as possible, one of the officials said. The move underscores concern that Russian military operations in Ukraine may not discriminate between military and civilian targets

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Ukraine has told its citizens and Chinese companies to be careful of safety, it said in a statement on its website, as tensions in Ukraine escalate. The statement says that Chinese should not head to “unstable” areas, and that they should also stock up on food and water. The embassy noted that Chinese associations should help out Chinese in Ukraine.

END

Saturday:

Russian trade surplus surges due to the high price of oil

(zerohedge)

Russian Trade Surplus Surges Amid Rising Tensions

SUNDAY, FEB 20, 2022 – 08:45 AM

Amid rising tensions between Russia, Ukraine and the West, Russia’s oil and gas exports rebounded sharply in 2021. According to the Bank of Russia, crude oil exports climbed to $32 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, the highest level since 2014.

As a result of surging energy prices, Statista’s Felix Richter notes that the country’s total oil and gas exports, including oil products and liquified natural gas, exceeded $240 billion last year, up 60 percent from $150 billion in 2020, when energy prices had slumped at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to figures from the Russian Finance Ministry cited by Reuters, the oil price averaged $69 per barrel in 2021, up from around $40 in 2020. The average price of natural gas exported by Russia reached $277 per 1,000 cubic meters in Q3 2021, up from less than $100 in Q2 2020, amid the Covid crash.

As the following chart shows, Russia’s merchandise trade surplus climbed to a record high of $67.6 billion in Q4 2021, despite the fact that the country’s imports also reached the highest level since 2013.

Infographic: Russian Trade Surplus Surges Amid Rising Tensions | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Russia is a major supplier of oil and gas to the European Union, making the current situation all the more complex. The European Union’s trade surplus crumbled in the face of surging energy prices in recent months, as the bloc’s energy imports swelled more than 70 percent to €381 billion in 2021. According to Eurostat, the EU’s trade deficit with Russia widened from €15.7 to €69.2 billion last year, as energy imports from the Russian Federation grew from €60 billion in 2020 to €99 billion in 2021.

end

RUSSIA/USA/Sunday

Tensions being held in check

Inbox

Robert Hryniak11:31 AM (1 hour ago)
to

So what prompted the call from Putin to Macron?

Better still what did he tell him for Macron to call Zelensky to tell to back off like now?

Yesterday, the rumor was some of the folks fleeing the Donbas to Russia had to be treated for radiation exposure. Whether true or not there are very real under currents we are not being told. Perhaps it is something to do with collapsing financiers and their empty bag of trickery. 

By Sputnik News 
Putin Tells Macron of NATO Effort to Push Kiev Into Military Solution in Donbass

The Donbass has seen a dramatic escalation of military activity in recent days, with local militias and Kiev forces accusing one another of back-and-forth mortar and artillery attacks. On Friday, the breakaways announced a general mobilization and organized the evacuation of civilians to neighbouring Russia amid fears of an all-out assault by Kiev.

Russian President Vladimir Putin brought up NATO’s efforts to pump Ukraine up with arms and encourage Kiev to resolve the conflict in Donbass by force during Sunday’s conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to a Kremlin readout. 
“Serious concern was expressed over the sharp deterioration of the situation on the line of contact in the Donbass.

The Russian president noted that provocations by the Ukrainian security forces are the cause of the escalation. Attention was drawn to ongoing effort by NATO countries to pump Ukraine full of modern weapons and ammunition, which is pushing Kiev toward a military solution to the so-called Donbass problem,” the Kremlin said.

“As a result, civilians from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics suffer, and have been forced to evacuate to Russia to escape the intensifying shelling,” the readout added.

Putin was said to have reiterated to his French counterpart that Kiev was “only imitating” the peace negotiations progress, “stubbornly refusing to implement the Minsk Agreements and the agreements reached in the Normandy Format.”

“Taking into account the acuteness of the current state of affairs, the presidents considered it expedient to intensify the search for solutions through diplomatic means through foreign ministries and political advisors to the leaders of the countries of the Normandy Format. These contacts are designed to help restore the ceasefire and ensure progress in resolving the conflict around Donbass,” the Kremlin stated.

Russia’s security concerns vis-a-vis NATO were also brought up, according to the readout, with Putin said to have “reiterated the need for the United States and NATO to take Russia’s demands for security guarantees seriously and to respond to them in a specific and to the point manner.”

The Elysee Palace issued its own statement following Sunday’s phone call, saying that Presidents Putin and Macron had agreed to search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. The presidents agreed on five points, according to the Elysee, including:

1) the resumption of work in the framework of the Normandy format, 2) efforts to ensure the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group later Sunday to obtain a commitment on a ceasefire in the Donbass, 3) commitment to a diplomatic solution to the Donbass crisis via “intense diplomatic work carried out in the coming days and weeks,” including meetings between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, 4) a firm commitment by Russia and France to carry out actions to avoid escalation, reduce risks and preserve peace.

“This diplomatic work should make it possible to make progress on the basis of the latest exchanges involving all stakeholders (the Europeans, their allies, Russia and Ukraine) in order to achieve, if the conditions are met, a meeting at the highest level to define a new order of peace and security in Europe,” the Elysee said.

source: 
https://sputniknews.com/20220220/kremlin-putin-informed-macron-of-nato-effort-to-push-kiev-into-military-solution-in-donbass-1093207433.html

end

The Ukraine Crisis Is on Biden

special thanks to Robert H for sending this to us:

Inbox

Robert Hryniak4:55 PM (21 minutes ago)
to

No question Biden owns this. 

https://m.theepochtimes.com/the-ukraine-crisis-is-on-biden_4292080.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_campaign=mb-2022-02-22&utm_medium=email&est=ZVzfb2MruJ7GG16%2F%2BL6RvyANm4RadiBRJ2kytCIpsuYxJCL%2FfaTJHKbx

The Ukraine Crisis Is on Biden

Ukrainian Military Forces walk along trenches on their position on the front line with Russia-backed separatists, near Novognativka village, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, on Feb. 21, 2022. (AnatoliI Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

Does anyone seriously believe that if Donald Trump were still sitting in the Oval Office, as perhaps he should be, Ukraine would be in the jeopardy that it is?

The Ukraine crisis is on Joseph Biden. And I’m not just talking about how he treated that country as his family’s piggy bank, with his son making a fortune off their energy giant Burisma while Joe himself threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless they fired the prosecutor investigating the famously corrupt company.

Unscrupulous and immoral as that was, I’m talking about something even worse. I’m talking about how he made Ukraine a gift to Vladimir Putin.

On Jan. 20, 2020, Biden canceled presidential approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. That was followed by a slew of other actions on energy, eliminating the United States’ newly won energy independence and ability to export its surplus.

With all this, Vladimir might have fainted, if he ever does such a thing, at his good fortune.

It meant Germany, Europe’s powerhouse, as well as many other countries, would be more dependent on Mother Russia for warmth the coming winter (and many more) via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

MOST READ

Biden is now suddenly threatening to cut off that pipeline should Russia invade Ukraine. It’s unclear how he would do it. How long such a threat would last in the cold of a European winter isn’t hard to guess.

Whether his energy policies are the most destructive of his administration is moot. There are so many.

But it does rival the chaotic departure from Afghanistan that left behind billions in modern armaments for the Taliban, an intact Bagram Air Base with one of the longest military runways in the world as easy pickings for the Chinese (their nuclear development facility a mere hour away), plus untold thousands of our citizens and allies stranded in that most primitive of locations, and the women in the hands of some of the most misogynistic people on Earth.

As for Keystone XL, Biden backed up his ruling by similarly withdrawing presidential support this January for the Greek–Israeli pipeline. It would have helped fuel Europe while simultaneously aiding the economy of two supposed U.S. allies. (Let’s not even go into what kind of ally Biden really is to Israel, given his evident desperation to rejoin a renewed Iran nuclear deal. The only thing that may be saving him is the Iranians themselves seem to be uninterested in any kind of deal, just in stalling.)

Biden claimed to be ending support for both pipelines for environmental reasons. Does he really believe that?

Alternative energy is far from ready technologically to provide anywhere near the necessary needs of Europe, Asia or Africa, or any populated continent. It already has failed in Texas. Solar and wind may not even be the alternative means ultimately used, as respected energy journalist Bjorn Lomborg has been pointing out for some time.

Also, climate catastrophe has been overhyped for decades, well before it was predicted in the British Independent (2000) that “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.” In the late 1980s, a “climate expert” told us Manhattan would be underwater by 2018. Given the lack of safety in the streets there today, maybe it’s unfortunate he wasn’t correct. (John Nolte has an amusing list of 53 such absurd predictions, dating back to 1967 when a dire famine was foretold for 1975. The 1970s were full of New Ice Age warnings that famously made the covers of Time and Newsweek.)

So something else other than climate nonsense must explain Biden’s desire to eliminate pipelines. We already know that Russia will profit most from the abandonment of Keystone XL and the Greek–Israeli EastMed collaboration.

Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China is the world’s biggest provider of solar collectors, many of which fail after a relatively short time. Is it that simple?

According to Peter Schweizer’s new book “Red-Handed,” the Biden family has profited from China to the tune of $31 million. The usual suspects have ignored this, but is anyone really contradicting it? Schweizer calls what is happening “Elite Capture.”

At the same time, the Western powers are conferencing in Munich, an odd choice of venue, but they are calling this go-round the Munich Security Conference.

Will that make a difference? Color me skeptical, on this occasion I don’t think there will be the storied “peace in our time.” As most of us know, there wasn’t the first time, either.

With Biden—the man Larry Kudlow aptly called “Putin’s best friend”—we have nearly three more years. Let us pray.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are “The GOAT” (fiction) and “I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already” (nonfiction). He can be found on GETTR and Parler @rogerlsimon.

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6// GLOBAL COVID ISSUES/VACCINE MANDATE ISSUES/

CORONAVIRUS/UPDATE/VACCINE MANDATE/EMERGENCY ACT/CANADA

CANADA/CONVOY/EMERGENCY MEASURES ACT

Canada moves fast for asset freezing of the protesters and they want to make this permanent.

(Watson/SummitNews)

Canada Moves To Make Asset Freezing Under Emergencies Act Permanent

MONDAY, FEB 21, 2022 – 08:26 AM

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Canada has moved to make the asset freezing part of its Emergencies Act, which was used to target supporters of the Freedom Convoy protests, a permanent fixture.

Wow, who saw that one coming?

In order to stop what the Trudeau regime referred to as “illegal blockades,” the government threatened to freeze the bank accounts of demonstrators and anyone who donated money to them.

Under the Emergencies Act, bank are required to freeze accounts without a court order, while all crowdfunding platforms and payment providers are mandated to provide information to FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada).

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that many of the measures imposed ‘temporarily’ to deal with the protesters (after they had been suitably demonized as violent extremists) will now become permanent.

“We used all the tools that we had prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act and we determined we needed some additional tools,” Freeland announced

“Some of those tools we will be putting forward measures to put those tools permanently in place. The authorities of FINTRAC, I believe, do need to be expanded to cover crowdsourcing platforms and payment platforms,” she added.

Ronald Reagan has been proven right again.

“Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”

Meanwhile, as we previously highlighted, such measures are likely to exclude protected classes (basically anyone who isn’t a native Canadian or white), with groups such as immigrants and refugees enjoying an exemption.

*  *  *

end

This is big big news!!! Wall Street is now aware of the huge problems with the vaccines , something that we have pointed out to you for the past year!! They are now shorting Pfizer and Moderna to death!!

The former big Blackrock/HSBC whistleblower, Edward Dowd. who predicted the crash of Moderna is basically stating the entire data from Pfizer and Moderna is fraudulent

and many who took the jab are dying  (also major injuries).  “In his words…..you cannot hide the bodies””

Blackrock Whistleblower Who Predicted The Crash of Moderna Breaks New Bombshell Information

https://www.brighteon.com/26648f66-8676-46f5-9487- 29423451104e

***

CANADA/CONVOY/EMERGENCY MEASURES ACT

TOM LUONGO on the weekend’s events in Ottawa

(Tom Luongo)

Trampling The Truckers – The Great Reset Becomes The Great Awakening

SUNDAY, FEB 20, 2022 – 11:00 AM

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

There are few words to describe the depth of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s depravity. I’m not going to even try.

This is a person, because no real man would ever govern like him, so thoroughly ill-prepared for its job it doesn’t even know how to properly read from the prepared script.

It was all fun and games making Trudeau/Hitler memes until this week when Trudeau’s enforcers on horseback trampled an old woman.

Because a man with any sense of decency does not send men on horseback into a crowd.

The only thing worse than are the people commenting on this saying some variation of ‘well, she deserved it.’

Yes, she could have gone home.

Yes, she could have gotten the clot-shot.

Yes, she could have just complied with whatever Justin Trudeau told her what her morality was.

But Trudeau could have chosen differently as well. As opposed to acting like a scared little boy worried about facing public ridicule, he could have sacked up and met with the protestors.

Instead, he did what all boy-emperors have ever done, he chose violence and intimidation.

Those who blame the victims are worse than Justin Trudeau. They will never admit it, even to themselves, but their belief in the state as moral arbiter is shaken to its foundation when things like this happen.

So they bluster about playing stupid games, win stupid prizes. Empathy? Who needs that in Davos’ Brave New World.

Those against the protests have their reasons, none of them, however, are morally justified. Because if you allow the state, an immoral construction at its core, to define your morality, you will forever having to justify tyranny to remain on the side of the angels.

Blaming the victim is the easiest thing to do. How many rapists have claimed “she had it coming?” How many abusers every day blame the people they abuse because they are too ashamed to admit they are in the wrong?

We Are All Unclean Now

The part of the Great Reset pertaining to COVID-19 was always about amplifying the divisions between people. To create a new religion around it. Its sacrament is the vaccine. Its Lord’s prayer is demonizing ivermectin and trusting the science. Its vestment is the mask.

Its “amen,” is “in the name of public health.”

It has led to such dehumanizing that those who do not comply with the high priests now deserve their fate.

Mario Draghi in Italy declared the unvaccinated to no longer be a part of Italian society.

And, in a way, sadly, Trudeau’s supporters are correct. One always has the choice to accept the abuse if the alternative is death. That woman didn’t go to Parliament Square with that choice in mind because, she, sadly, still believed in the religion of the State as a subordinate partner with the people in shaping society.

Those final illusions were trampled fully in the eyes of millions around the world.

Politically, there is no going back for Justin Trudeau. He, along with his supporters, will hide behind their ‘cope’ and refuse to accept the responsibility for their actions.

The Ottawa police are doing the same thing, putting out disinformation about trying to trip the horses and harm the policemen.

At this point those still on the job in Ottawa made a choice as well, to side with tyrants and embrace their own inner one.

Many of them will enjoy finally getting to mete out the violence that festers in their souls, after all, it’s why many of them became cops in the first place.

Those who still have their humanity are now deciding whether to go along or walk away. If they go along they will lose what’s left of their humanity just like men did during World War II.

And their true face has been revealed.

No Zeal for More Tyranny

Now, as bad as things are in Canada, In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, tried to follow Trudeau’s script to quell protests in Wellington.

And from all reports there, her efforts have failed completely. She convened a meeting of essentially the national security council on Thursday.

We have no solid reports of what went down.

Therefore, the silence about the outcome of that meeting speaks volumes. The military weren’t willing to get involved, just like what happened to Trudeau in Canada.

Moreover, New Zealand’s police commissioner Andrew Coster came out with a public statement saying negotiation was the path forward, something Arden has rejected out of hand, just like Trudeau, both reading from Davos’ script.

Coster said negotiations and de-escalation were the only safe ways to resolve the protest and he would continue to talk to the protesters. Police say there are about 800 protesters but numbers could rise over the weekend.

Coster said any forceful police action would risk injuries to the public and could turn a largely peaceful protest violent, and could increase the number of protesters.

Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly tried to hold the line against Trudeau’s megalomania earlier this week. That resulted in him resigning, presumably because he wouldn’t give the order to roust up the protestors and beat heads, and a more pliant enforcer put in his place.

The result is what we’re witnessing now in Ottawa.

The casual obscenity in this clip is the newscasters’ commentary about police restoring order.

The reality is that Arden and Trudeau are both hanging on by a thread because public opinion already turned against them. The only thing propping Trudeau up at this point is the shock at the speed he has escalated events. That shock will wear off very soon.

If parliament doesn’t act to limit/censure or simply get rid of this guy, Canadians will have a much bigger problem on their hands.

Too many Canadians are still asking, “Is this Canada?” When they should be stating, “This is not Canada.”

Stop asking for permission to feel outraged and feel the outrage.

In New Zealand, the veil of authority for Arden is thinner thanks to Trudeau’s mistakes in Ottawa. No doubt they are seeing the same things we are and want no part of it. The knives will come out for Arden quickly if she doesn’t back down.

I say all the time, spooks start civil wars, militaries end them. In Canada, the civil war there is just beginning. What we’ve not seen in New Zealand means it’s likely over before anyone even realized they were in one.

The Great Reset rests on tyrants like Justin Trudeau to win through fear, intimidation and the banal corruption of weak people to support them. With each image of peaceful people being trampled under the bootheel of Canadian stormtroopers, more people awaken from the slumber of the comfortable lie the government protects us from chaos.

That’s what the State is folks, violence. Always has been. This is why Klaus Schwab and his minions like Trudeau, Arden and others will fail. There is no law these people recognize. There is no restraint on their behavior they feel is justified for their holy cause.

The sooner we accept that, like many of the truckers who organized this protest, the sooner we can all begin bridging the divide.

I’ll leave the last word for Viva Frei.

end

Not good!

(zerohedge)

Ottawa Mayor Proposes To Sell Confiscated ‘Freedom Convoy” Trucks

MONDAY, FEB 21, 2022 – 05:15 PM

Ottawa police put an end to the “Freedom Convoy” protest in the downtown district that lasted for three weeks. On Friday and Saturday, officers arrested demonstrators and seized their vehicles. Now Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson wants to sell those seized trucks and campers to recoup millions of dollars the city lost during the three weeks of gridlock. 

On Sunday, Watson told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that trucks, campers, and other vehicles seized from the convoy should be sold off, claiming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s emergency powers could give him authority to do so. 

“Under the Emergencies Act, I’ve asked our solicitor and our city manager, ‘how can we keep the tow trucks and the campers and the vans and everything else that we’ve confiscated, and sell those pieces of equipment to help recoup some of the costs that our taxpayers are absorbing?'” Watson told state media. 

Ottawa police tweeted 79 vehicles in total were seized and towed to impound yards. 

City Treasurer Wendy Stephanson recently noted demonstrators cost the Canadian capital CAD 1 million ($785k) per day. “We should ding those people who have caused this chaos,” Watson said in a separate interview with CTV. 

It’s unclear whether the mayor will follow through with his plant to sell the vehicles. There’s also no word if the vehicles at auction would even cover the $14 million cost of policing expenses. 

Interim Police Chief Steve Bell told reporters that clearing out demonstrators over the weekend was “extremely expensive.” 

“We’ve already talked to our federal and provincial partners about how, at the end of the day, we will look at having money provided to the police service for that. Those discussions are ongoing,” Bell said. “We continue to track our costs. Our partners continue to work with us to identify the costs of policing to actually manage this event and, at the culmination of it, we will be able to provide accurate figures.”

Bell said on Saturday the “unlawful occupation is over.” He added on Sunday that security fences with “very heavy police presence” were placed around the downtown areas.

The trucker convoy has yet to release a statement about their seized vehicles and what their response will be… One would assume they would lawyer up and use donated funds in an attempt to retrieve their vehicles. 

end

This is a good read..
Victor Davis Hanson…

The Gathering Storm In The West

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 06:30 AM

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

Few are listening any more to the clueless Justin Trudeaus and bumbling Joe Bidens and all the toxic hypocrisies they embody…

Canada is now governed by absurdism, and it is symptomatic of an ailing Western elite.

Liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week invoked martial law to arrest and financially destroy truckers on the charge that their largely peaceful protests are “dismantling the Canadian economy” that had already been dismantled for two years under some of the most draconian lockdowns in the world. The trucker “sect,” Trudeau added, is guilty of felonious “unacceptable views.” But his rhetoric still cannot square the circle of demonizing vital workers while conceding he cannot run his country without them. 

He has invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in the law’s 34-year history, even as the highly infectious Omicron variant wanes after spreading natural immunity and yet proving relatively mild in its effects. Trudeau has neither science nor good governance on his side, especially given how civil the protests have been. The truckers, who more or less work in solitary cabs, are better informed about the “science” and are themselves mostly vaccinated.  

Whether by accident or intent, the truckers have now become iconic of far larger issues. Their resistance to government vaccination mandates transcends them. And so, they are playing the role of the proverbial straw that may break the back of a once compliant Canadian citizenry, burdened by over two years of masks, lockdowns, and vaccination mandates. 

They are Howard Beales yelling, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” or the iconic Tunisian peddler Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi whose self-immolation prompted the Arab Spring, or Tank Man who stood erect in Tiananmen as an oncoming tank finally swerved around him. The truckers are saying to the Canadian people, “Watch and we will kindly show you why you always privately suspected that this prime minister and his ilk were frauds.” As in the case of earlier exasperated rebels, we do not know the exact consequences that will follow, only that the leaders who targeted the dissidents will likely end up worse than their targets. 

The North American public has endured almost daily nonsensical changes in “follow the science” state edicts, as well as vast asymmetries between those who profited and those who were hurt by the government reactions to the pandemic. On the one hand, Trudeau threatens to use his state powers to ruin financially the protestors and their supporters. On the other hand, the prime minister brags that he participated in the Canadian versions of the BLM protests in summer 2020. Here in the United States, the combined BLM/antifa riots of summer 2020 caused the greatest property damage claims of any riot in U.S. history, around $2 billion. The violence eventually led to over 35 deaths, the torching of a federal courthouse, police precinct, and historic Washington D.C. church, over 1,500 police injuries–and, mysteriously, very few indictments of the some 14,000 people arrested. Is Trudeau’s point to stress that destroying things make protestors more authentically left-wing and thus exempt, while mostly peaceful protests lose deterrence and therefore can be crushed? 

The North American Left justifies such asymmetry both in crude terms and in ideological gobbledly-gook. A Trudeau official called the truckers “Trump supporters,” as if that label has any relevance other than to justify the government’s violation of civil liberties. Does Trudeau think a “Trump supporter” necessarily polls worse than a “Trudeau supporter”? The foppish man who in his youth thought it cool to be photographed sporting blackface is quick to demonize a multiethnic and multiracial protest as “racist”? 

Left-wing administrations in Toronto and Washington feel that the supposed higher social goals of the antifa and BLM violent protests (that purportedly advance their own political agendas) warrant exemptions of every sort. More than 1,000 U.S. healthcare workers went on record in 2020 justifying street protestors’ flagrant violations of strict COVID-19 lockdowns, at the height of the pre-vaccination pandemic.  

We were lectured that curbing any BLM protest might cause mental health problems. Should noncomplying truckers and their boosters try that ruse?  

The asymmetric application of punishment depends solely on the degree to which any given violation aids or detracts from left-wing agendas. A postelection Time magazine piece by Molly Ball gave the game away. She bragged how CEOs and plutocrats conspired to modulate the pulse of the Antifa/BLM violence to ensure calm for Joe Biden’s election—and more or less summed up the larger progressive elite impulse (“There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans.”)  

COVID accentuated a larger and growing cultural, political, social, and economic split in the West. Partly, the fissures were brought on by the displacements of globalization. Partly they appeared with the final dominance of a huge class of credentialed government apparatchiks. And partly the split derives from the paradox of governments inviting millions of non-Western immigrants into Europe and North America from impoverished, and dystopian societies. Their inequality upon arrival, supposedly predicated on race rather than class, then becomes political nourishment for progressive redistributive agendas that otherwise had little political support among their citizen populations.  

Again, the truckers symbolize this gap, in an age when elites do not care much for class divides, only racial distinctions as a way of demonizing the less well-off. 

After all, those who smear the truckers are mostly of the zoom and laptop class. Their chief agendas during the last two years of crisis were sheltering in place to avoid contact with anyone, while zooming and skyping to maintain and boost their already generous incomes. Few like Trudeau ever wondered how the elite remained fully employed, but rarely present at work—much less why millions of others were expected to scoff at the virus and come physically to work, while their incomes often dived or ended due to government lockdown policies.  

The muscular classes enjoyed no such exemptions. Their kids went to public schools that were shut down or required masks. Parents lost incomes as they stayed home to watch children that tenured teachers would not teach. Truckers had no such margin of safety or security, but were out among the public delivering food, fuel, clothing, and the appurtenances of the Western comfortable lifestyle. In our current inflationary spiral, they earned a bit more, while inflation made them poorer, while those they served earned far more.  

The truckers remind Western audiences that modern progressivism equates muscular labor and hourly wage compensation with a sort of Neanderthalism. That is, the unfortunate clingers supposedly never quite understood globalization, much less how an 8-billion-person market rewards those who type on keyboards and, in relative terms, punishes the supposedly less aware who physically deliver, fix, make, and repair things.  

DAVE CHAN via Getty Images

We can almost reduce the divide to the embarrassing optics of a pouty-face pajama-boy prime minister, with a pompadour coiffure, issuing threats to calm, but beefy and calloused workers. Each time Trudeau speaks to his nation, the visual message is that any of the truckers could do a better job than he in both setting and explaining policy, while he would become a helpless weeping child if placed behind the wheel of a big rig. 

Somehow the elite class extrapolates moral worth from its rigged superiority in financial compensation. And given its economic and cultural leverage—social media, entertainment, academia, professional sports, the corporate boardroom, Wall Street—it has institutionalized the idea that, in circular fashion, the more the credentialed and better compensated, the more the elite deserve even more influence on how societies should run in a manner that mostly benefits themselves.  

Paradoxes arise constantly. Government grandees are caught without masks at tony restaurants. Climate change demagogues fly private jets. Pro-teacher union, anti-charter and anti-home school zealots ensure their children stay in private schools. The gated estate crowd ridicule the fossilized idea of a border wall. Professional bureaucrats routinely lie under oath to Congress and to federal investigators without any consequences whatsoever—as John Brennan, James Clapper, Anthony Fauci, and Andrew McCabe can attest. 

To explain California Governor Gavin Newsom sporting about without a mask at elite gatherings, we are supposed to assume that his class deserves exemption from the ramifications of its ideology—in order to travel faster, sleep better, have a larger support network, and relax in deservedly larger homes and gardens—all so that they could better save us chumps and clueless dregs from ourselves. 

Our elites like Trudeau and Newsom seem angry they are unfairly underappreciated by their clueless beneficiaries. The latter supposedly never appreciate the needed remedies for climate change, the thought cleansing required to eliminate systemic racism, and the mind reprogramming demanded for true diversity, equity, and inclusion thinking.  

Instead, the losers cling to unwoke and incorrect notions that class, not race, remains the real postmodern divide, that printing money does not make us richer, that a nation without a border is an amorphous nothing, that affordable gasoline and diesel fuel (not wind and solar) for now keep the West alive, that a fetus is alive at conception, that biology largely determines gender, that assimilation and integration are the only cures for tribalism, and that the law reflects a natural innate morality, and should not be applied on the basis of perceived victims manipulated by it, or the supposed victimizers manipulating it.  

That wound of an imperious but counterfeit elite has suppurated too long beneath a smooth scab. And abruptly, the truckers at least tore some of it off.  

What is now following is amplification and clarification of the Western divide. We the public are at the global theater. And we are watching a tragicomedy. On stage, a petulant cast of clueless Justin Trudeaus and bumbling Joe Bidens simply cannot fathom why few anymore are listening to them. More and more North Americans are perplexed why anyone would wish to follow such unimpressive mental and physical figures along with all the toxic hypocrisies they embody and weaponize.

end

Special thanks to G for sending this to us:

COVID/VACCINE INJURIES

“Everyone is at Risk for Blood Clots!” – CDC and Pfizer Issue Urgent Warnings on Blood Clots Even in “The Healthiest Athletes” -Get rid of the spike proteins from your vaccine in your blood see below

Inbox

Gijsbert Groenewegen6:59 AM (5 hours ago)
to Gijsbert

“Everyone is at Risk for Blood Clots!” – CDC and Pfizer Issue Urgent Warnings on Blood Clots Even in “The Healthiest Athletes”

By Jim Hoft 
Published February 19, 2022 at 7:45am

Both CDC and Pfizer have recently issued a public warning about “blood clots.”

Last February 10, the CDC issued a warning normalizing the idea that young adults and healthy athletes develop blood clots.

Of course, no one has ever heard of this frequent phenomenon before the COVID vaccines.

“#DYK [do you know] that anyone can develop a blood clot? Whether you’re an athlete or a fan, don’t let a blood clot ruin the big game this weekend. Learn how to protect your health: https://bit.ly/2lOpGEB,” CDC tweeted out.

TRENDING: “Everyone is at Risk for Blood Clots!” – CDC and Pfizer Issue Urgent Warnings on Blood Clots Even in “The Healthiest Athletes”

#DYK that anyone can develop a blood clot? Whether you’re an athlete or a fan, don’t let a blood clot ruin the big game this weekend. Learn how to protect your health: https://t.co/yutLTviNR8.

— CDC (@CDCgov) February 10, 2022

The CDC failed to mention on their website the COVID-19 vaccines as one of the factors that can increase this risk.

Last year, a stunning new study that was conducted by researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), has concluded that the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine increases the risk of developing a rare and deadly blood clotting condition in the brain.

A study by Oxford University early last year also revealed that the number of people who developed blood clots after getting vaccinated was about the same for those who get Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as they are for the AstraZeneca, Market Watch reported.

Following CDC’s caution, Pfizer has issued a public warning about “deep vein thrombosis” or blood clots in the vein on February 14.

“Deep vein thrombosis (#DVT), a blood clot in a deep vein, can travel to the lungs, leading to a pulmonary embolism (#PE). Symptoms of PE include difficulty breathing and chest pain. Contact your doctor if experiencing symptoms—this is no time to wait,” Pfizer tweeted out.

Deep vein thrombosis (#DVT), a blood clot in a deep vein, can travel to the lungs, leading to a pulmonary embolism (#PE). Symptoms of PE include difficulty breathing and chest pain. Contact your doctor if experiencing symptoms—this is no time to wait.

— Pfizer Inc. (@pfizer) February 14, 2022

CANADA/CONVOY/EMERGENCY MEASURES ACT

Video: Dr. Charles Hoffe Speaks Out to the World – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

Inbox

douglas cundey7:53 AM (40 minutes ago)
to Chris, William, Bill, rkirby, me

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-dr-charles-hoffe-speaks-out-world/5771073

Video: Dr. Charles Hoffe Speaks Out to the World

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Dr. Charles Hoffe is a family physician in British Columbia. 

“I have been horrified to see what the COVID shots have done to my own patients. I have a small country practice with about 2,000 patients and amongst those people, I now have 12 in my own practice who are disabled since their COVID shots.

end

What happens when MP question Klaus   Schwab

 involvement in Canadian politics:

https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/see-what-happened-when-canadian-mp?utm_source=url

Lucian Scott 🇨🇷 🇨🇦 on Twitter: “Wow… just on CPAC now an MP asked why Klaus Schwab was bragging he owns half of Canada’s parliament and who are the MP’s he owns… the speaker cut him off and said the audio was bad and moved on… the whole system needs to come down Canada isn’t ours anymore…” / Twitter

Inbox

Robert Hryniak1:57 PM (2 minutes ago)
to

I think it is time demanded that all politicians disclose their loyalty; Schwab or the Canadian public.
Politicians are elected to serve as representatives of their riding and not just some employee or tool for Schwab.
Every politician voting to keep the insane mandates in place is demonstrating treason. If the Canadian PUBLIC needs this make a election issue and call one for the mandate to do such things. Because otherwise it is simple tyranny.
Everyone I have spoken to recently abroad is appalled at what is happening and to a single Canadian those now abroad will not be returning. What will that to to the Economy ?

>
> 
> https://mobile.twitter.com/scottlucian/status/1495034618185228293

end

CANADA/CONVOY/EMERGENCY MEASURES ACT

Ottawa Arrests Top 100 As “Freedom Convoy” Organizers Face Judge For First Time

DIS 

SATURDAY, FEB 19, 2022 – 01:40 PM

As the number of “Freedom Convoy” protesters arrested in Ottawa grows to top 100, organizers Tamara Lich, Pat King and Chris Barber – who were arrested Friday as police cracked down on the still-numerous Parliament Hill protesters – are set to face a judge for the first time on Saturday. They will be arraigned on a number of  mostly minor charges, including counseling to commit mischief, counseling to disobey a court order, and obstructing police.

Police broke up the protests using a number of aggressive techniques Friday as they moved to break up what had become a four-week occupation. Ottawa Police eventually denied that they had used tear gas on protesters – instead they said protesters had launched gas at them. Police said no gas had been used Friday and Saturday.

This looks a little “gas”-like to us…

Barber has already been released on bail, with Canadian Justice Julie Bourgeois releasing him on a $100,000 bond and on the conditions he leave Ontario by next Wednesday and not publicly endorse the convoy or have any contact with the other protest organizers. Both King and Lich will appear in court on Saturday. The bail amount in Barber’s case was notably high considering the charges, the most serious of which is the obstructing police charge.

King, Lich and other organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” protests also saw a temporary freeze to their bank accounts, including even their bitcoin and cryptocurrency funds, following an Ontario Superior Court ruling on Thursday.

As of early Saturday, police say so far at least 21 vehicles were towed on Friday as hundreds of officers – some of them riding on horseback – fanned out across Parliament Hill and the surrounding area to remove any resistant protesters from the streets, and forcing the removal of the hundreds of big rigs and trucks that have been there for weeks.

Ottawa police interim chief Steve Bell told a Friday evening news conference that clearing the area would take time, but the operation was “deliberate and methodical” and police were in control on the ground.

He said no serious injuries had been reported, and those arrested had been charged with various offenses including mischief, adding that police were still urging demonstrators to leave peacefully.

Yesterday’s crackdown included several instances of police brutality that were caught on video. In one video, an elderly woman can be seen being “trampled” by police horses. Early reports claiming she had died proved incorrect.

In another incident of violence, a police officer can be seen smashing the butt of a rifle into a protesters face.

For those who have been arrested: those helmets and batons that police carried were for “your safety” not theirs.

Meanwhile, inside the House of Commons today MPs will resume debate on the use of the Emergencies Act to respond to the “illegal” protests and street blockades. The debate began on Thursday but Government House leader Mark Holland said in a Twitter post that House leaders from all parties had agreed to cancel Friday’s session thanks to a recommendation from Parliament security.

GLOBAL  ISSUES//

END

Vaccine Impact

40,000 Deaths Following COVID Shots in European Database as Life Insurance Death Claims SkyrocketFebruary 18, 2022 2:09 pmThe European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 39,997 fatalities, and 3,666,011 injuries following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots. From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (1,727,226) are serious injuries. Edward Dowd is a former Portfolio Manager for Blackrock where he managed a 14 billion dollar portfolio. He was recently interviewed by Kristi Leigh and in this interview he discusses the surge of death payouts recorded in the Life Insurance industry in the 4th quarter of 2021. While Life Insurance companies suffered in 2021, the year the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, funeral businesses saw a surge in sales.Read More..
.
Heavily Armed Police Begin to Arrest Protesters in OttawaFebruary 18, 2022 6:43 pmInterim Ottawa Police Chief has promised all week that the protesters in Ottawa would be removed, and that this weekend would not be like the past couple of weekends in Ottawa, and he followed through with his attempt to make that happen today on Friday, February 18th, as heavily armed police took to the streets of Ottawa and began arresting the protesters. Here is my video report, so you can listen and watch for yourself instead of read what I write.Read More…end

Jon Rappoport: Exposing the HIV AIDS Fraud for Over 30 YearsFebruary 19, 2022 2:14 pmMy first book, AIDS INC., was published in 1988. The research I engaged in then formed a foundation for my recent work in exposing the vast fraud called COVID-19. In 1987-88, my main question eventually became: does HIV cause AIDS? For months, I had blithely assumed the obvious answer was yes. This created havoc in my investigation, because I was facing contradictions I couldn’t solve. For example, in parts of Africa, people who were chronically ill and dying obviously needed no push from a new virus. All their “AIDS” conditions and symptoms could be explained by their environment: contaminated water supplies; sewage pumped directly into the drinking water; protein-calorie malnutrition; hunger, starvation; medical treatment with immunosuppressive vaccines and drugs; toxic pesticides; fertile farm land stolen by corporations and governments; wars; extreme poverty. The virus cover story actually obscured all these ongoing crimes. Finally, in the summer of 1987, I found several researchers who were rejecting the notion that HIV caused AIDS. Their reports were persuasive. I’m shortcutting a great deal of my 1987-8 investigation here, but once HIV was out of the picture for me, many pieces fell into place. I discovered that, in EVERY group supposedly at “high-risk” for AIDS, their conditions and symptoms could be entirely explained by factors that had nothing to do with a new virus. AIDS was not one condition. It was an umbrella label, used to re-package a number of immunosuppressive symptoms and create the illusion of a new and unique and single “pandemic.” Several years after the publication of AIDS INC., I became aware of a quite different emerging debate going on under the surface of research: DOES HIV EXIST? Was the purported virus ever truly discovered? And THAT question led to
: what is the correct procedure for discovering a new virus?Read More..

.Pro-Vaccine Dr. Peter McCullough Attacks Health Impact News with False ClaimsFebruary 19, 2022 2:36 pmPeter McCullough was recently interviewed by “Red Voice Media” and attacked Health Impact News, claiming that we have been “fact checked” by someone named “Dan O’Connor” at TrialSiteNews and that we were found to be “100% fallacious” and that we don’t cite our claims, and that we make “false claims.” In making this accusation against us in public, Peter McCullough has himself made a “false claim” and slandered Health Impact News in the process.Read More…

68,000% Increase in Strokes as FDA and NIH Secretly Study Reports of Neurological Injuries After COVID-19 Vaccines

February 20, 2022 8:07 pm

The Epoch Times published an explosive report today stating that they have received emails that allegedly show that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been quietly studying neurological problems that have appeared in people after they took a COVID-19 vaccine. An examination of the FDA and CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) confirms that deaths and injuries due to neurological issues following COVID-19 injections have skyrocketed, when compared to the same adverse events reported following all FDA-approved vaccines for the previous 30 years. And while none of the U.S. Health Agencies have published or made public their research on these post-vaccine neurological injuries, many medical journals have. The COVID-19 experimental vaccines, which were given emergency use authorization illegally, should have been immediately pulled from the market at least a year ago. Will these criminals in the pharmaceutical industry who pay billions of dollars to get their products approved by the FDA ever face justice for the mass murder they have caused?

Read More..

CDC Withholding Data on COVID-19 Vaccines Because “They might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective” and “The figures would be misrepresented by anti-vaccine groups”

February 21, 2022 7:39 pm

Yesterday we reported how the Epoch Times obtained emails that showed the FDA and NIH have been secretly studying neurological problems that have appeared in people after they took a COVID-19 vaccine. But the Epoch Times was not the only news organization to report that data from COVID-19 vaccine injuries has been concealed from the public by Government health agencies. The New York Times also reported yesterday that the CDC is not publishing large portions of the Covid data it collects. “For more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected data on hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the United States and broken it down by age, race and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public. Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said.” (Source: NYT) And what is the reason why they have not published all this data according to the New York Times? “Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time. She said the agency’s priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable. Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.” So there you have it. This information alone is enough to charge and convict all the heads of the U.S. health agencies, including the FDA, NIH, and the entire department of Health and Human Services with criminal intent to commit fraud resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and millions injured by the illegally rushed-to-market COVID-19 shots under President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, and the mass distribution and concealment of the data showing how ineffective and deadly these shots are under the Biden administration. So why is the information only now being leaked to news media like Epoch Times and the New York Times? That’s the big question, and whatever the answer is, it surely is nothing good. Are they ready to crash the economy and move to the next “crisis” to hide their criminal activities?

Read More…

Our Leaders Made a Pact with the Devil, and Now the Devil Wants His Due

February 21, 2022 7:48 pm

The unprecedented credit-fueled bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are popping, and America’s corrupt leaders can only stammer and spew excuses and empty promises. Unbeknownst to most people, America’s leadership made a pact with the Devil: rather than face the constraints and injustices of our economic-financial system directly, a reckoning that would require difficult choices and some sacrifice by the ruling financial-political elites, our leaders chose the Devil’s Pact: substitute the creation of asset-bubble “wealth” in the hands of the few for widespread prosperity. The Devil’s promise: that some thin trickle of the trillions of dollars bestowed on the few would magically trickle down to the many. This was as visibly foolish as the promise of immortality on Planet Earth, but our craven, greedy leadership quickly sealed the deal with the Devil and promptly inflated the greatest credit-asset bubble in human history.

Read More…

Michael Every

on the major topics of the day

Michael Every…

Rabobank: Dr. Strangelove In The Multiverse Of Madness

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 11:10 AM

By Michael Every of Rabobank

In recent weeks myself and my Rabo colleagues have leaned on the blackest of comedy in Dr. Strangelove (and its “Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!“) to describe Western-Russian tensions and their dangerous high stakes for us all. Well, now we enter ‘Dr. Strangelove in the Multiverse of Madness’. There are clashing, mind-bending parallel realities and possible futures all running alongside each other.

Yesterday saw Russian President Putin call a special session of his national security council at the Kremlin, which was televised live. Except it wasn’t: an observant journalist spotted Defence Minister Shoigu’s watch was set five hours earlier, so it was all recorded at a time when the market was still clinging to the forlorn hopes that President Macron’s latest “Peace in our time” proposal for another Biden-Putin summit might work. Imagine if PM BYO Johnson had recorded Prime Minister’s questions in the morning and was already back in No.10 drinking champagne with a group of friends while the nation was ostensibly watching him being grilled live over Partygate. What we saw broadcasted with a delay from Russia was Putin looking bored behind his desk in a vast white room that looked like the final ‘2001’ Kubrick set, while uniformed Kremlin creatures played the world’s worst ever game of musical chairs before reporting to him solemnly one by one. And we entered the multiverse of madness.

In one reality, supported by masses of OSINT evidence, Russia has 150,000 troops on the Ukrainian border. In another reality in the Kremlin, two Ukrainian APCs had just charged into Russia THROUGH Russian-separatist held territory and towards all those Russian soldiers, before being killed; Ukraine has a mass army assembled on the border of the Donbas; and Ukraine “has significantly more nuclear weapons capabilities than Iran and North Korea”. I thought only the West did terrible propaganda. As @EliotHiggins of Bellingcat tweeted: “These are genuinely some of the most idiotic efforts at disinformation I’ve seen. I expected to be lied to, but I didn’t expect all those lies to be so blatantly dumb. I’m actually offended at the poor quality of this propaganda and feel bad for Russia for having produced it.”

Then Putin went off to think and came back to give a speech full of insults about “Russophobic” Ukraine and the US puppet regime it has become in his reality (vs. the European democracy in another) and bewailing the end of the USSR. This included the threat that “We know every name of the people who have done it. We will find and punish them,” which speaks to one of the lurid claims the West had made about what Russia plans to do if it invaded. Putin concluded by officially recognising the breakaway pro-Russian republics of Luhansk and Donetsk – and Russian military peacekeepers are reportedly already on the ground to protect them.

Which appears to be madness. Russian troops moving into what the world still regards as Ukraine is going to be taken as a further invasion. Recognising the two Donbas republics, while not incorporating them into Russia, achieves nothing. The two are poor and will remain that way. They offer little strategic value. Moreover, the Minsk accords Russia has been pushing, which would have kept Ukraine intact but Finlandized it from the inside, are now finished. There is now no way he can win Kyiv back to Russian influence peacefully. So, while Putin may pause for a moment and try to get a Biden summit, and while market analysts will no doubt retreat to their next line of strategic denial –that this is not a proper invasion of Ukraine proper– the geostrategic logic says worse is to come.

Indeed, it suggests Putin may press on towards the Dnieper and Black Sea, etc. to try to force Kyiv to buckle and to build a future defensive perimeter if he cannot. Yes, there are limits to what Russia can seize and hold – but seize and hold some parts they can. At time of writing, reports were already coming in of Russia preparing amphibious attacks on the south of Ukraine. Ukraine can respond militarily in any reality; other countries could be sucked in if they provide support.

Ukrainian President Zelenskiy has called an urgent US Security Council meeting – where Russia and China can block any action. He also noted “We will see who our partners are, and who will continue to try to influence Russia only with words.” Indeed, the risk, even with a delay, is biting sanctions from the US and UK, while we will soon find out what the EU is capable of. We have covered the potential impact of these three times in recent weeks (here, here, and here) as we tried to emphasize that this outcome was far more likely than markets had wanted to believe.

Of course, this is not a given – anything could still happen. But once you move borders unilaterally by force you truly enter the multiverse of madness. ‘Reality’ can be upended in places that you thought it couldn’t be. For one example, the US is now moving its embassy not just to Lviv, but to Poland. How many will follow?

Also allow me to share a thought from Dr. Pippa Malmgren, who, like ourselves, has been arguing that a global stand-off has been looming as we rush towards a multipolar world. She wants to speak directly to markets on what she also sees as an unfolding metacrisis for them too:

The question, therefore, is not just “what is the correct position in the market”? The question is “Will there be a market?” Remember, we have the antithesis of decentralization. Most financial exchanges have been compressed onto a single computer chip. I know from being in The White House during 911 that the exchanges all say they have a backup plan but when the power goes out, the capacity to transact will be limited for all or for some. But, if it isn’t there or it’s disrupted in a way that gives some advantages over others, policymakers will simply close the markets to avoid unfairness and uncertainty.

The good news is that this lets everybody off the hook. Market makers will take a much-needed break and gossip about how long it will take to turn the exchanges back on. The bad news is that if this happens persistently enough, the Russians and Chinese – driven by their non-truly capitalist ideologies – may kill the underlying belief system of capitalism itself, the idea that you can price credit and deals and that you can always transact. All options become worthless if they cannot be exercised. The new nuclear option is to kill the idea that the future can be discounted. This is how you slowly murder the faith and belief in the concept of credit. The internet ate everybody’s lunch and gave us Uber Eats. In this scenario, there is no more Uber Eats. No more SatNav, GPS, or online anything. No more internet. No more metaverse. No more market.

This isn’t a forecast, but it’s a warning from someone with far greater national security knowledge than almost anyone reading this Daily (or writing it!) And here is one more example: Bloomberg reports ‘China Is Said to Plan State-Backed Platform to Buy Iron Ore’. Specifically, “Beijing wants all purchases of the steelmaking material conducted through a single state-backed platform that’s under preparation, according to people familiar with the matter. At the moment, Chinese businesses including steel mills can negotiate spot purchases independently. The plan aims to stabilize the steelmaking ingredient over the long-term, and is part of a broader focus on boosting China’s influence over the price of commodities, the people said. Iron ore’s spot market is relatively small, but prices there determine how much steel mills pay in long-term contracts.” And do you think this stops with iron ore? Why, exactly? “Because iron ore”?

As Dr. Malmgren asks, “will there be a market” in a world of “non-truly capitalist ideologies”? Yes -but it won’t be like the free, global, Western-centric, dollar-denominated, English-language legal contracts we take for granted today. At least not without serious pushback from said architecture, even at the cost of splintering it.

What the reality we will emerge into when this is all finally over will look like remains to be seen: but it’s likely to be very, very Dr. Strange and Dr. Strangelove while we get there.

7. OIL ISSUES

end

 

8 EMERGING MARKET& AUSTRALIA ISSUES

Australia////  NEW ZEALAND/ SOUTH AFRICA/BRAZIL//COVID/VACCINES/LOCKDOWNS

END

Your early  currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings TUESDAY morning 7:30 AM

Euro/USA 1.1351 UP .0042 /EUROPE BOURSES //ALL MIXED    

USA/ YEN 115.07  UP  0.461 /NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT .11% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…

GBP/USA 1.3549  DOWN   0.0049

 Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED DOWN 33.47 PTS OR 0.96%

 Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 650.07 PTS OR 2.69%

AUSTRALIA CLOSED DOWN 1.13%   // EUROPEAN BOURSES OPENED ALL MIXED  

Trading from Europe and ASIA

I) EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL MIXED    

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SANG  CLOSED DOWN 650.07 PTS OR 2.69%

/SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 33.47 PTS OR 0.96%

Australia BOURSE CLOSED DOWN 1.13%

(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED DOWN 461.36 PTS OR 1.71%

INDIA’S SENSEX  IN THE RED

Gold very early morning trading: 1899.30

silver:$24.06-

USA dollar index early TUESDAY morning: 95.94  DOWN 14  CENT(S) from FRIDAY’s close.

THIS ENDS TUESDAY MORNING NUMBERS

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And now your closing TUESDAY NUMBERS 1: 00 PM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 1.15%  UP 8  in basis point(s) yield from YESTERDAY/

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +0.198%  DOWN 2 AND 2/10   BASIS POINTS from YESTERDAY/JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 1.28%// UP 9   in basis points yield from yesterday.

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD 1.94 UP 9    points in basis points yield from yesterday./

the Italian 10 yr bond yield is trading 66 points higher than Spain.

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: RISES TO +0.248% IN BASIS POINTS ON THE DAY//

THE IMPORTANT SPREAD BETWEEN ITALIAN 10 YR BOND AND GERMAN 10 YEAR BOND IS 1.69% AND NOW ABOVE   THE 3.00% LEVEL WHICH WILL IMPLODE THE ENTIRE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM. AT 4% SPREAD THERE WILL BE A HUGE BANK RUN…

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR TUESDAY  

Closing currency crosses for TUESDAY /USA DOLLAR INDEX/USA 10 YR BOND YIELD/1:00 PM

Euro/USA 1.1345  UP .0035    or 35 basis points

USA/Japan: 114.98 UP 0.369 OR YEN DOWN 37  basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.3595 UP 1  BASIS POINTS

Canadian dollar UP 20 pts to 1.2731

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The USA/Yuan,  CNY: closed    ON SHORE  (CLOSED )..UP 6.3266  

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE:    (YUAN CLOSED (UP)..6.3217

TURKISH LIRA:  13.83  EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield  at +0.198

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield UP 2  IN basis points from FRIDAY at  1.949% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic

 USA 30 yr bond yield: 2.251 UP 1 in basis points 

Your closing USA dollar index, 95.95  DOWN 13   CENT(S) ON THE DAY/1.00 PM/

Your closing bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates for TUESDAY: 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED UP 11.64 PTS OR 0.16%

German Dax :  CLOSED DOWN 70.48 points or 0.48%

Paris CAC CLOSED DOWN 10.06PTS OR 0.15% 

Spain IBEX CLOSED DOWN 11.00PTS OR 0.15%

Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 23.73 PTS OR 0.09%

WTI Oil price 92.93    12: EST

Brent Oil:  95.95  12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN /   RUBLE FALLS:   79.13  THE CROSS HIGHER BY  1.12 RUBLES/DOLLAR (RUBLE LOWER BY 112  BASIS PTS)

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +.248

CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM

Euro vs USA: 1.1329 UP  .0019   OR 19 BASIS POINTS

British Pound: 1.3587 DOWN  .0007 or 7 basis pts

USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 115.04 UP .435

USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.2763 UP .0006 (CDN dollar DOWN 6 basis pts)

West Texas intermediate oil: 92,27

Brent: 96.39

USA 10 yr bond yield: 1.929 DOWN 0 points

USA 30 yr bond yield: 2.231  DOWN 2  pts

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 13.81

USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIAN ROUBLE:  78.90 DOWN 134 BASIS PTS (ROUBLE UP 134 PTS)//FROM MONDAY

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE DOWN 482.44 PTS OR 1.42%

NASDAQ 100 DOWN 139.01 PTS OR 0.99%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 29.81 PTS UP 2.06 OR 7.42%

GLD: $177.49 UP $.37 OR 0.21%

SLV: $22.31 UP $.19 OR .86%

end)

USA trading day in Graph Form

Pre-Amble To WW3 Sends Stocks & Bonds Lower; Gold & Crude Higher

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 04:02 PM

The main pain felt in the world from Putin’s actions so far has been in Russian stocks and the Ruble, but a lack ofr substance to Biden’s sanctions offered some respite late on to the risk-off day…

MOEX is down around 30% from its highs, the biggest drawdown since 2014 (but we note MOEX rallied late on after Biden’s speech)…

Source: Bloomberg

And the Ruble is down, but interestingly rallied late on today as Biden spoke prompting markets to unwind some geopolitical risk premium on the damp-squid Biden release (No major banks targeted, No energy sanction beyond NS2, No SWIFT payment system threats/action)…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold pushed back above $1900, but is off yesterday’s highs…

“Investors are looking for a geopolitical hedge,” Matt Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management, told The Wall Street Journal. “The stars are aligning in essence for a gold breakout.”

And options traders are piling into bets that Gold tops $1950 by March…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices shot higher on Putin’s speech then faded back all day (The Russia push higher vs Iran pull lower battle continued)…

Brent neared $100…

WTI neared $95…

The prompt spread collapsed in WTI…

Russia Sovereign Risk spiked to its highest since Feb 2016…

Source: Bloomberg

US Stocks plunged overnight (futs) on Putin’s speech, did the normal BTFD bounce all the way back to unchanged but as Europe closed the selling reaccelerated, taking stocks to the lows of the day. Then Biden spoke, said nothing of note, and stocks rebounded all the way back to unchanged. But then headlines of Zelensky calling up reservists and Biden moving a infantry, tanks, and F-35s to NATO’s eastern flank and stocks tumbled. The Dow ended near the lows of the day but all the majors were down around 1-1.5% only after all that…

The S&P dropped (briefly) into correction (-10%)…

Source: Bloomberg

Credit Spreads continued to blow out…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were sold across the board (despite the apparent need for a safe-haven and equity weakness) with the short-end hammered (2Y +9bps, 30Y +1bps)

Source: Bloomberg

A solid 2Y auction did not help (2Y yields were 14bps off their lows)…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar chopped around all day but basically went nowhere…

Source: Bloomberg

After losing $40k late last week, this weekend’s malarkey did nothing to help Bitcoin, which ended lower over the weekend but popped notably today…

Source: Bloomberg

Additionally, nickel and Aluminum prices soared with the latter nearing record highs (Russia is responsible for 6% of global aluminum supply and 7% of mined nickel)…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we would note that amid all this increased geopolitical tension, the market priced in an even more hawkish Fed with Dec odds of 7 hikes back up at around 40%. March is now pricing in a 40% chance of a 50bps hike (from 20% Friday)…

Source: Bloomberg

So don’t expect the Powell Put anytime soon.

And brace for $4-$5 gas at the pump…

Source: Bloomberg

That won’t help Biden’s ratings.

I) /MORNING TRADING/

END

AFTERNOON

END

II) USA DATA

US Home Prices Re-Accelerated In December (Ahead Of Mortgage Rate Surge)

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 09:08 AM

After 4 straight months of decelerating US home price gains in the largest 20 cities, prices re-accelerated in December (the latest data from S&P CoreLogic), and are up a shocking 18.56% YoY (surprisingly higher than the 18.35% YoY in Nov and much higher than the 18.00% expected)…

The National home price index rose 18.84% YoY, up from 18.69% YoY in November. Both still very close to record high levels of inflation.

Source: Bloomberg

Phoenix, Tampa, Miami reported highest year-over-year gains among 20 cities surveyed.

“We have noted that for the past several months, home prices have been rising at a very high, but decelerating rate,” Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in statement.

“The deceleration paused in December, as year-over-year changes in all three composite indices were slightly ahead of their November levels. December’s 18.8% gain for the National Composite is the fifth-highest reading in history.”

But, we note that this is before mortgage rates really started to take off in January (was this accelerated buying ahead of the rate moves?)…

…which suggests prices are set to slow their gains faster (which fits with the slumps in homebuyer and bomebuilder sentiment). And don’t expect The Fed to save this one…

END

Services Sector Leads Feb Rebound In PMIs As Omicron Fears Abate

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 09:54 AM

After unexpectedly plunging in January (accelerating a multi-month downtrend since peaking in Q2/Q3 last year), Markit’s US PMIs were both expected to rebound modestly in preliminary February data and they did notably more than expected.

  • Markit US Manufacturing Index rose from 55.5 to 57.5, well above the 56.0 expected
  • Market US Services Index soared from 51.2 to 56.7, notably better than the 53.0 expected – a big bounce from the lowest print since July 2020.

Source: Bloomberg

February data highlighted a sharp and accelerated increase in new business among private sector companies that was the fastest in seven months. Firms mentioned that sales were boosted by the retreat of the pandemic, improved underlying demand, expanded client bases, aggressive marketing campaigns and new partnerships. Customers reportedly made additional purchases to avoid future price hikes. Quicker increases in sales were evident among both manufacturers and service providers.

Rising from an 18-month low of 51.1 in January to 56.0 in February, the seasonally adjusted IHS Markit Flash US Composite PMI Output Index indicated a substantial expansion in private sector output that outpaced the long-run series average.

Commenting on the PMI data, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit, said:

“The pace of economic growth accelerated sharply in February as virus containment measures, tightened to fight the Omicron wave, were scaled back. Demand was reported to have revived and supply constraints, both in terms of component availability and staff shortages, moderated.

“With demand rebounding and firms seeing a relatively modest impact on order books from the Omicron wave, future output expectations improved to the highest for 15 months, and jobs growth accelerated to the highest since last May, adding to the upbeat picture.

“The service sector rebounded especially impressively, accompanied by a more muted upturn in manufacturing. Goods producers remain hamstrung by supply shortages which, although easing to the lowest since last May, continued to severely limit production growth, resulting in a further large rise in backlogs of work.

“The supply constraints also contributed to a further marked increase in firms’ costs, which rose yet again at another near-record pace in February. Increasing numbers of companies sought to pass these higher costs on to customers, resulting in the largest increase in average prices charged yet recorded by the survey.

“With growth rebounding sharply amid resurgent demand, and price pressures rising again to an all-time high, the survey will add to expectations of a more aggressive policy tightening by the FOMC.”

Finally, we note that prices charged for goods and services in the US rose at a record pace in February as companies continued to share additional cost burdens with their clients.

end

Conference Board Confidence Slips To 5-Month Low As ‘Hope’ Fades

TUESDAY, FEB 22, 2022 – 10:10 AM

Following January’s dip (after 3 months of modest rebounds), The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence survey was expected to weaken further in February amid ongoing Omicron restrictions and higher-and-higher consumer prices.

Analysts were right in direction – January Conf Board fell from 111.1 (revised significantly lower from 113.8) to 110.5 (which was very slightly above the 110.0 expectations) – a five-month low. The sub-indices were mixed with ‘present situation’ confidence rising to 145.1 vs. 144.5 last month (but that was dramatically revised lower from the initial 148.2 print). Consumer confidence expectations fell to 87.5 vs. 88.8 last month (also revised notably lower from an initial 90.8 print)

Source: Bloomberg

The share of consumers who said jobs were “plentiful” relative to “hard to get” fell slightly in February, but continues to hover very close to its record highs in 2000…

Source: Bloomberg

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, inflation expectations bounced back higher in February, back near 13-year highs at 7.0%…

Source: Bloomberg

So Powell and his pals face weakening sentiment but worrisome inflation. Not a fun place to be hiking rates…

IIb) USA COVID/VACCINE MANDATE STORIES

end

iii) USA inflation commentaries//LOG JAMS//

iii) USA economic stories

Worst megadrought in 1200 years

(zerohedge)

US Western Megadrought Worst In 1,200 Years, Scientist Warn

FRIDAY, FEB 18, 2022 – 05:20 PM

Images of dry lake beds, scorched forests and charred buildings, and drought-stricken farmland from the American West have been published in newspapers worldwide as a megadrought intensifies. Many have wondered just how severe the current drought is, and perhaps, that question can be answered in a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

A new peer-reviewed study titled “Rapid intensification of the emerging southwestern North American megadrought in 2020–2021” says the last 22-year dry period is the worst since the Vikings and Mayans ruled parts of the world, or about 1,200 years ago.

“Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the west has been dry for most of the last couple decades,” Park Williams, a climate scientist at the University of California and the study’s lead author, told the Guardian. 

Park used tree-ring records to reconstruct summer soil moisture content across centuries and allowed the researcher to believe the current low soil moisture is on par with moisture dating back to the year 800. He also said the conditions would likely persist through 2022. 

“Rather than starting to die away after wet years in 2017 and 2019, the 2000s drought has ramped up with authority in 2020-2021, making clear that it’s now as strong as it ever was,” Park said, adding “there is evidence that the 2000s drought is starting to relent.”

We have published countless weather notes and the state of the drought in the western half of the US for years. One of the most damning pictures we’ve reported is Great Salt Lake’s progression of dwindling water levels over the last 35 years. 

The situation has been worsening over the last few years as several major reservoirs are quickly drying up, forcing people to evacuate their boats and causing hydroelectric plants to shutter due to not having enough water to spin turbines. 

Here are some of those images of dried-up lake beds. 

According to data from the US Drought Monitor, the current state of the western half of the US is under a severe drought. 

An unrelenting megadrought that is drying up lakes should be a major concern to lakefront homeowners who still have water left — maybe now is the time to sell before your oasis transforms into a desert. 

END

iv)swamp stories

end

KING REPORT/SWAMP STORIES

ESHs traded sharply lower early on Sunday night and NQHs tumbled as much as 1.3%.  But both futures contracts rallied sharply when AFP reported that Putin and Biden agreed “in principle” to a Macron-proposed summit if Russian does not invade Ukraine.
 
Biden Press Sec Psaki statement on Sunday night: As the President has repeatedly made clear, we are committed to pursuing diplomacy until the moment an invasion begins. Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov are scheduled to meet later this week in Europe, provided Russia does not proceed with military action. President Biden accepted in principle a meeting with President Putin following that engagement, again, if an invasion hasn’t happened.  We are always ready for diplomacy.  We are also ready to impose swift and severe consequences should Russia instead choose war.  And currently, Russia appears to be continuing preparations for a full-scale assault on Ukraine very soon.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/20/statement-from-press-secretary-jen-psaki-5/
 
@JMichaelWaller: Putin appears to want to humiliate Western leaders the way he humiliated weak boys as a teenager in a Leningrad street gang.  (That part of his past prevented him from being a KGB foreign intelligence officer but made him a great internal security man.) https://www.academia.edu/50288982/Nursing_Injustices_An_Unsparing_Psychological_Profile_of_Vladimir_Putin_will_Reveal_a_Deeply_Vulnerable_Kremlin_Leader
 
But the rally reversed into a tumble on this: Russia to consider request to recognise Ukraine separatists, says Putin – Russian President Vladimir Putin told his security council it was necessary to consider a request from two rebel-held regions in eastern Ukraine to recognise their independence. Ukraine earlier denied a Russian report that its military killed five Ukrainian ‘saboteurs’ who had crossed into Russia…
    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that he would meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday in Geneva…
    Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that he no longer felt that the 2015 Minsk agreements with France, Germany and Kyiv would be able to resolve Ukraine’s separatist conflict…
    The Kremlin said Monday it was too early to organise a summit between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, after Paris announced the possibility of a meeting to calm tensions over Ukraine… https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220221-live-talk-of-putin-biden-summit-on-ukraine-premature-kremlin-says
 
@SebastianAFP 10:18 ET on Monday: ‘We’re at a dead end,’ Putin says, regarding negotiations over Ukraine. ‘Simply at a dead end.’
 
@JackPosobiec: Lavrov just compared the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk to NATO’s arguments for Kosovo independence when it broke away from Serbia
 
Russian Embassy, UK @RussianEmbassy: President Putin informed President @EmmanuelMacron and Federal Chancellor @OlafScholz of his intention to sign the decree to recognise Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.  (The Minsk 2 Agreement that created a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire in 2015 is over.)
 
@JackPosobiec: Putin: Modern Ukraine was created by the Bolsheviks. Lenin and the comrades cut off part of Russia’s historical territory. Stalin and Kruschev continued this
 
During Putin’s address to Russia on Monday, the Moscow Stock Market plunged as much as 17%; the ruble tanked.  W Bush’s old buddy, Pootie, lamented the collapse of Russian Empire and the USSR in his address.  He accused Ukraine of stealing Russian gas in the past and using it to blackmail Russia.  “We are ready to show you what true de-Communization means to Ukraine.”  Vlad claimed that Ukraine is managed by foreign powers, a thinly veiled reference to the US and the Obama/Hillary coup of 2013.  Putin said Ukraine plans to develop nuclear weapons with technical support from others.
 
Putin Calls Ukraine a US Colony With a ‘Puppet Regime’ (Vlad reveals some of his motivation.)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-calls-ukraine-a-us-colony-with-a-e2-80-98puppet-regime-e2-80-99/ar-AAU8u1d
 
Putin ordered Russian troops to perform a ‘peace keeping’ mission in the breakaway republics.
 
CNBC: European Union leaders say the bloc “will react with sanctions against those involved in this illegal act” recognizing the independence of two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine.
 
Psaki: “President Biden will soon issue an Executive Order that will prohibit new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in the so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine.”
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1495857646586454023/photo/1
 
@PhilipWegmann: White House warns that this is just a start and “separate” from the “swift and severe economic measures” US is prepared to level against Putin if he invaded Ukraine. Full statement:
https://twitter.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1495858318719561738
 
Putin: “I have never said this publicly but in 2000 I asked Bill Clinton about Russia joining NATO”
 
@JackPosobiec: Reporter: Will sanctions deter Putin? Kamala Harris: “Within the context then of the fact that that window is still opening, although, open, although it is absolutely narrowing, but within the context of a diplomatic path still being open.”  Actual quote
 
@mrglenn: It would be more accurate to say Russia is part of historic Ukraine than the other way around. Read the history of Kievan Rus.
 
@wmiddelkoop: Imagine Moscow planning and financing a coup in Mexico (ALA Obama/Hillary in Ukraine 2013), while sending some from Moscow to lead the new gov… would US allow this?!
 
@CBS_Herridge: NYPD assessment obtained at @CBSNews warns “Russian or pro-Russian criminal threat actors may seek to launch retaliatory cyber-attacks against the US—including against US critical infrastructure, government entities, and local law enforcement—in the event that Washington and Moscow fail to reach a diplomatic conclusion to the Ukraine crisis.”
 
U.S. Accepts Date for Talks with Russia’s Lavrov (late) Next Week (Thursday night)– BBG
“Provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine,” State Dept. Spokesperson Ned Price says…
 
ESHs jumped 30 points on the above report on Thursday night.  The rally persisted until 23:25 ET; ESHs peaked at 4411.50.  After a rollover into the Nikkei’s close, ESHs and European stocks went inert until they broke down 7 minutes after the US bond market opened at 8:00 ET. 
 
Russia Has Between 169,000 and 190,000 Troops on Ukrainian Border, Up from 100,000 at End of January, U.S. Says – “This is the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the Second World War,” he said… https://news.yahoo.com/russia-between-169-000-190-134552438.html
 
Kamala to the Rescue: VP Harris Heads to Munich to Join Security Talks While Biden Stays Home
Harris’s political rivals mocked her: with Rep. Tim Burchett, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, telling Newsmax: “I doubt [Putin’s] sitting back at the Kremlin right now shaking because Kamala Harris is over there.”…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/kamala-rescue-vp-harris-heads-munich-join-security-talks-while-biden-stays-home
 
“Truth is the first casualty in war.” – Ethel Annakin, British socialist politician, August 1915
 
(Friday) Stocks Tumble to Session Lows After Russian Media Reports Large Explosion Near Govt Building in Donetsk 10:07 AM · Feb 18, 2022

 AFP: Sanctions would make Russia a “pariah” if it invades Ukraine, says US official 14:55 ET
@tashecon: Italians throwing in the towel before war even started – Draghi saying sanctions on Russia must be limited and exclude energy. Disgraceful albeit I guess not unexpected.

The rally stalled at 15:02 ET after the S&P 500 Index turned positive.  Alas, by 16:33 ET, ESHs had tumbled 44 handles.  Another upward manipulation appeared; ESHs jumped 27 handles in 12 minutes.  Alas, ESHs tumbled 19 handles in 7 minutes and then eased lower into the close.  What a blanking joke!

Positive aspects of previous session
Bonds rallied sharply
Stocks once again recovered from a morning tumble via blatant and determined manipulation

@JMichaelWaller: 1) Russia is now practicing strategic nuclear missile drills. There’s a story behind this story.  2) The Russian ballistic missile submarine in the photo, Yury Dolgoruky, was funded by the American taxpayers.    It was the first of Russia’s next-generation SSBN’s, more modern than our Ohio-class subs.  3) Moscow was out of cash and couldn’t pay the shipyard workers to build the sub. The workers kept going on strike. They resumed work after the Clinton administration sent IMF cash to the Russian central bank. This happened at least twice. Biden was a big supporter in the Senate.
4) US was sending aid to Russia in early 1990s to help it recover from Soviet collapse and get closer to West. Some of us sought to leverage that aid to Moscow to abandon its Soviet strategic nuclear weapons modernization plan. Clinton-Biden-McCain etc opposed such leverage.
 
@aaronjmate: After weeks of US-generated war fever, European officials are finally fed up.   WashPost reports that “high-level European officials have expressed frustration that the United States had not shared the intelligence that led it to surmise Russia’s intentions with such certainty.”
https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1495255255386365955
 
U.S. has intel that Russian commanders have orders to proceed with Ukraine invasion
The U.S. has intelligence that Russian commanders have received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine, with commanders on the ground making specific plans for how they would maneuver in their sectors of the battlefield, a U.S. official told CBS News…
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2022/02/20/us-intel-russian-commanders-orders-invasion-ukraine/
 
@ChadPergram: Cruz on Fox: Joe Biden came to Capitol Hill and personally lobbied Democratic Senators to vote against Russian sanctions. That’s why we’re facing this invasion… Joe Biden becoming President is the best thing that ever happened, tragically, for Vladimir Putin.
 
@SteveGuest Dec 7, 2021: Sen. Ted Cruz: “A month or two from now, if God forbid, we see Russian tanks moving into Ukraine, remember this moment, where Senate Democrats objected said ‘No, we won’t sanction [Nord Stream 2]. We won’t save Ukraine. We won’t stand up to Russia.'”
https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1468280112785158148
 
@ggreenwald: In 2016, the neocon editor of @TheAtlantic, @JeffreyGoldberg, interviewed President Obama and demanded to know why Obama wasn’t doing more to confront Putin over Ukraine.  Obama argued that Ukraine is of vital interest to Russia, but not to the U.S.  That Ukraine is a vital interest for Russia (given its history and proximity) but *not* for the US was an argument made most eloquently and frequently by….. Barack Obama, when rejecting bipartisan demands to send lethal arms to Ukraine. Just read this: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/
 
@JoeBiden Feb 21, 2020: Vladimir Putin doesn’t want me to be President. He doesn’t want me to be our nominee. If you’re wondering why — it’s because I’m the only person in this field who’s ever gone toe-to-toe with him.
 
How will Team Biden respond to Putin’s accusations about the US regarding Ukraine and the invasion?  If The Big Guy’s controllers respond, will Vlad present proof of US involvement in the 2013 coup and/or US officials’ corruption in Ukraine.
 
Lost in Putin’s bid day: Fed Governor Bowman spoke very hawkishly on Monday.

  • Bowman: Inflation Is Far Too High; Immediate Action Is Required
  • Bowman: ‘I Intend to Support Prompt and Decisive Action to Lower Inflation
  • Bowman: Bringing the Balance Sheet Down to an Appropriate and Manageable Level Is an      Important Additional Step in Dealing with High Inflation
  • Bowman: Tight Labor Markets Could Keep Upward Pressure on Wages
  • Bowman: Watching Data to Judge Appropriate Size of March Rate Rise
  • Bowman: Fed Should Begin Shrinking Asset Portfolio in Coming Months
  • Bowman: Additional Rate Rises Likely Warranted After March Meeting
  • Bowman: Addressing Climate Change Not in Fed Mandate
  • Bowman: Ukraine Has Significant Potential for Energy Market Impact

 
@Global_Mil_Info last night: According to U.S. officials to CNN, the U.S. is seeing Russia loading up amphibious ships with equipment & actively loading up equipment for airborne units
 
Fox’s Jennifer Griffin notes that Russia has $638B of reserves due to energy inflation.  So, Putin has discounted the efficacy of NATO sanctions.  Griffin blames Merkel for scuttling Germany’s nuclear industry and making Germany dependent on Russia for its energy needs.
 
Today – The Schiff is hitting the fan.  Apparently the new, highly woke US military is not a deterrent to Putin’s adventurism.  The Big Guy Not-so-Excellent Afghanistan Misadventure is also a factor.  Xi has been carefully watching The Big Guy.  Will Xi move on Taiwan?
 
China sanctions Raytheon, Lockheed over Taiwan deal – due to their arms sales to Taiwan…
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-china-beijing-taiwan-31a82dc9c290133fc56a46fef6987293
 
The Winter Olympics in China ended on Sunday.  Putin ordered Russian troops into Eastern Ukraine on Monday.  Perhaps the rumored Xi-Putin agreement to not invade until the Olympics ended was credible.
 
The usual suspects are out in force proclaiming that Putin’s invasion prevents the Fed from hiking interest rates as it had intended.  They are dismissing or ignoring the fact that the invasion is inflationary.  Gasoline jumped as much as 3.8% on Monday night.
 
Before Putin recognized the breakaway republics on Monday: The German Dax (-2.07%) broke critical support and closed at its lowest level since 2.25.21.  The FTSE fell 0.39%; the CAC tumbled 2.04%.
 
ESHs hit -92.00 and NQHs tumbled 415 points with 24 minutes of last night’s open.  USHs hit +1 7/32; gold was +$19.00.  The carnage would have been worse if not for Team Biden’s apparent retreat:
 
PBS New Hour’s @AliRogin: NEW: In a conference call with reporters on responding to Putin, and what comes next, a senior admin official suggested that Russian troops in Donetsk/Luhansk *alone* may *not* warrant the “swift and severe” sanctions the admin has been previewing.  SAO: “Russian troops moving into Donbas would not itself be a new step. Russia has had forces in the Donbas for the past 8 years.” But the SAO did say there will be additional sanctions imposed tomorrow.  To my ear, this is a new ambiguity that, up until now, the administration has not employed.
 
@charliespiering: Biden Jan. 20: “If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.” (Reports, one month ago, claimed that Team Biden was okay with a ‘minor incursion’ into Ukraine.  This led to The Big Guy’s clarification about what constitutes an invasion.)
 
As of now, Europe is far more insistent on sanctions for Russian than Team Biden.
 
@hkuppy: BREAKING: BlackRock Private Equity team parachutes into Donetsk ahead of Russians invasion force. Secures best distressed deals. Single family homes already appreciating 30%…
 
@YuanTalks: Chinese property developers are jumping. Guangzhou Pearl River Development Group hit limit-up. Big Four state-owned banks’ branches in Guangzhou lowered mortgage rates for first-time home buyers to 5.4% from 5.6%, reported local govt-backed media.
 
Expected Economic Data: Dec FHFA House Price Index +1.0% m/m; S&P CoreLogic 20-city home prices 1.0% m/m, 18.3% y/y; Feb Markit US Mfg. PMI 56, Services 53; Feb Conference Board Consumer Confidence 110; Richmond Fed Mfg. Index 9; Atlanta Fed Pres Bostic 15:30 ET
 
S&P 500 Index 50-day MA: 4588; 100-day MA: 4574; 150-day MA: 4530; 200-day MA: 4458
DJIA 50-day MA: 35,474; 100-day MA: 35,409; 150-day MA: 35,272; 200-day MA 35,050
 
S&P 500 Index – Trender trading model and MACD for key time frames
Monthly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4153.02 triggers a sell signal
Hourly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4715.84 triggers a buy signal
Daily: Trender and MACD negative – a close above 4545.01 triggers a buy signal
Hourly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4406.61 triggers a buy signal
 
Jesse Watters reveals how Bill Clinton laid the groundwork for current Russia-Ukraine tensions
Watter pointed to 1994, only three years after the fall of the Soviet Union, when President Clinton heralded an agreement forged with Kyiv that would eliminate nuclear weapons left on Ukrainian soil by the Soviets. “How did we get here? Bill Clinton forced the Ukrainians in the early 1990s to give their nukes back to Russia,” Watters recalled. “If he had just let the Ukrainians keep the nukes, Russia wouldn’t have gone in — You don’t invade a nuclear power.”…
https://www.foxnews.com/media/jesse-watters-bill-clinton-russia-ukraine-tensions
 
@DanODonnellShow: Just an absolutely amazing admission here. An MSNBC reporter notes that the biggest challenge for Democrat governors ending their mask mandates is that liberals have made mask-wearing such an important part of their identity that they might not be able to give it up.
https://twitter.com/DanODonnellShow/status/1494321985152712727
 
‘The brand is so toxic’: Dems fear extinction in rural US
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-elections-pennsylvania-lifestyle-election-2020-fc79679ef54d850c0245f96dac37456c
 
@libbyemmons: Joy Behar said she was going to mask in public places “indefinitely” because it’s just not safe. Except for last night out at this restaurant, apparently.  I hear that she also walked out of the restaurant unmasked, though her companions dutifully donned theirs.
https://twitter.com/libbyemmons/status/1494749856031776773
 
GOP senators skip votes that would have ended COVID mandate funding, but also close government – Richard Burr, North Carolina; Lindsey Graham, South Carolina; Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma; and Mitt Romney, Utah, reportedly not sticking around to vote… (All are DJT-hating GOPe.)
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/absence-gop-senators-guaranteed-failure-amendment-would-defund-biden-vaccine
 
Fed expands trading restrictions on policymakers to cover crypto, other assets https://yhoo.it/3BuUEnG
(Sure, they made gazillions on QE and bubble policies – and now those policies are ending.)
 
@fintwit_news: Fed officials sold all of their stocks here to avoid any “conflict of interest” (chart)
https://twitter.com/fintwit_news/status/1494744368997093379
 
@htsfhickey: When Fed is protecting Wall St. it’s “Get in the boats and go!” When protecting avg. US citizens from ravages of inflation, it’s let’s talk about getting in the boats for mos., check all life jackets, then go 3 feet out to sea &return quickly if turbulent
 
If the US 10-year spiked to 5%+, would the Fed call it ‘transitory’ and wait 9+ months to intervene, like they are doing with CPI?  Street solons would demand action ASAP and they would get it ASAP.
 
NYT: The C.D.C. Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects – The agency has withheld critical data on boosters, hospitalizations and, until recently, wastewater analyses.
    “The C.D.C. is a political organization as much as it is a public health organization,” said Samuel Scarpino, managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute. “The steps that it takes to get something like this released are often well outside of the control of many of the scientists that work at the C.D.C.”… (There is only 1 good reason for this!)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/health/covid-cdc-data.html?smid=tw-share
 
Biden to extend U.S. national emergency due to COVID-19 health risk
President Joe Biden said on Friday the U.S. national emergency declared in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be extended beyond March 1 due to the ongoing risk to public health posed by the coronavirus… (There is NO Covid emergency now.  Most US governors and state assemblies are winding down Covid measures.  Joey Baby is drunk on power & tyranny.)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-extend-us-national-emergency-due-covid-19-health-risk-2022-02-19/
 
@JackPosobiec: The basic dictatorship they tried for decades to implement with climate change is now being implemented under COVID.  They finally found the crisis they were waiting for
 
@Adam_Creighton: If the 95-year-old Queen survives Covid can we stop force masking kids for 7 hours a day? (Buckingham Palace said the Queen had mild flu-like symptoms.)
 
@disclosetv: Bill Gates: “Sadly the virus itself – particularly the variant called Omicron – is a type of vaccine, creates both B cell and T cell immunity and it’s done a better job of getting out to the world population than we have with vaccines.”  https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1494810193175195652
    GOP @SenRonJohnson: Sadly? What’s so sad about a milder form of virus that provides immunity against more serious disease? Only sad if you’re part of the Covid Cartel wanting to profit off the pandemic.
 
“A Recurring Fountain of Revenue”: FDA Exec Admits Biden Planning Annual Shots, Including
Toddlers   https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/recurring-fountain-revenue-fda-exec-admits-biden-planning-annual-shots-and-vaxxing
 
Democrats to Biden: Time to make changes at the White House
There’s a growing sense among Democrats that it’s time for a change of course at the White House — whether that means new strategy or new staffers.  On the political front, President Joe Biden’s numbers aren’t getting better, his message isn’t resonating, and his party’s midterm prospects are bleak. On policy, his Build Back Better plan is dead, Covid is alive, and inflation is rising…
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/democrats-biden-time-make-changes-white-house-rcna16211
 
@GraduatedBen: Veep (Harris) thinks there hasn’t been a war in Europe in 70 years. Stunning ignorance. I suppose she thinks the Yugoslav Wars were just a series of Sunday school picnic
https://twitter.com/GraduatedBen/status/1495865701743083523
 
@JackPosobiec: Amy Gutmann is a longtime confidante of Jill Biden so makes sense Kamala would not trust her.  Biden’s Ambassador to Germany Returns to US after Just Days on Job; Kamala Refused to Let Her Fly on Air Force Two    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/21/exclusive-bidens-ambassador-germany-returns-us-after-just-days-job-kamala-refused-let-her-fly-air-force-two/
 
@TrueNorthCentre: Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland: “The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen.”
 
@bennyjohnson: Police ripping children from their parents. Assaulting peaceful protesters. Arresting grandmothers. Harassing media.  Pure Gestapo tactics.  Share this so people see the TRUTH: They want to criminalize dissent. Power over everything  https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1494738544706957313
 
@VigilantFox: An Ottawa Police Officer Beats and Knee Thrusts an Already-Wounded Man to the Ground.  “Just Following Orders” (The Nuremberg Defense!)
https://rumble.com/vv9kfb-an-ottawa-police-officer-beats-and-knee-thrusts-an-already-wounded-man-to-t.html
 
LEAKED RCMP MESSAGES: “Time for the protesters to hear our jackboots on the ground”
RCMP currently in Ottawa to assist in the crackdown on peaceful protesters allegedly brag about using brutal force in a leaked group chat.
https://www.rebelnews.com/leaked_rcmp_messages_time_for_the_protesters_to_hear_our_jackboots_on_the_ground
 
@MichaelPSenger: Ottawa police: “If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges, absolutely.”  I seem to have missed the part where there was any actual crime…   https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1495212395697819649
 
@JackPosobiec: They (Trudeau et al) marched with BLM as they burned cities but lock up truckers for honking their horns.  It’s not hypocrisy, it’s hierarchy.
 
@realTanyaTay: If you spent any time in the USSR you know exactly what is going on in Canada
 
@newsmax: @ezralevant: “I think Justin Trudeau wants violence, to retroactively justify what he’s doing. Why would you run horses into a group of civilians other than you want blood?”  It’s “a dark day for Canada,” the @RebelNewsOnline founder tells @JennPellegrino.
https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1494876299869003779
 
Tucker Carlson on Friday (what occurred in Ottawa last week): “These are the most egregious human rights violations by Western government in recent memory.”
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1494903635175784449
 
@jeffreyatucker: I truly cannot believe it. We have Tiananmen going on North of the border and no media coverage, no real outrage, and stunning numbers of people don’t care in the slightest bit. I recall being amazed that the CCP got away with this in 1989. Now I get it.
 
Ultimate soy boy Trudeau asked parliament to grant him Emergency Powers on an ongoing basis.
 
@DJ_Farthing: It’s been confirmed that Trudeau’s foundation owns 40% of Acuitas Therapeutics which makes mechanic lipids for Pfizer. (We see no other confirmation.)
 
Man donates to Truck Convoy under the name ‘Hunter Biden’ so the Washington Post won’t dox him. https://babylonbee.com/news/man-donates-to-truck-convoy-under-name-hunter-biden-so-washington-post-wont-dox-him
 
Canadian ATMs Now Asking Your Political Views Before Allowing You to Withdraw Money
https://babylonbee.com/news/canadian-atms-now-asking-your-political-views-before-allowing-you-to-withdraw-money
 
People in Quebec City are starting to protest Trudeau’s tyranny.  This could foment a dire political problem for Trudeau.  Quebec intermittently for the past few decades has threatened to separate from ‘English’ Canada.  The protests against Trudeau’s Storm Trooper tactics could ignite something big.
 
Fox’s @ChadPergram: 1) USCP have closed off a few streets close to the Capitol “Due to the Truckers Convoy.” The streets are on the west side of the Capitol (National Mall side).  Multiple garbage trucks, dump trucks and snowplows have now closed off these streets “until further notice.”  2) Here is the advisory from USCP: Due to the Truckers Convoy, the following road closures are in effect until further notice: – Maryland Avenue SW between First and Third Streets SW -Pennsylvania Avenue NW between First and Third Street NW…” 3) “First Street between Constitution Avenue NW and Independence Avenue SW.  A USCP vehicle will be posted at First Street and Constitution Avenue NW to allow access for authorized personnel.”
 
Capital fence going up ahead of Biden’s State of the Union (March 1) as truckers plan DC protests https://trib.al/pIDa7Ql
 
@chrissyclark_: Utah’s Republican Gov. vowed to veto a school choice bill after taking $75,000 from the nation’s largest teachers union.  Money talks
 
Donald Trump took classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, National Archives says https://trib.al/PwRKs9V
 
@toddstarnes: The @baltimoresun apologizes to readers for not doing more to root out systemic racism. They should start by firing all their white journalists. That’s the only appropriate remedy.
 
Hillary Clinton Calls Allegations of Spying on Trump ‘conspiracy theories’
https://deneenborelli.com/2022/02/hillary-clinton-calls-allegations-of-spying-on-trump-conspiracy-theories/?s=02
 
Hillary called reports of Slick Willie’s copious philandering ‘right-wing conspiracies.’  By her standards, she just confessed.
 
Jeffrey Epstein associate and French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel found dead in jail (Reportedly surveillance cameras were not working, ALA Epstein!  What are the odds of this?)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60443518
 
(Not a parody!) Chelsea Clinton Complains Her Grandmother Did Not Have Access to Planned Parenthood  https://www.lifenews.com/2019/02/20/chelsea-clinton-complains-her-grandmother-did-not-have-access-to-planned-parenthood/

END

Let us close out the week with this offering courtesy of Greg Hunter interviewing Martin Armstrong

Harvey New World Order Desperate as Plan Falls Apart – Martin Armstrong

Inbox

Greg Hunter via aweber.com Sat, Feb 19, 5:56 PM (20 hours ago)
to Harvey

New World Order Desp

New World Order Desperate as Plan Falls Apart – Martin Armstrong

By Greg Hunter On February 19, 2022 In Political Analysis149 Comments

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com (Saturday Night Post)

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong thinks the New World Order’s so-called “Great Reset” plan for humanity is falling apart, and the globalists are becoming increasingly “desperate.”  Armstrong explains, “They are basically desperate at this stage.  I don’t think they anticipate the amount of resistance that they are getting.  It’s not just with the truckers in Canada, but this is starting everywhere.  There has been an awful lot of resistance consistently that the press does not cover in virtually every city throughout Europe. . . . . They never step out and talk to the people because we are too stupid to actually have an opinion.  They know better.  This is what Klause Schwab (top globalist at the World Economic Forum) does.  He is far more sophisticated than people realize.  He has methodically gone out and created his young global leaders.  He is basically sticking people in government positions that are loyal to him.  Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau is one of them. . . . They think communism is a step up, and the last time this was attempted, it led to the death of 200 million people.  This is absurd. . . . You are not allowed to think freely.  That’s what communism really is. . . . You don’t realize this whole thing we are going through right now is the same thing.  This is cancel culture.  Someone said something I don’t like, and that was 20 years ago, so cancel them.  This is exactly what took place in communism.  You are destroying the right to speak freely.”

The so-called “Great Reset” is all about control and tyranny.  Armstrong says, “Just look at Canada.  Trudeau is one of Klaus Schwab’s young global leaders.  The worst countries have leaders that have graduated from his school.  Make everybody comply, and if they don’t, crush them to the ground.”

The only good news is, according to Armstrong and his “Socrates” computer analysis, this is “not going to work out well for the globalists pushing communism.” Armstrong says, “With Karl Marx, at the time, people owned nothing.  Schwab is saying, ‘You will own nothing and you will be happy.’  This is absurd because what you are doing is creating a fake image.  Schwab is saying I am going to relieve you of all your debt. . . . That is a front because the government has gone to the point of no return.  What you have to understand here is it is really the government that has to default.  What I have said is, look, governments are going to have to default because this is no longer sustainable.”

Armstrong predicted last year, “The financial system has come to an end.”

Armstrong says you can expect much higher inflation and much higher interest rates by the end of 2022.

Armstrong also talks in detail about the following subjects:  Russia, Ukraine, the push for war, a cycle of mass human die-off just getting started, along with gold, silver, and what the common man needs to stock up on and a lot more.  (There is much more in the 1 hour and 8-minute interview.)

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong, author of “Manipulating the World Economy,” which has 70 fresh new pages in the 5th edition of this very popular book  2.19.22.

(To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here)

After the Interview: erate as Plan Falls Apart – Martin Armstrong | Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog

New World Order Desperate as Plan Falls Apart – Martin Armstrong

end

Well that is all for today. I will see you WEDNESDAY night

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